Just came back from a short trip to Iceland, where Shell have spent 250,000 (£ or $, not sure), installing their first real life hydrogen filling station.
Suitably powered vehicles arrive next month & get the fuel free, for an unlimited trial period!It will be mainly busses & other public sevice cars/vans, initially,but still, perhaps a good idea, from a forward thinking government.
Generally cost of living is double UK prices, but unleaded is about the same, with diesel just 1/2 our price!!
VB
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forward thinking government
Speed read this thread and specifically the above, re-read it and relaised we were talking about Iceland, thought I'd slipped into a parallel universe for a minute.
Sounds like a good idea too much to hopr that the UK will be on board soon ?
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I'd like to think i wasn't susceptible to advertising, but I did wonder what Shell were doing building a filling station at a frozen food shop....
Iceland (the country !) has always been at the forefront of environmentally sound energy use, but then again when you can tap straight into the ground and tap enough 'free' heat to provide free central heating for the whole of your capital city, who wouldn't be?
I take it the hydrogen filling station was in Rekyavik ?
I have to grow old - but I don't have to grow up
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Youv'e rumbled me ! That was my first thought, but I was to flash to cough !
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Great, a hydrogen filling station.
You can just see the wrinklies now with their Micras, can't you?
Blow up half the countryside when they accidentally put hydrogen in it, instead of unleaded.
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Hydrogen as a panacea for cleaning up road vehicles is about 30 years away.
Iceland uses geothermal energy to generate the electricity for hydrogen production. Nice if you have it.
Let us look at the UK. Govt report suggests that wind power is the best source of renewable energy. The report also reveals that wind power will first be used to replace the nuclear power stations that are to be phased out over the next 10 years. But nuclear power generates ~ 20% of UK needs which means that most power >70% will still be generated by fossil fuel. Wind power only generates ~4%.
Therefore even with an explosion in wind generation it will be long time before there is a surplus of wind energy for hydrogen generation for vehicles. Otherwise you have to use fossil fuel to generate the electricity to generate the hydrogen. DOH!
Of course hydrogen can be produced by reformation of natural gas. This is cheaper than electrolytically produced hydrogen, but with only a small net reduction in C02 its not that good a solution. Plus of course still dependant on a fossil fuel.
There is just no environmental case for accelerating the introduction of a large scale hydrogen fuelled fleet ahead of the availability of surplus renewable energy sources
But then this doesn't take account of the environmental lobby; or as Bogush used to put it; environ-mental ;-)
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