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Converting every vehicle in the United States to hydrogen power would demand so much electricity that the country would need enough wind turbines to cover half of California or 1,000 extra nuclear power stations.

So concludes a British economist, whose calculation is intended to highlight the difficulties of achieving a truly green hydrogen economy.

"This calculation is useful to make people realize what an enormous problem we face," says Andrew Oswald, an economist from the University of Warwick.

"Today, hydrogen is not a clean, green fuel," says Oswald's brother Jim, an energy consultant who assisted with the calculation. "You've got to ask: where did the hydrogen come from?"

The only technology that can currently make large amounts of hydrogen without using fossil fuels relies on renewable power sources or nuclear energy, the Oswalds argue. Hydrogen will only mitigate global warming when a clean source of the gas becomes available, they say.

"Hydrogen is not a near-term prospect," agrees Paul Ekins, an energy economist at the Policy Studies Institute, London. "There will have to be a few fundamental breakthroughs in technology first," he says.

Politicians eager to promote their green credentials, yet unaware of the realities, have oversold the hydrogen dream, says Ekins. "I'm amazed by the number of politicians who think you can dig hydrogen out of the ground," he says.

So do the Oswalds have a more immediate answer to the hydrogen problem? "We could always use less energy, but that doesn't seem very likely," Jim Oswald says ruefully.