17/06/2003 (Agence Europe) - Professor Carlo Rubbia, member of the high-level group set up by the Commission to put forward a strategy on hydrogen and fuel cells, said in an interview with La Republicca on Tuesday that Europe and the United States have "different economo-energy philosophies and situations", when it comes to promoting hydrogen as a source of energy (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.10, on the EU/US agreement and the high-level group's report). The EU, he said, has a more "environmentalist" approach, and attempts to use mainly renewable sources of energy such as wind or sun to produce hydrogen "with no CO2 emissions", whereas the United States "have no intention of abandoning oil and gas". "I believe in the sun", stated the 1994 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, who feels that countries such as Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain "should have faith in sun-related technologies, allowing highly efficient systems, around 50%". Up until now, pointed out his journalist interlocutor, only Iceland has done anything concrete, opening a public hydrogen distributor in Reykjavik.