Five different energy experts stressed the importance of working hand-in-hand with political leaders across the country to facilitate change in alternative fuel sources.

The panel took place at the third annual Energy Hub Conference, themed “Moving Forward: Powering Our Transportation Future.”

A wide range of ages and fields of study made up the audience, which was mainly composed of graduate students, with about 50 people in attendance.

Despite differing areas of expertise, the panelists agreed on the need to work with officials in Washington and political leaders in order to make viable change happen.

Tim Williams, business development manager for the Clean Energy Fuels Corp, opened the panel by introducing his company, which designs, builds, and operates natural gas refueling stations all over North America.

He said the company is the largest provider of vehicular natural gas and fuel, powering over 20,000 vehicles per day.

“Two and a half years ago, you couldn’t find a natural gas truck,” Williams said. “Now we’re on our way.”

Williams said working with politicians at a national and local level will be important to get tax credits and funding for natural gas usage, primarily by financing stations and vehicles.

Lee Edwards, president and CEO of Virent Energy Systems, brought up the idea as well, adding new uses of fuel for transportation would lead to job creation, which officials in Washington should support.

Other leaders, such as John Greenler, the director of education and outreach at Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, spoke to the importance of biomass as an alternative fuel.

He said converting one billion tons of plant biomass, from sugar cane or cornstarch for example, into ethanol replaces 30 percent of current transportation fuel use.

Edwards agreed, and said different parts of the world have different plants that can be processed for technology.

 UW professor of materials science and engineering Dave Morgan introduced the idea of a fuel cell, a different method of fuel.

“The idea is a technology that might actually allow us to not use gasoline,” Morgan said. “[It] uses hydrogen.”

Morgan said fuel cells act like engines, taking hydrogen fuel and spitting out power.

Despite the benefits hydrogen cells could offer, Morgan said barriers to actually getting the cell successfully to people need to be tackled.

A main drawback to the technology is cost, which while it has decreased over time would still cost 10 dollars per gallon to fill a vehicle with a hydrogen fuel cell, Morgan said.

Cost is not the only challenge to hydrogen technology, but also storage and infrastructure obstacles, among others, Morgan said.

“You have to develop your fuel cell technology somewhat more, and you have to develop an infrastructure to distribute this hydrogen around … any one of those is a major challenge,” Morgan said.

Morgan also said scientists needed the support of political leaders to promote alternative fuel sources.

“[They] need the political will to help support these types of technology,” Morgan said.