Advocates of wind power, solar cells, and hydrogen vehicles promise that any day now, they'll blossom from science-fair projects into major businesses, competing squarely with the cars we drive today and the energy sources we use now.
Jim Gordon was only going over to Walter Cronkite's house for coffee and muffins one morning in August 2003.
But for Gordon, an entrepreneur trying to build America's first offshore wind farm, this was a high-stakes coffee klatch.
The most trusted man in America had recorded a series of radio and TV ads for a group that opposed Gordon's project, and Gordon knew that it would be a tough slog to get the wind farm built with such a respected journalist serving as the public face of his foes.
Gordon, who built and operated a handful of natural-gas-fired power plants around New England in the 1980s and 1990s, knew that he'd have to deal with opponents when he decided to try to build a wind farm in the middle of Nantucket Sound (between Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard, where Cronkite had a home).
The odds are stacked against replacing an established technology such as the gas-powered internal combustion engine overnight.
The 20 partnership members -- ranging from BP to Volkswagen to United Technologies to the U.S. Department of Energy to Hyundai -- conduct their own research and development.
But they wanted to be able to share a single hydrogen fueling station so that they could make sure that it was designed to work with all of the vehicles, and vice versa.
One Toyota staffer, Darryl Umale, puts the price of a prototype hydrogen- powered Highlander SUV into context by remarking, "You are looking at 20 Lamborghinis."