State Taking Wrong Road in Drive for Electric Vehicles : Pollution still will be emitted by power plants. Hydrogen is the way to go, and the Valley can be a key player in the technology’s development.

Don’t look now, but there is a ZEV in your future. Or maybe a LEV or a ULEV.

No, we’re not talking about a mustachioed politician, his twin brother and a distant cousin. The ZEV, LEV and ULEV affecting all San Fernando Valley residents by 1998 are zero, low and ultra-low emission vehicles.

The California Air Resources Board is weighing options presented by auto makers to meet toughening air quality standards. Electric vehicles firmly occupy the inside track in this race for big dollars, since the ARB recognizes these as zero-emission vehicles, totally pollution-free. In May, the board upheld a requirement that the auto industry sell electric cars in California by 1998.

Not to quibble, but this doesn’t make sense.

The air following an electric vehicle may smell as sweet as a newly bathed baby, but somewhere someone else is suffering with air that makes a diaper pail’s aura pleasant by comparison.

You see, those happy little electrons that are just dying to propel your 1999 Electrivette down Interstate 405 need a little convincing before they are ready to serve you. True, billions of them are available in the wire hooked up to recharge your waiting E’vette, but they need a push before loading up its tired-out battery.

Pushers in our society suffer from bad press. These electric pushers, or power generating plants, are no exception.

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Coal-fired plants generate about half of the U.S. electric power. Even with expensive pollution-control devices, the sulfur in the coal returns to earth as acid rain, devastating plants and wildlife. Moreover, coal combustion generates vast quantities of that greenhouse ogre--carbon dioxide.

Petroleum and natural-gas power plants produce another 20% of our electricity. These natural resources are limited, and imported petroleum contributes to our balance of payments problems. And the carbon dioxide produced by combustion adds to global warming.

Nuclear power contributes about 15% to satisfying our electrical appetite. Talk about bad press. To point out the problems with this power source would be to flog a mortally wounded horse.

Rounding out the possible methods of recharging an electrically mobile society, 10% of our power is generated hydroelectrically. The rest comes from a handful of environmentally benign technologies including geothermal, wind, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic.

Electric cars masquerading as socially responsible ZEVs, LEVs and ULEVs? No way.

But envision our society propelled happily down the freeway of life without asphyxiation, with no melting of polar icecaps, preserving the rainbow trout and, at the same time, thumbing our collective noses at the petty tyrants who always seem to control the world’s oil supply. Pipe dream? Think again.

Remember how in the ‘60s Dustin Hoffman was urged to ponder the word plastics ? For ‘90s graduates, the word is hydrogen.

Burn hydrogen in an auto engine, as Mazda’s road tests are now demonstrating, and all you get are water and a trace of nitrogen oxides, a tiny fraction of the nitrogen oxides now created by gasoline-burning engines. Take it a technological step further and combine hydrogen with oxygen from air in a device called a fuel cell and you generate enough electric power on board to propel a bus. Euro-Quebec Hydro-Hydrogen Pilot Project demonstration buses will travel the streets soon.

It sounds too good to be true: renewable energy based on the most abundant element in the universe. The combustion product falls back to earth as life-giving rain. What’s the catch?

The catch, my friends, is money.

Overcoming technical problems is expensive. One challenge is developing a safe gas tank. Developing hydrogen into a viable, large-scale energy resource will take big bucks. This explains why the Japanese have established the World Energy Network, a hydrogen-development plan with a reported budget of more than $2 billion.

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And where do we stand? The Department of Energy, which is responsible for maintaining U.S. preeminence in energy, submitted a 1995 request for $5.5 million for hydrogen research, down from the 1994 budget of $10 million.

Have we given up on trying to compete in this emerging global technology even before it gets off the ground? Are future Miatas going to drain our dollars not only when they’re bought but throughout their 10- to 15-year lifetimes?

Our Valley is a key battleground in this ZEV shootout. From Calstart, the nonprofit Burbank-based company chartered to develop advanced transportation technology, to the federal Energy Technology Engineering Center in the mountains above Chatsworth, the Valley stands to gain economically from development of hydrogen for transportation. Valley-bred aerospace technologies in hydrogen, photovoltaics and fuel cells position us at the center of this transportation revolution.

If we invest in hydrogen development, the Hydrogen Valley teamed with Silicon Valley will reign as California’s technology crown jewels in the 21st Century.