Lawrence D. Burns, or as he is better known, Larry, is vice president of General Motors Research & Development and Strategic Planning. In this position, he overseas GM's advanced technology, innovation programs, and corporate strategy.

Larry flew into Toronto this week to act as a keynote speaker at the upcoming AMPA conference, and fortunately, he allowed yours truly, together with a handful of other journalists, to dine with him whilst he relayed his visions for the future of GM and indeed, the automobile industry as we know it.

All this took place at a swish downtown restaurant, although to be honest, I would have happily sat on a park bench eating McDonalds to listen to this man, as he is such an interesting and knowledgeable gentleman.

Larry, who holds a PHD in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, started out with GM way back in 1969 as a member of the Research & Development staff. He then went through various divisions such as Product Program Management, Quality, Production Control, Industrial Engineering, and Product and Business Planning. He is a member of several prestigious boards and committees within the automotive world. Larry also sits on the Board of the University of Michigan Center for Hearing Disorders, and is a member of the National Advisory Group for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf.

As you can see, Larry is a man who possesses a deep commitment to his chosen industry, and also commits a considerable amount of his time to other worthy causes.

Due to his position within the company, Larry's world naturally revolves around the future of the automobile industry, which nowadays encompasses everything from electrically driven vehicles, diesels, hybrids, and even hydrogen full cell automobiles. So, who better to inquire what we shall all be driving in the next 10-15 years than him?

Larry led off by reviewing the past 100 years of the motor car, which struck me as quite appropriate, this being GM's centennial year. He explained that from the very beginning of the motoring era, several fuel sources have been used to power modes of transportation. Coal, steam, and wood were once commonly used. In fact, even the electric vehicle has been around for much longer than most people realize. Of course, over the years, the internal combustion engine became the most prevalent, and brought us to where we are today, basically, at the mercy of the petroleum giants, while still damaging our planet at an ever increasing rate.

Now I'm sure that we all realize that something has to be done about our reliance on fossil fuels and because of the size of GM, one would expect them to have an idea or two in the works for precisely that.

Well, in fact, they have several. Larry explained that the company is working with multiple alternative fuel programs at the moment, and there are several reasons for this. GM's overall goal is to reduce our dependency on petroleum. However, being a global company, it must think globally. What might be the ideal solution for one area of the planet, may not work quite as well for another.

In fact. the company which now truly thinks and works much more globally than it has in the past, has even developed departments throughout the world specifically employing "home grown talent" to help them understand the needs of the local people, and the resources which are available to them in their specific area.

Larry believes that there is a strong future in electrically powered vehicles, especially in built up, and highly populated areas. He explained, in great detail, the company's commitment to its Chevy Volt Electric powered vehicle, about which we have already heard so much.

He also appears to grasp Europe's love of the diesel engine, and stated that GM would continue to support them in that area. However, he then went on to explain that the company is currently working on a series of gasoline engines which can duplicate mileage figures of diesel units. This therefore poses the question, is diesel the real solution to our problems? After all, it doesn't take the oil man's hand out of our back pocket, and at the rate we are using up our oil resources, we will basically be back to square one in the matter of a few more years !

Obviously, the near future of the industry will involve several ideas based on various types of fuel supplies, but from what I have now learned, and from what I believe Larry feels, these may only be somewhat temporary, stop-gap solutions in the long term picture.

Larry tends to believe that there are better and more substantial gains to be made by moving forward and exploring new, and possibly some "slightly misunderstood" technology which is already available to us today.

I sat there in awe as he detailed just a few of the possible options available to us, and outlined some of the innovative ideas on which the industry is presently working.

Fuel made from waste matter, and by that he's talking simple residential and commercial waste, which can be transformed into bio fuel fairly efficiently. In fact, GM believes that this process could work to such a great extent that by the year 2030, it could offset as much as 40% of America's reliance on Gasoline.

He even made the comment that "Possibly Michigan should start collecting as much garbage as they can from Ontario, as one day it may enable them to independently fuel themselves". Now there's an idea! How about it, Mr. McGuinty, could we now start charging them for it, eh?

He then went on to explain that even the sun's delightful warming rays could be utilized to heat water and produce hydrogen, which puts us somewhere in the realm of the average homeowner being able to produce his own fuel supply. Possibly, with hydrogen production systems installed in individual residences and financed through some type of home mortgage plan.

Of course, that's where things start to get a little scary and the big oil companies see dollar bills migrating away from their bank accounts. I'm also not so sure how our wonderful government might view that particular idea. After all, they also like to delve their grubby little paws in our pockets through gas taxation (Mind you, I'm pretty sure that they will figure a way to tax us on whatever fuel we use, so I'm not going to shed a tear for them!).

Yes, hydrogen is one form of energy that GM truly believes could be the long term answer to our problems. In fact, they believe it so strongly that they have been at the forefront of the hydrogen plan for many years, and presently have several vehicles being "real life" tested.

This has, however, brought another problem to the table, and that is, how to convince the various government bodies and the fuel suppliers to get involved, and to cough up the money to install hydrogen filling stations within the reach of consumers. In fact, GM has already put its money where its mouth is and created some of there own supply outlets, simply to make the testing viable. Not that the company has any plans to go into the energy business, it was purely done to enable supply during real world testing.

Obviously, hydrogen powered vehicles are still rather expensive to produce, and no one is suggesting that we shall see them on every street corner within a year or so, but if everyone keeps their blinkers on and doesn't grasp the potential of hydrogen, we will never get there. After all, think how quickly other ideas have come to the auto industry over the years. You only have to go back a decade and look at where we were then, to see that the idea of financially viable mass-produced hydrogen vehicles being available to us in the next decade or so, is not exactly sci-fi dreaming.

The answer is to be ready for them. The question is...does everybody want them? It is only too obvious that the big oil companies are a little hesitant. In fact, much of the confusing, and often misleading reports about hydrogen tend to emanate from those bodies. And what about our governments? Aren't they supposed to be the ones looking after our interests? Then why have they not all jumped on the wagon to fossil fuel independence with greater enthusiasm?


To me, it appears as if Arnold Swartzennager down in California is the only one at the moment with the gusto to truly give it a try. I might not have liked every film that fella made, but you have to give him credit for looking wisely at the future of our planet.

To be honest, I could go on forever about this subject, but alas, my editor tends to frown on my handing in novels composed as news stories, so I will leave you with a few interesting facts which I have learned. They seriously got me thinking, and I believe that they will do the same for you....

# 1 Last year GM's Chevrolet Sequel became the world's first fuel cell vehicle to go 300 miles on a single fill-up of hydrogen.

# 2 GM has now spent over $1 Billion dollars on fuel cell system R & D (A company does not spend money like that on an idea unless they deem it viable).

# 3 GM will soon have over 100 Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell vehicles being used in "real life" testing, and over 1500 people have already driven them on public roads.

# 4 Today, more than 56 billion kilograms of hydrogen are produced globally each year. This amount is equal to what would be consumed by nearly 200 million fuel cell-electric vehicles! Also, global hydrogen production is forecast to grow 45 percent to 81 billion kilograms by 2011 (The point here is that the hydrogen industry is already a huge global industry with mature technology and an outstanding safety record).

# 5 About half of the global hydrogen production today is used at oil refineries. If this trend continues, by 2011, this will equate to roughly 135 million fuel cell vehicles, implying over 15 percent of the world's car parc could be energized by hydrogen already being produced for transportation.

# 6 A large hydrogen production site exists today near almost every major North American. and European city. This means large quantities of hydrogen are already being produced close to where most North Americans and Europeans live.

# 7 Natural gas, electricity, and water are widely distributed in North America, making virtually any location a potential site for hydrogen production and vehicle fueling. Initial studies suggest "distributed" hydrogen production (via natural gas reforming or water electrolysis) could be economically viable - approaching a cost equivalent to $1.50 per gallon of gasoline.

I'd like you to consider the above statements carefully, and I think that you will agree that hydrogen powered vehicles could well be the solution to our problem.

The real question is, "Will it happen?" All I can say is that if Larry and General Motors have their way, we will all be driving hydrogen powered vehicles in the not-too-distant future!



Note: Should you be looking for further information on hydrogen power, try visiting these websites.

www.hydrogenassociation.org

www.hydrogen.energy.gov