The Beat of a Different Hummer
Schwarzenegger's "Green Hummer" plan sparks cultish following
By Amanda Griscom
29 Apr 2004
Does this look green to you?The Hummer has come to be associated with a number of things -- steroid-addled egomaniacs, over-compensating suburban dads, the highway to global-warming hell, even Monica Lewinsky's antics in the Oval Office ... But eco-friendly driving isn't one of them.
Unless, of course, you travel in the "Green Hummer" underground, quietly developing in California thanks to the former steroid-addled egomaniac himself, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ®.
The Governator claims to have traded in his Hollywood-powered ego for an eco-empowered worldview. Early in his gubernatorial campaign last year, Schwarzenegger presented a convincing motive for cleaning up California's air: Both of his young daughters struggle with asthma.
Still, most enviros were skeptical when the proud owner of
seven Hummers vowed to be a serious environmental leader and pledged to turn the state of California into the Shangri-la of hydrogen development, with 200 hydrogen fueling stations along the state's major highways by 2010. They snickered at Ahhnold's campaign promise to transform one of his gas-guzzling behemoths into a state-of-the-art, zero-emission, hydrogen-powered vehicle.
The Governator.
Photo: California Governor's office.Then last week, with much Earth Day fanfare, Schwarzenegger signed an executive order officially paving the way for his Hydrogen Highways program. "This looks kind of like a movie set here, right?" the celebrity governor joked, after climbing out of a hydrogen-powered Toyota Highlander and fueling it at a new, experimental pump at the University of California-Davis. "But it will be better because what you see here today is the future of California and the future of environmental protection. This vision for California is real and attainable."
It wasn't clear from Schwarzenegger's camera-ready performance whether greening his Hummer was still part of his "real and attainable" vision, since he didn't so much as mention it. But Michele St. Martin, spokesperson for the California EPA, says the plan is definitely underway: "
The bottom line is that Gov. Schwarzenegger keeps his promises," she told Grist in a don't-mess-with-the-Terminator tone. "When he promised to convert his Hummer to hydrogen, he meant it, and he's going to keep his word."
It's not as though the Governator is averse to pushing the envelope. The Hydrogen Highways campaign has a decidedly more ambitious time frame than the Bush administration's "Freedom Fuel" campaign, which aims to get the first wave of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles on the road by 2020.
It's highly debatable, though, whether Schwarzenegger's Green Hummer plan would actually serve the larger environmental good. Any clean-energy stickler will tell you that the idea of putting a hydrogen-powered engine into the biggest, heaviest consumer SUV on earth -- as opposed to a lightweight vehicle that requires far less horsepower -- is both counterintuitive and astronomically expensive.
Still, as a PR gimmick, the concept has major box-office appeal. "It gives the whole notion of clean cars an image overhaul," said St. Martin. "It pumps up the 'cool factor' of the clean-car movement -- and if anyone can make clean cars cool, Gov. Schwarzenegger can." She may have a point: More than half of the vehicles sold in California today are SUVs and light trucks, and the state's bigger-is-better drivers may view hybrids like the Toyota Prius as a tad effete.
But when Grist pressed for specifics on when Schwarzenegger's mean, green macho machine would be unveiled, who would convert it, how it would work, how much it would cost, and how practical such technology would be for the mainstream, the governor's spokesperson, Terri Carbaugh, was tightlipped: "The status of the Hummer conversion is that it's moving forward -- that's as specific as I can get," she said, "I don't want to steal the governor's thunder and say when [the specifics of the conversion] will be revealed. It will be sometime in the future."
P.S. Так что купим Жёлтый hydrogen-powered Хаммер.
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