plenty Issue 20 Feb/Mar 2008 | Page 39

by

David Sokol

First came the hydrogen bus (left), then comes
the hydrogen economy? Icelandic New
Energy hopes so.

Hydrogen
Boom

photo by © Icelandic New Energy

Iceland is out to prove
that it is the perfect
laboratory for research,
development, and private
investment in hydrogen power.
Will the business world listen?
When a business needs the very best engineering, it goes to Germany. For IT consulting,
give India a call. Now Iceland is carving a niche in the hydrogen fuel market. Thanks to a
new program called Sustainable Marine and Road Transport–Hydrogen in Iceland (SMARTH2), up to 40 hydrogen-powered passenger cars will be distributed to private users, showing off local expertise and moving Iceland toward a fossil fuel–free existence.
The small North Atlantic island, which barely cracks 300,000 inhabitants, can trace its efforts of
transforming to a hydrogen economy to 1978, when University of Iceland professor Bragi Árnason
first proposed that the country end its dependence on fossil fuels, all of which are imported.
Iceland is well-poised to develop and dis- tioning Icelanders’ cars and infrastructure to
tribute hydrogen, Árnason explains, because it hydrogen is realizable. If a fuel-cell vehicle
has already perfected other alternative-energy has a cruising range of 300 miles, “t o be able
networks: The water from its wet Gulf Stream to run such cars everywhere in the country,
climate and the seasonal runoff from ice caps we would need only fifteen hydrogen fueling
are converted to hydroelectricity, powering the stations.” Switching the entire vehicle fleet to
entire country; Iceland also has a long history hydrogen would, Ármason points out, reduce
of tapping into the volcanic brew beneath its Iceland’s greenhouse-gas emissions to 45
surface to heat buildings. Harvesting hydro- percent of its present level.
gen from water requires a hefty jolt of power,
The next step toward a hydrogen econobut the abundant emissions-free energy from my involves SMART-H2, which is overseen
hydroelectric and geothermal sources makes
it possible to produce and distribute fuel right
at filling stations, cheaply and cleanly.
Factor in the country’s Lilliputian dimensions, Árnason says, and the goal of transi-

by Reykjavik’s Icelandic New Energy. The
8-year-old company counts DaimlerChrysler,
Norsk Hydro, and Shell Hydrogen among its
key shareholders but has no plans to make a
profit or take on the responsibility of switching Iceland to hydrogen. Through projects
like SMART-H2, or the earlier Ecological City
TranspOrt System (ECTOS) experiment with
hydrogen fuel-cell buses, Icelandic New Energy aims to show consumers and car manufacturers that hydrogen can usurp fossil fuels.
Currently SMART-H2 has eleven vehicles on
the road, including fuel-cell cars from Daimler and internal-combustion hybrids adapted
from Toyota Priuses that are powered by gas
and compressed hydrogen. “We’re really trying to understand all the different implications
of the technology,” says general manager Jón
Björn Skúlason: They’re weighing an array of
outcomes ranging from environmental impact
and operation costs to consumers’ comfort
with a new kind of fuel nozzle.
Already, the ECTOS bus program has been
replicated in several European cities, as well
as Beijing and Perth, Australia. But a more
complete hydrogen revolution really depends
on who commercializes the vehicles and the
fuel network that will keep them running. Andreas Klugescheid is a spokesperson for BMW
North America, which is currently evaluating
its Hydrogen 7-Series cars. To build 12,000
hydrogen filling stations in Germany and
stock them with renewable hydrogen, he
says, would cost approximately €99 billion.
But Klugescheid notes that cost isn’t as exorbitant as it first appears: “Most of the necessary facilities are available for 20 years. It’s
not an annual investment.”
Skúlason admits there’s a long road ahead.
“Changing from a fossil-fuel infrastructure
to a greener infrastructure will cost a lot of
money, and the question is who will pay for
it in the beginning,” he says. “Even so, car
manufacturers and others still view hydrogen
as the solution for fossil fuels.” And certainly,
they can look to Iceland for further answers
on how to surge forward. ✤

Iceland is well-poised to develop and
distribute hydrogen because it has already
perfected other alternative-energy networks.

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