'Electric hydrogen vehicles necessary'

Depletion of fossil fuel is a concern and so are problems caused by it like global climatic change and in such a situation electric hydrogen powered vehicles can become an ameliorative factor, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, R Chidambaram said.

Electric hydrogen powered vehicle is fast growing technology that can check pollution and also rescue people from the crisis created by scarce energy resources like fossil fuels, Chidambaram said in his inaugural speech at the 2006 IEEE conference on 'Electric and Hybrid Vehicles.'

"Fossil fuel vehicles degrade environment and its increasing cost threatens energy security. Therefore, development of electric and hybrid vehicle technology is important for India," he said, informing that precisely with this in mind, his office three years ago set up the Core Advisory Group for Research (CAR).

The objective of CAR is to identify frontier technology and herald world class automobile systems, sub-systems etc.

In partnership with the industry and this year it has come out with a technology roadmap (which envisions enhance energy security among other things) for the sector, the eminent nuclear scientist said.

Calling basic research a cultural necessity, he was of the view that it was at the Universities and R&D labs where direct basic research should take place before the process of technology development begins.