Here’s a blast from the past. I want to take you back to 1999 when the Gillette Mach 3 Challenger motorcycle broke the land speed record running on hydrogen peroxide and aluminum and hit the record mark of 365 miles per hour at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

In the past, I’ve talked many times about the merits of hydrogen peroxide or H2O2 as a potential future fuel for cars. It is already being used in race cars, race motorcycles, rocket ships, jetpacks and for some batteries.

Recently I’ve talked about the merits of water or H2O plus aluminum creating hydrogen for cars. In fact, many times over the past 4 years I’ve talked about this same subject. But, the last time I had talked about H2O2 plus aluminum creating hydrogen for vehicles was 2007.

Now, high purity hydrogen peroxide (90-percent plus) as opposed to low purity (10-percent) that you buy at the pharmacy, can be corrosive and unstable and must be handled with extreme care. In fact, some would argue that H2O2 is not safe enough to put directly into a vehicle other than a race car, rocket ship or jetpack. Tell that though to the Chinese who produced a prototype called the Habo No. 1 which did use hydrogen peroxide for fuel.

But, what if instead, hydrogen peroxide and aluminum (instead of silver or platinum) were used at the fueling pump to create hydrogen on demand for cars? Or at least it could be produced nearby and the resulting hydrogen could be piped or trucked only short distances.

In this regard, the people who handle the hydrogen peroxide would be the trained professionals who deliver it to the fueling stations or at the nearby off-site production locations. As in splitting H2O, the only byproduct of splitting H2O2 is a little steam and heat.

Anyway, I keep coming back to this point because I see potential in the idea but not a whole lot of development. Any hydrogen fuel producers want to take me up on this challenge?

A Japanese research marketing firm, the Fuji-Keizai Group, predicts a 99-fold increase in the use of hydrogen fuel cells in Japan between now and 2025, an increase of $17.7 billion USD. Housing fuel cell systems and hydrogen cars will account for most of the increases.

From now, to 2025, the trend is supposed to reverse with the demand for hydrogen fuel cell cars overtaking the initial demand of fuel cells for housing accounting for about $1 billion USD in sales on that date.

Unlike many other market research firms who believe that hydrogen fuel cells for small electronic devices will overtake sales first, such as for cell phones, laptops and other equipment, the Fuji-Keizai Group says this isn’t so for Japan. In fact, they are predicting that fuel cells for housing and cars will account for 90-percent of the market share by 2025.

Perhaps the Japanese firm is banking on breakthrough technology between now and then such as the Graphene hydrogen storage solution developed by PhD student Javad Rafiee.

According to the Rensselaer School of Engineering, “Rafiee used a combination of mechanical grinding, plasma treatment, and annealing to engineer the atomic structure of graphene to maximize its hydrogen storage capacity. This new graphene has exhibited a hydrogen storage capacity of 14 percent by weight at room temperature — far exceeding any other known material. Rafiee’s new graphene material holds the promise of opening the door to better, more affordable hydrogen-powered cars and trucks.”

The Japanese firm is most likely basing its projections on current technology as well as a presumptions of breakthrough future technology in the hydrogen fuel cell research and development space. If this prediction comes to fruition this will put both Japan and Germany in the lead over the U. S. and other countries in regard to hydrogen cars and the building of a hydrogen-based economy.

Now, many people probably haven’t heard about laser hydride compact disc (CD) storage before. I know that I hadn’t before I stumbled across a company called Plasma Kinetics.

Sure, there are many ways to store hydrogen including metal hydride containers which can be quite heavy, compressed hydrogen tanks which are extremely insulated and built to withstand leakage and impact. Some of these tanks are built out of metal alloys and others out of more expensive carbon fiber.

But, Plasma Kinetics has come up with a novel way to store hydrogen for cars that can reduce the weight of the storage tanks by as much as 400 lbs as compared to a conventional automobile and 500 lbs as compared to a Tesla Roadster.

The novel approach is to use Laser hydride CD storage. What this means is that a hydrogen car owner will refuel their vehicle at a regular hydrogen fueling station. The compressed hydrogen fuel will flow into the car and microwaves will ionize the H2 onto CD, similar to what we would put into a CD player in which to listen to music.

And much like the process of listening to music, the device would use a laser to release the hydrogen on demand from the magnesium CD as the car needs it for fuel. The CD’s would be stacked in a series and could provide a range of over 300 miles for the average hydrogen fuel cell car.

Plasma Kinetics is currently displaying their laser hydride H2 storage device at the U. S. Department of Energy’s Arpa-e Summit, which was developed to showcase leading edge and breakthrough clean energy technology. Plasma Kinetics is currently looking for investors to bring their product to the next level of development.