It was a mid-September evening. I stood on a rooftop with one of the three Commanding Generals, overlooking the city of Baghdad. The city was beautiful at night, but it was not peaceful.

“Brian,” he said, “America has to declare its freedom from on oil that comes from dangerous parts of the world.”

Late that same night, in a Blackhawk helicopter flying at very low altitude, we left Baghdad for northern Iraq. I looked down as we passed over sleeping Iraqi villages, and I thought about the general’s words. “When I get home to Vermont,” I thought, “I will make it a priority to find a way to move our state and our nation away from foreign oil.”

Now, three months later, I am very excited about the work of UVM researchers. They could help the world leave gasoline behind as fuel for cars much sooner than anyone has thought possible.

During my four years as Lt. Governor, I have promoted an idea we call the Green Valley Initiative. It is an economic development cluster (http://www.thinkvermont.com/greenvalley/index.cfm), that helps Vermont innovators and companies who develop, teach and market, cutting-edge, real world answers to the world's environmental challenges. Vermont companies like NRG Systems, Northern Power, Clean Earth Technologies and Concepts NREC are world leaders in those fields. Working with Governor Douglas and his administration, with our colleges and universities, and with Vermont companies, I have been able to help promote Vermont’s Green Valley brand in our nation and internationally. Last March, I led a delegation of Vermont companies to GLOBE 2006 in Vancouver, BC -- the largest environmental trade fair in the world.

Today, Vermont is among the top states in new patents awarded per capita. This is largely a result of IBM’s research and development in Essex. Our state’s colleges and universities are increasingly fertile breeding grounds for breakthrough technologies.

Meanwhile, as a result of concern over global climate change, the US Department of Energy is investing billions of dollars to develop the “hydrogen economy”.

At the GLOBE conference, I drove a car powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. It drove and performed like a normal car -- yet it produced no pollution and it emitted no greenhouse gases. You could literally breathe fumes from the exhaust pipe. The car’s one big drawback was that its fuel cell engine cost more than $700,000 to produce! A South Burlington company, JMAR Technologies, is currently working to bring costs down.

Just as exciting is a proposed research project at the University of Vermont that would revolutionize hydrogen fuel production, making it practical as a fuel for cars, and the whole hydrogen economy.

Freshly home from Iraq in September, one of the very first things I did was to send a letter to the Department of Energy in support of a grant proposal to fund the hydrogen project’s development.

In simplest terms, the project proposes to produce semiconductor materials capable of absorbing energy from the sun that can then directly produce hydrogen from ordinary water. The new semiconductors would be similar to those currently used at IBM to make integrated circuits.

If the UVM research team can produce hydrogen more efficiently than is currently possible, using materials that will not break down with exposure to water, the world will take a giant step toward a clean hydrogen economy.

The project’s Principal Investigator is UVM Professor Walter Varhue. He says, “The emergence of nanotechnology science and engineering carries great potential to solve the challenges of photo-enhanced splitting of water to produce hydrogen cleanly and efficiently.”

The City of Burlington currently has one hydrogen filling station. I say let’s support Professor Varhue and his research team, to pioneer an affordable hydrogen fuel. I propose we do more than apply for a federal grant.

Our state’s budget is a statement about our priorities.

I call on the State of Vermont to say, “We are committed as a state to help move toward energy independence” -- and to say it with research dollars.

We can do more to encourage Vermont farmers to grow bio fuels. We can invest in more green projects. Vermont’s high schools, colleges and universities can all be partners in the research. Energy and environment projects like Professor Varhue’s should be the nucleus for a Green Cluster for our entire region, including northeast states and neighboring Canadian provinces.

Under Governor Richard Snelling’s leadership, Vermont enacted legislation to encourage the development of the Captive Insurance sector. As a result, today Vermont leads the world in that sector. We can do the same for Green Energy and Green Technology too.

Last legislative session, Governor Jim Douglas boldly proposed that we provide scholarships to encourage young Vermonters to study in our state and stay after graduation. In 2007, Vermont should fully adopt his Promise Scholarship. But we must also give researchers both the means and an incentive to innovate in Vermont.

The challenge to create a hydrogen economy -- or to produce ethanol fuel from our abundant forest products – bears the promise of an exciting future for a young Vermonter. The dream that someday, Vermonters will travel on clean hydrogen highways is an exciting vision for Vermont and for the world.