Don't hold your breath waiting for hydrogen vehicles

Norman Puls' letter on hydrogen as the best technology for cars simply cannot go unchallenged ("Hydrogen is the future in transportation, Aug. 9 Thousand Oaks Acorn).

Mr. Puls completely overlooks the total lack of infrastructure necessary to support a large hydrogen-fueled fleet. There are no refueling stations at this time, and in spite of voiced support by the big auto companies, no practical vehicles have been developed, and none are being sold.

It's also noteworthy that the hydrogen to fuel these cars must be generated with electrical power from power plants and compressed, transported and distributed to filling stations.

The vehicles themselves will have limited performance and range. The Icelandic experience is simply not applicable to largescale global utilization. Iceland is a very small island nation with cheap, nonpolluting, geothermal power sources, and Iceland, by the way, Mr. Puls, is not "owned" by Denmark, as "the Act of Union" in 1918 made it a fully sovereign state, so I doubt that Denmark will follow Iceland on this issue because of political considerations.

If one really wishes to be serious about vehicle propulsion for the future, then the "hydrogen smokescreen" has to be revealed as simply a diversionary tactic from the auto and oil industries to buy time while avoiding real capital investment.

I suggest that a History Channel television documentary on California's electric car initiative titled "Who Killed the Electric Car" would be very informative.

The best available technology at this point is pure electric.

Recent advances in battery technology have made 95-mph vehicles with ranges of 200 miles practical and available soon. They simply are plugged into a household outlet and can be charged to near full capacity in less than the time it takes to eat lunch. Electricity is still generated by a mix of coal, oil and nuclear power plants, but the distribution network is in place.

I always react to people who start off saying they're an "engineer."

Engineers and even scientists have been shown to not be above political, economic and even religious pressures and influences.

We still need them of course, but in the final analysis, they're just people. Ron Goodman Westlake Village