The Power and Transportation Future - Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: Advances in Transportation and Power - page 269

a hydrogen infrastructure could be established with a few fueling stations
in Reykjavik and nearby connecting roads. In 2003, Iceland opened the
first public hydrogen filling station in the world, even though there were
no privately owned hydrogen vehicles in the country.
A 2001 survey found that almost 95% of the population supported
replacing traditional fossil fuels with hydrogen. Icelandic New Energy
proposed a six-phase plan for hydrogen. Phase 1 started with the open-
ing of a hydrogen fueling station in 2003. Three fuel cell buses which are
4% of the city's bus fleet have been in use in Reykjavik. This is known
as ECTOS for Ecological City Transport System. Phase 2 will replace the
Reykjavik city bus fleet with proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell
buses. Phase 3 will begin the use of PEM fuel cell cars, while phase 4 will
demonstrate PEM fuel cell boats. Phase 5 will replace the entire fishing
fleet with fuel cell powered boats and in the next phase Iceland will sell
hydrogen to Europe and elsewhere. The last phase is expected to be com-
pleted by 2030-2040.
Iceland may start with methanol powered PEM vehicles and ves-
sels. The University of Iceland is involved in research on the production
of methanol (CH 3 OH) from hydrogen combined with carbon monoxide
(CO) or CO 2 from the exhaust of aluminum and ferrosilicon smelters. This
would capture hundreds of thousands of tons of CO and CO 2 released
from these smelters. If this is combined with hydrogen generated from
electrolysis using renewable power, Iceland could cut its greenhouse gas
emissions in half.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Renewable energy has many attributes similar to those of fuel cells,
including zero emission of urban air pollution, but some believe renew-
able sales have been slowed in the United States because of their high cost.
Actually, renewable technologies have succeeded in meeting most projec-
tions with respect to cost. As costs have dropped, successive generations
of projections of cost have either agreed with previous projections or have
been less. Renewables should become important parts of the power gen-
eration mix in the U.S. They represent an important long-term success for
government R&D.
Government R&D funding for renewables has been exceedingly suc-
cessful, bringing down the cost of many renewables by a factor of ten in