Recently I've been thinking that PO is not going to have the drammatic effect on our lives that many who write here believe and incremental technology developements such as this reinforces those thoughts.

Euan, the main point that comes out of peak oil is that growth is unsustainable. If we can't transition to zero growth, we will get collapse. If we can transition to zero growth, we'll have a completely different society. If you want to believe in a magical world of continued growth, using alternative this, that and the other, that's fine but can you come up with a convincing argument for why that growth will not hit limits?

Forgive the ramble and not always quite relavent response, I have been researching renewables/sustainability over the last few weeks and as near as I can judge the only bar to mass take up of renewables for distributed generation is economics, and this holds for mobile equipment as well. I am principally interested in power generation, and in the UK, at least, it is impossible to make an economic case for domestic installations whether they are PV, Ground Source Heat Pump, Fuel Cell, CHP etc. There is just about a business case for some commercial Fuel Cell installations but there is a lot of legislation in the way of some allied technology.
As for cars there appears to be no technology bar to the production of fuel cell based systems in the now (non hydrogen but still much more efficient than ICE), the barriers are again purely economic. (This is regardless of the chosen final drive system) This is where the lobby groups come in. Do you remember the introduction of catalytic converters?. These were introduced in the US because the car giants would not invest, had not invested, in modern (clean) engine technology and catalysts were a far cheaper option. That they result in higher fuel consumption and therefore higher CO2 emissions has never been raised as an issue. All this of course stemmed from the need to reduce atmospheric pollution. In Europe and Japan, there were some excellent developments in clean and lean engine technologies that got brushed under the carpet when Europe decided to follow the US. What they should have done was set emission limits and made how you achieved them optional. The same lobby will likely prevail when it comes to commercialisation of fuel cell vehicles.(we do not have to start with renewables, better use of what we have got would be a good beginning) Look under almost any US car and you will find, steel chassis, leaf springs and live rear axles, big heavy and cheap. Moving the US automotive industry into the 20th century let alone the 21st is a major hurdle and unfortunately this will probably determine the rate of change as this is one powerful world wide political lobby.

OK!! LETS DO SOME WORD ASSOCIATION POSSUMS! HERE WE GO!!! 1.. SAFE is to NUCLEAR as MILITARY is to INTELLIGENCE 2... RENEWABLE is to ENERGY as THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS is to AN APPLE CIDER HANGOVER 3...STONE is to AGE as SAFE NULEAR ENERGY is to SAFE INTELLIGENT 20TH CENTURY SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY!!!! REMEMBER THE OLD AXIUM... 'THOSE WHO REFUSE TO LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO RELIVE IT ... KEEP THE YELLOW PIOSON IN THE COLD COLD GROUND AS A LATENT LEGAGY TO OUR GREAT GREAT GREAT GRAND CHILDREN FOR THEIR GREAT GREAT GREAT GRAND CHILDREN. THEY'LL BE SO USED TO THE HEAT BY THEN THAT MAYBE THEY WONT MIND ITS RISKS.