Iceland
Prepares to Quit Oil
Iceland has committed itself to the adoption of hydrogen energy in
an attempt to eradicate oil from its economy. The little island country
of 280,000 people intends to have all of its cars, buses, ships and
airplanes converted to run on hydrogen fuel cells by the year 2030.
A hydrogen fuel cell creates electricity like a battery. Unlike a battery
it doesn’t die as long as it has a constant supply of hydrogen.
The hydrogen fuel cell works by separating the two atoms in the hydrogen
molecule; one proton and one electron. The proton is sucked through
a membrane which does not allow the electron to pass through. In order
to rejoin with the proton, the electron must travel through an external
circuit. This process generates electricity. While the proton waits
on the other side of the membrane it hooks up with an oxygen molecule
before reuniting with its original electron. The final result of this
electricity generating process is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen
atom, or H2O, or water.
There are three enormous advantages to using hydrogen over oil.
The first being that the chemical reaction in a hydrogen engine requires
no combustion and consequently no pollution is produced. The product
is absolutely benign water vapour as demonstrated by the astronauts
on NASA’s space shuttle who drank the waste from their liquid
hydrogen rockets.
The second advantage being that hydrogen is the most plentiful substance
in the universe; consequently everyone would have unrestricted access
to it.
The third advantage being that oil is a non-renewable resource and
is likely to be completely depleted within decades.
The obstacles to switching over to hydrogen power, however, are significant
as well.
The first and most obvious problem is that of switching over the entire
energy infrastructure. Not only must vehicles be designed and created
using hydrogen fuel cells but hydrogen fuel pumps would need to be plentiful.
Especially since hydrogen vehicles are likely to be only able to run
for 100-150 kilometres on a single tank.
The second major problem is that it requires energy to make hydrogen
in the first place. This is partly why Iceland is the
first to attempt the change over since it sits on top of an enormous
energy supply in
the form of volcanically heated underground lakes. Iceland
will be able to make all of the hydrogen energy it will ever need.
Ideally,
other countries that lack the geothermal advantage
that Iceland has will be able to compensate with other sources of
renewable energy, harnessing power from the sun, wind
and oceans.
Still, the future looks promising, considering that several governments
and large companies (even those primarily involved in
oil-based energy) are funding hydrogen fuel research
and development. California is installing
hydrogen fuel pumps. Much of the European Union’s two billion
Euros that have been set aside for three years of sustainable
energy research is being put into studying hydrogen fuel
applications. Next
June will see the utilization of hydrogen powered buses
throughout ten European cities, including Hamburg, Paris,
Barcelona and Reykjavik.
And Daimler Chrysler, Shell Hydrogen and Norsk Hydro
are all helping to finance Iceland’s ambitious hydrogen venture.
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