Why would Toyota be advertising the AE86 in 2007??

[Mux213]

Indeed, creating hydrogen is the problem, but it is one that is easily fixed if it wasn't for politics.

The problem with electricity normally is that you can generate it fairly efficiently, just not in the right spot at the right time. Much efficiency is lost in the transportation of electricity. Also alot is waisted in power stations simply because you can't shut these things down when power demand is at a minimum. It gets worse with more enviromentally friendly power sources, wind generators only generate electricity when the wind blows, not on demand when the electricity is needed, solar power only works effectively in some parts of the world where there is sun, for hydrostations you can't simply stop the river from flowing, you use the amount you need, and waiste the amount you can't use.

Storing electricity in batteries is fairly inefficient aswell, however using electricity to convert water into hydrogen, then storing and transporting this hydrogen, and finally using this hydrogen to produce electricity when needed, is very efficient.

If we'd start using all surplus electricity that we have (for instance electricity generated by hydrostations at night when everyone is sleeping) to produce hydrogen, we'd be producing a valuable energy storage substance from a source that otherwise would be waisted. If we'd use solar parts in the deserts of the world to produce hydrogen (ineffective instead of having to put powerlines in place), etc.etc.etc. There are loads of ways to produce hydrogen in an environmentally friendly way.

But as I said the real problem is not realisation (the technology has been there for many years), the problem is politics.
All the people in the world that currently make money with the current power infrastructure will loose their empire while a new group will arise. Yes some will step over from one to the other, but even those fear the new.

Also you have to understand that dependencies shift. Countries that currently have an oil supply or other means of producing power, but who have poor abilities to produce their own energy (=hydrogen) will become dependend on countries that can supply this.

Interestingly enough we had this in Holland, for awhile we imported alot of environmentally friendly energy from abroad (norway I believe for instance has alot of surplus hydro power), this was made possible by some nice environmental subsidies. As a result Dutch based energy companies that were exploiting dirty fossel fuel based plants were starting to loose money and jobs were at risk... Result, subsidies were cancelled, and were back using dirty energy