Tom Harkin: “Imagine a world with cars that spew out no smog, no toxic emissions, and no greenhouse gases. The only thing that would…”

“Imagine a world with cars that spew out no smog, no toxic emissions, and no greenhouse gases. The only thing that would come out of the tailpipe would be water pure enough to drink. Imagine a world in which we don't import a drop of Mideast oil, because clean, domestic, renewable energy sources meet all of our needs. Imagine a world in which we don't need to worry about a terrorist strike on our large nuclear power plants, or a storm causing a blackout over a large region, because we get all of our electricity from small distributed generators on farms and in buildings throughout the country. Sound too good to be true? The technology to do this, using hydrogen energy and fuel cells, is out of the labs and being tested on our streets and in our buildings today. For those of us who have been working for many years to bring this vision into reality, that is very exciting. But we still need a major effort to bring the costs down and commercialize the technology. And there is remarkable bipartisan agreement on the need for government action.”