HYDROGEN IS USUALLY MADE FROM NATURAL GAS: Volvo Trucks begins testing vehicles powered by hydrogen-powered fuel cells.

I drove a GM hydrogen car for Popular Mechanics a few years ago. My comments still stand: “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.”

Nowadays, there’s plenty of natural gas available via fracking, but you won’t be fossil-fuel-free. And most people who push hydrogen vehicles seem to be anti-fracking.