LETTERS TO THE EDITORS – February 2003

FUEL-CELL FOLLIES?

"You would still have to cut down the trees and pave everything over for roads." This was an answer given by a fourth-grade student when I asked what environmental effects cars would have if they were powered by a nonpolluting source of energy, such as hydrogen fuel cells ["Vehicle of Change," by Lawrence D. Burns, J. Byron McCormick and Christopher E. Borroni-Bird].

The biggest impact of private motor vehicles is the creation of sprawling land use, which in turn causes forced dependency on cars. Fuel-cell cars would also still injure millions of Americans in collisions, another problem with personal transportation, and would still leave stranded the one third of the U.S. population that doesn't drive. Cars would still sit in traffic jams and average a lower effective speed than bicycles. We can do much better with transportation and land use.

Robert Bernstein
Transportation chair
Sierra Club-Santa Barbara Group
Goleta, Calif