The panic of the oil crisis days of the 1970s is long over, but we are still using far more oil than the Earth can replace. Author Jeremy Rifkin says there's a solution within our grasp: hydrogen.

Hydrogen is an abundant element found everywhere on Earth, including in air and water. It can be transformed into a potentially limitless form of clean burning fuel. And when it's burned, its only waste product is pure water.

If hydrogen could replace oil and gas, not only could we decrease emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming, we would curb the pollution generated by extracting and processing fossil fuels.

In his book, The Hydrogen Economy, Rifkin says he believes development of hydrogen would revolutionize the way people access energy. There would be no need for citizens to rely on utility companies to provide their energy. Every home could have the potential to create its own energy; it's something Rifkin calls the "democratized energy web."

"With hydrogen, every person becomes their own producer of energy. You put a fuel cell in your home, your factory, your business, you produce your own energy," he explained to Canada AM's Seamus O'Regan. "You take out the hydrogen from water, store it, put it in a fuel cell... Then the excess energy you can send back to the power grid.

While the days of an infrastructure system based on hydrogen may be far off, it won't be long before hydrogen-powered vehicles are available.

"We're going to begin to see this in the next few years in the auto industry," Rifkin says. "You're going to see the first cars in the showrooms within six or seven years."

Every major automaker is working on hydrogen-feulled vehicles, with many planning to make some fuel cell vehicles available within a year for limited fleet sales, perhaps to government buyers who can carefully monitor performance.

DaimlerChrysler plans to have 30 fuel cell buses working in 10 European cities next year. Ford Motor Co. has a fuel cell-powered Focus, aided by a battery for acceleration, that it plans to lease for fleet customers in early 2004. General Motors Corp. demonstrated a Chevrolet S-10 pickup last spring that converts gasoline to hydrogen.

But to convince the world to switch to hydrogen would require a major up-ending of our current global economy and infrastructure. Oil companies would need to shift their focus, as would utility companies, automakers, manufacturers -- the list is endless.

Rifkin says hydrogen has plenty of believers, with many government and private researchers working on technologies that will use it. But convincing everyone is not going to be easy.

"Dutch Shell and BP, both their CEOs have recognized that we're ending the fossil fuel era in the next 40 years. They are moving toward hydrogen and renewable technologies in a very big way. Exxon-Mobil, the U.S. company, says 'We're not buying it. We're staying where oil is,'" Rifkin says.

"In some ways, the United States is becoming the old world and Europe and other parts of the world are becoming the new world when it comes to energy."

"It's going to be a big task making that change from one infrastructure to another. But already there are 800 or 900 companies rushing into hydrogen, and Canada is one of the leaders in this."