"He has had many significant and historic milestones in his career, but one of the most notable was the way he took over NASA's Office of Space Flight soon after the Challenger tragedy. It was under Dick Truly's able leadership and steady hand that NASA was able to rebuild the space shuttle program and return it to safe operation in 1988. "-- President George Bush

Admiral Richard H. Truly, Director, NREL

Director of U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Describes Current Under-Investment in Renewable Energy As a Threat to National Security July 27, 1999 National Press Club Washington, D.C.

"Not that many years ago, the US was ahead in nearly all renewable energy technologies in terms of total domestic capacity installed, market share and number of companies involved. We are quickly falling behind in each of these measures and losing the leadership role in moving the world to a sustainable energy future."

We need to ensure that this nation is a leader in world energy markets. The only way to do that is to invest in the technology that is going to serve those markets in the future - clean energy technologies. ...Investing in the future means accelerating - not de-emphasizing, as some would have us do contrary to the desires of the American public - the research and development of energy efficiency and renewable energy - technologies in which we have underinvested relative to their progress and their potential to meet future US and world energy needs.

...Investing in a future of energy efficiency and renewable energy means more than accelerating R&D; it means creating a pathway into the future for the adoption of these technologies with a consistent set of policy actions that build self-sustaining businesses and markets for the technologies.

...Last year, at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a scientist filled a beaker with water, placed a photoelectrochemical cell in the water, and shined a light on the cell. The light produced electricity in the cell, and the electricity dissociated the water into hydrogen and oxygen at 12% efficiency. This is a sign of great things to come for our children and their children.

It is great because when it comes from sunlight and water hydrogen is the perfect fuel. When we produce hydrogen in this way, we generate no emissions and no pollutants. We can then use the hydrogen to provide the energy we want in the form we need. We can use it in a fuel cell to give us electricity and heat to run our cars and for our homes. And when we use hydrogen in these ways it produces only energy and pure water vapor -- nothing else.

Of course, we're not there yet. A remaining tough question concerns how to store hydrogen for later use. NREL scientists are pointing the way toward a good solution to hydrogen storage -- carbon nanotubes. With this scheme, the hydrogen will be stored in tiny carbon pores about 10 billionth of a meter in diameter. This approach stores a large amount of hydrogen in a very small volume, is safe, compact and easy to use.

So in the future, you or your children will travel the highways by hydrogen produced from water and sunlight. And every 2000 miles or so you may have to stop to refuel with hydrogen stored in lightweight carbon nanotubes. If the engineering is clever enough, the car may circulate the byproduct water vapor for heat during the winter. Or, if need be, the water may be condensed for drinking. All without adding a drop of pollution or of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

- NREL