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Iceland Moving to Hydrogen Economy

Posted by Hemos on from the powering-the-world dept.

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."

3 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Solved the storgae problem by Veramocor · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

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  2. Hello? by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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  3. Re:Solved the storage problem by sbeitzel · · Score: 4, Informative
    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.
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