Opposite Lock.(vehicles that seem to need immediate fuel-cell engines include personal watercraft and snowmobiles)(Brief Article)

If the engineers beavering away so diligently around the world to replace internal combustion with fuel cell electric drive wanted to do us all a really big favor, they could turn their attention away from the car for a little while and refine their devices in some other venues. My suggestion, after a vacation in the Maine woods and coast? Fuel cell-powered ATVs, personal watercraft and (by extension) snowmobiles.

As deeply appreciative as I am of the wonders internal combustion has wrought-including making the prospect of getting to Maine from Michigan and back in just one week a realistic ambition-I've concluded there are places where I just don't care to hear an unmuffled engine at full song. Not that a profession that involves listening to unmuffled engines at full song at racetracks has left me all that much hearing to use, anyway, but when I find some silence, I'd kinda like to take advantage of it.

No such luck. The resonating sounds of Dr. Otto's marvelous machine now follow people to places where neither the creator nor John MacAdam anticipated motorized transport. Places where other people are trying to escape, if only briefly, a life full of engines and the amazing things they can do.

Not that I begrudge the ATV user his access to a lumber trail, or even the personal watercraft user his unbridled freedom to churn a mirror-smooth pond into roiling mist. When getting to the trail requires 15 minutes of roaring near a camp chair where I've finally cracked open a book of short stories, though, one wonders just how big one's permitted circle of annoyance has grown.

It used to be ...