SPRINGFIELD: When Bob Sisk started delivering the mail in the 1960s, he was assigned an Army Jeep for his route in the Washington suburbs.

Now, as he reaches the latter stages of his career, the 62-year-old is carrying his bundles of letters and packages in a vehicle that offers an eerily quiet ride, does not rely heavily on oily lubricants and emits droplets of water from the tailpipe.

Mr. Sisk is among a select group of U.S. Government workers, academics and individuals testing hydrogen-powered vehicles in demonstration projects. With petrol prices continuing to rise, the routine driving done by Mr. Sisk and others is helping researchers develop improvements for the technology, which could form the basis of the next generation of alternative vehicles. "People think I was around for the horse and buggy days — but I wasn't," Mr. Sisk said with a smile during a recent ride along his route aboard General Motors' HydroGen3 minivan.

Virtually every automaker is conducting tests of hydrogen-powered vehicles, which have received support from a 5-year, $1.2 billion hydrogen initiative first announced by President George W. Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address.

The pollution-free technology holds the potential of zero emissions and a sustainable source of energy produced when hydrogen and oxygen are mixed. The vehicles could begin appearing in showrooms by 2020, or even earlier, according to government and industry experts, but many obstacles exist, ranging from high costs and a lack of fuelling stations to the need for improved storage capacity and better range.

With the technology still in its early stages, the vehicle testing gives automakers valuable information on their progress based on typical driving experiences. Hydrogen technology can be applied to various forms of transportation, including public buses, delivery vehicles and airport ground support vehicles. It is being used to power video cameras, flashlights and other small electronics.

But real-world experience is help guiding its development. From the back of a post office in a Virginia strip mall, Mr. Sisk takes the hydrogen vehicle, based on an Opel Zafira minivan, on his route three days a week.

"It drives like an ordinary car," Mr. Sisk said. The vehicle has a range of 275 to 400 km and a top speed of 160 kmph, although Mr. Sisk said it is "not as fast on takeoffs" compared with a conventional vehicle. In Albany, New York, deputy commissioner John Spano has two Honda fuel cell vehicles as part of the state's clean fuelled vehicles programme. The programme, through the state's Office of General Services, has more than 5,000 alternative vehicles, including flexible fuel vehicles, hybrids, electric and vehicles fuelled with compressed natural gas and propane.

When deploying the hydrogen vehicle, Mr. Spano said the agency does not "handle it with kid gloves at all." He said the Honda FCX has responded with strong performance, although it hasn't been used on long trips outside the state's Capitol region because of limited range and a lack of fueling stations around the state. In 2004, Mr. Spano said the office had a couple of cases where the vehicle's range dropped to 70 to 80 miles in cold weather and one instance where the vehicle failed to start in temperatures of about 10 degrees. But otherwise, it has passed the test thus far.

"I drive an [Honda] Accord hybrid. There's absolutely no difference," Mr. Spano said.

Cold starts and adjusting to hot desert climates are among the challenges the vehicles face, along with a price — about $1 million a vehicle — which does not make mass production feasible right now.

California has launched an ambitious "hydrogen highway" to address the lack of fuelling stations; the state has 16 hydrogen fuelling stations and an additional dozen being developed, according to the National Hydrogen Association. In the U.S. and Canada, a total of 37 are now in use and another 22 are being developed within the next year and a half.

Automakers are pushing ahead. GM has introduced the Sequel concept vehicle, the first fuel cell vehicle capable of driving 480 km between fill-ups. Ford has hydrogen-fuelled shuttle buses in Florida and is distributing Ford Focus fuel cell vehicles in the U.S., Canada and Germany.

Nissan is developing its first in-house fuel cell stack and a high-pressure hydrogen storage system. Mazda is working on a hydrogen-fuelled rotary-engine version of its RX-8 sports car. "We believe this technology will simultaneously increase energy independence and security, remove the automobile as a source of emissions," said a GM official." — AP

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