California Air Resources Board

I tried to speak in the May 28th community meeting but had audio trouble. My name is Greg Todd, I am not a member of a special interest group, and I am a FCEV light duty vehicle owner.

I was surprised at the lack of public support for hydrogen fuel cell technology in the community forum. I worry that there were too many statistics (without references or sources) being cited by people without a scientific background. My sense is that the technology is too new and not well enough understood; people are imagining the Hindenburg. Even the word "Hydrogen" sounds scary to some people. But as you astutely pointed out, Hydrogen is everywhere, in the air, in the water, and we owe it to ourselves to evaluate it fully and carefully as an alternative fuel source. The online community of FCEV owners is robust and there is alot of information regularly being circulated in support of FCEV as a technology.

No one on Earth cares more about reducing greenhouse gases than I do, and it's one of the main reasons I bought a FCEV in the first place.

I want to point out that the real enemy is fossil fuel, and there's no clear reason (that I know of) that FCEV can't share in the development plans for future alternative fuel sources. I am someone who has grown suspicious of nuclear energy and of energy corporations in general, but where Hydrogen fuel is concerned, I think it's way too soon to rule out or even discourage it's continued study and development.

One study that was not mentioned was the one that shows that, using green production methods (maybe some of which haven't even been invented yet), the carbon footprint of an FCEV is much smaller than that of it's BEV counterpart.

Several spoke about concerns about marginalized people of limited means, well I consider myself to be one of those people. I live in a multi-family housing facility where there are no car chargers. So my options are limited, and when choosing between a ICE and a FCEV, the choice was clear to me. If everyone in my position were to choose ICE over FCEV (which they mostly do), that really hurts our ability to achieve our greenhouse gas emissions goals, which in turn hurts those same marginalized people that we're concerned about.

There are clear drawbacks for BEV vehicles, some of which were not mentioned in tonight's meeting. One is that they are by far heavier than FCEV due to their battery weight, which in turn leads to more damage and maintenance to roads, and also more catastrophic collisions ON the road.

I heard one (and only one) citation of an explosion in Kern County where Hydrogen was implicated (also no reference cited, I will take their word for it). But the number of explosions from lithium ion batteries is well documented. Not to mention the countless explosions resulting from fossil fuels in ICE vehicles. As one of the speakers said, there is no such thing as a totally safe fuel source.

I have every confidence in the Air Resources Board to do all it can to safely pursue it's greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. Please continue with all your good work to promote the continued study and development of Hydrogen as an alternative fuel source.

It was mentioned that there are already tens of thousands of these cars on the road. If the naysayers have their way and these cars are to be phased out, then so be it.

But while these cars are
still on the road,
still being sold at dealerships,
still having success overseas (by people who care more about the environment than Americans do, on the average), I would ask on behalf of all the FCEV car owners to please support us, and please do something to:

- Lower the cost of hydrogen fuel so that it at least has parity with our ICE counterparts.
- At least bring the number of stations back to their earlier peak, maybe a handful of additional ones, to support the existing demand...

...at least, until the cars can be properly phased out. Too many people have invested too much money to have the rug pulled out from under them now.

Thank you for your kind attention,