MeanGene Rants 12
March 2003
Cool
Stuff
·
Blair
Challenges Bush on Global Warming. Britain targets C0<->2 emission cuts
up to 60% by 2050, well in excess of the Kyoto http://www.observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,901189,00.html
·
Bush's
House (the WhiteHouse) Is Now Solar Powered http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/technology/circuits/27howw.html
·
Minnesotans
Power Their Farm and 80 Nearby Homes with Cow Shit http://www.auri.org/news/ainjul01/05page.htm
·
I
guess they didn't want to be outdone by the "Wisconsinites Who Make
Electricity From Duck Shit" that we reported a few months ago. http://www.wildlifehc.org/news/othernews/Index.cfm?Page=1&NewsID=22613
After
any mention of Hydrogen fuel cells gets past the Hindenberg people want to know
where the Hydrogen will come from and how will the infrastructure get built
out. This month, we look at a country that is determined to be the first all
Hydrogen economy in the world - Iceland.
With all
the talk of hydrogen power being the wave of the future, any company with
serious intentions will want to start testing it out. A lab is fine for testing
whether or not a new proton-exchange-membrane fuel cell will work, but testing
if a complete infrastructure and economy can be built around those fuel cells
requires something more. In some ways it seems inevitable that some small
region, country or island would volunteer to be the test bed.
What is
not so inevitable is that such a well-qualified contender would emerge. Iceland
has many advantages to be the test bed for the new Hyrdogen economy. Its small
population, less than 300,000, live in a small area, mostly near Reykjavik.
They are well educated (100% literacy), they have more cars per capita than
nearly any other country, and they have already undergone a major change in one
energy supply system in the last 50 years as Geothermal energy took off.
Iceland's
committment isn't just to Hydrogen power, however. They are also committed to
creating the Hydrogen itself in a renewable, non-polluting manner. Lost in many
of the discussions of the much-hyped upcoming Hydrogen economy is discussion of
where the Hydrogen will come from. While Hydrogen is the most abundant element
in the universe, one does not generally dig a hole and extract pure Hydrogen.
Hydrogen
can come from water, but energy must be supplied to split the water into
hydrogen and oxygen, a process known as electrolysis. Another option is to
extract hydrogen from natural gas, or refined gasoline. All of these processes
require energy input and most produce other waste products.
In
Iceland's case, two-thirds of their power comes from geothermal or
hydro-electric sources . The remaining one third today comes from fossil fuels.
But Iceland doesn't want to convert to Hydrogen that comes from processed
fossil fuels. They want a totally clean energy process from start to finish.
That's why they intend to replace the last third with Hydrogen produced through
electrolysis powered by electricity generated from geothermal and
hyrdo-electric power.
Producing
Hydrogen is one thing. Running an economy on it is something else. And Iceland
will have some challenges.
The
largest industry in Iceland is fishing. Fishermen are ecstatic about a chance
to run hydrogen-powered boats. They hate dirty, messy oil and diesel fuel. But
it will be a big challenge to get enough Hydrogen on the boats to enable them
to stay at sea for weeks. Many foreign companies are excited enough about the
possibility to put in money to see if the problem can be solved.
In other
parts of the economy, the transition process is already underway. Icelanders
should begin boarding hydrogen-powered vehicles this spring. DailmerChrysler is
designing Hydro-buses. Just off Reykjavik's busiest road, those buses will fill
up at the first Hydrogen filling station. Hydro-vehicles will refill like any
other, just from a different pump. One of the world's largest oil companies is making
it happen.
With an
entire economy running on Hydrogen, which in turn would be derived from
geothermal and hydroelectric power, one might think that Iceland is on its way
to having almost no CO2 output. But one would be wrong. After fishing, the next
big industry in Iceland is metal extraction, especially aluminum. The aluminum
smelting process expels enough CO2 that Iceland negotiated an exemption from
the Kyoto Protocol. And the incredible use of hydropower, especially for a
proposed new Alcoa plant has environmentalists cringing. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/16/international/europe/16ICEL.html
Nonetheless,
Iceland's vision is inspiring. The vision is a twenty- year-old dream of
Icelandic Chemistry Prof Bragi Arnason. But even for a small, highly motivated
country like Iceland, the dream will take years to reach fruition. Arnason says
"People my age will see the beginning. My children will see the
transformation. And this will be the energy system when my grandchildren are
grown. It's a good vision."
And so
it is.
A vision
for an American Hydrogen economy is now running in Wired. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.04/hydrogen.html