With hydrogen-powered fuel cells incrementally gaining traction as a possible replacement for fossil fuels, I decided to make a pilgrimage and have a look at the world’s first commercial hydrogen filling station while I was in Reykjavik last week.
When Shell opened it back in 2003 there was only one fuel cell car on the road in Iceland, a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, plus the three DaimlerChrysler hydrogen-powered buses used in the E.U.'s first-ever such program for public transportation.
Iceland was considered an ideal location for this pilot because of their abundance of cheap and clean hydro and geothermal power, which could be used to produce the fuel through electrolysis with minimal carbon dioxide emissions. Because of that Iceland has become a pioneer in transitioning to a hydrogen economy with over 40 vehicles on the road, mainly Toyota Prius hybrids, second only to California.
This week alone, the news clearly demonstrates that filling up our tanks with hydrogen could be closer than we think. Researchers at Penn State University (New Method Uses Bacteria to Generate Hydrogen Gas) announced a scientific breakthrough with potentially large commercial implications whereby bacteria is used to easily produce hydrogen from virtually any biodegradable organic material; Honda unveiled a $600-a-month lease program on its sleek new fuel cell vehicle (Honda FCX Clarity: Lease the Future for $600/month); GM said it planned to manufacture 1 million fuel cell vehicles a year by 2012; and the city of London announced it will add 10 hydrogen-fueled buses to its fleet.
It would be easy to keep adding to that list. I won't, but it should be interesting to watch as momentum builds for what Jules Verne predicted way back in 1874, a world in which water replaces coal as the fuel of the future. Or as Thorsteinn Sigfusson, a professor at the University of Iceland, sees it, "The age of hydrocarbons was a glitch in time, and now we can begin working on the hydrogen age."
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