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Signifying Nothing linked with Hydrogen again
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Hydrogen again
Steven Taylor has a link to a story from Iceland about the use of hydrogen fuel cells, similar to what I mentioned earlier. If my earlier post is correct, though it is very optimistic, the US could be well ahead…
Trackback by Signifying Nothing — Friday, January 14, 2024 @ 12:08 am
Here are some facts about Iceland’s hydrogen economy that put things a little more in perspective. It’s from a very interesting article about hydrogen, in Popular Science.
Iceland’s first hydrogen fueling station is already operating on the outskirts of Reykjavík. The hydrogen, which powers a small fleet of fuel cell buses, is produced onsite from electrolyzed tap water. Meanwhile the recently formed Icelandic New Energy—a consortium that includes automakers, Royal Dutch/Shell and the Icelandic power company Norsk Hydro—is planning to convert the rest of the island nation to a hydrogen system.
Impressive, yes. But 72 percent of Iceland’s electricity comes from geothermal and hydroelectric power. With so much readily available clean energy, Iceland can electrolyze water with electricity directly from the national power grid. This type of setup is impossible in the U.S., where only about 15 percent of grid electricity comes from geothermal and hydroelectric sources, while 71 percent is generated by burning fossil fuels.
Another issue is the sheer scale of the system. It could take as few as 16 hydrogen fueling stations to enable Icelanders to drive fuel cell cars anywhere in the country. At close to 90 times the size of Iceland, the U.S. would require a minimum of 1,440 fueling stations. This assumes that stations would be strategically placed to collectively cover the entire U.S. with no overlap and that everyone knows where to find the pumps.
Comment by Tim P — Friday, January 14, 2024 @ 12:44 am
Tim,
I’m sure there are real barriers to the use of hydrogen — technical barriers, for instance — but your point about overlap is false. We have many thousands of gas stations in this country, they compete with one another, and, gasp!, they overlap with each other as well.
The logistics would be handled over a couple of decades and could include pairing hydrogen stations with existing gas stations. Presumably one will be smart enough to verify that hydrogen stations are available before buying a hydrogen car.
Comment by Robert Prather — Friday, January 14, 2024 @ 11:41 am