By 2025, vehicles may be powered by pollution-free hydrogen. Cars and trucks would emit only water vapor.

Houses may be powered by nuclear energy, a cheaper form of fuel than natural gas - but a source of energy that currently worries some environmentalists.

 
(Photo by ROD SANFORD/Lansing State Journal)
Expensive wheels: You can't buy this $1 million buggy at your local General Motors dealership. Driven by Eric Roskey of GM's Fuel Cell Program, the HydroGen 3 put in an appearance Wednesday at Alternative Energy Future: Michigan's Destiny event held at the Anderson House Office Building in downtown Lansing. The program was sponsored by Lansing Community College and the University of Michigan.

Those scenarios could come to pass if Michigan fosters the development of alternative energy and encourages its youngsters to study those technologies, said panelists at the Alternative Energy Future: Michigan's Destiny event on Wednesday. The discussion was held at the Anderson House Office Building in downtown Lansing.

"Michigan doesn't think of itself as an energy state, but that's because you're thinking in the past," said Christine Sloane, who heads General Motors Corp.'s hydrogen and fuel cell safety codes and standards team.

GM has said it plans to have a marketable fuel cell vehicle by 2010. The automaker has built a fleet of about 30 fuel cell vehicles and brought one of them to the state capitol Wednesday. The vehicle costs about $1 million and gets the equivalent of 60 miles per gallon.

Though fuel cell vehicles aren't yet for sale, other automakers are already winning over energy-conscious buyers by offering gas-electric hybrids that can get as many as 60 miles per gallon.

On Wednesday, Ford Motor Co. CEO Bill Ford said that hybrid engines will be available in half the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury lineup by 2010.

Hybrid vehicles accounted for approximately 100,000 of the 17 million vehicles sold in North America last year.

Marcus McKissic, a Lansing resident who visited the alternative energy display at the capitol building, said he and his wife have discussed getting a hybrid vehicle, but they are waiting for the technology to improve.

"I've heard that if you turn on the air conditioning, some of them revert to using the gas engine," the Corecomm salesman said. "It seems like Honda is leading in this arena."

Sloane said GM's wagering that hydrogen vehicles will emerge as the buyer's choice. "We do look to hydrogen," Sloane said. "The reason we look to it is you can make it out of anything."

Hydrogen is a commonly found element that can be separated from natural gas, water or other sources.

Some people believe that waste heat from the generation of nuclear energy will provide a source for hydrogen.

"Nuclear energy always promised to be a very cheap source of energy," said panel member Jerry Mader, energy research director for the University of Michigan's College of Engineering. "I think nuclear energy will be a bona fide option in the next 10 years."

Americans have shied away from nuclear power since a partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in 1979.

A benefit of nuclear energy is that it can create hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles.

"You can take nuclear energy and ... split water with the waste heat to create hydrogen," said panelist James Croce, CEO of NextEnergy, a nonprofit that promotes the development of alternative fuel technology in Michigan.