How A Lumber Guy Saved Hydrogen Cars In The United States

Major advances in technology have often involved odd marriages. In this article, we look at how a lumber guy saved hydrogen cars in the United States. 

President Obama. Oh, he offered up so very much and has delivered so very little in my opinion. How so? Well, consider government funding for hydrogen car development. Under his leadership, the Department of Energy actually tried to basically wipe out funding for it. Yes, he tried to do what George Bush wouldn’t even try. 

Although Obama and his terrible energy secretary, Stephen Chu, were beaten back by an outcry from the public, there was little doubt where their intentions were. As Obama sat in the White House with the temperature up to 80 degrees on a cold winter day, hydrogen was as far away from his thoughts as the national debt! Put in practical terms, the future of hydrogen in the United States was dead for the foreseeable future. 

Then an odd thing happened. A lumber man saved the day. 

Think of lumber and one doesn’t exactly think of environmentalists. While this stereotype generally holds, it doesn’t in this particular case. Our lumber man is one Tom Sullivan, the originator of Lumber Liquidators. He is a lumber man through and through who has decided to save the hydrogen future when others will not. 

How did he do it? Sullivan ponied up $10.2 million to buy Proton Energy Systems at auction. The company makes hydrogen electrolyzers, a key part of the fueling system. Not only did he do this, he decided to build his own hydrogen highway across the United States. He is spending upwards of $40 million to build hydrogen fuel stations stretching from Maine to California. He is doing this all with his own money and he has no expectation of every making a profit. 

Hydrogen development in this country has long been a problem of the chicken and the egg. We need hydrogen cars before anyone will build the stations needed to fuel them. Conversely, nobody is going to build stations without their being hydrogen cars on the road.  Tom Sullivan recognized the bottleneck and, in his own words, said “what the hell” and built the first hydrogen highway in the country. 

Perhaps he’ll run for President in 2012.