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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."
Iceland is rather green. It's Greenland that has the ice.
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.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
"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?
Electrolysis of water, powered by geothermal energy.
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.
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?
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.
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.
My other computer is a Jacquard loom.
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.
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
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
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.
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.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
wont this leave the streets full of exhaust (ice) in the middle of winter ...?
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.
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.
One of the advantages of living on a geologically active island...
Let us not explore too much the disadvantages.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
Seastead this.
And where do you get the natural gas from???
TACO BELL!
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
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.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
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.
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.
Anybody want a peanut?
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.
"Piter, too, is dead."
You'd think they would be the first to welcome a bit of global warming too wouldn't you?
...
Oh shit.
We're fucked, right?
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
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.
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.
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.
We're practicing our labials.
Sometimes I really wonder 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.
/. and crappy TV comment show got off their arses and did something we might get there a little quicker.
/., 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
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
Hydrogen
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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
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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
Another quick rant while I'm at it - Global Warming
Everytime anything like this comes up on
Paul Leader
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
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,
We're practicing our labials.
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
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
.... in a Zepplin, of course.
It would make for a beautiful sight. Airships floating about the city, refueling the (literally now) Gas Stations.
does it run on linux.
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.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
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'.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
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.