Even though I have
a personal fascination with fuel cells and even incorporate
a fuel cell activity into my lab manual, I think it is a waste of resources to invest in the "hydrogen economy".
This article does a great job of summarizing the economic and technological hurdles of using hydrogen as a major transportation fuel. First, it utterly demolishes the myth that hydrogen is a "green" fuel since the only practical source of hydrogen is natural gas. Second, it shows how lithium batteries are just as efficient and usually much more cost effective for storing intermittence sources of electrical power (like wind and photovoltaics) than electrolysis-fuel cell assemblies. Third hydrogen fueling stations and fuel cell cars are several orders of magnitude more expensive than their electric counterparts. Even though there are already prototype fuel cells that run on methanol (which I believe is more practical than hydrogen) I still think hydrogen is a good model for teaching students the overall principle behind fuel cells.