Every major automobile company is experimenting with hydrogen in internal combustion engines or testing fuel cell vehicles that rely on hydrogen chemistry instead of combustion. NASA uses hydrogen to power its rockets. Can rocket fuel really offer an alternative to oil?

The Bush Administration and governments around the globe are beginning to think so and have begun to plan a transition to a "hydrogen economy." Hydrogen offers enormous potential as a clean, carbon-free, domestically available energy option. But as the idea has taken hold, some critics have suggested hydrogen is more about hype than about hope.

Robert Rose, an internationally known fuel cell and hydrogen advocate, will offer his perspective at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 2, at NASA's Langley Research Center.

Media Briefing: A media briefing will be held at 1:15 p.m. at the H.J.E. Reid Conference Center, 14 Langley Blvd., NASA Langley Research Center. Members of the media who wish to attend should contact Marny Skora at (757) 864-3315 or 344-6111 (mobile) by 10 a.m. Tuesday to arrange for credentials and entry to Langley.

Rose is founding executive director of the Breakthrough Technologies Institute (BTI) and the U.S. Fuel Cell Council, the business association for the fuel cell industry. BTI is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting advanced environmental and energy technologies in the public interest. BTI's fuel cell education program, Fuel Cells 2000, was launched in 1993 and is internationally recognized. Prior to founding BTI, Rose was a private consultant, specializing in policy analysis and public relations.

Rose is the author of Fuel Cells and Hydrogen: The Path Forward, which proposes a public-private partnership to develop and commercialize fuel cells and a supporting hydrogen infrastructure. He is the 2004 recipient of the Fuel Cell Seminar Award, the most prestigious recognition of its kind in the United States.

He also served as senior special assistant to Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie. Rose earned a bachelor's degree in English and philosophy from the University of Nebraska in 1968.

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