Hydrogen, the contest

First there was Charles Lindbergh, who in 1927 won a $25 000 French prize for the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight. Then in 2004 Burt Rutan picked up the $10 million Ansari X Prize for getting a manned, reusable craft up into space and back again. But the Lindbergh and Rutan awards would pale in comparison to the $100 million-plus “H Prize” that US Representative Bob Inglis (R-SC), chair of the House Committee on Science research subcommittee, is proposing as “the most nongovernmental way to break through to a hydrogen economy.”

His legislation, known as the “H-Prize Act,” would grant four $1 million prizes annually for technology development involving hydrogen storage, production, distribution, and utilization. There would be a $4 million prize given every two years for hydrogen vehicle prototypes. But the big prize, $100 million—$10 million in cash and up to $90 million in private capital matching funds—would be awarded for “changes in hydrogen technologies that meet or exceed objective criteria in production and distribution to the consumer.”

Some Democrats suggested during a hearing that the millions of dollars would be better spent directly supporting hydrogen research. But the committee moved the bill to the House floor for a vote, with science committee chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) noting that “we are pretty far away from knowing how to create, store, distribute, and use hydrogen cleanly and efficiently. We need … all the ingenuity we can muster to attack this problem.”

The House overwhelmingly passed the bill 416 to 6 on 10 May with Inglis saying, “This is no science project. A hydrogen future is closer than we think.”