What you were reading about is a fuel cell. Putting electricity into water will separate the O2/H2. If you reverse the process, you put O2 on one side of an electrically charged membrane, and when you expose the other side to H2, the H2 nucleus (positively charged protons) is pulled through, but the negatively charged electrons are peeled off and they take the long path around the membrane (passing through an electric motor on the way).

No burning, the only byproduct is water and heat. Average citizens can buy a fuel cell about the size of a refrigerator. They are expensive and you also have to find a supply of H2. I doubt you can get city code permits for a home-built electrolyzer in your back yard, and I doubt homeowners insurance will cover any "incidents".

Fuel cell "electric" cars are going to be expensive. Some German busses are using dry compressed H2 in tanks on the roof. Several Japanese prototypes are running methanol (easy to make, lots of miles per tank) that is run through a "reformer" to separate the H2, but this adds more complexity and cost.

The batteries in electric cars are recycled, but expensive to replace every few years. It looks like the fuel cell is more expensive up front, but should last decades. Also, every fuel cell car is by definition a back-up generator.

I'm not afraid to work with natural gas or propane, so H2 doesn't concern me, but you must repect every flammable gas.