In spite of the tizzy this week surrounding Bloom Energy’s $700,000 stand alone box of fuels cells which as AP reporter Jordan Robertson explained “will allow homes and businesses to generate their own electricity,” the lure of hydrogen fuel cells had fizzled over the past few years in the U.S. Not so for a couple dozen Austinites who  jumped on the hydrogen bus this past Wednesday, February 24 at the UT J.J. Pickle Research Campus. This field trip on a bright and brisk morning, found them riding around to the back of the UT Center of Electromechanics building as the bus pulled up alongside a dark gray metal structure.

It’s fair to say that science and fiction have long intertwined. This fertile coupling in our minds has fathered one after another trope, meme, theme, leit motif. As with dragons, aliens, Atlantis and UFOs, it has never been easy to dissuade devotees of their allure. Such is the spin of wind power in high producing states like Texas. Whether the allure is inspired by economic gain or by the perception of inherent goodness, is hard to tell. What is evident at least compared to Europe and Scandinavia, is that in the U.S. government incentives have not kept pace with foreign momentum nor with Americans’ wishful thinking.