Right, but also things like electricity was harnessed a mere 100 years or so after its discovery -- so it might take another 100 years before it's practical.
The other problem is that we have an infrastructure built up for electricity today. This is not the case for H2. It's not that we can't make it, but, electricity is far cheaper to transfer across a continent than H2.
But eventually research does reach a point where they make a difference to ordinary end users.