AVS. Arkitektúr verktækni skipulag - 01.03.2003, Page 34

Fyrsta almenna vetnisstöðin í heiminum var opnuð á fslandi í vor.
The first public hydrogen station in the world opened in lceland this spring.
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Hydrogen in
lceland
During the last few years, hydrogen
has been increasingly mentioned in
connection with national energy
development. Talk has even been
made of a “hydrogen society,”
which has become a new term in
the language. Icelanders and politi-
cians alike are both getting used to
these terms.
Thirty years ago, many woke up to
the reality that we had probably
reached the limits of energy use
growth worldwide, which had
increased greatly during
the decades before 1973. In that
year, the first oil crises of the post-
WWII years occurred. A now-
famous book was published in
response to that crisis, Limits to
Growth. Around that time, a club of
world-famous scientists and
politicians interested in future ener-
gy problems and environmental
issues of mankind was also found-
ed. This club was called ‘The Club
of Rome’ and is still functioning. In
the seventies, many people were
pessimistic regarding the future of
the world and predicted the deple-
tion of fossil fuel within a few
decades. These predictions did not
come true however, but concern
about the impact of the burning of
fossil fuels on the environment and
the weather, the so-called ‘green-
house effect,’ increased.
Most nations became aware that
something had to be done to coun-
teract the increasing greenhouse
effect and it could even be more
important to reduce the use of fos-
sil fuels. In order to attack this
problem, more had to be done than
just discuss the issues - a solution
had to be found. Most nations have
worked on finding sustainable ener-
gy and to reduce the use of energy.
In lceland, there is no shortage of
energy and it has been estimated
that only 15-20% of usable
hydropower has been harnessed
and less than 2% of
usable geothermal energy. The task
in lceland was therefore rather to
find energy carriers to take the
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