Generating Hydrogen, Battling Earmarks - Forbes.com:

"WASHINGTON, D.C. - It's been a busy week on Capitol Hill for those interested in hydrogen as an energy source.
On Thursday, the U.S. Fuel Cell Council, an industry group, holds its annual Congressional expo, complete with a caucus room full of company exhibits and rides in hydrogen-powered vehicles.
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources heard testimony on Monday from Chevron (nyse: CVX - news - people ) and General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ) execs on the implementation of the hydrogen and fuel cell provision of last year's Energy Policy Act.
'We still need major technological advances to ensure hydrogen can be affordable, safe, cleanly produced and readily distributed,' said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., at the Monday hearing.
Just across the river in Alexandria, Va., H2Gen Innovations' 40 employees are advancing all those goals. The company's tale illustrates both the promise of the hydrogen economy and the hazards involved when the feds turn to the private sector for research and development.
H2Gen's story begins in the mid-1990s, when founders Sandy Thomas and Frank Lomax worked for Arlington consultancy Directed Technologies on an engagement for Ford Motor (nyse: F - news - people ). The topic: the feasibility of producing sufficient hydrogen for a fleet of fuel-cell vehicles. (For the uninitiated, fuel cells generate electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen. Think of your grade-school electrolysis experiment, only in reverse).
In their research, Thomas and Lomax saw an opportunity to make hydrogen, at low cost and on a relatively small scale, with a technology known as steam methane reforming. In brief, a steam methane reformer subjects water (H2O) and natural gas"