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This article seems to be delivering good news for the environment: “Clean” hydrogen can be produced from water using solar energy. This seems to me, however, to be even more horrifying than the burning of fossil fuels, which I believe we will be able to survive quite well without, once we consume them all. Will we shift our voracious consumption to the extremely finite water supply? Will we pump the very basis of life out of the ground to burn, nonrenewably, in our cars? This sounds like the worst plan yet.

Miriam Murphy
Calistoga, Calif.

I believe (the reader above) rushed to judgment regarding the environmental impact of splitting water to produce hydrogen for fuel. The split water isn’t ultimately consumed, only recycled. Burning hydrogen reunites it with oxygen, returning water to the environment. Much more intriguing questions might concern the human-accelerated migration of water from liquid sources (oceans, lakes, aquifers) into the atmosphere of our vehicle-congested cities. Will metro-area atmospheric concentrations affect weather systems? Lifestyles? Presumably the trade-offs—if any—of water vapor concentrations will be preferable to the scale of damage to people and the environment wrought by today’s tailpipe emissions.

Ira Dember
Houston, Texas