Hydrogen Buses In Iceland

dapyx writes "As part of the shift away from the fossil fuels, Iceland began its switch to hydrogen-powered buses, which are now used on the streets of the capital, Reykjavik. About 70 percent of Iceland's energy is already met by green power. Iceland plans to become the first oil-free country by 2050."

Comments

Hydrogen?

[Spiked_Three]

Doesnt anyone remember the hindenburg?

Re:Hydrogen?

[drakethegreat]

Yes but I also remember all the car crashes involving gasoline and explosions so I can't see that this is much more of a threat in that regard. The only thing that isn't too clever about hydrogen is that it isn't renewable. You waste energy creating it and as a result you need a few source that is actually bigger in order to use it. So fusion is still the only answer unless you want windmills everywhere you look.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Epistax]

You mean with the combustable paint, right? And the idea that it could have held helium wouldn't have saved it, where as if it had different paint it would have been fine? That's what you're referring to, right?

Re:Hydrogen?

[hopbine]

Nice troll, but the Hindeburg fire was most likely caused by the inflamable gas envelope - not the gas itself.

Re:Hydrogen?

[TheOriginalRevdoc]

True enough, but Iceland is unique in having ready access to more geothermal energy than they'll ever need. Not renewable, yes, but there's more of it around than they'll ever need, and it doesn't significantly contribute to CO2 levels.

Re:Hydrogen?

[cartzworth]

I doubt it really would have mattered worth a damn if the paint didn't burn - if you have no lighter-than-air materials inside (ie: all your hydrogen burns) the damn thing it would have dropped like a brick anyway.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Stevyn]

Yeah, it blew up just like an truck carrying gasoline would. Are you seriously trying to argue that hydrogen is not a good alternative fuel supply because a long time ago people decided to fill a huge balloon with it that had an extremely flammable outer skin while there was lighting shooting down from the sky?

If this country (USA) wants to get off its coal, natural gas, and petroleum dependency, it has to build new nuclear power plants to power homes and use that to generate hydrogen to power vehicles. No new nuclear power plant has been built since the Three Mile Island incident, which similar to Chernobyl, was a combination of untrained workers and poor design.

It's not a popular idea around here, but huge amounts of greenhouse gas and radiation could be saved from entering out atmosphere if we used more nuclear power.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else not buy this new combustible paint theory? "Thermite" or equivalent doesn't burn that fucking fast. Look at the videos.

Re:Hydrogen?

[powderbluedictator]

Each bus costs almost 2 million dollars and probably contains enough explosive hydrogen to send one of the passengers into orbit

Re:Hydrogen?

[drakethegreat]

That is true. I have heard something about that in the past. I was more referring to the fact that other nations shouldn't follow its footsteps until they pass step one which is an actual source of energy that isn't damaging to the planet and that will last a long time.

Re:Hydrogen?

[LilGuy]

Why do people insist on posting about the hindenburg every single time hydrogen - insert plural vehicles of choice here - are mentioned?

Every single time it is repudiated with numerous logical explanations, and even more scientific facts about the combustibility of hydrogen in the gasless state.

Let's just all learn something here today, so we don't have to continue the grueling cycle of wash, rinse, repeat.
Thank you.

Re:Hydrogen?

[homer_ca]

That's the catch with hydrogen from electrolysis. Sure, if you had surplus electricity and nothing else to do with it, then yes, making hydrogen makes sense. A lot of impractical things become possible with free electricity. Unfortunately, not many countries have free surplus electricity. Maybe China when they finish that huge hydro dam.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Spiked_Three]

*cough*Microsoft*bug*cough*

Actually I was trying to be funny, but i suck at it.
But I sure would like to see your suggestion applied to some other topics.

Re:Hydrogen?

[TheOriginalRevdoc]

Yes, and the only sources of helium at the time were in the USA. The German owners of the Hindenburg petitioned congress to allow access to enough helium for the airship, and at first they agreed. But they changed their minds because of Nazi government policies, and stopped the helium leaving the country at the last minute. So the Hindenburg had to be filled with hydrogen.

Re:Hydrogen?

[schtum]

Each bus costs almost 2 million dollars and probably contains enough explosive hydrogen to send one of the passengers into orbit

As long as that seat is clearly marked, I see no problem with this.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if the Hindenburg was filled with gasoline instead? It wouldn't explode?

Re:Hydrogen?

[chris_mahan]

Actually, you could charge more. I hear people are willing to pay $20M US to get to orbit...

This sub-thread is now officially closed.

Re: hydrogen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesnt anyone remember the hindenburg? Fortunately,yes. To remember past mistakes is to avoid them. With the Hindenburg incident in mind, engineers have made hydrogen technology much safer today.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's just all learn something here today, so we don't have to continue the grueling cycle of wash, rinse, repeat.

Rinse: Heh, you must be new here.
Lather: I, for one, welcome our repetative joke overloards.
Repeat: There is a 70% chance that the user "New Here" will reply to this post with the words "No, I'm New Here."

Re:Hydrogen?

[KiloByte]

It's all because of those dirty rotten tree-hugging bastards.

Nuclear power is many orders of magnitude cleaner than anything that burns fossil fuels. In fact, a nuclear plant would generate way less radioactive elements if it dumped all the waste right into the atmosphere compared to a coal plant -- and this is just the radioactive waste. Any conventional power plant will also generate an astounding amount of carbon dioxite, various forms of sulphur, etc, etc.

The main reason is, the few nuclear plants that went boom did it with a bang, while conventional fuel causes deaths silently -- usually you don't even know that you were ill because of pollution generated by those. Just alike, people are afraid of planes and not of automobiles even though the latter cause a lot more accidents -- plane crashes cause more fear than cars.

Re:Hydrogen?

[haggar]

Mod parent way up. Coal plants exhaust much more radioactive pollution than any nuke plant (at equivalent power output). Let's not even mention all other nasty pollutants that carbon or oil plants throw out.

Nuclear power is the most viable clean energy we have today. Tomorrow it will probably be fusion, but until then....

Re:Hydrogen?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the hot gasses that remain after burning the hydrogen wouldn't be lighter than air (think hot air balloons)?

I looked at your post history and noticed you've been handed a raw deal in moderation, but you're going to have to think a little bit more about your posts if you want to get out of the Score:0 pit.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Rei]

All those car crashes involving gasoline and explosions? You've been watching too many hollywood movies. To get gasoline to explode is not that simple; that's why engines have carefully designed injectors designed to vaporize it just right and in just the right mixtures with air.

Now, things that are gasses at STP are easy; this not only covers hydrogen, but also the other clean-burning favorite, propane. Hydrogen detonates more readily than propane (propane is more likely to deflagrate), but is safer on open spaces (slightly more dangerous in enclosed or covered spaces, because it collects under the roof)

Re:Hydrogen?

[Rei]

The start of the fire, yes. But the gas is clearly the main source of the combustion in the video. Now, one nice thing that can be said for it is that the flames went *up* quite easily; that's why so many people were able to survive.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the buses will return a handsome profit!

They questioned the 2 million price tag, those fools...

Re:Hydrogen?

[Rei]

You're mistaking your nuclear power PR. It is indeed true that nuclear power *currently releases* less radioactivity into the environment (excluding disasters) than coal power per MW (the last study I looked at showed that, from mining through power generation, it's about half as much). However, if you dumped all the waste into the atmosphere, you would have far, far, far, far, far more radioactive waste in the atmosphere. Even diluted across the whole planet, it would be disastrous.

In the year 2000, there were 220,000 tons of spent fuel. A ton of spent nuclear fuel emits about 200 million curies of radioactivity at time of reactor shutdown; lets just assume that worldwide the average is 100 million curies per ton currently. That's 22 trillion curies = 8.14e23 Bq. It's no laughing matter. Chernobyl only released only 2 MC and made a good portion of Belarus uninhabitable.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a new theory, it's been around since 1937. The Hindenburg's skin was covered in an acetone-based dope to which aluminum powder was added. Keep in mind that powdered aluminum is a major component of the fuel in the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. Rocket fuel is known for its reactivity, connecting the dots here isn't much of a stretch.

Also keep in mind that the flame you see in the videos is visible. Hydrogen burns with an invisible flame, so it's not the hydrogen going up in the video.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Rei]

Apart from the fact that the parent was trolling, I think it would be best described as "Every single time it is repudiated with a mixture of treating a widely controversial theory about the skin as if it's fact and a bunch of inaccurate statements about hydrogen chemistry and gasoline chemistry"....

I mean, seriously people:

1) Hydrogen *does* explode far more readily than gasoline. That's why it is the fuel of choice for deflagration to detonation transition experiments. That doesn't mean that everything with hydrogen is a waiting timebomb, but it is a fact that hydrogen is a relatively easy substance to detonate.

2) The cause of the Hindenburg fire is still unknown, but it is *not* an open and shut case that the skin was the cause; there are a number of refutations out there for that theory which show that the skin, in fact, was not that flammable. Additionally, clearly on video, the hydrogen is burning; however, thanks to the properties of hydrogen, the flame tended to be carried up and away from the passengers. Also, thanks to the poor mixing and low pressure, it was a high intensity deflagration, not a detonation.

3) Gasoline does not explode in the vast majority of situations (hydrogen and propane - gasses at STP - are much greater deflagration and detonation risks). Now, gasoline will burn hot and for long periods of time, which is it's own risk - but life isn't a hollywood movie where cars explode at the drop of a hat.

4) Hydrogen is not this low-risk substance that you portray it as; if you don't believe me, read a manual of guidelines on how to deal with hydrogen some time. Hydrogen causes embrittlement of metals, collects under overhangs (and has been responsible for blowing many roofs off at research facilities), burns hot and invisible, leaks out of far smaller pinholes than other materials, tends to flow through plumbing if it leaks underground, and all sorts of other stuff that you don't want to happen.

This doesn't mean that it can't be dealt with! But it's not some wondrously safe substance, either.

Re:Hydrogen?

[TheGavster]

The whole point is, the pollution from a nuclear plant is a heavy brick. You can take this brick, and put it in a box, and bury it. A properly made box, properly sited and cared for, will keep the brick from being released to the atmosphere. A coal or oil plant, on the other hand, releases its pollution in the form of a cloud of particles of various types, some radioactive, some merely extremely toxic, which simply accumulates in the atmosphere.

The leftover fuel would also be greatly reduced if it weren't for the fear of reactors generating weapons materials; there are reactor designs that can run quite happily on the 'waste' from a modern reactor.

As for the Chernobyl and TMI incidents, developments such as pebble bed reactors make such events impossible.

Re:Hydrogen?

[LordKronos]

If you don't buy the theory, do a google search for "hindenburg paint" (without the quotes) and see the great many people that do. The cloth covering the hindenburg was waterproofed with a flammable substance, and then it was painted with a paint containing aluminium powder, which helped to cause the spark that lit it. Oh, and don't forget that aluminum powder is also highly flammable (it's used in rocket fuel). Those few facts might shed some light on what happened.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Rei]

I personally find pebble beds scarier than modern PWRs. Using a graphite moderator and yet having no containment structure? That's crazy. For safety, I'd much rather go with a lead-bismuth breeder like BREST. No highly reactive materials anywhere in the reactor, and like a PBMR it can dissipate heat in the absence of pumps. And it's anti-proliferation, unlike PBMRs, and burns the much more common U238.

BTW, Chernobyl was a serious disaster, but why do people always cite TMI? It's not even close to being the worst nuclear disaster in the US alone. The Browns Ferry fire just four years earlier was notably more serious; of course, no nuclear disaster in the US compares to the scope of our releases at Hanford Site, which almost led to the banning of consumption of milk produced in the northwest at one point due to unusually high levels of radioactive strontium.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Rei]

Notice how both of the other replies to you used almost the exact same wording. ;) These people are all just citing the meme that originated with Addison Bain in the late 90s as if it were gospel truth - the Bain Incendiary Paint Theory (IPT).

The funny thing is, it's been incredibly well debunked:
http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/zf/L Z129fire.pd f

The main issues:

1) An electrical spark would not have had sufficient energy to ignite the paint

2) Even if there were a spark, it couldn't have jumped in the required direction (Bain indicated that it only would have worked in one direction)

3) The rate of burn of the paint is orders of magnitude too low (about 1000x), and is not "rocket fuel" by any standard. Even if it were coated with *real* rocket fuel, like used in the shuttle's SRBs, it would take 10 hours to burn. Instead, it took 34 seconds.

They address numerous other points. For example:

* You can very easily see that individual cells are burning and others not burning by the unnatural lines that the fire traces along the surface; they discuss where the cells are, and it becomes very obvious that the fire isn't spreading along the (quite continuous) surface but only spreading as new cells catch fire.

* The "color flame issue" is nonsense, because even the earliest blimps (not coated with any similar material) burned with a similar appearance (the appearance is due to the burning of the skin at such high temperatures, making it act like a glow mantle of a gas lantern).

* The tail remained level as one would expect given a huge updraft of the hydrogen that was supporting it previously and was now not only buoyant, but very hot

* The panels were not electrically isolated from each other, as called for by Bain's guesswork

* The Hindenburg had actually survived several lightning strikes in the past that burned right through the paint; plus, the Hindenburg, at the time of ignition, was wet (it was raining during approach, and was 98% humidity), making the paint even harder to ignite. The spark would have had to first vapirized the water, and then with the remaining energy ignited the paint (something lightning failed to do previously)

* Electrical current takes the path of least resistance - i.e., over the wet surface, not through the fabric. The dielectric strength of the cellulose acetate is 100kV/cm; there's no way the current would go through it.

* The energy needed to ignite the paint is 23 joules; one charged panel could have held a maximum of 0.01 joules. To get his sample to light, Bain used a bloody Jacob's Ladder on dry fabric, and even had trouble igniting it with that.

* The very reason why there are so many scraps of Hindenburg fabric available to collectors (and people like Bain) is that, once it was lifted by updrafts out of the heat of the hydrogen fire, it was insufficient to keep itself burning.

* The paint is continuous between cells (unlike Bain's mistaken conception that, because they used separate pieces of cloth, the paint wasn't continuous, and thus charges could build up). It was painted after assembly, across the whole surface.

* The wet, continuous skin, by all effective means, would be an equipotential surface. Consequently, such a spark would be perpendicular to the surface, a situation that Bain couldn't even cause to light the fabric in the Jacob's Ladder - either from the airframe to the exterior, or from the exterior to the air (coronal discharge, i.e., St. Elmo's Fire)

* The skin is not a "rocket fuel" because it has no oxidizer, which is critical to the rapid combustion of solid rocket fuels.

* Cellulose acetate (which was used) burns (relatively) poorly in air, unlike cellulose nitrate (which wasn't used) out of concerns of saftey.

* Solid rocket propellants, which it has been compared to, have about the burn rate of sparklers in atmospheric condition. However,

Re:Hydrogen?

[misleb]

Yeah, it blew up just like an truck carrying gasoline would. Are you seriously trying to argue that hydrogen is not a good alternative fuel supply because a long time ago people decided to fill a huge balloon with it that had an extremely flammable outer skin while there was lighting shooting down from the sky?

That is the least of the reasons why hydrogen isn't a good alternative fuel supply. The main reason being that it isn't a fuel supply at all. It is a storage medium... and not a very good one at that. But I guess if you are swimming in geothermal energy like Iceland is, it makes more sense to waste some of the energy using hydrogen than it does to import oil. For the rest of us, oil is extremely convenient form of energy. All you need to do is pump it out of the ground and process it a little... and maybe go to war from time to time.

If this country (USA) wants to get off its coal, natural gas, and petroleum dependency, it has to build new nuclear power plants to power homes and use that to generate hydrogen to power vehicles. No new nuclear power plant has been built since the Three Mile Island incident, which similar to Chernobyl, was a combination of untrained workers and poor design.

Sorry, the "too cheap to meter" dream died a long time ago. Get with the times, man. There are more reasons than fear that keep us from moving all power to nuclear. Fossil fuels are just too damn convenient and still plentiful enough.

-matthew

Re:Hydrogen?

[dbIII]

If this country (USA) wants to get off its coal, natural gas, and petroleum dependency, it has to build new nuclear power plants

And then charge a lot of new taxes to pay for them.

No new nuclear power plant has been built since the Three Mile Island incident

If you mean worldwide - a lot of third world countries have built tiny plants that they insist are for purely peaceful purposes - they just happen to be run by the military. If you mean the USA, the last plant was built some quite time before the Three Mile Island incident - Carter (ex-nuclear engineer) decided they were not cost effective so stopped building them. The economic model depended on selling weapons materials to break even.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Aphelion]

I think an important corrolary to what he's trying to argue is that while most of our current sources of energy are liquid at room temperature, hydrogen is a gas. Leakage from liquid is easy to detect while gas is harder. This means rising costs and liability.

Re:Hydrogen?

[igny]

Are you seriously trying to argue that hydrogen is not a good alternative fuel supply because a long time ago people decided to fill a huge balloon with it that had an extremely flammable outer skin while there was lighting shooting down from the sky?

Actually, hydrogen is not a good alternative fuel because its molecules are so small that it can penetrate stuff much more easily than, say, kerosine or propane. You just won't be able to avoid leaks of hydrogen.

Re:Hydrogen?

[cujo_1111]

So the Hindenburg disaster was caused by the US?

Re:Hydrogen?

[goon america]

No new nuclear power plant has been built since the Three Mile Island incident

Bzzzt... Error! Slashdot user failed to use Google

According to the NEI:

Newest nuclear plants/year:

1996/June - Watts Bar 1; Tenn.-Tennessee Valley Authority; 1,128 MWe
1993/Aug. - Comanche Peak 2; TXU Electric Co.; 1,124 MWe
1990/Aug. - Comanche Peak 1; TXU Electric Co.; 1,084 MWe
1990/Aug. - Seabrook 1; N.H.-North Atlantic Energy Corp.; 1,161 MWe
1990/Jan. - Limerick 2; Pa.- Exelon; 1,143 MWe

(The Three Mile Island meltdown occurred in 1979).

Re:Hydrogen?

[peawee03]

I remember reading about hydrogen fuel-cells at one point. IANAFCS (I Am Not A Fuel-Cell Specialist) but the hydrogen is stored in a metal matrix-like device that's tuned to only be able to emit enough hydrogen to fuel the actual fuel cell, even if, say, the entire storage device had all of it's protective cover removed. This is where much of the costs of fuel cells come in, as this matrix requires lots of metals like platinum.

Then again, I musta read that about 3 years ago, so I could very well be wrong.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Stevyn]

Alright, you want to be a dick about it? Well I did google it and guess what? You're wrong.

http://digilander.libero.it/newlucio/zahir/count ri es/usa.htm

Watts Bar 1: Construction began in 1973
Comanche Peak 2: Construction began in 1974
Comanche Peak 1: Construction began in 1974
Seabrook 1: Construction began in 1976
Limerick 2: Construction began in 1970

It takes a while to build these plants and they weren't going to halt construction years into the build. My point was no plant had started construction after TMI.

Maybe instead of assuming you're right because you took two seconds to google the wrong answer, you should take your own advice.

Re:Hydrogen?

[pipingguy]

Yeah, it blew up just like an truck carrying gasoline would

I used to work for the head office of a major (I.E., supplies liquid hydrogen and oxygen for the space shuttle and that sort of stuff) company, and they have a media room. Because I had access to their library of films, I checked out one which was a compilation of news reports of an overturned liquid hydrogen trailer tanker. I think it happened near Ottawa, and I wish I could post a link to the video here.

We used to transport cold boxes, which would be stencilled with PCB1, PCB2 and these were/are very large road transported loads c/w police escort in many cases.

That was a pretty big event for some small towns and once the train was stopped by a local official because of concern that the "PCB" designation referred to hazardous materials.

Re:Hydrogen?

[macdaddy357]

Oh! The Humanity!

Re:Hydrogen?

[Catbeller]

The Hindenburg disaster was caused by an arc that ignited the thermite-like metallic paint that covered the airship. There was no way the skin would have stopped burning, helium or no helium.

But, yes, the U.S. embargo on helium to the Germans was the reason the airship was full of hydrogen -- which was not what the designers intended.

Re:Hydrogen?

[haggar]

Chernobyl only released only 2 MC and made a good portion of Belarus uninhabitable.

Just a small correction: Chernobil is in the Ukraine, not Belarus.

Re:Hydrogen?

[RWerp]

Helium is very expensive compared to hydrogen.

Re:Hydrogen?

[RWerp]

Which does not change the truthfulness of the previous post. The fallout was taken by the wind to Byelaruss.

Re:Hydrogen?

[zoney_ie]

> No new nuclear power plant has been built since the Three Mile Island incident, which similar to Chernobyl, was a combination of untrained workers and poor design.

Unfortunately, the problem is that one has to expect that these will always be with us. Never underestimate the ability of even a very *well-trained* person to do something incredibly stupid. The results are seen all the time, but unlike with a nuclear power plant, for most other things in life we can cope with the results of accidents. Personally, the prospect of even one Chernobyl-like accident/incident is a lot less appealing than, well, a big whopping huge fire, or oil spill, or such. Even toxic chemicals and gas emissions are not quite at the same level (for one thing, Chernobyl could have been even *worse*!) despite occurances such as the Bhopal disaster (again, ultimately you have to account for some people not taking safety seriously and companies behaving in an appalling money-grabbing fashion).

Re:Hydrogen?

[Shakrai]

Unfortunately, not many countries have free surplus electricity. Maybe China when they finish that huge hydro dam.

I don't think you'll see any surplus electricity from the Three Rivers Project. At 18,200 MW it's pretty impressive and is 10% of China's current electric requirement.... but that's "current" not "future" (they are trying to achieve an American standard of living -- obviously that is going to suck down more KwH then the current standard -- for better or worse depending on who you ask) and even 10% of your total energy requirement isn't "free surplus electricity".

Granted Hydro is always impressive and with our current technology it's about the best possible option all around on a cost and environmental basis with nuclear fission being a close second (great for the environment -- expensive as hell though). Yeah I know building dams sucks (ugly, hurts the river ecosystem) but they are better then a coal plant spewing radioactive materials, acid rain and huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Re:Hydrogen?

[danheskett]

Or, perhaps, instead of resting the fact that the airshp was full of hydrogen on the US embargo, you can look one step deeper into the problem and assign some weight to the fact that US restricted trade with Germany because of the Nazi government.

Re:Hydrogen?

[danheskett]

And that decision to keep us relying on oil for power generation rather than nuclear power has really worked out in the long run, hasn't it?

Re:Hydrogen?

[Scarblac]

Thanks! I always believe the burning paint story, thanks for the information.

Re:Hydrogen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fool!!! Gasoline is 100 times more explosive than Hydrogen. Most people died from the Hindenberg becuase they jumped hundreds of feet to their death. Those that stayed on the blimp survived (mostly)...
Another Reason the world won't go to H2 because twits like you.

Re:Hydrogen?

[MtViewGuy]

I think the big problem with the Hindenberg was the fact the canvas covering doping compound was a combination of nitrocellose and aluminum powder. These are the EXACT ingredients used in modern solid rocket fuel engines, so when the canvas covering ignited (remember, Hindenberg had flown near a thunderstorm before landing and had built up a pretty substantial charge of static electricity, so it was in danger of igniting from any static discharge) the explosion was very violent and it ignited the hydrogen gas pretty quickly, too.

We now know that the Zeppelin company did an accident report on the Hindenberg crash in 1938 that cited the flammable nature of the doping compound, but that report was surpressed by the Nazi government for various reasons. We also knew that in the short-lived Graf Zeppelin II (LZ130) that they changed the mounting bolts for the outer airship cover to bronze in order to avoid the static discharge that doomed the Hindenberg.

Re:Hydrogen?

[billanderson71]

Interesting, I had also thought that it was the paint.

Actually, the most interesting thing is that most of the passengers were unharmed, and walked off the ship, because it settled fairly slowly (when was the last time that most of the passengers survived a major air crash?)

Re:Hydrogen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you've done any research, the Hindenberg didn't burn because of the hydrogen. The germans used a gasproofing product that was highly flammable. (it was actually a derivitive of one of their attempts at rocket fuel) If you watch the video of the disaster, it's the skin that is burning. And if you think back to your highschool chemistry class, and the experiment with the balloon, hydrogen doesn't burn in that manner.

Actually, Gasoline (liquid and gaceous form) is more explosive than hydrogen both in gas and liquid form. And you drive around with a tank full of it in your tank all the time.

Re:Hydrogen?

[haggar]

It does because none of Belarus has been evacuated much less made uninhabitable.

Re:Hydrogen?

[dbIII]

And that decision to keep us relying on oil for power generation rather than nuclear power has really worked out in the long run, hasn't it?

A country that does not want to admit the possibility of global warming is not going to be interested in this other perceived benefit of nuclear power. Where I live the choice is simple - there are plenty of other resources and not the cash or military drive to fund the incredible capital cost of nuclear power, so nuclear power is going to be laughed at as an option by even the far right. The USA already has some nuclear power infrastucture and the political desire to justify the existing plants, so the die hards have not given up hope and have freshly arrived greens to blame for their own incompetance of years past. Stop screaming about how we can have free electricity if only the greens didn't stop you - it all stopped long before they turned up, and Reagan and Thatcher were certainly not greens but didn't get a single nuclear plant built between them in their long terms.

Nuclear power just didn't live up to it's 1950s promises - where it was just some sort of proof that nuclear science could be used for peaceful purposes. Hospitals and industry have proved that. The next nuclear energy that will be cheap and safe has been just around the corner for fifty years, the current plants promised that but did not deliver. On paper nuclear power is ideal for using the excess to generate hydrogen - but the reality is different (I'll come out and say the books are cooked via subsidy etc. - British Nuclear Fuels runs at a huge loss but we are expected to beleive the USA plants make huge profits via magic, while a lot of info is not disclosed). Currently aluminium smelters are built where there is plentiful cheap electricity. Strangely enough you don't see them near nuclear plants. Loud advertising is no substitute for reality.

Re:Hydrogen?

[RWerp]

Of course it was! Only recently, Lukashenko is inviting people to settle in these areas, stupid bastard he is.

Misconception

[tepples]

Iceland is rather green. It's Greenland that has the ice.

Re:Misconception

[Anonymous Coward]

Iceland is rather green. It's Greenland that has the ice.

Really?? Those tricky bastards!

Re:Misconception

[tuxter]

It was decided to name the countries this way for tourism. Iceland had too many visitors, because it is truly stunning, so they named it iceland to deter excess tourism, the opposite for greenland. I do find it highly ironic though (in nomenclature only)that iceland is using "green" busses......

Re:Misconception

[mute47]

Oh... so the ice and snow I see through my window (I'm icelandic) is just me becoming colour-blind? I actually rode one of those buses just last Tuesday, funny seeing it on Slashdot.

Re:Misconception

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh... so the ice and snow I see through my window (I'm icelandic) is just me becoming colour-blind?

You are just trying to further the original propaganda that you shouldn't move to Iceland but you can try Greenland. It's a conspiracy man.

Re:Misconception

[Flamefly]

He said rather green, not totally green.

Even in your super pedantic mode, answer the following:

Which country is more covered in ice and snow, greenland http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Countries/Greenland/1 74_2.html or iceland http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Countries/Iceland/185 .html.

Exactly, Greenland.

Sheesh.

Re:Misconception

[krbvroc1]

Is this a trick question? The Greenland photo is obscured with some type of white stuff. Maybe a better link is needed?

Re:Misconception

[mute47]

Sorry... it's just that the weather here has pissed me a bit off.
It's been swingin from -5C to -15C for the last days.
It makes riding the bus a lot less fun...

Re:Misconception

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus they have Bjork! That instantly makes any country at least 40% cooler (I mean in terms of style, as opposed to climate.)

Re:Misconception

[amgqmp1]

Thank you for sharing this. I just yelled it at the wife...and she's apparently one of the tools that didn't learn this...in the third grade! ;-)

Re:Misconception

[FuturePastNow]

He was referring to the colors on the world atlas, where Iceland is indeed green.

Re:Misconception

[Anonymous Coward]

the parts of Greenland that were settled by Scandinavians a 1000 years ago were, (and to an extent, still are) covered in vibrantly green grass. They certainly wouldn't have had any knowledge of thousands of kilometres of ice in the interior, but where they were in Greenland really was Green.

Re:Misconception

[shokk]

Um. No. No, man, it doesn't. Seek help now for your Bjorkophrenia.

Re:Misconception

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't expect to wield supreme coolness just 'cause some watery tart dressed up like a swan batted 'er eyelashes at you!

Re:Misconception

[Spunk]

Hahah. Nice.

Hydrogen from where?

[GrouchoMarx]

Honest question here. Isn't one of the best sources of hydrogen for such things hydrocarbons? Which are plentiful in, you guessed it, oil? Breaking water is not very efficient and requires electricity in the first place. So how does a "hydrogen economy" free us from dependence on oil? Where does the hydrogen come from that it's so clean?

Not intended as a troll, honest question.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Nasarius]

So how does a "hydrogen economy" free us from dependence on oil?

It doesn't. It simply centralizes it. Think of hydrogen fuel cells as good batteries.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they use geothermal energy to create steam that drives turbines that generate electricity that is used to crack hydrogen.
Iceland is quite active geologically.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[stratjakt]

Well, part of the theory is that the hydrogen engine should be twice as efficient as a gasoline/diesel one, so it makes up for the inefficiency in creating the hydrogen.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[poopdeville]

Yes, you're right.

The difference is that hydrogen generation is to be done in large, centralized, high efficiency plants. Car engines and the like are nowhere near as efficient in converting fossil fuels to energy as a smartly designed hydrogen plant would be. And converting hydrogen into energy is trivial.

But until we find a source for elemental hydrogen, we're still reliant on fossil fuels. The term "hydrogen economy" refers to the use of elemental hydrogen as an "energy currency."

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google?

Hydroelectric, Wind power, Geothermal, Solar power, Solar Catalytic power, and Nuclear power (just to piss off greenpeace).

Rat in a wheel?

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[JJ]

/fISo how does a "hydrogen economy" free us from dependence on oil?

It doesn't. It simply centralizes it. Think of hydrogen fuel cells as good batteries./fI

Only if you generate your electricty by burning hydrocarbons. Iceland does not.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[gl4ss]

iceland has lots of thermal energy for effectively "free".

elsewhere, you got this 'nukularrrr' reaction that you can use to create power to break down that water. but don't tell the ecomaniacs, they wouldn't want you to save the earth.

(honestly, that's just about the only REALISTICAL option for breaking water down to hydrogen on big enough scale. hydrogen is just a way to store energy in this case and the energy HAS to come from somewhere, and the 'eco' sources are not that plentiful or viable to be used in the scale that replacing oil dependency needs.. my opinion? that we won't move into such direction on large scale before we have fusion as viable energy source)

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Surt]

The 'hydrogen economy' is ideally built on fusion/wind/solar/geothermal (clean) power sources. The hydrogen is just a storage medium (battery) for the power that has been generated in some other way.

However, even if you use oil/coal to generate it, generating power at centralized facilities and distributing clean hydrogen enables efficiencies of scale and superior disposal methods for your ugly by-products, so it can still be a big win.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[GrunthosTheFlatulent]

Eventually, there will be cleaner sources of hydrogen. One thing at a time. Today, we can start to convert existing systems to be hydrogen powered. Tomorrow's goal will be to find easier ways to aquire it. (Such as finding a cheap way (wind/solar) to get electricity to strip the hydrogen from water.) The point is that gasolene is going nowhere: it will never be clean, and it eventually will run out. With hydrogen, there is a logical path to a "hydrogen economy".

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[aldoman]

Electrolysis is VERY efficient. Try doing it sometime. Get a 9V battery and a cup of water. Connect them up.

As you will notice, you'll have hydrogen bubbling and virtually NO heat. Heat is the waste product here. There is no heat, so there is no waste (more or less).

What you are referring to is the fact that it's a very energy-expensive process. But so is electrolysis in aluminium - the price of which is around 90% of the cost of the electricity - yet tonnes upon tonnes are made. The people that discovered how to get the aluminium we use today thought it'd never be used because all they had was batteries (in 1825) and as such put it down as an interesting, but not very useful, discovery. Nowadays the world wouldn't be the same without it.

What if we discover a 'cheap' nuclear fusion process in 5 years, after the G7 realise that yes, peak oil is a problem and pump trillions into research? Hydrogen would be a great energy carrier. Let's face it, if you could 'fill up' your hydrogen car overnight in the garage for $1 because electricity is so cheap thanks to fusion, everyone would choose it, even if it had a 270mile range (which I suspect will vastly increase with time).

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[chris_mahan]

Can we not use sea water to generate the Hydrogen (plenty of that in iceland too) and since the oceans are rising... well...

I know it's inefficient. But then again if you can make the electricity anywhere and not have to carry it hundreds of miles over power lines, you wil gain some efficiency.

Plus, no power lines.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Humorously_Inept]

Hydrogen can also be had from ethanol, which can in turn be produced the good old fashioned way: a little yeast, a little hops, a little barley, etc. It's still cheaper to make ethanol from fossil fuels, though, and reform it. I think that the current process of reforming methanol brings hydrogen power down to internal combustion levels of efficiency and still uses petroleum...

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[barawn]

Note: all fuels are just batteries. They've got stored energy which was built up by some process - in the case of fossil fuels, it's solar energy from a long, long time ago, combined with gravitational potential energy (from being squished under things).

Isn't one of the best sources of hydrogen for such things hydrocarbons?

Hydrocarbons have hydrogen that's easy to liberate - that is, you'll get more energy out of burning hydrogen than by separating it. You get less energy than you would by just burning the hydrocarbon, so if there was no other source of hydrogen, it'd be stupid.

However, hydrogen happens to be, shall we say, extremely plentiful.

Where does the hydrogen come from that it's so clean?

The sky. Well, only on a miserable day - more likely, from lakes and the ocean. That is, water.

Of course, it takes more energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen than you get by burning the hydrogen (but not much more - it's just efficiency factors here). So you need some way to generate that energy. Thankfully, you can just use electricity - and there are plenty of clean ways of generating electricity. You could even imagine geostationary solar power satellites beaming power down to water electrolysis hydrogen plants, if you want to be really silly. Other than spreading water around the country and the slightly increased heat generation, there's no environmental impact.

The entire point of the hydrogen economy is that while we can generate electricity, electric cars, to put it mildly, suck, because batteries suck. So even if we could replace all those power plants, how would we replace the oil we use to move cars around? And that's where hydrogen comes in.

Personally, I prefer hydrogen over other fuels (biodiesel) because hydrogen is essentially infinitely scalable, whereas biodiesel definitely has an upper limit. Our desire for fuel seems to have no bound, so replacing one solution with a scaling problem (oil) with another one (biodiesel) seems silly. Until we have portable fusion generators, hydrogen is probably the farthest-scaling solution, so it's nice to not be pansy and go for the best option.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Anonymous Coward]

we're still reliant on fossil fuels.

Iceland runs on geothermal power. They can win.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Anonymous Coward]

Geo-RTFA-thermal power, troll.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Osty]

even if it had a 270mile range (which I suspect will vastly increase with time).

That's all the range I get out of my gasoline-powered car!! I average 250-280miles per 13.5gal fill-up, or around 20mpg. Pretty good for a sports car. Of course, that's with a lot of conservative driving, keeping the revs between 2000 and 3000 and puttering along in 5th gear when cruising. If I really wind it out, my mpg is much worse. The worst I've done was around 8 or 10mpg, and that was during an afternoon of driving laps at the local track (I had to fill up halfway through the afternoon).

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[tswann01]

Nuclear power, for one, can be used to crack water and create hydrogen. However, as you and Mother Jones note, hydrogen does not necessarily reduce dependence on oil.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[schtum]

Rat in a wheel?

With distributed computing catching on, this might not be such a bad idea. How many people own or otherwise use exercise equipment? (i know, wrong place to ask). It shouldnt be too hard to convert those machines into generators and have them dump their power into the grid. Individually, each person may generate an insignificant amount of electricity, but it all adds up.

I'm picturing a World War II style government propaganda blitz with "victory workouts" replacing victory gardens.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

The sun... All we have to do is modify one of the shuttles with regenerative-multi-vector-ablative-reverse-the-pol arity shielding and go get some, there's plenty up there.

But, in all seriousness, solar power to run electrolysis of water

285 KJ per mol of water.
1370 W m^-2 at the upper atmosphere, since I have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER how much is absorbed by the atmosphere, I'm going to knock 90% off for the value on the surface, 137 W m^-2. Halve it (for the fact that the extreme north doesn't really face the sun) 68.5 W m^-2 and get 20% of that value for what a solar cell would get out of it 13.7 W m^-2. 5.7 hours for each sqr meter to produce enough energy to make 1 mol.
Now, iceland could probably spare ~ 1000 Km^2. 1 Km^2 is 1,000,000 m^2, so 1000 of them is 1,000,000,000 m^2.
In 5.7 hours that's 1 (US)billion mols of water electrolysised. Or, to put it differently, 20803 sqr meters are required to get 1 mol in a second. 48070 mols per second. Now, a mol = 6.023 x 10^23 molecules of water, that's 2.895 x 10^28 hydrogen molecules per second.
(PV/nT)=R. at STP (T=273, P=1.013x10^5), n is the number above and R = 8.31, V is:
V=nRT/P
V=465.8 cubic meters of hydrogen. Per Second. That's 40,245,120 cubic meters per day.
Now, I suspect that my original energy input is wrong, that it won't be 100% efficient and that iceland probably doesn't want to dedicate 1000 Sqr Km to solar panels, but that's still quite a lot of hydrogen, particularly for a country with a population like that of iceland.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[nathanh]

Honest question here. Isn't one of the best sources of hydrogen for such things hydrocarbons?

Yes, but it's not the only source.

Which are plentiful in, you guessed it, oil?

Also vegetable oils.

Breaking water is not very efficient and requires electricity in the first place. So how does a "hydrogen economy" free us from dependence on oil?

Because you can use any energy source to make hydrogen.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[TexVex]

Other than spreading water around the country and the slightly increased heat generation, there's no environmental impact.

The article points out that in The Hydrogen Economy, water vapor released by hydrogen fuel cells might act as a greenhouse gas and trap more solar heat. Or, it might increase cloud cover, reflecting away more solar energy and cooling the planet.

Or, it could have no effect at all.

The point is, it's not 100% certain that there is no environmental impact.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[MrPC81]

Then you get to use the same energy source ten times over liquifying the hydrogen for storage and transport. It's ridiculously inefficient, and til we get fusion or zero point energy (GET BACK TO REALITY), it ain't going to work.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

just replying to myself, 20 million cubic meters per day, the sun only shines for 1/2 a day on average
I also didn't point out that if this were extended to the polar ice caps then the radiated heat that would otherwise be absorbed by the ice would now be absorbed by solar panels, helping to cancel out the rest of the worlds hydrocarbon-burning evilness melting the ice and drowning the Netherlands.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[WindBourne]

Actually, the oil industry is pushing the stripping of H2 from oil. At the moment, it does tend to be cheap.

But there are new ways being developed to break h2o. Several have come through here. One was in Australia using Solar. Another was in Utah using nuclear (heat and electricity) power. Both have good potential for the future. In addition, using alternative power enables the splitting when the alternative is running vs. needing it at a certain time of day.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[MoP030]

Ah, i have to disagree. Having spent my early youth with chemistry mostly, electrolysis was my neverending source for fun things like hydrogen, oxygen and chlorine. I started with batteries which indeed produce no noticable heat. For economic reasons i soon switched to a different setup, connecting the transformer for my model railway with a crude rectifier made from scrap parts from a tv, thus being able to use the power outlet in a safe manner. To my disappointment, I couldn't use maximal setting on the transformer, or the water would start heating up to the boiling point. That is to say, any industrial sized form of electrolysis produces can produce a lot of heat.

Infact, the usual process of producing Aluminium is electrolysis of certain Aluminium salts, as you mentioned. The salt has to be molten first in order to be conductive at all, but after that the heat from electrolysis in sufficient to keep it molten and melt the salt that is added to sustain the process (at several hundered degrees Celsius).

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're probably going to run out of oil by 2050, so Iceland won't be the only country without oil... everybody will! ha!

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[ltbarcly]

You dope. Water vapor as a greenhouse gas? CRAP. We had better get a big pool cover for the ocean.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Sciflyer]

http://www.dpi.wa.gov.au/fuelcells/hydrotech.html

"Steam reforming of natural gas is currently the most widely used and economical method of producing hydrogen. Close to 98% of hydrogen is presently generated from fossil fuels such as natural gas."

"For the purposes of the Perth Fuel Cell Bus Trial, the hydrogen used will be produced as a by-product from BP's Kwinana oil refinery."

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[igny]

Electrolysis is VERY efficient. Try doing it sometime. Get a 9V battery and a cup of water. Connect them up.

And where do you get the 9V battery?

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[ShimmyShimmy]

Actually, while Hydrogen does replace gasoline in your car, calling it 'fuel' is somewhat misleading.

Perhaps I should start by defining 'fuel', at least for the purposes used here. I consider 'fuel' a source of useful energy in the Earth. The absolute, indisputable answer here is oil. Other notable sources are Geothermal, Hydroelectric, Wind power, and solar power. Biomass (burning wood, or burning oils extracted from plants like peanuts) is another source.

For the purposes of cars, it is more preferable to think of Hydrogen as a 'battery', a portable energy source, not necessarily available from earth. Current 'batteries' are gasoline for gasoline engines, and chemical batteries (Alkaline, Nickel-Metal Hydride, car batteries), and others. Although AA batteries are not exactly found in nature, they're clean (on the consumer end), and very portable. However, no battery currently in existance is light, small, and cheap enough to really power cars with enough range and power to be widespread useful. That's why 99.999% of car owners don't have electric cars.

Anyway, having a hydrogen engine/reactor, and a tank full of Hydrogen is a much better source of portable energy than a traditional battery, and emissions from Hydrogen cars are MUCH cleaner than gasoline cars.

Here is where I get to the root of your question. The Hydrogen does have to come from somewhere. It's not readily available in any equivalent of an oil well, so it has to be produced. The #1 method of producing Hydrogen, or producing the electricity necessary to produce it, sadly.... is Oil.
However, there are advantages to producing the Hydrogen in a single-site plant as opposed to burning oil in cars everywhere. It will eliminate being stuck next to a tractor/trailor or bus emitting sickening/cancer-causing fumes. Toll collectors and most anyone that lives in the city should have cleaner air.

However, the ultimate goal here is to eliminate the oil as the fuel at the start of it all. Hopefully, sometime in the future, most or all of our energy needs will be satisfied exclusively by solar energy, hydroelectric power, geothermal, and the like.

Biomass poses an interesting potential for fuel. Biodiesel engines can run on crop-based oils, such as peanut oil, and soybean oil. Perhaps one day, excess crop land can be used to produce 'oil' instead of food. One can only wonder. Or write a science-fiction novel.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Yazeran]

Wrong!

The problem with hydrogen generation from anything other than either renewables and/or nuclear sources is that the net polution (radioactive waste set aside, see below) to the environment is larger than that caused by normal internal combustion engines. One reason is that converting hydrocarbons to clean hydrogen (without carbon dioxide/monoxide) is not easy and costs energy.
An other reason is that hydrogen is not easy to store as many others have said. It is bulky and has hte ugly habit of leaking through almost anything (creating a hydrogen tight valve is not trivial (contact NASA if in doubt)). Furthermore, the cost in materials and energy to create hydrogen storage tanks for vhicles also create pollution whereas normal gas tanks are cheap to produce both in energy and materials.

Granted in the case of busses and lorries hydrogen fuel may be a viable option, but in the case of private cars it is not! (economically and environmentally that is, Politics is another matter entirely).

The only thing hydrogen fuel does is it mooves the pollution somewhere else.

In the case of hydrogen production through electrolysis, the process is ineffective and unless there is a source of cheap energy handy (in the case of Iceland, geothermal and hydroelectric) it would be economically impossible as noone would like to pay twice the cost for hydrogen fuel instad of normal gas added to the fact that a hydrogen powered car would cost more than a normal car.

In the case of nuclear energy, this is also a viable soruce. The problem with waste can be properly managed if the waste is deposited in underground caves drilled in stable precambiran shield areas like Eastern Canada, South Africa, Vestern Australia or north east Scandinavia
These areas has been geologically stable for the last 500 Million years. I this is not enough, deposit the waste in an area of the Mariana trench and let natural subduction processes carry the waste underground into the earth's mantle.

Yours Yazeran

Plan: To go to mars one day with a hammer.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[Oddly_Drac]

"Isn't one of the best sources of hydrogen for such things hydrocarbons?"

Not really. Water is better.

"Breaking water is not very efficient and requires electricity in the first place. So how does a "hydrogen economy" free us from dependence on oil? Where does the hydrogen come from that it's so clean?"

If this isn't a troll, then you're being deliberately obtuse. You may not have noticed, but electricity doesn't have to come from oil.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[TexVex]

Yes, water vapor is a greenhouse gas. Here is a link..

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[ltbarcly]

Of course it is. But then again, WATER IS EVERYWHERE. This is Earth. That blue stuff you see from space? That's water. If you actually believe that water released into the atmosphere by humans can have any effect at all, then we:

have to ban
tea and coffee
spagetti
macoroni and cheese
in fact, ovens
microwaves

since all cooking requires you get something that is wet very hot.

Are you people actually stupid enough to believe that we need to be concerned with releasing water vapor into the atmosphere? Because that is pretty damn stupid.

Re:Hydrogen from where?

[barawn]

The article points out that in The Hydrogen Economy, water vapor released by hydrogen fuel cells might act as a greenhouse gas and trap more solar heat.

The article neglects to realize that you can also have fuel cells which generate liquid water.

Hence the "spreading water around the country".

I hate the term "green power", article full of shi

[stratjakt]

Hydrogen, tested in buses from Amsterdam to Vancouver and used in the rockets of the U.S. space shuttle, is a clean power that promises to break dependence on oil and gas -- at least in Iceland.

Except that hydrogen isn't found, or mined, it's created. Either from fossil fuels or by electrolyzing water, which requires electricity, which comes from fossil fuels.

How are they generating the hydrogen?

It's easy for iceland to claim 70% "green" because geothermal heating is a real option for them. The air is cold, the earth is hot. It doesn't work for most of the rest of the world. There's nothing for me to dig into but cold muck and the chesapeake watershed.

Totally oil free?

[SpamSlapper]

"Iceland plans to become the first oil-free country by 2050." Wow. That's impressive. So they're not going to use any products made from plastic, or oil-based paints, lubricants, etc?

Re:Totally oil free?

[jj_johny]

Yeah you should see their seal skin case mods. And their ICs encased in whale blubber. And everything at the grocery store comes in dried gourds .....

Re:Totally oil free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that is correct.

Re:Totally oil free?

[DaHat]

I'm sure one can live without oil based plastics or paints... but without oil based lubricants... one wonders how they will keep their cars running and their sex lives lively.

Re:Totally oil free?

[martinX]

Water-based lubricants for keeping the sex lives lively.

Re:Totally oil free?

[geekfat]

Don't forget tires...they're made from oil, too.

Re:Totally oil free?

[donnz]

Whale oil? Its organic and renewable.

Re:Totally oil free?

[adeyadey]

"Iceland plans to become the first oil-free country by 2050." Wow. That's impressive. So they're not going to use any products made from plastic, or oil-based paints, lubricants, etc?

If we stopped burning oil, it could then be more slowly used to provide plastics for millenia to come - without releasing very much CO2..

By the way it would also be possible to synthesise Hydrocarbons - although currently this would be very expensive..

Re:Totally oil free?

[Pyromage]

Yes, if they stopped burning oil they'd have more oil for other uses.

Which makes them oil-free how exactly?

Re:Totally oil free?

[LWATCDR]

Or have any airlines or fishing boats or ships. It IS possible to power aircraft with LH2 but the real problem is that it is not very energey dense. Not to mention it has to be kept very cold.

Re:Totally oil free?

[MobyDisk]

Because we won't be burning them. That's really the problem. I don't care what we dig out of the ground.

Re:Totally oil free?

[Pyromage]

That's not really the problem, because we're still consuming it. It may be at a slower rate, but we still are. No oil-burning is a good step to take, but it's not a solution. It's a patch, because we haven't the foggiest idea how to live without oil.

Recycling isn't a solution either, because you don't get 100% back.

We'll still be heavily dependant on materials that we'll run out of and can't synthesize or replace.

To claim 'oil-free' is just fucking stupid.

Re:Totally oil free?

[jonbrewer]

"Iceland plans to become the first oil-free country by 2050." Wow. That's impressive. So they're not going to use any products made from plastic, or oil-based paints, lubricants, etc?

By 2050, I'd expect so. Plenty of plastics, paints, and lubricants made from biomass today.

http://www.google.com/search?q=soy+plastic

Now whether using soy-based plastic is actually more efficient than using oil-based plastic is a different story, but oil has all sorts of political/social/economic inefficiencies that just don't show up in the base cost of production.

Re:Totally oil free?

[DaHat]

Sadly whale oil is rarely an option due to the opposition from Greenpeace and other nature first groups.

Re:Totally oil free?

[marko123]

I replaced plastic products by shitting into moulds, made out of my shit.

I fart into my laptop's power supply, and use saliva to lubricate myself.

I shower in my own urine, and the water never comes out of the tap cold.

I'm totally 2050 already, but no-one will talk to me anymore.

Re:Totally oil free?

[Brandybuck]

Pastic and gasoline aren't an either-or product of petroleum. In the process of distillation you end up with gunk suitable for making plastic *AND* gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and other stuff the chemical industry uses.

So we're STILL going to have all these volatile petroleum products. All we've done is change from plastics being a byproduct of gasoline, to gasoline being a byproduct of plastic. What do we do with all those nice volatiles? We can't pump it back into the ground. I say if we have them we might as well use them.

Re:Totally oil free?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't scale well, though. My whale farm was a disaster.

Anyone need a really big fishtank?

Re:Totally oil free?

[randallpowell]

Water-based lubricants don't deteriorate condoms. Just ask Goatse.

Re:Totally oil free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez - Oil free in the sense of no energy from oil. Get that stick out of your arse, please. Energy is >90% of oil's use, the rest is more or less noise.

Re:Totally oil free?

[hthb]

They are talking about oil as fuel. (I'm from Iceland, so I should know)

Re:Totally oil free?

[zsau]

How about coke and chips, they both have oil in them too! And while we're misinterpreting the point, what good's a country without any people in them? we've got oil in us too!

Re:Totally oil free?

[adeyadey]

If you want to be pedantic, ok. But the original author was talking about the BURNING of oil, which is probably the #1 current concern - ie CO2 & global warming, etc. Current projections suggest a more-than 10 degree rise by 2099 - that would be utterly catastrophic.

Re:Totally oil free?

[adeyadey]

There are plenty of oil products that are used both for burning as well as for other (non-CO2 yeilding) product production. The vast bulk of oil is burnt - even the heavier hydrocarbons. We would need to pump far less if we used oil to make plastic& other products only - particulatly if we were a bit more careful about wasting plastic.

If you want an example of wastage, check all the plastic you are throwing away from the stuff you buy next time you go to the supermarket..

Re:First post!

[Anonymous Coward]

So Iceland is using green energy. Is Greenland going to switch to ice energy? (I know, boooo)

Re: "first poster"
All that work and you're still a dumbass. And you didn't get first post.

Natural gas is the alternative source for Hydrogen

[arfonrg]

It's also a C with a bunch of H's hanging off.

In the case of Iceland...

[temojen]

Electrolysis of water, powered by geothermal energy.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[DaHat]

Yours is the first post I have seen to mention the key point.

For those not in the know: Iceland is blessed with an abundance of geo-thermal energy which dramatically lowers their electricity and heating costs.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[chris_mahan]

Which makes me wonder: Since they can generate the hydrogen super cheap and other countries can't, why can't they export it?

That would be a good source of revenue.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no reason why they can't export it. I bet right now though, that even with Iceland exporting Hydrogen, it would still be cheaper to get Hydrogen from hydrocarbons. I'm sure this will change of course.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[Surt]

Hydrogen is hard to ship and to store. Those are two of the main sticking points preventing rapid adoption of hydrogen for energy storage.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[chris_mahan]

Much harder than natural gas?

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[bozojoe]

Actually some time ago (4 years, I forget the article) Iceland was going to build a hyrogen gas pipeline back to europe and become the Kuwait of Hydrogen.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[Elwood P Dowd]

That's ok, they'll just export their Kyoto treaty credits and make a fortune. They'll be the Kuwait of kyoto treaty credits.

That would be a better source of revenue. Icelanders got made.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[rco3]

Actually, I think I recall that containing H2 IS a lot harder than containing natural gas. Something about the fact that a pair of H's is a lot smaller than a few H's hanging off of some C's, and thus the H2's tend to migrate through the container walls. H2 also has to be pretty cold to get liquified, IIRC.

However, I'm an EE not a ChemE. I could be mistaken.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[MrPC81]

Insanely harder than Natural Gas. And even Natural Gas is impossible to ship between continents in any serious volume (the load from an LNG tanker would barely keep the lights on in any serious size city for a few days, weeks if everyone was an energy miser).

If you have a source of carbon dioxide handy, you could just convert the hydrogen to methane (2H2 + CO2 = CH4 + O2) and just have the end users burn the methane in an internal combustion engine instead. Or use steam reformation to re-release the CO2 and split it from the Hydrogen.

Anyway, Hydrogen has a very nasty habit of leaking from just about every containment vessel ever produced. When it leaks, it goes up. Due to its extremely low weight, it reaches escape velocity and goes into space, though there's a good chance some of it will do a bit of melding with atmospheric ozone on its way up and even further wreck the ozone layer.

If we produce heaps of hydrogen and half of it ends up going into space, even if the energy source for producing the hydrogen is renewable, the fuel certainly isn't.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[MrPC81]

So I guess all the technical reasons why it can't (or probably shouldn't) be done should just be waved off.

What fuel source would the hypothetical tanker ships use anyway? Diesel?

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[Surt]

Yes, much harder than natural gas.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[MrPC81]

Absolute Zero: 0 Kelvin
Freezing point of Hydrogen: 13.97 Kelvin
Boiling point of Hydrogen: 20.41 Kelvin
Mean surface temp of Pluto: 53 Kelvin
Freezing point of Water: 273.16 Kelvin
Boiling point of Water: 373.16 Kelvin

How much energy do you think it would take to keep Hydrogen in that six and a half degree window so that it is liquified for transport but doesn't freeze and break the tanker in half? Then relate to that to the (rather low) energy value of the Hydrogen. Is it worth it?

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[Anonymous Coward]

duh dont freeze it then. ship it as a gas :P

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[nathanh]

Absolute Zero: 0 Kelvin
Freezing point of Hydrogen: 13.97 Kelvin
Boiling point of Hydrogen: 20.41 Kelvin
Mean surface temp of Pluto: 53 Kelvin
Freezing point of Water: 273.16 Kelvin
Boiling point of Water: 373.16 Kelvin

How much energy do you think it would take to keep Hydrogen in that six and a half degree window so that it is liquified for transport but doesn't freeze and break the tanker in half?

Not much energy at all. You're not considering the pressure. High pressure, high temperature, still a liquid.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[BigDumbAnimal]

Does Hydrogen expand when it becomes a solid like water does? I honestly don't know, but I do know H20 is the exception and not the rule in that regard.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[MrPC81]

You have to liquify the hydrogen or else the energy content of your shipload would barely be enough for half a day's trade at the typical gas/petrol/whatever station.

Also, if you ever wanted to use Hydrogen for freight, short of refueling your truck or train every few miles, you'd need liquified hydrogen.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[mute47]

Actually, Iceland comes quite close to filling its Kyoto treaty quota on pollution, mainly because of its fishing fleet (old diesel engines).
Please log out and try again.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[MrPC81]

Whether it does or doesn't expand, can you think of any alloys that would last long under those extreme temperature and pressure conditions, particularly if they are being drained and refueled regularly?

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[FuturePastNow]

Electrolysis of water, powered by geothermal energy.

Which reinforces the need for nuclear power in countries that aren't so geologically active.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[hpa]

Rather low? Hydrogen has the highest specific energy of any chemical fuel.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[MrPC81]

Diesel 129,000btu/gallon
Gasoline 115,400btu/gallon
E85 105,545btu/gallon
Propane 84,000btu/gallon
Ethanol (E100) 75,000btu/gallon
LNG 73,500btu/gallon
M85 65,350btu/gallon
Methanol (M100) 56,500btu/gallon
CNG @ 5,845 psi 56,500btu/gallon
Liquid Hydrogen 34,000btu/gallon
CNG @ 3,000 psi 29,000btu/gallon
Hydrogen @ 3,000 psi 9,667btu/gallon

Nope, Hydrogen in fact has the lowest energy density of any chemical fuel. Even liquified you need over three times the volume to replace unleaded gasoline at the same application.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[dmaxwell]

Hydrogen has a low critical temperature. The 33.7 Kelvin critical temperature must be attained or no amount of pressure will suffice to liquefy it. You gain less than twenty degrees Kelvin in exchange for a fairly insane amount of pressure in your storage vessel. Any cryo buffs want to work out what that pressure is?

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[temojen]

By mass, not volume.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[pipingguy]

So does hydroelectricity, which is abundant in Quebec. There was a recent H2 "explosion" here but no one heard about it - nobody was hurt.

I'm looking forward to the next generation of hydrogen systems and generation plants - a lot of it depends on teams from multiple disciplines working together effectively.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[Tuzanor]

I beleive that water is the only substance that expands when frozen, which is unique to it's molecular structure.

Everything else shrinks when it cools and expands when it warms.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[Yazeran]

Not to mention Huge amounts of hydroelectric power of which they only utilize a small amount of already (there is approx 50K people on Iceland and they canntuse more electricity).
There is actually some investigations going on about the feasibility of constructing an under-sea high tension power cable from Iceland to Europe to allow larger use of the power avaliable on Iceland.

Yours Yazeran

Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[MHerzog]

Actualy "Electrolysis of water, poserd by hydroelectric energy". Basicaly, we are in the proccess of putting a dam in (almost) every single river in the whole country. Google "karahnjukar" if you want som more info.

Regards from Iceland.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[AGMW]

Well, better still, and much easier, why not simply export the cheap electricity? Couldn't they lay a power cable to Scotland and sell their surplus power to Europe? Sure be good for Europe to get some clean, green electricity! A nice export for Iceland too.

Then anyone who want's Iceland's "hydrogen" could simply buy the electricy and generate the hydrogen as they need it.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[stiggle]

I'd have thought it would be a little too far for current cables to export the electricity.
You would need some very low resistance cables (probably super conductors) to be able to transmit the power that far.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[Dal Platinum]

last I heard, the population was closer to 280K. But still not enough to use all that power. That must be a nice situation.
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/factbook/ic/p opula.html

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[ajs318]

Well, you could fit them with sails and use wind power! The only problem with this is, since a H2 molecule is so small, almost anything you try to contain it in is going to leak ..... so a vessel full of hydrogen is technically "perishable goods".

Another interesting question concerns the oxygen which is a waste product of electrolysing water to get hydrogen. If you stand too close to wherever they're venting it off, what is your chance of spontaneous combustion?

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[kroatinn]

I haven't read the compleat thread, but just to answer this question as simply as possible. We couldn't make enough hydrogen to power the city of Berlin for 5 hours even with all our electricity and that includes the electricity we don't produce yet. btw I am an Icelandic chemist working on the hydrogen project

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[tetsuji]

Freezing hydrogen would not break the containment vessel. Water is one of a relatively small number of chemicals that increases in volume as it freezes - the vast majority of chemicals (and, I believe, all elemental substances) decrease in volume as they freeze.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, power is transmitted this distance very routinely in the US.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[gl4ss]

*Re:In the case of Iceland... (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 13, @01:58PM (#11350958)
Nah, power is transmitted this distance very routinely in the US.*

not really, just because you insert the power into the grid at the pacific doesn't mean it's the same electricity that you get from socket in new york. or is there a region the size of iceland-scotland gap in usa that doesn't have a power plant of some sort in it? i doubt not.

Re:In the case of Iceland...

[rco3]

Are you asking ME if it's worth it?

Hell, no. I don't think so.

However, I just pointed out that hydrogen is hard to store and transport.

Personally, I think that improved battery technology and a serious commitment to fusion is the best way to improve our personal transport energy issues.

Until then, though, gasoline and diesel have the unfortunate advantages of being cheap*, energy-rich, and relatively stable at room temp.

*At least around here, a gallon of gasoline is about 2/3 the cost of a gallon of milk. And there are some idiots paying more for a point of water (Penta? Please!) than for a gallon of gas. Even in Europe, gasoline is cheap *considering what it does*.

Oil free?

[agm]

I predict we will all be oil free by 2050 - because there won't be any left! Well, not the kind that gets sucked out of the ground at least.

Re:Oil free?

[thebes]

The foreheads of greasy McDonalds minimum wage burger flippers will be our new source of oil! They will become a) rich because we're all buying oil off their foreheads or b) incredibly poor, because they'll be stripped of all rights and put in McD's for the rest of their natural (and unnatural) lives to have all the oil possible drained from them.

Re:Oil free?

[nuclear305]

Oil free by 2050? I guess those robots won't need fossil fuels.

Re:Oil free?

[iggymanz]

that's fine, there's no other way people will be motivated to get into a sensible long-term energy supply than to use up the fossil fuels. The sun is where it's at!

Re:Oil free?

[grqb]

I doubt we'll be oil free. Oil is used for everything. 1 calory of food has 10 calories of hydrocarbons in it (and this doesn't include transportation of the food). There will always be oil in the ground. The theory of peak oil says that there will always be oil in the ground but once we hit peak oil we'll never be able to increase the rate of oil extraction, which means that unless we find another energy source, we won't be able grow economically since economic growth requires energy growth.

Isn't this the place...

[cartzworth]

Isn't this the place where they use thermal springs from the earth for energy?

Progress

[zachthemagictaco]

Ah, finally. All these years of speculation, the United Nations, and treaties is resulting in something.

Of course, the U.S. doesn't approve of this, as we reject the Kyoto Treaty.

Re:Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

The Kyoto accord is crap. China is exempt, and they are well on their way to being a huge polluter.

Re:Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Accord#Current_ positions_of_governments
read

Re:Progress

[j0e_average]

I did. The world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China. Yet, China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. This is a challenge that requires a 100 percent effort; ours, and the rest of the world's. America's unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility. To the contrary, my administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change. Our approach must be consistent with the long-term goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Sounds pretty reasonable to me. China signed on because it was exempt...the better question would be would they have signed on had they not been exempt? Hmmmmmmmm? The stream of bullshit emitted from the UN is nothing but fuel for smaller countries to put blame on the US for something or another.
Well, you'll have a new whipping boy soon, and his name is China...and he doesn't give a fsck what the US, UN, EU, Amnesty Internation, et.al. thinks... Count on it!

Re:Progress

[stratjakt]

Kyoto has nothing to do with the environment. Even the best estimates if it worked have it lowering our mean planet temperature of a couple hudredths of a degree over the next few centuries.

Kyoto is all about redistributing wealth to other countries. Bush was right to reject it.

Re:Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

The UN? Hahahahahahhaaha

Ask someone from the Congo about the UN.

Re:Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

I think if the US had that kind of geothermal enery per person, it would move to the same solution

Re:Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Well actually its like 1C lower by 2100. But your post should be modded informative and not funny...

Re:Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Kyoto is not the end-all and be-all of emission reduction, but we as a species have to start making changes somewhere to reduce the negative impact we are having on this planet we live on.

Rather then ride around on your high horse complaining how unfair Kyoto is to America, why don't you americans go it alone and come up with your own plan that has some substance to it.

Wonder why the world doesn't love you as a becon of hope and freedom (and trust me they don't)?

It has to do with America always putting it's own interests/profits ahead of everyone else on the planet. (WMD/oil in Iraq, supporting dictators in Pakistan & Saudi Arbia and other places, not signing the Landmines treaty, torturing prisoners, not paying it's members fee at the UN, ...)

Re:Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, redistribution of wealth would be the best means against terrorism. But hey, try killing another hundred thousands people in the years to come, see if that helps...

Re:Progress

[vidarh]

Kyoto was a starting point, not the goal. As the US behaviour has shown, it was a fairly optimistic starting point. Trying to go further right away would have been counterproductive as it wouldn't have had a snowballs chance in hell of actually being supported by enough countries.

Complaining that something isn't effective because it doesn't do enough isn't exactly a good reason to reject it - it's a good reason to adopt it AND push for going further.

Re:Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

ever heard of term : a bunch of small ones, make a big one, you have to start somewhere, you low life bush voter;

we live in a world where guns are perfectly legal but some plants are considered illegal and not even allowed to do scientific research on them, and we live in a world where registered /. users support the rejection of its participation in safing the planet in a desperate 1st global (small) step and support a war between the most powerful country and a 3rd world country for the cause of greed and national benefit

way to go, ur logics rox

Re:Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got to be kidding, right? Please tell me your kidding? You aren't that stupid are you? Let me guess, government school?

Re:70%? Impressive.

[elhaf]

You've got it backwards. Iceland is Green. http://weecheng.com/europe/greenice/greenland/gree n1.htm

Hydrogen

[Antonymous Flower]

Why hasn't this been adopted in the US?

Also:
"With almost unlimited geothermal energy sizzling beneath its surface, Iceland has ..."

Do not let the Bush family know about this!

Re:Hydrogen

[tswann01]

From TFA:

Other countries, such as the United States, where President Bush is a strong backer of hydrogen, face a far tougher path.

(emphasis mine)

So that's what we're plundering Alaska for -- their vast hydrogen reserve.

Seriously, where did that unattributed assertion come from?

Re:Hydrogen

[line.at.infinity]

Iceland (and Hawaii) are on , which aren't man-made. It will be very difficult for non-Hawaii USA to pull off the same stunt.

Re:Hydrogen

[line.at.infinity]

(sorry, messed up the HTML)
Iceland (and Hawaii) are on geothermal hotspots, which aren't man-made. It will be very difficult for non-Hawaii USA to pull off the same stunt.

Re:Hydrogen

[spac3manspiff]

" Why hasn't this been adopted in the US? "

Did you forget that place called the Middle East.
Even if the USA pushed for green fuel, the middle east would strike back in retaliation. You really think they will let us simply sit back while we take theirprimary source of money.

Re:Hydrogen

[emjoi_gently]

Iceland is reasonably wealthy, tiny population that mainly lives in a small part of the island, with major natural resources.

A very enviable, and rare, situation to be in.

Re:Hydrogen

[Anonymous Coward]

afaik the saudis and their fellows are already preparing their economy for the oil-free future as they know it'll come since there they will run out of oil someday

2050 should be a interesting year

[Class Act Dynamo]

First the robots will win the World Cup then Iceland will become oil free. 2050 will be marked down for ages as a year of great change and upheaval.

Re:2050 should be a interesting year

[Antonymous Flower]

Hydrogen powered robots from Iceland?

Re:2050 should be a interesting year

[adeydas]

you mean people travelling in a hydrogen powered car to watch a robotic football match, please be serious.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[Anonymous Coward]

From geothermal power. Iceland has lots of volcanic activity, hot steam vents and such. They will use that power to produce hydrogen.

Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Why?

Thanks to Iceland being basically one Giant Volcano, they've lots of Free Geothermal energy to make electricity and (bonus bell rings) it's surrounded by water. Put the two together and bingo: hydrogen.

It's going to be funny to see the Icelanders, who are already an incredibly literate and well educated people, will do with all the loot.

Personally, I look forward to our new Viking Overlords.

RS

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Mike Hawk]

It's going to be funny to see the Icelanders, who are already an incredibly literate and well educated people, will do with all the loot.

If they know whats good for them? Guns. Lots of guns.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect; Icelanders are a snobbish, lazy and more-or-less insane (bjork) bunch. I'd rather have americans (shudder) living on iceland than the icelanders themselves...

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect; Icelanders are a snobbish, lazy and more-or-less insane (bjork) bunch.

It seems to be working okay for the Saudis. </humor>

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[fm6]

It's one thing to make enough hydrogen to replace oil in your own country, But it would take a lot of power to generate enough hydrogen to become a major energy exporter. I don't know the figures, but I doubt if all of Iceland's volcanos between them (I think there are about 20) generate enough energy to do that.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[YrWrstNtmr]

It's going to be funny to see the Icelanders, who are already an incredibly literate and well educated people, will do with all the loot.

Until the Giant Volcano they are living on burps, and tosses them off into the sea.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Anonymous Coward]

Iceland has no army and relies entirely on the United States for its national defense. Food for thought.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[sabinm]

I don't understand: WHAT exactly will Iceland be exporting that will make all of them billionaires?

Saudi Arabia is rich not because it USES oil, but because it EXPORTS oil. Exporting hydrogen is stupid. exporting electricity is impractical. What they can export (for a limited time) is technical expertise and technology. That will only last until the quickest reverse engineer takes and improves on the process.

The United states, Canada, Russia, and other countries of that size will NEVER run out of available energy: they have a magnitude of the same resources that Iceland has. What they lack is the polictical will to bring about new processes of energy harvesting. That political will is bound to get stronger once they face the oil shortage brought on by our less developed neighbors paying higher prices for the fossil fuels and we can't afford to subsidise the oil prices anymore.

What we need to look out for are laws and regulations prohibiting private citizens from producing their own energy, or patents raising the barrier to purchasing simple fuel cell/hydrogen producing technology. As it stands, the technology is tightly controled and prohibitively expensive. The greatest fear of the 21st century will not be lack of abundance, but artificial scarcity in the form of patents and lawsuits forcing those capable of producing their own energy to purchase energy from designated suppliers.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Sabinm completely missed the point in writing:

I don't understand: WHAT exactly will Iceland be exporting that will make all of them billionaires? Saudi Arabia is rich not because it USES oil, but because it EXPORTS oil. Exporting hydrogen is stupid. exporting electricity is impractical. What they can export (for a limited time) is technical expertise and technology. That will only last until the quickest reverse engineer takes and improves on the process. The United states, Canada, Russia, and other countries of that size will NEVER run out of available energy: they have a magnitude of the same resources that Iceland has.

Ummmm, no.

They can export Hydrogen. Why? Because Iceland is mostly a rocky desolate volcano witha cold surface, and it is surrounded by a few thousand miles of the North Atlantic Ocean. The Volcano they call "home" provides the entire country with free electricity i nthe form of Geothermal energy. They are barely tapping the energy of the place. All they need do is exploit the geothermal energy to crack te water and make hydrogen, and then sell it to the Americans.

Bingo. Instant Billionaires.

The USA does have extensive geothermal sites - Yellowstone park is a perfect example. but if you turned that into a water cracking plant, every Greenie would come out of the woodwork and decry the loss of Yogi's wilderness. There are some other sites that have decent geothermal: Hawaii, Parts of CA and NV. But NV has no water, and where CA has geothermal is nowhere near the water.

Iceland has both. In spades.

It's really pretty simple math, really. Also: Iceland has a BIG incentive: their present main industry is fishing. As the fish stocks dwindle, they will need a new industry to pick up the slack. Cracking water will do nicely.

Your notes re: the regs and patents is valuable, but beside the point. An even greater point beyond all that is the fact that there are too many god damn people and if we reduced population, none of this would be a problem. But that is also besides the point of the discussion.

Go to DIEOFF.ORG for details.

RS

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Iceland at one time (I don't know if it is still true) had the most per captia Internet users, they even had the USA beat.

Maybe they'll use the money to actually make IPv6 a reality. :)

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of the atlantic ocean as a big asphalted motorway. You can go in whatever direction you want. And you've got the fuel to do it. And then you can sell the fuel you got leftover. Doesn't this spell big money?

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[anticypher]

sabinm so succinctly puts it "I don't understand"

As someone living with an islandur, and having worked in Iceland a few times, there is a lot of 21st century products they can export. Knowledge, information, and beautiful women (and guys, supposedly, I'm no judge).

Iceland has an amazing internet infrastructure and very cheap electricity. I'm always astounded when I visit, because everyone leaves the heat (100% electric) turned up 24 hours/day, leaves their computers on all the time, have broadband and use it as much as I do. Their electricity is about 3% the price of what I pay at home, basically close to free. If you live with an Icelander, its a constant battle to get her to turn off lights when leaving the room, keep the heat at a reasonable level and turn it down at night.

On top of extremely cheap energy, they have good schools, excellent health care, and a standard of living supposedly the best in Europe (couldn't possibly be, beer is too expensive). The only downside is the constant rain and occasional snow. With fish stocks in the north atlantic dwindling, they are turning their skills towards information, the petroleum of the 21st century. Reverse engineering and process improvement are becoming their stock in trade, and slowly they are coming around to the idea they have to train up their young people to the highest level possible in fields like Information Science. The biggest problem is that when they send their young people to universities in Europe and America, there is a tendancy to stay abroad. They return when starting a family to take advantage of the social safety net that doesn't exist in places like America.

Don't discount Iceland, they do have a political will to make significant changes, and a per capita GDP to make it happen.

the AC
I can't believe I'm defending Iceland on /.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[zsau]

Please, I'm already obsessed with Iceland. At least one great band comes from there (Agætis Byrun), and they have a very nifty orthography! (English could do with thorns, eths and ashes ... it's no surprise they were invented in our very own language!)

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Cally]

IIRC, Iceland has one of the world's highest rates of chronic alcoholism.

Hmmm, cheap mass transit, interesting geology and climate, isolated from the outside world but with good bandwidth, and plenty of drinking budies... sounds like an ideal place to live! And best of all, Bjork's not there any more :)

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Mike Hawk]

Ah, so we nearly need threaten to remove such protection to get what we want. Carry on Iceland.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[CaptainCarrot]

Yeah, why'd ðey get rid of ðose, anyway? And let's bring back ænd yogh ænd wynn while we're æt it! Ðe more letters ðe better if you æsk me!

I'm going to look even sillier than usual if ðese don't come out right.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[zsau]

I think I'd rather leave wynn to history. With a thorn and p already, you wouldn't be able to tell if I was talking about wee or pee! Yogh would also have a somewhat limited application---if we spell vocal Y with I and delete/rewrite all cases of GH to represent the phonetics, when would we use yogh?

But we stopped using them because Americans only put twenty-six letters on the keyboard, so it was impossible or difficult to type them.

That is to say, we stopped using them because ash merged in sound with E or A; the French invaded not just England but England's orthography, and Dutch printers (who introduced printing to England) only put 52 letters in their fonts, and the damn English were too lazy to insist on a thorn. Also, the English had dodgy handwriting and thorn developed into something that looked like a y (hence Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe).

OTOH, in Iceland, the sound represented by ash remained distinct from A and E, the French never invaded, and the Icelanders tapped their geothermal energy to reduce their consumption of oil, meaning that they had more money to spend on fonts containing the necessary letters.

So in short, as in all things: Blame the French!

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[CaptainCarrot]

I'll have to add this to my List Of Things To Blame The French For. I'll put it right below Soft Cheeses You Have To Eat With The Rind On.

I had a look at your blog, by the way. Traditional mead isn't really undergoing much of a revival here, at least as far as what you can get commercially. I live not too far from the winery that makes Chaucer's Mead and the way they make it it's more of a sweet dessert wine. The real thing is more beer-like. I tried making some Monastery Mead once -- this is the Russian style you can still find over there. It's actually hopped, and when I tried it I wished I'd primed the bottles. It was rather like a slightly sweet flat beer. I suppose beer and ale used to be flat too, back when they brewed it wooden kegs.

Ironic that you're mostly finding American resources. About the only reference I could find about it at the time, other than a Russian cookbook, was a little booklet at the local homebrewers' shop written by a couple of Englishmen. (This was mostly, but not entirely, pre-WWW.) They advocated strongly the wine-style, with threats of disapproval from your peers if you were to go public with any other kind.

Monastery mead isn't too different from this one. The recipe I used expected you to rely on wild yeasts for fermentation and wanted you to expose the finished must (or maybe it's a wort in this case) to the air for a while to collect them before capping it off with the airlock. I got penicillium in my first batch instead, and ended up using an ale yeast. I don't recall that fermentation took anything like a month, but YMMV I suppose.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[zsau]

Traditional in the sense of nothing but honey, water and yeast (and chemicals), not in the sense of the way it was made/drunk in the old country. But anything I say about America is obviously based on hearsay and conjecture from the net, so it can't be trusted further than you can throw it (and it's very hard to throw speech any distance!). In Australia, on the other hand, I think there's maybe one commercial meadery and it's damn near impossible to find their stuff.

I imagine anything written about mead by Englishmen probably uses the nasty Imperial measurements. At least you know what a pound is, and how many ounces there are in a gallon, even if they're different sizes!

I think including hops and using an ale yeast in your mead makes it work out quickly; it ferments more like beer than wine. But I'm just going by what I see on the Internet, for all I know it could be ready by Sunday. I've never fermented anything else before (well, except bread dough). And maybe some fruit I forgot to throw out---but you get what I mean.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[CaptainCarrot]

Yup, them good old-fashioned chemicals!

It might be easy to get the wrong impression from the Web, just as you could from, say, my immediate circle of friends. Mead is popular among Renaissance Faire particiapnts, English Civil War re-enactors and other Living History actors, all of whom have webpages, but relatively few others.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[zsau]

Well apparently some sulfite or other has been being used since Roman times at least :)

But read the first sentence of About Mead and see where I got mislead about mead's popularity.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[sabinm]

I didn't want to mention it in an already lenghty post, but here goes.

You have a commodity.
You want to sell the commodity.
You want to get rich.
You charge a price based on scarcity.
Someone pays.
News gets around.
More people want to make money selling the commodity.
You have to decrease price.

HYDROGEN IS NOT SCARCE

The minute you start producing hydrogen and selling it at a profit is the same minute you go bankrupt.

The US doesn't need geothermic resources. It's got wind, water, nuclear, solar, natural gas,
anything it wants to to start the hydrogen generating process. None of these things is overly scarce in the U.S.

Take wind for instance. Say Iceland was charging 10 dollars a barrel of hydrogen. Nebraska decides that's a pretty good industry, invests 25,000,000 in wind arrays, creates a 5,000,000,000 hydrogen plant and starts selling hydrogen for 7.00 dollars a barrel. Not only is it cheaper to transport it, nebraska can retrofit exisiting pipelines in the states to channel Hydrogen. In a matter of 5 years, a small state in the U.S. with a relatively small population outsells Iceland with room enough left to export cheap corn and wheat to our unfortunate Northern Islanders. Hydrogen is NOT LIKE OIL. You can't get rich off of selling it if you can't control the manufacturing process. Oil is controlled now by politcial borders and the labor intensive extraction process. Both of those obstacles dissapear with hydrogen. Hydrogen does not belong to any part of land, country or person. Ideally a person could produce hydrogen (a family of five by taking turns on an excercise bike hooked to a generator sustaining themselves with banana rice and the occasional fish) by his or herself. Most likely we'll have hydrogen produced like ice is produced in the states. Cept for CHEAPER because hydrogen is even more plentiful than clean, drinkable water!
But I'm making this too long.
Iceland won't get rich off of hydrogen. Unless they can keep expertise at a high enough level to make it cheaper to import hydrogen than to brew it in-house. I don't think that's possible. I could be wrong. But this tech has existed for years.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Thundersnatch]

An even greater point beyond all that is the fact that there are too many god damn people and if we reduced population, none of this would be a problem.

Finally, a world problem you Europeans can't blame us Americans for!

Oh wait, you want us to pay for rubbers and abortions for India and Africa now, right?

It is often said that talking about "population control" is the politically correct way a white liberal expresses his racism.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[Bake]

A nit to pick but...

That band would of course be Sigur Rós whose list of albums includes Ágætis Byrjun.

Re:Iceland is the Saudi Arabia of the 21st Century

[zsau]

Erg, I knew that. I was just listening to Ágætis Byrjun at the time.

Peak Oil

[aking137]

Iceland plans to become the first oil-free country by 2050.

Best of luck to them: lots of people out there are saying that we're going to reach peak oil (the point at which supply of oil can no longer meet demand) much sooner - in which case, Iceland and, well, every other country won't have any choice but to be almost entirely oil free by 2050.

If only every country was at least this forward thinking and we didn't all take energy for granted.

Here's a few references: 1 2 3 4 5 or just Google for peak oil.

Re:Peak Oil

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a few references: 1 [oilcrash.com] 2 [oilcrisis.org] 3 [peakoil.net] 4 [dieoff.org] 5 [after-oil.co.uk] or just Google for peak oil [google.co.uk].

The scariest part is, based on those domain names, we know for sure that the reports are 100% unbiased and accurate.

Re:Peak Oil

[HermanAB]

Yeah well, we are ALWAYS 50 years away from running out - simply because it is uneconomical to spend more money on searching for oil if you know that there is 30 to 50 years of supply left.

Re:Peak Oil

[Alioth]

Pity all the references are alarmist sites with no more credibility than the National Enquirer...

Geothermal is useful

[Coryoth]

It's the geothermal power that Iceland has in abundance that's a big help here. There's absolutely no shortage of it available. I guess the key is that Iceland has made full use of it for their energy needs. Not all countries have it quite so easy with readily available energy sources, making the 70% of energy needs from green power a little harder to attain. Then again, a few steps in the direction of energy efficiency could actually make significant impact in some of the countries guilty of rather conspicuous consumption when it comes to energy (not pointing any fingers or anything...)

It is good to see countries taking positive steps though: if you have a surfeit of electrical power readily available, why not make the move to hydrogen powered transport? Hopefully a few other countries that are naturally well stocked in clean electricity generation (eg. those with a good supply of, for example, hydroelectric power) can make similar moves. The road ahead looks like it will be an interesting one.

Jedidiah.

Green power?

[deblau]

Where does the Hydrogen come from? Electrolysis. Where does the power to do that come from? In Iceland, it's geothermal. The US doesn't have nearly enough geothermal / solar / wind / whatever deployed to have similar results. Good for Iceland, but don't get your hopes up in the US.

Re:Green power?

[rainman_bc]

Well let's face if if the US hangs on and stays with dirty power sources while the rest of the world converts, they'll have the highest energy costs in the world. Sooner or later we WILL run out of oil.

Re:Green power?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there is always nuclear, albeit everyone is scared silly of anything nuclear or radiation. Despite its dangers and radioactive waste, nuclear power can't be any worse than destroying the ozone layer.

Re:Green power?

[mattyrobinson69]

Would iceland (and other countries sitting on volcano's) beable to make enough hydrogen cells to supply the whole world?

Re:Green power?

[thegameiam]

The key in what you said is "deployed" -

The US has some ability to use wind, geothermal, and hydro-based electrical generators, and a greater ability to use solar and nuclear (not nuke-uler, no matter how many times the President says it that way).

The big problem in coming up with energies which don't pollute is that they aren't particularly mobile - all of the above methods require multiple acres of land per plant to be effective (except solar, but that requires a big set of batteries for cloudy days...)

What hydrogen gives us is fuel which is MOBILE, and more effective than our current chemical batteries.

So if we move toward a hydrogen-powered car/truck/bus/whatever, then we will have a smaller number of pollution generators. Yes they'll pollute MORE than the cars did, but when we focus our effort to grab the extra 2% (or whatever) efficiency out of the plant, we'll get a tremendous benefit. That's much easier than trying to get the same 2% bonus on umpteen bazillion cars/buses/trucks/whatever...

Re:Green power?

[dbIII]

Where does the power to do that come from?

The Canadians could probably sell you some hydrogen made via cheap Hydro. Or the nuclear lobby could push through a carbon tax on all other sources of power to make nuclear look cost effective, and then make some more expensive hydrogen.

Re:Green power?

[gnuman99]

Nuclear power is also green power.

Re:Green power?

[campaign_bug]

On the contrary, if the US actually invested in photovoltaic arrays in the desert, wind farms in the mountains, and employed hydroelectric power stations along its coast, it could easily produce enough electricity to power the splitting water molecules. Of course, thats easier said than done, but the end of the oil-based economy is coming anyway, so you might aswell invest now and save yourself a lot of hassle in the future. Of course, nuclear fusion is also another potential energy provider that may be available to the world in 50 years time.

Err ....

[taniwha]

wont this leave the streets full of exhaust (ice) in the middle of winter ...?

Re:Err ....

[Locke2005]

Uh, the streets are _already_ full of ice in the middle of the winter. They will probably just pelletize it so it rolls to the side of the road. But the impact should be minimal compared to the several feet of ice and snow they already get...

Re:Err ....

[haggar]

Iceland has very mild winters, thanks to the northatlantic conveyer.

Now, if the melting of the ice stops it, then things could turn ugly for them. But so will for Britain and most of Northern Europe.

Re:Err ....

[Mechcommander]

Actually, the Gasoline + Heat chemical reaction produces water as one of its' main by products. The only problem is it produces an assortment of other toxic gasses, but mainly carbon monoxide.
So, when Hydrogen really does come around, you'll be seeing that same cloud coming out of everybody's exhaust pipes on a brisk winter day.

Re:Err ....

[balster neb]

I got to ride on a Hydrogen bus in Perth, Australia recently. Even though it was a warm afternoon, there was a considerable amount of visible vapour trailing from the back.

I was wondering, if a large number of vehicles on the road are hydrogen fuel cell powered, won't there be a big problem of the vapour affecting visibility for drivers? I wonder how that will be dealt with.

Just a thought.

Re:Err ....

[randallpowell]

Great, I can practice drift racing as seen on G4! Seriously, ice isn't needed but it adds an element of randomness to it. Yes, I was bored in Michigan.

Re:Err ....

[Anonymous Coward]

The roads here in Reykjavík are already filled with ice, so its a good thing so many people here are buying big fuel sucking american Pickup trucks to get around :S

Re:Err ....

[STFS]

Well, I don't think that's gonna be a problem here.

We have a lot of ice and snow on the streets already and the way we get rid of it... salt! Big trucks with salt drive around and spread it all over the streets. This melts the snow and ice but does a terrible job on your car! I for one am refusing to wash my new car until spring when they stop putting salt on the streets. This is done in Reykjavik at least... most other towns don't do this and just accept that the road may get slippery.

But as the article stated, scientists do worry about another problem. The fact that this vapor comes from the exhaust, once all cars have this it might become a problem that the air humidity might rise and block sunlight. Whether that's something that really deserves worries I'll leave up to the scientists.

Energy independence is a national security issue

[Camel Pilot]

Replacing foriegn oil imports is vital to continued economic growth and ensuring security for any nation or society. A country would be foolish to place their bets on a resource that is dwindling and susceptible to manipulation by foreign interests. The good news is that it is mearly a technical problem but the lead time requires planning and foresight - which in some unnamed countries is sadly lacking.

Anyone interested this topic should checkout the Rocky Mountain Institute and read up on the ideas of Amory Lovins.

Vapor Cloud !

[hopbine]

According to the article - "some scientists say the atmosphere might simply become too cloudy in a hydrogen economy, emitting vast amounts of water vapor" I have never heard this before as a reason not to to use hydrogen. Surely any combustion engine will produce water vapor - does Hydrogen produse more than gasoline ?

Re:Vapor Cloud !

[adeyadey]

It looks very much like a bit of a lame counter-argument - I doubt there is any real evidence that the scale of threat is comparable to the danger posed by CO2.

Burning Hydrocarbons does indeed produce H20 - but part of the reaction is generation of CO2 so it is not as much as burning Hydrogen does, admittedly.

Re:Vapor Cloud !

[mark-t]

Yes, but not significantly.

At worst it might rain one more day out of the entire year.

But the rain would be clean, because there would be no pollution.

Re:Vapor Cloud !

[ChrisMaple]

Internal hydrogen combustion with air will still produce nitrogen oxides, so don't hand out the "no pollution" BS.

Re:Vapor Cloud !

[cgenman]

If you're worried about burning hydrogen and the resultant water vapor, you can much more cleanly use Hydrogen Fuel Cells for energy needs. Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars would be a lot like the electric cars of today, with no transmission, relatively silent operation, and more efficient energy transfer than burning. Did I mention electric cars can accelerate like a bat out of hell?

Anyway, switching to hydrogen electric will produce it's own pollution problems, just far, far smaller than we have today. Remember, gas burning cars were considered the zero pollution option when horses were laying down thick layers of manure across New York City. But like the cars now which pollute 1/10 th as much as the horses they replace, so too will Hydrogen be much cleaner than cars. And eventually we'll abuse the tech so much and grow so large that it too will become a problem. But I'd rather have the problem of a little too much water vapor in the air than a hell of a lot of other pollutants.

Re:Vapor Cloud !

[STFS]

First of all... your link for "Hydrogen Fuel Cells" points to Amazon.com... some game callde "Cubivore". Sounds fun but has nothing to do with "Hydrogen Fuel Cells".

The buses in Iceland are actually hydro-electric. Hydrogen is not used to power a combustion engine, it's used to produce electricity that in turn is used to power the bus. This is done by means of chemical reaction and if anyone is interested, you can find directions of how to create such a chemical-electric-generator here.

Minor problem though... it's in Icelandic.

Re:Vapor Cloud !

[Sunspire]

Nobody's proposing hydrogen combustion engines anymore, time to update your facts. We've got these little things called electrochemical engines now. Hydrogen fuelcells produce electricity through reverse electrolysis, and that's what's being pushed.

Re:Vapor Cloud !

[Severious]

While I appreciate your link, I am not sure how many of us can actually read Icelandic (or whatever language it is).

Re:Vapor Cloud !

[cgenman]

Sorry, that link was for another site. This was the link I intended to include.

And yes, that's great news! From what I can discern from the pictures, it looks like they are using a hydrogen fuel cell. I don't know why they would call it hydro-electric, though, as that has a totally different widely accepted meaning.

Either way, more support for electric based motor vehicles and more development for hydrogen fuel cells. Good news all around.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[TheOriginalRevdoc]

Most countries probably have at least some geothermal reserves, which could feasibly be used for power. For example, Australia isn't exactly known for its volcanoes, but we do have a major geothermal energy project under way:

http://hotrock.anu.edu.au/cooper.htm

And the geothermal energy doesn't have to be next door. I'm sure there are plenty of geothermal sites in North America. They may not be enough to supply the whole nation's ebergy requirements, but they might cover some of it.

How to generate hydrogen...

[MLopat]

Some people are a little naive about energy generation. While hydrogen can be isolated from hydro carbons, it can also be produced from water... and yes this requires electricity. But there's a number of ways to generate electricity that doesn't involve oil including solar, wind and tidal power plants. For example, Toronto, Canada now uses 2 windmills located within the city to generate electrical power for 42,000 homes. This same technology could easily be employed to seperate hydrogen from water and produce a true "green" fuel.

Re:How to generate hydrogen...

[rideaurocks]

Where's the second windmill in Toronto? I know about the one on Lakeshore (west of the CN tower), but haven't seen a second one in my travels. Best I can think of are the ones at the Pickering nuclear plant.

Re:How to generate hydrogen...

[cdsr]

Just curious where you got those numbers from, 42000 homes seemed a little high to me... assuming you meant the windmill on Lakeshore and the one at Pickering NPP I googled the following info:

- The one on Lakeshore produces 0.75MW, enough for 250 homes.

- Pickering produces 1.8MW, enough for 600 homes.

- Ontario's energy peaks at 25 000MW.

Links:
http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_06.26.03/city/e nviro.html
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid /12137/story.htm

Re:How to generate hydrogen...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Pure green"? People dont consider the environmental impact of some of these green solutions.
1. Birds getting killed by the wind plant
2. Solar cells covering the ground preventing plants from growing, and all the creatures that depend on them
3. Electrical cars- one giant lead-acid battery!
4. Hyrdogen - when the hydrogen is released it quicky accelerates toward the upper atmosphere where it sometimes - A. Combines with ozone, thus destroying the ozone layer, and B. Sometimes escapes earth, decreasing the hyrogren supply on earth permanently!

The best solution - put tarriffs on all incoming barrels of oil. Let the laws of supply and demand do the work for you. Create a necissity that will be the mother of invention

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[rainman_bc]

Excuse me but not all electricity comes from Fossil fuels. Here in BC we've in fact found a better way. More than 95% of our electricity comes from Hydro, and if we were to use that power to create hydrogen, we'd be completely green.

Re:Natural gas is the alternative source for Hydro

[karnal]

And where do you get the natural gas from???

Free at last!

[Doc Ruby]

When the oil runs out in 2050, we'll all be "oil-free". But maybe Iceland will be the only country still running. Except for many really poor countries, which were hardly ever "running" on oil at all. The "American Centuries" might someday seem the stuff of legend, like Atlantis sunk deep in Mexico.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[stratjakt]

Well, that's good for them, but it still doesn't do much for the rest of us.

oil free is a misnomer.

[LiMikeTnux]

Unless they plan to use only synthetic rubbers, plastics, lubricants, you see where this is going, you cant be oil free. Petroleum has ALOT more uses than just fuel, you know.

Re:oil free is a misnomer.

[BeaverCleaver]

This is exactly why we should be using it more carefully, for its industrial uses, rather than pissing it away out the exhaust of an SUV. Kudos to Iceland.

kudos

[Anonymous Coward]

To the Icelandians, for those of you not in island but interested in renewables there's always fieldlines!

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[k98sven]

Except that hydrogen isn't found, or mined, it's created. Either from fossil fuels or by electrolyzing water, which requires electricity, which comes from fossil fuels.

Not in Iceland it doesn't.

It's easy for iceland to claim 70% "green" because geothermal heating is a real option for them. The air is cold, the earth is hot. It doesn't work for most of the rest of the world.

What the heck is your problem?

First you go off about how hydrogen is useless since you've got to get the power from somewhere. Then you lambast the icelanders just because they don't get power from a dirty source and make the point that somehow doesn't count, since their solution doesn't work for every single nation in the whole world. (As if anyone claimed it would!)

And someone modded this 'insightful'?!

I didn't know

[Anonymous Coward]

that Iceland had all that hydrogen. It seems to me that they would use lava. There's plenty of that there. Transporting it could be a hassle, though.

Re:70%? Impressive.

[ackthpt]

About 70 percent of Iceland's energy is already met by green power.

One of the advantages of living on a geologically active island...

Let us not explore too much the disadvantages.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[Doppler00]

Dig a few miles more. The temperature of the earth's increases the farther down you dig. My guess is this is probably not economically feasible though.

Oil free by choice or coercion?

[dunng808]

Goals are nice, and 2050 is a nice round number to aim at. I think it would be great if they reach their goal. I wish Hawaii, where I live, would set such a goal. But I do not want to achieve such a goal through heavy handed laws that force people to change, or tax breaks that give an unfair advantage to alternative energy. I want oil to loose because people choose alternatives on their own merits.

Re:Oil free by choice or coercion?

[stratjakt]

Iceland has no oil, it's all imported, and thus very expensive. It's not like they switched away from it, they never had it.

It also has a population of just under 300,000. Which isn't that big.

Re:Oil free by choice or coercion?

[Wenalex]

Well, as long as we are judging things on the basis of "merit" we should calculate the true price of oil with all the extranalities involved in the equation and none of the tax breaks and subsides that the oil industry recieves. The external costs of the drilling, transporting, refining, transporting again, and then the end use of oil are incalculable. Consider things like an army to protect the oil at its source, how much does it cost to maintain the ships to transport this oil, what's the environmental toll payed in cleanup costs for every oil spell, the enormous rise in health care costs caused by polution, the money it takes to build roads, cars, etc... many of these costs would still persist in a 'hydrogen economy' but many not, and many would disapear if we would only learn the true cost of our consumption and then account for it. I'll have my 'oil-free' economy any day thank you.

Re:Oil free by choice or coercion?

[SlashdotMeNow]

BwahahahAHAHAHAHAAAHAAAAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!111!! on their own merits... HAHAHAHmmm... that's funny

Re:Oil free by choice or coercion?

[UlfGabe]

So this war in iraq isnt to help USA oil companies get at it and distribute it? Funny how i mark that as one of the largest subsidies. Taking over a forgein country to get at huge oil reserves. Funny thing too, oil companies get huge subsidies, the same with American farmers. Not a lot can be said for Alternative energy, the greatest subsidies right now can be found in Cali. (IIRC and then only for housing, a good step, but its not a solar plant.)

Re:Oil free by choice or coercion?

[ChrisMaple]

The change from oil as a fuel is inevitable. It will occur gradually, as economic factors make other possibilities more attractive. People proclaiming "Oil is evil! (Fill in the blank) is good!" does not help this transition take place.

This is a big deal.

[Baldrson]

With current technology, burning oil to make hydrogen to run a bus produces more pollution than simply running the bus on oil. Iceland sees itself as a testing ground, where almost unlimited heat from hot springs can be tapped for experiments.

This is a big deal folks. Geothermal is quite abundant but it is relatively low grade energy. If you can get drilling costs down and figure out how to use the low grade energy along the lines the Icelanders are doing, you can not only resolve most subsistence energy problems, you can localize most food production for consumption in colder climates with articficial hot springs just as the Icelanders are doing.

Just in time, too...

[The I Shing]

Just in time for the swearing in of President Björk.

Re:Just in time, too...

[isopossu]

Well, compared to president Schwartzenegger.

Re:Natural gas is the alternative source for Hydro

[MaineCoon]

And where do you get the natural gas from???


TACO BELL!

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[stratjakt]

I never said hydrogen is useless, I said it isn't "green energy". It's a means of storing energy. If hydrogen is "green" then alkaline or lead acid batteries are "green".

I'm not lambasting Iceland, I'm saying that their solution doesn't scale for the rest of us.

I was annoyed by the articles opening line about hydrogen being some magical abundant fuel that has absolutely no strings or drawbacks. It's not. It's only a small part of a solution to a very complex problem.

I could heat my house off the grid if I had a hot spring in my backyard, I don't.

So what the heck is your problem?

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[mordors9]

and with those natural heat sources, it is still going to take a small not overly industrialized country until 2050 to break its dependence. Yet the greens seem to think the United States should stop using oil immediately.

Iceland is not switching for the environment

[Bishop]

The article implies that Iceland is switching to hydrogen and geothermal due to all the environmental reasons. This simply isn't the case. Iceland is switching away from fossil fuels as they have none. The move away from oil is an economic decision. Oil is very expensive in Iceland as it is all imported. By contrast geothermal is practically free. Watch for Iceland to become a major exporter of hydrogen.

Re:Iceland is not switching for the environment

[MLopat]

A major exporter of hydrogen? Are you mad? You can make hydrogen yourself, right now. Run a DC current in some water and watch it bubble. Voila hydrogen. Now if you only had a market...

Re:Iceland is not switching for the environment

[TheGavster]

Indeed. Hydrogen powered buses in Reykjavik are like gasoline powered buses in Riyadh: the fuel is right there, so why not burn it? I'm waiting for standard vehicles that can run off of alcohol ... surely there's enough land in America to grow potatoes and mix up moonshine to run all the cars ...

Re:Iceland is not switching for the environment

[Anonymous Coward]

go for it

http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/altfuel/ethanol.ht ml

Re:Iceland is not switching for the environment

[vidarh]

The problem with your suggestion is that the DC current needs to come from somewhere. Countries with cheap energy like Iceland and Norway have a good basis for exporting hydrogen simply because of low electricity prices.

What About Norway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Norway has been energy-independent (hydro-electric) for many years.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[spellraiser]

Actually, most of the energy needs in Iceland are currently met by good old hydro (as in water) dams rather than geothermal energy. Geothermal energy is almost the sole source of heating, though; 85% of heating needs are met by geothermal energy.

Now, some people may debate exactly how 'green' hydro dams are, but they are certainly more green than fossil fuels. However, there is one strange twist here, which is somewhat offtopic: more than a few dams in Iceland, including a massive one that is currently being constructed at Karahjukar are erected for the exlusive purpose of providing power for aluminum smelters, which are not that green.

Hydrogen generation is at least a noble attempt to use some of the available electricity for slightly more eco-friendly purposes, and surely causes less polution than fossil fuels if it is powered by hydro power.

Re:Oil?

[Anonymous Coward]

HERE! is a torrent of all the Suprnova torrents. yadda yadda yadda!

Got a bet for you all

[grasshoppa]

Iceland plans to become the first oil-free country by 2050.

5 bucks says we invade iceland next year because that's where all the terrorist hang out.

Re:Got a bet for you all

[spellraiser]

You can't do that! Relations between us Icelanders and America have always been great. I mean, we're members of the Coalition of the willing and everything! You guys even have an army base over here, to protect us, seeing that we have no military of our own

...

Oh shit.

We're fucked, right?

Re:Got a bet for you all

[harmanjd]

Nah - we just already invaded and you didn't notice.

Re:Got a bet for you all

[henni16]

5 bucks that the troops don't find it and accidentally liberate Ireland instead?

Very Small Country

[FrankDrebin]

While I commend the notion, Iceland has a unique feature not mentioned in the article -- an extremely small population. According to the CIA (spare the check-your-facts comments, thanks), it is currently less than 300,000 people.

To put that into perspective, there are over 1200 CITIES in the world with more that 300,000 people. Seriously, more people live in Toledo than all of Iceland. As far as the Hydrogen economy goes, it's a start, but such a very small start. By 2050 I sure hope we're further along worldwide.

Re:Very Small Country

[Peyna]

A better comparison would be population density. Iceland is actually very sparse, about 3 people per square kilometer. The United States has about 31 people per square kilometer.

So, I find it great that even a sparse population is able to make such strides; since you would think it would be a lot easier in a place where all your people are packed together than spread out all over the place. Think Alaska vs. New York.

Re:Very Small Country

[STFS]

Man... some of you guys are going to have to take a vacation... in Iceland.

First to reply to the grandparent post:
Iceland may not have a huge population, that's true. But my guess would be that we're more technologically and economically advanced than most of the 1200 cities you mention. The average Icelandic family owns two cars and we have a myriad of aluminum, iron and all sorts of plants that need cheap electricity. My guess would be that Iceland is a much better (and larger at that) start than some third world country with millions of inhabitants.

Now for the reply to the parent post:
Iceland is dispersed... if you take the 300.000 people and divide that by the 103.000 square kilometers of land space we have! However, around 100.000 of those people live in the capital (Reykjavik) and the rest lives only on the coast-line, the center of Iceland is uninhabited. It's not like each and every one of us lives in the middle of our "government issued" 1/3 of a square kilometer. The hydrogen bus project is only in Reykjavik. Hopefully that will change in the future though.

Re:Very Small Country

[hthb]

Your comment is thoughtful, but the small population makes it possible to use Iceland as a model for other countries, a "proof-of-concept" if I may. Sure, it will be a harder task in bigger cities, but bigger cities also have more taxpayers, i.e. more money and resources and so on to do it.

Re:Very Small Country

[Jahz]

My guess would be that Iceland is a much better (and larger at that) start than some third world country with millions of inhabitants.

Your not going to see any third-world country delaring that they are giving up fossil fuels. The third world is considered third world becasuse their economies can barely (if at all) support their populations, or if they are "uncivilized." This leads to joblessness and numerous societal problems.

It is much more likely that small parts of first-world and second-world countries will make be making the first few steps in this matter. The U.S. for example, will take small steps every year to alternative energy sources, but there is just too much beurocracy, accountability, and basically, political nonesense for congress to declare "the country much stop using fossil fuels by 2050!"

In the larger nations, small municipalities will turn to alternative fuel first. Then, as the larger cities and the federal government see that alternative fuels can work, they will switch.

Better act fast.

[Anonymous Coward]

Iceland plans to become the first oil-free country by 2050

How much oil does Sealand use? Probably not that much.

Global warming

[Boccaccio]

You'd think they would be the first to welcome a bit of global warming too wouldn't you?

Re:Global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they would not. Iceland has the biggest glacier in Europe, and you can almost watch it melting and getting smaller, and most Icelanders hate this because they are pretty committed to the character of their landscape which constitues a lot of her Icelandic self esteem.

Apart from that, it is warmer than you might expect it to be since it is located close to the Gulf Stream. It hardly gets colder than -30 degrees in winter (still chilly but tropical compared to Greenland or even Northern Finland or Sweden), and apart from the rain and the storm it can be pretty mild in summer.

And yes, I know this was supposed to be funny. I chose to answer whatsoever...

Re:Global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Iceland is an island, so maybe not.

what a crappy article

[museumpeace]

I'll have to go look up Norsk Hydro to learn anything [assuming there is anything new to learn] The sloppiness:

1. talk of oil independence as if oil is only a fuel and not a lubricant...or are Icelanders also going to eliminate friction in some miraculous way
2. Vikings? What are they going to do, turn a boatload of berserkers loose to capture Iowa and demand tribute be paid in soybean oil?
3. zero technical content as to where they get energy from ... how is geothermal used?, what/how does Norsk Hydro do to create hydrogen?

TFA is not worthy of /. readers.

Re:what a crappy article

[Anonymous Coward]

Sloppiness:
1. Talk of oil as a lubricant as if it was a significant environmental hazard.
2. Make a completely irrelevant Viking reference.
3. Complain that the article isn't dumbed-down enough.

Re:what a crappy article

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you are too lazy too look it up yourself.

http://www.hydro.com/en/our_business/oil_energy/ne w_energy/hydrogen/research_development.html
Use the menu on the left side.

Not much technical content though. Probably because this is so new that they want to keep it secret.

Re:what a crappy article

[museumpeace]

Yup, guilty of laziness as charged. thanks for link...interesting co. but their description of their hydrogen generation product said nothing of where the energy comes from...so I will assume electricity by geothermal steam turbine. Their product here may not have any great technical novelty but it does take reponsibility for all the system integration for a packaged solution...just supply energy.

Re:what a crappy article

[museumpeace]

no, seriously, of what value is the article? what news or information in it makes it worth reading? And wherein was I complaining that the article was not dumbed down enough? I am doing my clumsy best to say its dumbed down to the point of uselessness.

Re:what a crappy article

[big tex]

Synthetic Lubricants are the answer to your questions.

You know, like that $4 / qt Syntec oil down at the Autozone?
To top it off, the synthetics are usually better, since they don't break down as quickly.

Re:what a crappy article

[isopossu]

Synthetic lubricants are also better in low temperatures. This too applies to Iceland.

Re:what a crappy article

[smari]

Norsk Hydro? Where do you get that from? As far as I know, the hydrogen used by the Reykjavík busses is "made" (electrolyzed) in Iceland by the oil companies (Shell, &c), not by Norsk Hydro - and certainly not in Norway (although Norsk Hydro has some stuff in Iceland)

But geothermal energy is used in thus manner:

1) Drill a hole down into the ground. Typical depth of the holes in question is 1.5 to 3 kilometers.

2) Check the temperature of whatever there is in the hole. What's in the hole, you may ask? Water, sometimes, steamy hot and ready to do some funky business; else it may be silicon encrusted goo, or something similar - quite frequently laced with gold or other interesting materials. Worst case scenario: Magma. Now, don't be fooled - magma isn't under pressure most of the time.. it won't come up. You will lose your drill bit though and the hole will be useless.

3) Whatever comes up, you don't care, as long as it's hot.. because hot things have a tendancy to boil water. If water comes up, fine, you can use that, but in the case of goo, just run it through some pipes inside a water tank.

4) Take the hot water, and use the steam to turn a generator, which in turn makes electricity. If the water is clean, run it through the water mains and give people hot water for their houses. If not, dump it, along with the goo, into a highly overrated pond, and make it into a major tourist attraction: The Blue Lagoon.

I hope you feel a bit better. I do. (btw, I'm not an authority on these matters; the process may be wrong at one point or another - but I do work in relation to this stuff, in Iceland, so I guess I'm more of an authority than the previous 100 posters ;))

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[k98sven]

I said it isn't "green energy".

And who did?

If hydrogen is "green" then alkaline or lead acid batteries are "green".

Hardly. But for different reasons. Lead and cadmium are highly toxic, and tons of the stuff gets into nature every year from batteries. Switching from those to hydrogen or LiH would in itself have environmental benefits.

I was annoyed by the articles opening line about hydrogen being some magical abundant fuel that has absolutely no strings or drawbacks.

The opening line of the article doesn't really say any such thing. (did you read as far as the qualifier: 'at least in Iceland'?)
You chose to interpret it that way so you could go beat up a straw-man.

where's iceland

[Anonymous Coward]

in ice!!!!!

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is RTFA. Idiots who fast-post and don't RTFA:

• GrouchoMarx (153170)
• stratjakt (596332)

No, the electricity isn't coming from fossil fuel, it's coming from geothermal energy in Iceland.

Won't that bus kill off ozone layer?

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recalled, there have been reports that switching to hydrogen economy can lead to quicker depletion of ozone layer. Unlike the good old CFC, hydrogen is lighter than air, so the result is a lot more immediate. Furthermore, hydrogen is an extremely leaky substance, so leak can occur very easily, to the point that any massive deployment of hydrogen can quickly destroy ozone layer.

In order for hydrogen economy to work, the risk of hydrogen leak must be greatly reduced. First of all, hydrogen must NOT be stored in raw form, but in the form of chemical compound. This prevents accidental hydrogen leak when the compound is exposed to the environment. Extraction of hydrogen should include some form of heating element and catalyst. The containment chemical should only release hydrogen at high heat (above 200 degree C), and the heating element should use laser or plasma to minimize energy cost for extraction.

Re:Won't that bus kill off ozone layer?

[Anonymous Coward]

The containment chemical should only release hydrogen at high heat (above 200 degree C).

Actually, you need a chemical that is very stable before going through the catalyst, but spontaneously releases hydrogen at room temperature when mixing with (solid) catalyst. Otherwise heating alone will waste more fuel than burning hydrogen generates.

British Columbia

[bigberk]

I believe there is a Canadian company called Ballard (they do fuel cells for auto makers) that had some demo hydrogen buses deployed, including in British Columbia, west coast Canada. Anyone ever seen one of those?

Re:British Columbia

[sasayne]

Yes I have Gillig corp has built some go to this link for all the info http://www.vta.org/projects/ZEBs.html

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[zenlunatics]

actually the "greens", or whatever they were called back then, having been recommending we find alternatives to fossil fuels for over 30 years (probably more). The problem is the powers that be don't want to listen because their power comes from their control of oil.

More than one way to skin a cat

[ewanrg]

Well, considering the amount of geological activity around Iceland, I suppose they could become ice free by 2050 fairly easily if there's any major eruptions in 2049...

Seriously, I wish them the best of luck, and I think that a showcase is always a useful thing. But I suspect that it will be better to see something like this start to show up in China even as a small percentage than to have an Iceland with 100% non-polluting energy reliant.

---

I've been told that before...

Re:More than one way to skin a cat

[Walkey]

Here's about one definite way to skin a cat.

How about our American friends show some (very late) lead in the matter by convincing their elected representatives to sign the Kyoto agreement for a start?

Then maybe we can try and convince and hope for China to join in.

Deal?
Waltzing Monkey.

Re:More than one way to skin a cat

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn right, wheres Americas signature?? Do you think you have any more right to pollute than the other countries that have signed up? Sure it might cost more, and yeah, eventually youll have to drive normal cars -> thats cars which seat five, and dont weigh more than a truck.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[mark-t]

If BC were to use that power to create enough hydrogen to power all the vehicles in the province, they wouldn't have enough energy left over to keep powering anywhere even CLOSE to as many homes as they do. The rest of it would have to come from fossil fuel burning... Net result? The same or more consumption of fossil fuels.

Energy independence a national security issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the US we have large desert areas with plenty of sunshine and areas with plenty of wind. At the same time we are still dependent on constant flow of oil from the middle east, the most unstable region in the world.
This is a matter of national security and, in my opinion, it deserves highest priority that we become an energy independent country. How can our current government afford NOT to do more for the development of alternative energies?

But is geothermal renewable?

[MavenW]

The way I understand it, geothermal energy isn't being CREATED by the earth, but rather just STORED there. So what happens when we suck all the heat out of the center of the earth?

I can see some advantages to that (no more earthquakes, volcano eruptions...) but isn't this just the identical problem to running out of oil?

If we converted all our energy needs to geothermal, what's the estimate of when we would run out?

Re:But is geothermal renewable?

[SlashdotMeNow]

Around the same time hell freezes over, I think.

Re:But is geothermal renewable?

[Hido]

Firstly the chances of earths core going cold within our lifetime or while humans exist as a civilization is relatively slim.

Also another point is the day earths core goes cold is when its not gonna matter anymore, once movement stops below the crust earths magnetic field is going to go *POP* and then its bye-bye earth.

Its true that it will go cold "someday" but its not something that earthlings have to worry about anytime soon and by the time it even becomes a problem we would either be migrating to other solar systems or our civilization would not exist anymore.

Re:But is geothermal renewable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Renewable energy is never really an infinite resource. Solar energy certainly isn't, since the sun will die or explode or do whatever suns do eventually. And without the sun, wind power would soon stop being possible. Generally, a renewable resource is one so vast and untapped that even if we used nothing but that energy source, we would only be using 2-5% of the energy available through that source.

Furthermore, most renewable energy is energy that we already "get" but simply do not turn into electricity. Near geothermal hotspots, heat is released from the earth whether we take advantage of it or not. Photons strike rooftops in Los Angeles regardless of the presense of solar cells. And 20mph winds blow through the midwest even though it isn't filled with wind turbines.

And, in general, I think you misunderstand how geothermal energy is tapped. Iceland is able to use geothermal energy for a significant portion because it's on a geothermal hotspot. On the other hand, New York isn't, so it's not really feasable to use geothermal energy there. Geothermal energy use isn't about drilling a hole to the core and "sucking" the heat out (though I think that if we could do it inexpensively, it might work out) but rather, it's about using geothermal energy that is already near or on the surface of the earth.

So, in answer to your questions, yes, no, and no.
Geothermal is renewable.
We cannot convert all our energy needs to geothermal.
We will not run out.

Re:But is geothermal renewable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly the chances of earths core going cold within our lifetime or while humans exist as a civilization is relatively slim.

Speak for yourself - I plan on still being here in a few billion years time. (Damn quitters!)

They have those in many cities, and they are cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is more information on several ongoing tests in europe:

It says that in Reykjavik (iceland) and Stockholm (sweden) the hydrogen is produced by electrolysis of water using "clean" electicity. (wind, hydro and solar energy). Another clean energy carrier+source many busses use are ecologic "ethanol"-fuel (a paper industry by-product).

One cool thing with these hydrogen-busses, except that they are absolutley silent and environmental friendly, is that they produce a white smoke (I saw one such bus when it was cold). It looks as if it has a steam engine, and they acctually look more bad to the environment than gasoline powered busses :) I cant understand why they dont have some sort of condensor for the steam, so they vent water instead of steam?

See here.

One has got to wonder if there will be unhealthy air humidity (can result in fungus, diseases, etc) in cities instead of smog in the future, when nearly all busses/cars are hydrogen powered.

Iceland isn't US, they do a lot of GeoTherm, and

[IBitOBear]

Nice myopic question...

In iceland they use a HUGE amount of geothermal power, both to directly heat homes and to generate electricity. It is _not_ a truism that "electricity [] comes from fossil fuels" just because we do a lot of that here. Btu to a great extent, who cares?

The trifecta of power issues are Source, Storage, and Transportation (c.v. power distribution).

Hydrogen is a good answer to items two and three (Power Storage and Transportation) when you are talking about something like powering a car or a bus.

The informed know that Hydrogen isn't a power Source. The pusdo-intellectual and the rampant obstructionists pretend that there is no point in working on Storage and Transportation (e.g. Hydrogen Vehicles) until the new Sources are developed. Psudo-intellectuals and rampant obstructionists are nororious for fscking up the future in the name of the past. 8-)

So your question: How are they generating the hydrogen is largely moot. How are _we_ going to generate _our_ hydrogen is where your mind clarly is. That's largely moot too. If we _havne't_ changed over to using hydrogen for Transportation *before* we run out of oil, our infrastructure will colapse even if we get our final-hour hail-mary answer to the Sourcing issue. It's better to pay the extra expense (going hydrogen, puttin in insulation, whatever) now, in a time of glut, than to put it off until the time of famine.

So yep, good for them, Iceland can lord it over us all if we don't get our solar, wind, space-based-solar+microwave, and whatever Sourcing up and going soon. And there is nothing worse than dealing with a smug Icelander... 8-)

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[mark-t]

In the context of energy consumption and use, "Green" means either a minimum or no level of harmful pollution.

Iceland will be generating their Hydrogen in plants powered by Geothermal energy. There is no pollution of any sort happening on generation.

Burning hydrogen, likewise, is pollution free. The only exaust is pure water vapour.

So yes... Iceland will be completely "Green" when this is implemented.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[Aadain2001]

hydrogen is "green" because using it in a fuel cell produces no harmful byproducts: only heat and water vapor. where is comes from isn't not what makes it's green or not. oil isn't because using it produces toxic by products such as CO2, Nx, etc.

Conservative Troll

[Mark_MF-WN]

See kids? This is what we call a "Conservative Troll".

A great deal of the world's power comes from nuclear reactors and hydroelectric dams. So you can extract hydrogen from water without ever using oil. As wind and solar power become economical and lingering fears about nuclear power are dissolved, we'll see even more "green" power. Not that I expect a conservative troll to believe this -- being American means ignoring facts that you don't like.

Re:Conservative Troll

[Rakishi]

Except that environmentalists scream bloody murder if you try to build any new nuclear or hydroelectric power plants and to make all the hydrogen you'd need a lot more. You can't use current plants to make it because the current plants are too busy making electricity for current uses.

Re:Conservative Troll

[mark-t]

Uhmm... I know they get all hairy when you talk about building a new nuclear plant, but why do they get upset about hydroelectric plants? There's no environmental ill effect to hydro-power at all, afaik.

Re:Conservative Troll

[MrPC81]

How much oil would it take to build an appropriate number of dams or nukes? (and replace most or all of them every 30 years when they wear out)..

Re:Conservative Troll

[Joey7F]

being American means ignoring facts that you don't like

You must be (western) European because only they are that arrogant. The grandparent was stating something very relevant to Americans. We get our energy through buring fossil fuels. Nuclear and green options consitute a small part of our power consumption. It doesn't have to though. Nuke juice would be plenty fine by me, and believe me when I say it is not the conservatives that object to this method of cranking out the 120 (or 220 in your case?)

--Joey

Re:Conservative Troll

[snorklewacker]

> There's no environmental ill effect to hydro-power at all, afaik.

Habitat destruction, upstream and down. You also get a lot of elemental mercury leached out of all the decaying vegetation after flooding the reservoir area, but the main issue is the land flooded by the reservoir and the reduced watershed downstream.

Personally I think most hydropower is a damn sight better than coal plants, but I would prefer more nuclear (the waste seems less an issue in comparison when you consider coal ash heaps are chock full of uranium)

Re:Conservative Troll

[Mark_MF-WN]

I'm not saying there aren't Liberal Trolls too. There are -- they can be easily identified by their endless stream of bitching.

The sooner we all learn to love nuclear power, the better. Screw the waste -- that's what underwater subduction zones and Texas are for.

Hydroelectric is a little more iffy (salmon have to spawn SOMEWHERE), but we can certainly afford at least a few of them -- they produce assloads of power!

Re:Conservative Troll

[Rakishi]

I agree with you however to most people nuclear =evil. The US hasn't built a new reactor in a while and they probably won't for a while and while many countries hold different views I wonder how favorably people would react to the building of a large number of nuclear power plants. Also, the US war on terrorism may make getting nuclear rectors more problematic for some nations. More importantly Uranium is not a renewable resource and will run out, and I've read estimates that say it'll be within decades (although I'm not sure how accurate that is). We can use plutonium or find other ways to get around this but the former has weapons propagation problems and the later adds cost and complexity.

As for hydroelectric (as a previous poster mentioned), it's not just the salmon that they scream about but also that to make one you need to flood a large area upstream (and destroy the ecosystem in the area).

At this point fusion is our best hope for a clean source of energy and that may not come for a while.

Re:Conservative Troll

[Mark_MF-WN]

There's nothing wrong with using plutonium in reactors -- Canada's been doing it for decades. I'm not saying we should be selling reactors full of weapons-grade plutonium to Pakistan or North Korea, but the nuclear powers and the non-proliferation-treaty signatories can probably all be trusted with them.

Frankly, I think most people would much rather see plutonium get used in reactors than in doomsday weapons.

I get what you're saying about hydroelectric, but we DO have to sacrifice at least a few ecosystems. The only way to get around it is to exterminate the entire human race -- we need to build homes SOMEWHERE, we need to build farms SOMEWHERE, we need to mine plutonium SOMEWHERE. Destroying a few ecosystems to get hydroelectric power is a lot better than destroying a lot of ecosystems by drastically changing the earth's temperature.

This is why I hate liberals -- all they can do is bitch. They're tied with conservatives for #2 on my list of "Who's Stupid" (#1 is reserved for anarchists).

Re:They have those in many cities, and they are co

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is more pictures:

Gallery

Better image of smoke

Bush liking hydrogen?

[RGTAsheron]

"Other countries, such as the United States, where President Bush (news - web sites) is a strong backer of hydrogen, face a far tougher path." What a joke.

Re:Bush liking hydrogen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I mean it's not like he's thrown billions into hydrogen-based research.

Fucking troll.

plastic

[Gwenna]

There are a lot of uses of oil; energy is just one of them. I think most plastics are made with hydrocarbons, and someone told me that the pharmaceutical industry uses hydrocarbons in manufacturing (no details on what, though).

So does Iceland plan to make all of its plastics out of recycled material? Do they count as being oil-free if they import premade stuff from other countries?

Re:plastic

[Anonymous Coward]

You can produce plastic and plastic like materials from a lot more than oil. Hemp is one of them.

Re:plastic

[klang]

Maybe, just maybe oil free means that they are going to avoid using it as fuel .. at the moment, they are not using oil for electricity and heating. They use the alternative: Geothermal energy, which in the case of Iceland is all over the place and therefore free.

But who am I kidding .. you didn't read the article, did you?

simple solution

[dingfelder]

simple solution:

1. take the spent fuel and mix it into sand.
2. melt it into glass rods.
3. shoot it into outer space (head for the sun where it will burn up).

Re:simple solution

[Rei]

Lets pretend that you're using a rocket with only a 2% failure rate (very good by rocketry standards) that carries 20,000 kg.

There's 220,000 kg of spent fuel on earth. That's 11 launches. That's a 20% chance of failure.

Lets be nice and say that this "1 in 5" failure would only release 20 million curies per kilogram (about 1/10th what the rods have when they leave the reactor). That's 400 billion curies. Chernobyl released about 2 million curies for comparison into the atmosphere plus 10-100 MC which immediately settled into the surrounding area, and left a good portion of Belarus and a chunk of Ukraine uninhabitable to this day. Plus, the launches would undoubtedly stop after the failure, leaving us with the rest of the waste still here on Earth.

Re:simple solution

[dingfelder]

ok, so while I was not really serious, I'll will pretend here that I was and will add a few things that might make it a better idea:

1. If the waste was made into glass rodes as I suggested, and if the launch were done over the desert, and the launch failed, the fallout would be limited (the waste is not liquid, and would not spread much. Chernobyl was bad because it went into the atmospehere and spread.

2. if we COULD really get rid of it all, people would spend a LOT of money to make it happen. My hope is that if we spent that much $ we could have more oversight and make it hopefully safer (less chance of failure)

Thoughts? :D

Re:simple solution

[peawee03]

It's a nice idea, but one runs into issues when one starts contending with ideas such as the rocket blowing up mid-launch. Enough nuclear waste to make this kinda thing possible blowing up in the upper atmosphere, even on accident, would cause Very Bad Things.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[Anonymous Coward]

What the heck is your problem?

It's because they're so damn smug!

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[nathanh]

It's easy for iceland to claim 70% "green" because geothermal heating is a real option for them. The air is cold, the earth is hot. It doesn't work for most of the rest of the world. There's nothing for me to dig into but cold muck and the chesapeake watershed.

It can work for the entire world. It's just more difficult for some. Google for Hot Rock Energy. First hit is a doozie.

For the stated purposes it is.

[Baldrson]

If you are looking for low grade energy sources such as artificial hot springs for subsistence energy and agricultural heating in cold climates, it is practically renewable -- particularly at current population densities for those regions.

You can't use this to sustain current population levels world-wide, let alone increase them, but you can make some substantial populations relatively secure and self-sufficient that would otherwise be more dependent on global transport of food and fuel.

Give them a chance people

[NoNeeeed]

Sometimes I really wonder about /.

So far half the high rated comments have been either, "hydrogen isn't a fuel, it's an energy store", or "huh, how will they survive without plastic/lubricants etc".

It's normally dangerous to generalise about /. contributors, but one thing that seems to be consistant is the over-riding negativity of the people here. People set noble aims (e.g. stop using oil) and all the armchair whingers can do is complain that it isn't a perfect solution, and it isn't here now; or in the case of anything Mac "I want it twice as powerful, free, and to have a time-machine built in, and it should run Linux". Some people just never seem to be satisfied.

Hydrogen
---------
No, hydrogen is not a fuel. Yes it is a storage medium. But more importantly it is an energy *transmission* system. It allows you to generate energy in one place, and then use it somewhere else. Ideally we would just send electricity down the power lines and store it in batteries in our cars, but until someone makes some serious improvements in the energy density of batteries, that isn't going to happen, and hydrogen remains one of the best alternatives.

Yes you can use *dirty* methods of generation to generate the electricity you use to make the hydrogen, but at least you have the option of using clean methods where they are available. You can use what is appropriate. The Icelandics are using Geothermal, good for them. Until you take that step and move to using hydrogen, you don't have a choice over clean or dirty, you only have oil (for cars that is).

"Green" Generation
----------------
Another prime one for the "but I want it perfect and now, and with a pony" crowd. Every time someone mentions a method of power generation like wind, solar, or tidal, someone will go "but that won't work where I am so it's no good and we should just carry on using coal". I live in the UK, and lets face it, we are never going to get much of our power from the sun, but there is work going into building an increasing number of wind farms and experiments with tidal systems, because that is what we have. Most places have something they can use to generate power, the Icelandics are just lucky that they have so much. The Aussies have loads of sun, and Colorado (right state?) gets most of its power from hydro. You use what you have as the tech comes available.

Plastics
------
Stop being so unimaginative. There is absolutly no requirement to use oil in the production of construction materials. There are huge numbers of people and companies working on plant based alternatives. In fact the car industry has already started to use some of these for certain components. We can't produce all the materials we need yet, but we are getting better, and one by one the challanges are being overcome; science just tends to take a little while.

The point (yes, there really is a point) is that all these things move us gradually towards a (slightly) better world. They might not get us there right away, but it's one step closer, and if all the whingers on /. and crappy TV comment show got off their arses and did something we might get there a little quicker.

Another quick rant while I'm at it - Global Warming
Everytime anything like this comes up on /., someone will go on about how there isn't really any evidence, and the climate was going to get warmer anyway. I don't need evidence for global warming, because I understand the theory. I don't need evidence for evolution because given my understanding of genetics, I cannot see how it can't be the case, evolution is the natural result of genetics and natural selection. Likewise, we know that CO2 and methane (the two major GHGs) cause a greenhouse effect. We know that without them the earth would be a lot colder, and that if we want to terraform Mars CO2 would be the first thing to put there. We also know that we are pumping out huge quantities of the stuff

Re:Give them a chance people

[Anonymous Coward]

here here, good speech

I am sick of the whingers too. They are basically anti-science and haven't done their reading on clmiate change. Or they trust a 4 year term *government* to regulate a limited liability *corporation* to administer nuclear waste for thousands of years....

The history of governments, corporations and nuclear waste speaks otherwise.

No replacement technologies currently exist, but that's only if you look for ONE replacement, rather than combinations of hydro, geothermal, solar, wind and tidal. Assign 20% to each of those and you have 100%, more or less to particular ones depending on how the science for them develops or the region you are in. Very sensible solution.

Re:Give them a chance people

[Anonymous Coward]

Here Here!
Well said!

Re:Give them a chance people

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

Mod parent way up.

Re:Give them a chance people

[Mr12inch(Powerbook)]

Thank you! Finally an educated adult on slashdot. I couldn't agree with you more. These cynics are the same people who do absolutely nothing positive themselves because "one person doesn't make a difference." Yet when someone else does try and do something positive, they are all too quick to shout how worthless the effort is. Really it is just an excuse for them to remain passive and lazy.

Re:Give them a chance people

[osobear]

Please Please Please mod parent up Insightful!

Maybe if more people read this we'll have a /. community that actually stops to think before responding! Especially the Global Warming stuff, amazing!

Re:Give them a chance people

[Anonymous Coward]

No, hydrogen is not a fuel

If hydrogen is not a fuel then what is?
If you convert solar radiation to electricity to hydrogen or squished dinosaurs to gas (you still have to crack it and that requires energy) or wind to electricity to hydrogen or corn into ethanol or natural gas into electricity or solar radiation into hydrogen-rich blue algae farts - WTF is the difference?

I have to say, people who understand the power of distributed computing power seem to miss the possibilities of distributed power generation. 15 years ago, it was completely impractical to try to do something like Seti@Home and today it seems unfathomable to imagine distributed power generation. But if residential homes could have a small phone booth to small shed sized unit that has solar panels and a small wind turbine (or two) and it could generate electricity which is divided into being stored in batteries/hydrogen and grid-intertie - small amounts of stored hydrogen could be used to heat water in a demand water heater, gas stoves and ovens, efficient catalyst space heaters, powering small tractors or other internal combustion engines, etc.

For Hydrogen Power to make a difference, it doesn't have power cars first. The problem is that existing centralized energy companies will vigorously oppose (pay to have outlawed) decentralized/residential hydrogen generation.

Re:Give them a chance people

[tstockma]

I strongly agree with this post. I live in Colorado, USA, we don't have much geothermal activity here. We do have a lot of wind, and some experimental windmills--hopefully that'll develop into windmill farms.

Burning oil to create hydrogen for fuel might be a waste, but if Iceland is using geothermal heat sources to generate power, that seems to me a good thing.

Each region of the world needs to use what they've got. Ocean tides, solar power, methenol from agriculture & city waste, whatever.

So Iceland has loads of geothermal resources? OK, what's the problem if they decide to use that? I call that a world-leading approach.

More power to them, IMO.

Re:Give them a chance people

[NoNeeeed]

Doh! That should have read "No, hydrogen is not an energy source". I also agree with everything else you said. Spot on.

Re:Give them a chance people

[Illserve]

The argument is not so much about whether CO2 can potentially cause a greenhouse effect, but whether it's worth the money and economic damage to limit CO2 production, when we're not at all sure if we're putting out enough CO2 to make a difference.

Re:Give them a chance people

[Jayman2]

Well said. Its lovely to see someone who for once sees things with a positive spin rather than screaming "it can't be done". Good on you mate!

Re:Give them a chance people

[PorscheDriver]

Right on brother! Too many whingers on /. I have a picture in my mind, that all the people who write negative posts, are in fact Comic-Book-Guy.

Re:Give them a chance people

[zsau]

Thankyou! A very insightful post. (PS: Tasmania, the Australian island state, gets most of its electricity from hydro too, as I understand it.)

Re:Give them a chance people

[prlawrence]

Right, good message: do what you can, when you can.

But one of your later statements is troubling, though perhaps pragmatic:
> I don't need evidence for [foo], because
> I understand the theory. I don't need
> evidence for [bar] because given my
> understanding of [baz], I cannot see
> how [foo] can't be the case.

According to this I should shorten my sermons to the kids on the scientific method to three points:
1. Observe
2. Hypothesize
3. Profit! :-)

Of course I don't have any more time to peer review experiments for/against [foo], [bar], or [baz] than you do. Oh wait I'm not even a "peer", so I guess I'm stuck with "Popular Mechanics" at the news stand.

But while that pragmaticism may be dictated by the direction *my* particular existence has gone, I'd at least like to still genuflect to the full Scientific Method, and hope "popular" mindshare like mine isn't the sum and whole of current science [funding | politics | directions-of-inquiry | conclusion-making].

prl

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[Anonymous Coward]

BC produces more than a 500% surplus of power for it's homes, using entirely hydro sources. We then sell our power to places like california, and the like. While your point on compensating with fossil fuel is valid, we still have an overabundance of untapped hydro sources. Not to mention any air power, which we have still yet even begun to work with.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[mute47]

We are not smug! We just happen to be better than the rest of you...

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[Anonymous Coward]

Either from fossil fuels or by electrolyzing water, which requires electricity, which comes from fossil fuels.

Since when is uranium a fossil fuel?

Nobody is claiming that hydrogen is an "original" power source, just that it's a better carrier than even the best batteries in an electric car, which is why it'll be used when oil runs out (assuming batteries won't get any development meanwhile). The electricity can originally be created with environment friendly nuclear plants, or in Iceland's case, geothermal heating.

Nuclear energy is cleaner than burning any fossil fuels. This is really a no-brainer.

Re:Iceland isn't US, they do a lot of GeoTherm, an

[mute47]

I for one welcome our smug overlords...
...wait... I am one of them....
:)

They've got so much hot water...

[ajaxlex]

While visiting Iceland with my girlfriend, I saw this residential driveway being paved in Reykjavik.

They were installing coils of plastic tubing beneath a decorative brick surface - like an outdoor 'radiant floor' system - presumably to melt the ice off!

Hot water must be incredibly cheap there.

/wishes I had a 3 mile deep hole in backyard for a geothermal heat well.

Re:They've got so much hot water...

[mute47]

Buildings here are (almost) all heated with hot water taken from thermal springs. This means a constant throughput of hot water (or it freezes in the pipes), especially during winter. This water is usually what goes through driveway pipes, after it heats up the house.

But the hot water is cheap... about 25ISK a day for normal residential use, that's 0.3$.

Ballard in BC

[matts-reign]

I saw some of these buses in Vancouver last time i was there visiting family. They are considerably quieter than a normal bus, and i wouldn't have known it was a fuel cell bus except for the slightly unusual roof, and the large banner proclaiming its power on the side. Ballard Fuel cells power these buses. There are also buses of the same make in Chicago

There is definately interest in hydrogen, but i wonder if it is the most appropriate solution. Hydrogen still needs power to be manufactured. Are there no better solutions out there?

Kinda sad...

[CrackedButter]

that even the seemingly best country with the best form of alternative energy is 45 years away from being oil free. What does that say about the rest of us?

So what?

[OrangeTide]

San Jose, CA has three hydrogen fuel cell buses and a fueling station.

http://www.vta.org/projects/ZEBs.html

They've been spotted in the area for about a year now. (One route goes by my work)

It's coming to the states too

[sasayne]

Here's a link to a us test project http://www.vta.org/projects/ZEBs.html

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[dabigpaybackski]

It's easy for iceland to claim 70% "green" because geothermal heating is a real option for them. The air is cold, the earth is hot. It doesn't work for most of the rest of the world. There's nothing for me to dig into but cold muck and the chesapeake watershed.

Yeah, but you guys can dig for clams in the runoff from the hog and poultry farms.

Not to mention ...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the natural spring hot tubs!

Iceland's electricity is not primarily geothermal

[Dipster]

Geothermal energy supplies only 16% of Iceland's electricity. The primary source of electricity in Iceland is Hydro at 84%. Geothermal is only the major player when looking at total energy consumption, such as heating homes.

It is electricity that is used to crack water into hydrogen, so to say that they are using something unavailable to the US is wrong. The US has tremendous Hydro potential, if you can get the damn tree-huggers out of the way...

Reference: http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/edc/countries/ Iceland.asp

and if that conveyor....

[Anonymous Coward]

...halts due to desalinization, there won't be anyone alive in Iceland after the "Day After Tomorrow" to complain anyway.

kyoto...

[Cryptnotic]

Stuff like that is a good reason for the U.S. not to be involved in that weird Kyoto pyramid scheme.

No it doesn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Water expands (why ice floats) because it forms a crystal type structure that has extra blank space. The water molecule is bipolar (microwaves use this feature to heat your food). One side is negative (oxygen) and the other is positive (hydrogens). As water cools, the charges line up the molecules into a formation.

I am not sure about this part, but I think flash freezing is when you freeze water so fast it doesn't form the crystal structure. This is used for food (some fish) whose tissue would be damaged by the expanding water.

Most elements (I think all) and most molecules actually take up less space as their temperature (kinetic energy) goes down. Water is the exception to the rule due to its bipolar nature.

Iceland & Renewables

[mschaffer]

In the article:
"When the Vikings came here they were only using renewables, like wind and solar energy," said Bragi Arnason, a professor of chemistry at the University of Iceland who is known as "Professor Hydrogen."

Let's not forget that Iceland's trees were almost all totally clear-cut. Iceland had many dense forests before the Vikings came.

Re:Natural gas is the alternative source for Hydro

[aidfarh]

You get natural gas from gas fields, as opposed to oil fields. You also get some gas associated with oil fields, but generally, we don't need oil to get gas.

Why not just go with electric busses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why convert geothermal energy to electric and then to hydrogen when you can just go from geo to elec?

With any conversion of energy, there is a partial loss of it. One conversion is better than two. Why not just have powerlines running up and down the streets?

Plus, it isn't exactly easy or efficient to transport hydrogen. Especially when compared to electricity followed by oil which is much easier to transport, but a lot less efficient when used.

Not trying to put down their efforts or anything, but... it just seems like a lot of extra overhead resulting in a more inefficient method of energy use.

Ofcourse if they got hydrogen just sitting around somewhere, or getting it as a byproduct then this all works out.

Liquifaction of Hydrogen

[Nit Picker]

Actually, above the critical temperature of about 33K, hydrogen cannot be liquified at any pressure.

Electrolysis efficiency

[rcw-home]

Get a 9V battery and a cup of water.

I can also hook a 9V battery to a 10kohm resistor dunked in a cup of water and the cup of water won't get noticably warmer either.

I can't find any references on the web to electrolysis systems currently operating with greater than 75% efficiency. Most of the numbers I see are 65%.

For car usage, you also have to deal with the efficiency of the engine or fuel cell you're using. Either way you're limited to the Carnot efficiencies of the temperature differences utilizied. 50% efficiency may be an optimistic figure.

50%*65% = 32%

Compare that to NiMH batteries, which will give you 66% of the energy you put into them. They'll drive electric motors which are easily 90% efficient.

66%*90% = 59%

Granted, if you're of the notion that nuclear fusion will make energy so cheap that you won't care about those numbers, high-pressure hydrogen tanks have energy densities of 500-1000 watt hours/kilogram, as opposed to NiMH's 70 wh/kg. (Compare either with gasoline at 12000 wh/kg). This is at least partially offset by the relative weights of electric motors vs. engines.

Personally, I like the idea of using the sun and otherwise-unusable desert to farm a lot of high-oil-content algae, then pumping the biodiesel from that into our car engines.

Re:Electrolysis efficiency

[msmikkol]

For car usage, you also have to deal with the efficiency of the engine or fuel cell you're using. Either way you're limited to the Carnot efficiencies of the temperature differences utilizied. 50% efficiency may be an optimistic figure.

This is exactly the point with fuel cells - They are not limited by the Carnot efficiency. Fuel cells are not thermal power devices; the process is electrochemical. That 50% figure is about right for overall total system efficiency for a fuel cell vehicle. That's about double the efficiency of a gasoline or diesel powered internal combustion engine vehicle.

However

[DABANSHEE]

If the objective of hydrogen is to replace batteries as a stored energy source for electric cars, with the billions already invested in internal combustion engine technology over the last century, wouldn't it be cheaper simply to use the hydrogen to fuel internal combustion engine cars? I really don't see a hydrogen storage & inlet system being that much harder than those LPG conversions many petrol taxis & deisel buses have. Actually here in Oz LPG is a no cost option for Holdens (dealer fitted) & Falcons (factory fitted) because those cars are popular fleet cars (including cab fleets).

Remember the triple rotor Mazda wankel racer at Le Mans that was powered by hydrogen. Aparently hydrogen doesn't like hot inlets, the wankel resolves that problem because where the inlet enters the combustrian chamber isn't where the combustion actually occures (a property of the wankel configuration). But there's that BMW research vehicle with a 4 cycle straight-6, so that problem's not insurmountable.

Re:However

[rammer]

The problem is that using fuel cells is much more energy efficient than using hydrogen in internal combustion engine.

Re:However

[barawn]

wouldn't it be cheaper simply to use the hydrogen to fuel internal combustion engine cars?

You get about a 50-100% boost (or more) in efficiency going from an Otto cycle in cars (which have a thermal bottleneck) to fuel cells (which do not).

That'll directly translate into gas mileage - or more importantly in the hydrogen case, storage volume. Hydrogen requires a little more careful storage than natural gas, so the lower the volume needed, the better, most likely.

Ship it the old fashion way....

[emjoi_gently]

.... in a Zepplin, of course.
It would make for a beautiful sight. Airships floating about the city, refueling the (literally now) Gas Stations.

Great, now what do the rest of us do?

[joshv]

What does the other 99% of the planet that doesn't have easy access to geothermal energy do? What works for Iceland won't work just about anywhere else on the planet.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[UlfGabe]

It's easy for iceland to claim 70% "green" because geothermal heating is a real option for them. The air is cold, the earth is hot. It doesn't work for most of the rest of the world. There's nothing for me to dig into but cold muck and the chesapeake watershed. Think again jackass. It was a concious choice to use that source of energy, i will put money down on hard work. by your logic: It is easy for USA to have 70% green power, cover the deserts in fields of solar panels/fill the skys with windmills, use geothermal power. Everyone in the USA is complaining, and not doing enought doing.

iceland - a nation of handout takers

[Anonymous Coward]

From CIA World Factbook:

300,000 people

no regular armed forces; Police, Coast Guard

Military expenditures - dollar figure: 0

Military - note:
defense is provided by the US-manned Icelandic Defense Force (IDF) headquartered at Keflavik

Re:Natural gas is the alternative source for Hydro

[one_n_only_wildcat]

Sunline Transit, in Coachella Valley (Palm Springs and neighbors) California has been running hydrogen powered busses for years. Unfortunately, their website http://www.sunline.org/ is in a transition, however, their busses are part of a program at College of the Desert http://desert.cc.ca.us/Students/Academics/Communit yEducation/index.asp?id=189 which promotes alternative fuels. This is attainable for the U.S. as a whole, but it would upset the powers that be too much.

MOD PARENT UP.

[Spaceman40]

+eleventy-hundred insightful.

Dams

[Mark_MF-WN]

We can do that with hydrogen power, electricity, and human toil, fo'.

Re:Dams

[MrPC81]

And do all the employees there commute to and from work by electrified mass transport, or hydrogen vehicles with hydrogen produced by nukes or renewables?

Even the underpaid grunts who couldn't ordinarily afford a new unleaded car, let alone a new hydrogen car?

Re:Dams

[Mark_MF-WN]

The underpaid grunts wont be able to afford gasoline for much longer anyway. So they'll have to choose a non-gasoline commuting solution anyway.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[Idarubicin]

...erected for the exlusive purpose of providing power for aluminum smelters, which are not that green.

On the other hand, the aluminum may be put to green uses. Vehicles built from aluminum can be lighter and more fuel-efficient than those made from steel. (Steel mills aren't known for being particularly green, either.) Most of our transportation engineering is predicated on the use of metals as a structural material, and all those hydrogen-powered vehicles have to be built out of something--aluminum might well be the best alternative.

Canadian

[Mark_MF-WN]

Nope, I'm Canadian. And we get most of our power from hydroelectric dams and nuclear reactors. Hydroelectricity and nuclear power are two of the best sources of power, PERIOD. They kick the ass out of coal and oil.

The future is going to demand cheap, renewable sources of power, and it's time America got on board. Hell, America should be leading the way. The US has vast supplies of uranium and plutonium, and there are reactor designs that can use weapons-grade and junk-grade fissile material.

"Save the Planet. Kill the Whales!"

[emjoi_gently]

A fine slogan for the 21st century.

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[InterruptDescriptorT]

...most of the energy needs in Iceland are currently met by good old hydro

Talk about 'green power' indeed!

Hydrogen caused ice age

[Spy Handler]

On the other hand, if the entire world switches to a hydrogen economy in which some new technology (like practical hot fusion) is used to generate hydrogen from water, eventually Earth's cloud cover will increase due to so much water vapor emission..... increasing the planetary albedo, which in turn will lead to new ice age. Iceland will be the first to freeze over!

Yeah but ...

[halfridge]

does it run on linux.

Re:Yeah but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

yes iceland runs linux, linux.oruggt.net www.gentoo.is and #Niceland on ircnet are the main hangout places for linux ppl.

Iceland

[Kadmos]

I've just got to say: I love Iceland. Whenever I read, hear or see something about Iceland, it seems as though they are *doing* *something*.

Some may disagree with *what* they are doing (I generally agree), but at least they are active. IIRC they give (per capita) a great deal of money to aid less fortunate people, they are (as this article alludes to) active on global warming issues, they represent themselves well in the UN and they seem to have a lot of common sense (something which, in a world of increasing stupidity and ignorance, is becoming increasingly rare).

For example a snippet from http://www.iceland.org/culture_science.html
"All inhabitants of Iceland have the right of access to the best possible health service at any given time for the protection of their mental, social and physical health. The law ensures that there is no discrimination against patients on the grounds of sex, religion, beliefs, nationality, race, skin colour, financial status, family relations or status in other respects. The average life expectancy for men in 1999 was 77. 5 years and for women 81. 4 years - these are among the world's highest averages. Infant mortality is among the lowest in the world, 5. 5 per 1,000 live births. "

(Now, some people don't seem to like the idea of universal health care, but personally I don't care for the dark ages.)

Maybe it comes from having a small population, and not having any physical borders with other countries, but I think Iceland are an inspiration :-)

Re:Iceland

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you wonder what computer is popular in iceland:

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,53872,00.ht ml ?tw=wn_story_related

Re:Iceland

[smari]

I hate to break it to you, but we got Electricity relatively late.

When Icelandic people say things like "If it wasn't for our geo-thermal and our glaciers that give you hydro-eletricity we would all be long gone.", it makes me wonder why we bother maintaining an educational system.

Whatever it was that kept us here, it surely wasn't the natural resources.

Obligatory TPB Quote

[ThatsNotFunny]

"And you: friendless, brainless, helpless, hopeless. Do you want me to send you back to where you were, unemployed . . . in Greenland?"

Hydrogen powered cars

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

How do you prevent them from exploding like bombs when people get into traffic accidents?

The roads are scary enough as it is.

Re:Hydrogen powered cars

[digimortal_uk]

Hydrogen when used in cars is no where near as dangerous as you're making out.

- Once any storage tank is ruptured the gas would boil off very quickly.

- It is much less volitile and less likely to ignite than gasoline/petrol vapor/vapour is.

- Much of the negative publicity about hydrogen is down to the Hindenburg disaster where the airship skin being doped with a rocket fuel like substance caused it to burn so quickly.

So there! One valid point though hydrogen storage isn't easy and needs to be kept at high pressures and/or low temperatures leading to added weight compared to a fuel that's liquid at room temperaure being kept in a little tin csan fuel tank.

Fusion... Renewable???

[Walkey]

> So fusion is still the only answer unless you want windmills everywhere you look.

Hmmm... so according to you, fusion would be a good green renewable source of energy? I'm not saying you said that but your statement could make it look that way. You might want to look twice at that.

It may be one of the less polluting (I have my doubts about that) when we get to master that source of energy (far from it to day), but it ain't renewable, once you've combined atoms into bigger atoms, they stay that way - unless you combine them further up to a point where you can't do it any longer.

Ok, so it's not renewable, but maybe at in the timesclae of humanity it does not matter too much. I'd like to know actually. Never seen any discussion on that point.

After all, using solar energy is using fusion :-) if indirectly - same goes of wind and water energy on earth, apart from geothermal - there isn't much we can do to stop that one burning for another 4 or 5 billion years, so why create our own fusion (supposing that we could master it some day) when we can tap into it remotely now? (at least for all those uses that could easily be managed on low/slow energy requirement).

Sure it'd be a little strange (upsetting? bothering?) to have a huge windmill looming over my roof, but I'd rather have that sight and inconvenience than live with the presently continuing degradation of the environment. As to windmills in the landscape, I think they are pretty cool.

Fusion is cool from an SF perspective, hot from a scientific perspective but it might become the next hot potato after fission and fossil fuels.
If you look close the sun's radiation isn't excatly all friendly to the animal reign on earth. We do require a massive shield (the earth's magnetic field) provided to us by nature's good fortune. Hmmmm, hang on a minute, not fortune, they are simply the conditions that allowed us to develop in the first place.

Some 15 years ago I was at a conference about a manned mission to Mars. Aside from the huge technical (energy) challenge it would represent to send a manned mission to Mars, one of the key critical issues identified was that of the safety of the crew. It was estimated that they ran a 40% chance of being hit by some nasty radiations due to solar erruptions while on their way outside of earth's magnetic shield. Consequences of those radiations could be as benign as some cancer or other in the long term (years) or as extreme as fatal leukemia with death within than four hours of radiation time. The above is intended as a warning to fusion lovers: we might want to tread carefully on these future grounds.

Thoughts?
Waltzing Monkey.

Re:Fusion... Renewable???

[Shakrai]

Hmmm... so according to you, fusion would be a good green renewable source of energy? I'm not saying you said that but your statement could make it look that way. You might want to look twice at that.

Do you really think we are going to run out of hydrogen anytime soon? Setting aside the minor fact that hydrogen is 2/3 of the worlds oceans and easily harvestable it's also the most common element in the entire universe and could possibly be harvested from the cosmos. Also, while I'm not a nuclear physicist I do know that when you are talking about controlled (or even uncontrolled -- how big is the core in a nuclear bomb?) nuclear reactions (fission or fusion) you are taking about a very small reaction mass. I highly doubt we'll be running out of hydrogen in the next few billion years.

Consequences of those radiations could be as benign as some cancer or other in the long term (years) or as extreme as fatal leukemia with death within than four hours of radiation time. The above is intended as a warning to fusion lovers: we might want to tread carefully on these future grounds.

Why must people abandon all logical reason when they hear the word "nuclear"? Why would fusion be any more dangerous then fission which we have mastered for the last 50 years? More to the point what other option do we have when our oil becomes too expensive to keep using? Are we going to cover the state of Nevada with solar panels and the great plains with wind turbines?

Re:Fusion... Renewable???

[hplasm]

Well, seeing as neither fusion nor geothermal energy really count as renewable, the discussion is a little moot (mute! haha..). However, I don't think that a stream of solar-wind-type charged particles is really something we have to worry about from a fusion reactor. Or a volcano..

Re:Fusion... Renewable???

[Walkey]

Do you really think we are going to run out of hydrogen anytime soon?

Hey, of course not.
I was taking a sacastically academic perspective, replying to a post that identified hydrogen as non renewable in the context of a hydrogen + oxygen combustion engine.

Which in the strict sense it exactly is renewable in that case since we can separate the hydrogen from the oxygen by electrolysis - albeit at cost. Only it is more convenient to store and carry hydrogen than it is to store and carry electricity.

Whereas still strictly academically the fusion of hydrogen atoms is not renewable as we do not know how to separate them (well not in any practical sense anyway and it would be at such a high cost that it would not be practicable - defeating the purpose if you ask me).

Why must people abandon all logical reason when they hear the word "nuclear"?

Hey you take an excerpt from my email and suspect it means what it does not say.

No I did not say that whenever in some undefined future we might be able to master fusion that this will have the same effect as living too close to the sun (unprotected). However I like to take a cautious approach to such developments and some of the potential consequences. Fusion in essence produces very high power radiations (this is why the H-bomb would be (is?) so efficient). Of course in a controlled reactor one would build in safety mechanisms. But we also all know about human failings and systemic problems. Examples abound of catasprophies and near catastrophies in the nuclear fission world (throughout the world). Not only that but the treatment and storage of 'contaminated' produce has not been resolved in a very pleasing way yet.

When someone talks about a 'good green renewable' energy source, one ought to consider not just the availability of the fuel, or the relative ease (which is not the case for fusion yet) of using the fuel, but also the whole panel of after effects and consequences. One is the safety (risks) of the facilities and in the case of fusion this will be even more delicate than for fission - which we have seen and continue to see is far from perfect. Another is the safe disposal of the resulting elements from the combustion/fission/fusion process. Granted, in the case of fusion it may turn out that the resulting materials will be more stable and not contaminated as much as for fission type materials. But rather than speculating on this we need solid proof.
So, yeah, let's build a test reactor whenver we think that we can safely do that, let's try the technology, I'm all go for this. And let's fully evaluate the risks and decide whether we want to build a second one after that.

Not that you would have guessed, but to be honest you are talking to the wrong guy about being illogical with the nuclear. I am a pragmatic and aside from being French and proud of nuclear power in France, I am also a realist and I think that human systems have the inherent ability to cause harm if we do not approach such technologies with tremendous amounts of due care (backed by solid study and controlled experimentation).

No need for a history course on this, no pointing the finger at any country in particular, there are at least five countries (one my own) I could identify as a source of serious worries regarding their handling of nuclear fission. No need to say that I want better than that for fusion.

Having serious worries is by no means a way for me to say no altogether, although I'm a computer guy I'm not binary (which might be implied by your email - seems like things are black or white for you, no shade or grey, no colour). So yes, I have serious misgivings about the nuclear, but I still invite and welcome experimentation and use provided that we solve critical issues regarding the safety and health concerns at stake, for the human population, and for the world at large since those technologies have such power that they can potentially affect very large areas.

That said, many traditional

Bah, why must Republicans be so blind...

[fyzix]

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. The Kyoto accord is not about redistributing wealth, it's about taking the first step away from our current destructive behaviour towards the environment. We have to start somewhere and even though Kyoto isn't much, it's a start.

Re:Iceland's electricity is not primarily geotherm

[deblau]

I stand corrected. Here are some interesting figures I dug up:

In the United States, hydropower has grown steadily, from 56,000 MW in 1970 to over 90,000 MW today. As a portion of the electricity supply, it has fallen to 10 percent, down from 14 percent 20 years ago -- but it still accounts for a greater share than petroleum. In fact, US hydropower plants produce the energy equivalent of 500 million barrels of oil per year.
Source: The Union of Concerned Scientists.

The United States in 2003 consumed just a hair over 42 billion gallons of distillate fuel oil, most of which (37 billion gallons) went to diesel vehicles. At 42 gallons per barrel, that's one billion barrels of oil per year.

In order for hydro to maintain its current customers, and take on the automobile industry, it will have to triple its power output. Two more Hoover Dams for the left coast. Is there that much water out there?

Is it just me but...

[randallpowell]

is America falling behind in science and technology since corporations sent jobs to India and China?

Alternate sources

[Loki_666]

Ok, im not a geologist or any other sort of -ist but....

If i understand correctly (and maybe im talking crap) geothermal energy is created by the difference in temparature between point A and point B. So, i know where there is lots of heat relative to the surface temperatue of the planet.... deep underground. The closer to the core of the earth the hotter it gets. I dont know how deep you have to go to get a significant rise but maybe we should be investigating drilling techniques to get down to that lovely warm core (erm, without creating a mini-volcano of course).

Another idea (again no idea if it will work) is one i came across in a sci-fi book called Siva by Walt and Leight Richmond (i think). It suggests using the electrical potential difference between the planet surface and the ionisphere. The theory being if you float a baloon up to the ionosphere with a wire trailing all the way back to the ground the electricity would have a path to flow down and you could tap it. Although this has 2 possible problems:
1) A short circuit between the ionosphere and the earth (think fuses - kaboom)
2) What happens when (if?) the ionosphere runs out of charge.... maybe this would be worse than global warming.

But, but, but.....

[Anonymous Coward]

But Slashbots said it DOESN'T WORK!!!!!

Space elevator is no problem and Hydrogen can't work, because it isn't a FUEL!!!!!!!! You need more energy to make it than it gives you!!!!! That CAN'T work!!!!! Space elevator OTOH, we only need 300.000km of a material, where 1g cost about $1000. NO PROBLEM SLASHBOTS SAY!!!

Stupid Icelanders, listen to SLASHBOTS: only nucular, oil and space elevator works!!!!! Green energy DOESN'T WORK!!!!!! (It's SOCIALISM, what are you thinking!?!?!?!)

Re:But, but, but.....

[Anonymous Coward]

300,000 km it is of course....

WRONG!

[Anonymous Coward]

For car usage, you also have to deal with the efficiency of the engine or fuel cell you're using. Either way you're limited to the Carnot efficiencies of the temperature differences utilizied.

Bzzzzt. Fuel cells are not limited by the Carnot process. Take Thermodynamics 101 again, thank you.

Wacky Racers

[prjames]

Wot no more Formula Off Road! How the hell are they going to get 500 horse power plus out their buggies now? Hydrogen fusion? link - http://www.off-road.com/bvreviews/cliff.html/

Re:Energy independence is a national security issu

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many ways to secure energy resources. My country has soldiers in Iraq. America has as well.

2050 !

[DataCannibal]

"Iceland plans to become the first oil-free country by 2050."

Just in time to see Scotland lose to the japanese robots in the World Cup Final.

Iceland

[EarlGreyViking]

Being a resident of Iceland I would like to offer my perspective on the current situation and future, regarding oil, pollution, renewable energy, hydrogen etc. Those hydrogen buses, about 2 or 3 of them, have been in testing for nearly 2 years now. Supported by Shell and DaimlerChrysler (I believe) they are performing well in our cold climate. I haven't been on them, since I own a car and don't really bother myself with public transport :) Yes, we are very lucky with our geo-thermal energy and hydro-electricity. If we didn't have those things I doubt anyone could live here, at least not in a modern civilization. The winters are harsh and the summer is short and moderate. When you can live in a sunny climate you wouldn't really bother with Iceland's harsh climate. However, we still have pollution problem in our capital area! About 180.000 of the 300.000 residents in Iceland live in towns in the same area which we call the capital area, surrounding Reykjavik. There seem to be news about pollution reaching record levels every year. Mainly because of our car fleet, but for a country of 300.000 you'd think 180.000 cars are quiet enough. The largest industry here in Iceland is fishing, and our fishing fleet uses oil, and I believe it uses more oil than all of our cars. I could be wrong, but I'm at least far off. Simply said, we rely on oil just as much as the next country. And in MY opinion, the government or other companies are taking no steps to transform from oil to hydrogen. They might be open to it, but they will only convert to it if it becomes feasible, technology-wise and money-wise. And also, I'd say more people are looking forward to low-cost diesel vehicles than hydrogen cars. You give us too much credit. Our ancestors settled here because there was free land, not much did they know of the harsh winters, but somehow today about 300.000 people are stranded here. If it wasn't for our geo-thermal and our glaciers that give you hydro-eletricity we would all be long gone. And also, it's not us that are inventing all that hydrogen-technology stuff, it seems to be mostly done by companies and scientists in europe, japan, and the united states.

iceland slightly more environmentally friendly

[Kazparr]

now if we could just persuade them to stop hunting whales..

Re:iceland slightly more environmentally friendly

[Stebet]

I keep coming across this argument and never get an answer.. so i ask once again. What's wrong with hunting whales (as long as one doesn't make them extinct)?

We ead horses for christs sake, it can't be the fact that tourists like to look at them because we could just as well open up a SeaWorld!

Lot's of people like to eat whale, so what's so different about hunting/killing them like any other fish or barnyard animal?

Re:iceland slightly more environmentally friendly

[Bake]

You know, there is a slight difference between catching around 50 minke whales (arguably the most abundant whale species) per year and catching over 200 beluga whales like Alaskan inuits do, or over 1000 beluga whales and 3-400 narwhals like Canadian inuits do per year.

As an Icelander I'll admit that I'm not 100% against whaling, but I'm fine with it since the quota is only 50-60 whales per year and the quota is limited to one of the most abundant of whale species.

Even though I have some arguments against whaling, I couldn't even dream of some of the arguments that most of the environmentalists come up with.

When paging through some of the literature that organizations like Greenpeace (which is, apart from this little difference of opinion, a fine organization) print out, I almost get the feeling that there is simply one species of whales in the oceans, and it's simply called "Whale".

Bear in mind that catching whales has been as much a part of Icelandic history for the past 1100 years as it has been a part of Inuit history for the same period; so any claims that due to history and their "way of life" that inuits have some higher claim to catching whales than we Icelanders have, they will simply be filed in with the "do it because we say so" arguments.

Regards,

Hydrogen is a cruel joke

[Paradox_001]

Hydrogen is a public dillusion which stems from the fear of us running out of hydrocarbon energy, which we will be soon. Hydrogen is a net energy loser, which means it takes more energy to make the hydrogen than the energy you get from burning it. Right now the only practical way to make hydrogen on any kind of scale is with natural gas, something that we are running disasterously low on. The United States imports 15% of it's natural gas from Canada, and that 15% is over half of their production. The United States had it's production peak of natural gas in the 70's.

Oil is used as a feedstock for all commercial pesticides and natural gas is used as a feedstock for all commercial fertilizers. We have turned our farmland into nothing more than a nutrient defficient sponge so without these petrochemicals farming output would drop from about 140 bushels/acre down to roughly 30. Oil is used in plastics for the medical inductry and almost every other kind of plastic you can think of. There are 7 gallons of oil per every single tire we put on our cars. 40 barrels of oil are used in the energy to produce one car. 24 solar panels operating in the Austrailian desert for 24 hours produces only the energy equivalent of 1 liter of gasoline. If we were to remove hydrocarbons from the picture and replace that energy with energy from nuclear powerplants, it would take 10,000 of the largest plants and at that burn rate the uranium supply would last roughly 20 years. The bottom line is that there is nothing that can replace the energy efficiency of cheap oil.

Now for the bad news, we are peaking or about to, very soon, in both oil and gas, and that means the production slope of both begins on a slide down an irreversable decline. Demand will soar while production will slowly sink lower and lower with every subsequent barrel extracted. I'll leave the rest up to your imagination as to what effects this will have on the economy.

http://ospmm.sourceforge.net/ is a project I am creating to wake people up. Check the research section and read the reviews of the books if you don't believe me. Also I suggest viewing the award winning documentary http://www.endofsuburbia.com/ for a primer on what is about to come down the pipe. The movie is laiden with credentialed industry experts, geologists, and urban planners. This shit is for real people, we are living our lives way beyond what is even remotely sustainable, wake the hell up!

Re:Hydrogen is a cruel joke

[t_allardyce]

Silence you eco terrorist! go and fill up your 16mpg tank like everyone else and like it. All this crap about an oil shortage is just some left wing conspiracy, we have enough oil to last a century.. if we invade and destroy every other country in the world by 2030. If you don't keep on buying lots and lots of stuff, our economy will crash - remember, patriots drive humvees and SUVs and go shopping every day! terrorists ride bicycles and 'recycle'.

One problem

[MHerzog]

Here in Iceland hardly anyone actualy uses the busses. Every 15 minutes an empty bus drives by my house.

So in stead of burning diesel to drive the empty busses around, they are going to use hydrogen.

Looks decieve...

[Savage-Rabbit]

While I commend the notion, Iceland has a unique feature not mentioned in the article -- an extremely small population. According to the CIA (spare the check-your-facts comments, thanks), it is currently less than 300,000 people.

Those 300.000 people also operate one of the biggest and most modern fishing fleets on the planet. In view of that fact being oil free by 2050 becomes a bit more challenging. Running cars on alternative fuels is one thing but extending that to deep sea trawlers and bulk cargo carriers is quite another proposition and that is precisely what they are thinking about.

Totally oil free by 2050?

[Uukrul]

Irak will be totally oil free by 2010.- Shell.com

D'Oh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydrogen is a net energy loser, which means it takes more energy to make the hydrogen than the energy you get from burning it

Like 100% of *all* energy storage mediums. You know, the current from you socket took more energy to make than you get from it. Shall we stop using electricity? God, when will the last idiot understand?

Re:D'Oh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm you're wrong...

It doesn't take more energy to extract a barrel of Oil from the ground than is retrieved by combusting it.

It doesn't take nearly as much energy to refine a vessel of Uranium than is extracted from it in a nuclear power plant.

It doesn't take as much energy to grow a silicon photovoltaic wafer than is extracted from it over its useful lifetime.

What you're doing is grossly misinterpreting and misusing the laws of thermodynamics to make your argument. While it is true that energy conversion can never be 100% efficient, it also cannot be less than 0% efficient.

Current not confined to path of least resistance

[Anonymous Coward]

Electrical current takes the path of least resistance

I'm not arguing one way or the other about the Hindenberg, but I would like to warn about misinterpreting this urban myth about the flow of electricity. In a parallel circuit (i.e., a circuit with different paths), electrical current will flow along all of the paths, the amount being inversely proportional to the resistance of each path. For modelling two or three dimensional objects, integrating over all of the different paths electricity can take to figure out how much current will flow through one region of an object versus another can be quite complicated.

Re:They have those in many cities, and they are co

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not condense the water exhaust into an internal tank in the bus, and then go back to the garage during night, plug it in to get electricity and electrolyse the water again. Presto, there you have hydrogen again. Off you go!

Telecommunication Breakdown

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the Hindenburg disaster was bad, but look at the positive side. If it hadn't happened we wouldn't have the cover for Led Zeppelin I.

Hydrogen is misleading you

[EmagGeek]

That hydrogen they are using is no doubt manufactured from fossil fuels...

In sunny places, it might be feasible to use photovoltaics to disassociate water, but up in Iceland? It's natural gas conversion... so it's not really solving any global problems - just a problem of local pollution at the expense of another 100% efficient energy conversion step.

Yep... a net loss... just paying interest to move the environmental pollution debt from one credit card to another..

Re:Hydrogen is misleading you

[klang]

RTFA

Iceland sees itself as a testing ground, where almost unlimited heat from hot springs can be tapped for experiments.

heat => electricity => split water => grep Hydrogen

When the heat is free, the price Hydrogen is basically the price of equiptment to collect it..

Now, go and read the article, then go and read about the first Hydrogen Fuel Station in Iceland

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[Anonymous Coward]

If Icelander's don't smelt the aluminum with 'green' energy, then won't it smelt somewhere else with fossil fuels ?

Re:I hate the term "green power", article full of

[ajs318]

Actually, lead-acid batteries are green. Almost every part of a lead-acid battery is recyclable or innocuous. When the battery is no longer capable of holding a charge, the electrolyte {dilute sulphuric acid} can just be dumped in the sea, or anywhere there isn't much growing. If you were really bothered about the pH of the stuff, you could mix it with some alkaline industrial waste -- or maybe just chuck it into a disused limestone quarry. You could even use it as a feedstock for some industrial process. The lead plates, terminals and connector bars can be melted down, and all the impurities and corrosion products {which are what have been causing the battery to lose its charge-holding ability} will separate out. They may be useful in some industrial process. The outer casing probably is made of plastic, but it's all the same kind of plastic so can be melted down together; or can even be washed out and re-used.

Lead-acid batteries also have a low internal resistance, so very little energy is wasted as heat when charging or discharging. They don't need highly complex charging circuitry; they're pretty much self-regulating. Just supply DC and top up the cells with de-mineralised water {which you can get from an air conditioner}. Any surplus energy above what can be stored as potential energy in the cell itself just goes to split the water in the electrolyte into hydrogen and oxygen. Though they aren't easy to separate, the mixture is almost {but not quite, since oxygen is more soluble in water than hydrogen} perfectly stoichiometric, and so could be used as a fuel in its own right. When it's burned, you will get back as much energy as it took to make it in the first place, of course.

A kind of smog

[Logi]

I was wondering, if a large number of vehicles on the road are hydrogen fuel cell powered, won't there be a big problem of the vapour affecting visibility for drivers? I wonder how that will be dealt with.

Yes, we could end up with an effect similar to smog, but made entirely of water vapour. We could call it something like... fog!

Hydrogen buses in Madrid

[davaguco]

We already have several hydrogen buses in Madrid. The first one started on May 2003. I think we now have between 5 and 10 hydrogen buses.

Re:70%? Impressive.

[Stebet]

Actually we have volcanic eruptions, avalanches and erathquakes quite frequently (yes i live in Iceland). Avalanches cause deaths very rarely (since Iceland is so sparsely populated) and i don't think we've head any deaths due to earthquakes in the last 100 years.

We had a pretty big earthquake (6.5 on Richter) on june 17th 2000 (our independence day :S). The quake was felt all over the country but caused relatively little damage (propably because of our very strict building regulations, almost everything is steel-reinforced concrete). Not one casualty there.

Volcanic eruptions are also pretty common. Here's a small list of dates - locations (you can try googling them):
2004 Grímsvötn
2000 Hekla
1998 Grímsvötn
1996 Gjálp
1991 Hekla

Most of these weren't big (except the one in 1991 and 1998) bet the one in 1998 caused a considerable flood (Skeiðarárhlaup) which damaged our main higway and destroyed a couple of bridges.

I dare to claim that human casualties due to natural disasters for the last 100 years is below 100 people (the worst being two avalanches that hit in 1995 in Flateyri and Súðavík)

Kyoto has everything to do with the environment

[Snaller]

Its the first step in getting the greedy ass nations of the world to stop polluting. No wonder Bush is against it.