Iceland Moving to Hydrogen Economy

LordSah writes "Related to the recent coverage of hydrogen, it seems that Iceland is making plans to dump oil in favor of hydrogen produced by the country's abundant supply of geothermic energy. Iceland is being used as an experiment to test out hydrogen fuel cell technology en masse. It has backing from DaimlerChrysler, Shell Oil and the European Union. Article here."

This begs the question

[Shadarr]

Is Iceland still a country, or just a corporation specializing in outsourcing large research projects? And how many of these studies can they do simultaneously without worrying about cross-contamination of the data?

Re:This begs the question

[hublan]

What they doing, in both this case and deCode (which I assume you're alluding to) is allowing big corporations to pour millions of dollars into the economy for something that's readily available and sustainable non-polluting natural resources.

For a nation that's built its whole economy of fish and seeing the fish stocks plummet, this can only be a Good Thing(tm).

At least they're not opening up large wildlife refuges for oil-drilling.

still a country, or just a corporation?

[benjamindees]

Ha! Are you joking? Find me one that isn't.

Wow!

[nosferatu-man]

THAT [slashdot.org] didn't take them long.

(jfb)

Mentions exporting

[BlackHat]

and that they had no way of doing so.

It's hydrogen. Wrap it in a big bag and fly it to the buyer. How hard is that?? Yesh.

Re:Mentions exporting

[DietFluffy]

Maybe you intended that to be a joke, but it's not quite that simple. The hydrogen would have to be highly compressed to make transport economical. Aside from that, the storing and transporting of hydrogen gas is very similar to the handling of natural gas and propane, so they shouldn't run into any real problems.

Re:Mentions exporting

[stonecypher]

> Maybe you intended that to be a joke, but it's
> not quite that simple. The hydrogen would have
> to be highly compressed to make transport
> economical.

You mean compressed by the blimp walls, right?

(sighs) Strap a fan on its ass and it flies. How much more economical do you need to be? A car battery and a $5.99 house fan from Office Depot should get you there faster than Amtrak, anyway.

I'm movin...

[Raskolnk]

Cool. Hydrogen power, hottie blondes, and Bjork.

I'm moving in!

Re:I'm movin...

[xarfel]

Abso-freakin-lutely

Does U-haul have boats?

Re:I'm movin...

[Alexius]

Okay, I Was Reading The Comments To See If Anyone Else Thought Of Bjork, I'm Very Comforted to See I'm Not Alone.

...And Do They Have Any Decent Tech Jobs Over There?

Re:I'm movin...

[airship]

You forgot ecologically sound, naturally-replenishing hot tubs for everyone!

Solved the storgae problem

[Veramocor]

I wonder if they come close to solving the storageproblem. Hydrgogen has a low fuel value so you need a lot of it. That means high pressure tanks. Which can be expensive and dangerous.

One thing I know in Syracuse they were working on is storing hydrogen on carbon matrix.

Re:Solved the storage problem

[hij]

There's also the leakage problem. It is such a light gas that it is very difficult to avoid losing some. This means that it is beneficial to use it in very well ventilated places. The bad news: this is not what you look for in a house on Iceland!

Re:Solved the storage problem

[Havokmon]

How would that differ from propane storage? Is propane under less pressure? Is it more flammable?

Re:Solved the storage problem

[sbeitzel]

How would that differ from propane storage? Is propane under less pressure?

Hydrogen storage is different for a couple of reasons:

1. Hydrogen makes metal brittle, so that you can't store it directly in a (for instance) steel tank, but have to make the tank glass-lined.
2. Yes, propane is stored at significantly lower pressure.

The Answer is Always in Simplicity

[polyphemus-blinder]

Hydrogen plants seem to be the best bet for an oil alternative for this reason. Arriving at the best method for converting Hydrogen to usable energy is the complex part (which the Iceland project hopes to come closer to solving), but the simplicity of the Hydrogen atom just screams of beauty and power.

F=MA. Very simple. Tough shit to arrive at, though (at least in Newton's time). The same simply must be true of Hydrogen.

Hello?

[QuantumG]

Iceland has been powered on geothermic energy since 1930! Hitaveita Reykjavikur (Reykjavik District Heating) supplies Reykjavik and several neighboring communities with geothermal water. There are about 150 thousand inhabitants in that area, living in about 35 thousand houses. This is way over half the population of Iceland. Total harnessed power of the utility's geothermal fields, including the Nesjavellir plant, amounts to 660 MWt, and its distribution system carries an annual flow of 55 million cubic meters of water. The first geothermal power plant was built in 1969 when a 3-MWe back-pressure turbine was installed in Bjamarflag (Námafjall field). The total electrical production of the Bjamarflag power plant in 1995 was 11.5 Gwh. The Krafla power plant, located about 10 km north of the Námafjall field, has been in operation since 1977. Initially, the power production was 8 MWe, but reached the present 30 MWe in 1982. In 1995 the total annual geothermal energy production for electricity use was 288 gigawatt hours. The list goes on.

Perhaps a little bit of research could be done to debunk crap stories like this. 15 minutes on google is all it takes to add a little credibility.

Try reading the article first.

[DeadMeat (TM)]

I suppose they park their cars over thermal vents overnight to power them?

Re:Try reading the article first.

[webster]

They use big, long extension cords for their fishing boats. The only problem is the time it takes to untangle it all at the end of the day.

Re:Hello?

[LordSah]

True, Iceland has been using geothermic energy for their electricity needs. The article discusses using geothermic energy (I'm not sure if they use it directly or generate electricity first) to make hydrogen. The hydrogen will be used to fuel cars, busses, ships, etc.

Iceland is still dependant on oil for fuels. They aim to fix that. Maybe reading the article would enlighten you...

Re:Hello?

[stonecypher]

> Hitaveita Reykjavikur
> Nesjavellir
> Bjamarflag
> Námafjall
> Krafla

God, it's depressing when you can't even make words up for a foreign language that sound half as funny as the real ones.

Even being Norweigan (by descent, not nationality) I have a hard time imagining the population of Iceland not laughing themselves silly looking through a phone book.

Or Croatia, for that matter. If you have parents from Iceland and Croatia, and live in Hollywood, does that mean your last name is Hillary Czrzstk-Sjollboortsson?

Sorry. Back to the cage for me.

It's a nice intermediary step but

[ArmedLemming]

the future of energy is here [seaspower.com]. [Space Energy Access Systems, Inc. [seaspower.com]]

It's still in developmental stages, but it'll come to fruition and when it does we can also use Iceland to test it for the world. :)

This is from the same guy that's running the Disclosure Project [disclosureproject.org].

What about transport ?

[billcopc]

Last I heard, Hydrogen was a PITA to carry around because the particles are so tiny they tend to seep through the metal of tanker trucks, which explains why H2-powered cars aren't quite here yet (gas stations aren't setup for it).

It's also absurdly sensitive, such that you probably wouldn't want your typical 17-year-old shit-for-brains gas station clerks handling the stuff.

Not exactly new

[iiii]

This is not new, it's been going on a while, and it's been reported on extensively.

Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Letter, June 1998 [hfcletter.com]
Shell, April 1999 [shell.com]
Time, January 2000 [time.com]
National Hydrogen Association, Spring 2000 [hydrogenus.com]
Red Herring, July 2000 [redherring.com]
Fast Company, October 2000 [fastcompany.com]
ENN, December 2000 [enn.com]
BBC, December 2001 [bbc.co.uk]
etc.