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The whole idea of fuel cell technology is that hydrogen is cheap, clean, and renewable. Petroleum products like propane are limited, non-renewable resources. As they become more scarce and harder to extract, prices will continue to rise. H2 can made cheaply from seawater and solar cells. Burning hydrocarbons generates greenhouse gases and other pollutants -- bad enough outside, completely unacceptable inside -- too much CO2 or worse CO and you're down for the count.

Here's a bit on the basic science of the technology: What is a Fuel Cell?

As an aside, is it just me or does anyone else get a "SecureIIS application firewall security alert" on this animation URL?

Why? It was the flammable fabric that burned.

It wasn't the hydrogen that burnt, it was the fabric of the skin. See here for details

A link.

(This is just some text to I can get through the compression filter...)

It wasn't hydrogen burning.
From the DOE H2 website:

Did hydrogen cause the Hindenberg to blow up?

No. A recent study of the accident implicates the paint used on the skin of the airship, which contained the same component as rocket fuel.

Here.

the morons are out in droves today...

The Hindenburg's problem wasn't that it was full of hydrogen; it's the fabric the outer covering was made of that did it in.

Please read up on these things before spouting retardedness.

- A.P.

Political realities, you mean. Solar electrolysis (photovoltaic or ???) is an alternative. Hydrogen can be created in high sunlight areas whose 'usefulness' is otherwise limited (like, all of Nevada) and piped. We COULD be moving toward a hydrogen-based fuel economy, were it not for the usual gang of aliens suppressing interest. To quote Clean Air Now, "We continue to work so that, someday soon, our facility will no longer be the largest, and the only permitted, one of its kind in the country." [Emphasis mine]

Here is a link to a RealVideo entitled CORRECTING HISTORY: Hydrogen and the Hindenburg, including explanation by Addison Bain, retired NASA scientist.

If you've seen the footage, the paint may have been the cause, but the real power came from the hydrogen. The skin burns quickly, but it did not main explosion/fire.

In the documentary about it and NASA scientist and hydrogen specialist Addison Bain's inverstigation, it was highlighted that the colour of the fire and it's spread was not characteristic of a hydrogen fire:

He came across accounts of the color of the flames: bright red and orange. But hydrogen burns blue when it can be seen at all. There is no doubt that the hydrogen at that point was burning as well, but it was masked by the brighter colors of something else burning.

Also, looking over film footage of the flaming Hindenburg, Bain noticed that it remained buoyant for many seconds after the fire began; it did not drop to the ground instantly as would have happened if the hydrogen were suddenly combusted. That meant something else was burning. Finally, he noticed that the outer covering was burning rapidly, at 49 feet per second.

Acording to this article the Hindenberg Disaster was caused by "the extreme easy flammability of the covering material brought about by discharges of an electrostatic nature" and not by Hydrogen.

CargoLifter AG, plans to build an airship, the CL160, that could bear 160-ton loads across the ocean, which only boats might otherwise manage--buoyed by nonflammable helium, not the hydrogen that filled the Hindenburg.

It wasn't the hydrogen. As reported in a Channel 4 (UK) documentary, Secrets of the Dead, (and discussed on /.), the Hindenburg had been completely painted with a compound made of iron oxide and powdered aluminum, ie. rocket fuel.

It seems the Nazis were more comfortable saying that an 'act of god' had caused the freak ignition of the hydrogen in the tanks, than admit that the german engineers had deliberately painted the skin with such a substance.