In my opinion, that has to change. If we are to grow as a region as a tech-based economy, and a knowledge-based economy, we have to embrace those ideas, or at least be willing to be open-minded or experimental about that. It's not a question of are we ready for this in some cultural sense -- enough people are for this to happen. It's one we have to embrace.

These prizes would accomplish this by drawing attention to the importance of the hydrogen revolution.

Inglis has a way of phrasing it: If you never get started, it's always 20 years in the future. There's something to that. Is this a high-risk sort of thing? You bet. If fuel cells are delayed for some reason we can't foresee, or if hydrogen storage doesn't work out -- although there are some real interesting concepts coming on -- then it's all for nothing.

This H-Prize is a very interesting possibility.