Tearing a page from the tree huggers’ book, hydrogen fuel researchers like Levi Thompson – a Michigan Professor of Chemical Engineering – are using fear as an ally to advance their work. In an interview on Detroit radio, Thompson warned that we are in a race against time to develop “sustainable sources” because current technologies are making the environment worse.

The professor knows better.

In a session called “The Gasoline Engine is Dead. Or Is It?” at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress in Detroit last month, Michael Crane – Director of Gasoline Systems for Siemens – described how clean-burning the combustion engine has become.

“The gas engine is near zero emissions,” he said. “I can go outside this weekend and mow my lawn for one hour and produce more emissions than if I drove my car from New York to Los Angeles.” In California, Ford’s PZEV combustion engine gets the same low-emission rating as Toyota’s hybrid Prius.

Given relentless advances in direct injection technology – combined with gasoline’s high power density and superior performance in all temperature variations – Crane predicted that the gas/diesel combustion engine will continue to dominate for the foreseeable future. Today, 90 percent of the world’s engines run on gas, with the only viable alternative coming from diesel (another oil product) which has 50 percent of the European market.

No wonder academics like Thompson have to resort to scare tactics.