NO. Are Hydrogen Cars Inevitable? Hydrogen isn’t a fuel, it’s an energy storage medium. It’s made by electrolysis — we’d need a lot of nuclear plants — or by steam reformation of natural gas, where it’s basically just a fossil fuel. I’m in favor of a lot of nuclear plants, but. . . There are other issues of storage, etc. I drove a hydrogen car for Popular Mechanics some years ago, but my objections there still hold: “The car advertises itself as petroleum-free, which is true. But—and here’s my problem with hydrogen cars—it’s not really fossil fuel free. Most hydrogen is made by ‘steam reformation’ of natural gas, which is still a fossil fuel. You can also make it out of water, via electrolysis, but unless you’ve got a non-fossil source of electricity the hydrogen is really just functioning as an energy-storage medium, rather than a source of energy. Of course, build lots of nice, clean nuclear plants, or orbiting solar power plants, or whatever, and that problem goes away.”