"Only in the last week, South Carolina announced that it is seeking to become the U. S. center for hydrogen fuel cells, and BMW revealed that it will power some of its high-end model cars with hydrogen"
About this Quote
There is a very American kind of optimism baked into this line: not the sweeping, Kennedy-style call to the future, but the clipped boosterism of a politician laundering ambition through “announced” and “revealed.” Virgil Goode isn’t really talking about hydrogen as chemistry; he’s talking about hydrogen as positioning. The sentence is a map of aspiration: South Carolina wants to be “the” center, BMW wants to make it “high-end,” and the listener is meant to connect those dots into a single story about jobs, prestige, and technological inevitability.
The intent is transactional. By anchoring the claim in “only in the last week,” Goode manufactures urgency and momentum, the sense that history has already started moving and your state had better grab a handle. Notice the careful pairing of local and global: a U.S. state chasing a national crown, validated by a foreign luxury brand. That’s not an accident. It signals seriousness without requiring proof. If BMW is dabbling, the logic goes, the future must be real.
The subtext is competitive federalism: states battling for the next “Silicon Valley,” with clean energy as the new industrial recruitment pitch. Hydrogen here functions less as climate policy than as a bipartisan-friendly growth narrative, a way to talk about energy without talking about sacrifice. In the mid-2000s hydrogen discourse often lived in that sweet spot: futuristic enough to inspire, vague enough to avoid the hard questions about infrastructure, cost, and who pays.
The intent is transactional. By anchoring the claim in “only in the last week,” Goode manufactures urgency and momentum, the sense that history has already started moving and your state had better grab a handle. Notice the careful pairing of local and global: a U.S. state chasing a national crown, validated by a foreign luxury brand. That’s not an accident. It signals seriousness without requiring proof. If BMW is dabbling, the logic goes, the future must be real.
The subtext is competitive federalism: states battling for the next “Silicon Valley,” with clean energy as the new industrial recruitment pitch. Hydrogen here functions less as climate policy than as a bipartisan-friendly growth narrative, a way to talk about energy without talking about sacrifice. In the mid-2000s hydrogen discourse often lived in that sweet spot: futuristic enough to inspire, vague enough to avoid the hard questions about infrastructure, cost, and who pays.
Quote Details
| Topic | Technology |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Virgil
Add to List
