More than a dozen hydrogen-powered cars participated in a rally race of sorts to mark the opening of a 560-kilometre stretch of highway that is conveniently lined with hydrogen refilling stations for alternative fuel vehicles. The route runs along a scenic highway between Oslo and the North Sea oil town of Stavanger.
SIKUnews reports that Norway’s huge oil and gas company, StatoilHydro, has invested in several hydrogen filling stations along the route. This will make the drive very easy for cars that run on fuel cells, a real pioneering move on the part of the Norwegian fuel company.
Although hydrogen fuel cell cars are still in their early phases of development, they produce no emissions and are regarded as one of the cleanest vehicles in existence. The problem is that the fuel cells have a very short range capacity, so they need to refuel more frequently than regular vehicles.
Statoil is looking ahead, however, and is considering linking the highway to a similar hydrogen autobahn in northern Germany. California and Japan are two of the other places where hydrogen fuel stations can be found.
A Prius hydrogen powered car can travel up to 200 kilometres before it needs to be refuelled, and uses two kilograms of hydrogen gas to top up the tank. The hydrogen Prius (the original Prius is already the world’s most popular petrol/battery hybrid) has a top speed of 100 km/h.
Bob, it has a lot to do with the amount of funding needed to develop this technology further. Also, this project is likely to reduce the amount of uncertainty and if it proves to be successful, it should attract more investment.
It’s interesting to note just how little Hydrogen for energy is being developed all over the world. I guess Norway is one of the leading countries in the world, while a lot of the others are primarily still focusing on solar, nuclear and wind powered energy at the moment. It’s good to see Norway leading, but other countries should try and follow suit for a better world in the future.
-Bob
It is news like this that continues to give us hope. Hope of freedom from independence from oil. It is great to know that there are companies around the world working on this issue. The United States seems to forget about this issue every time gas prices go back down. The American people have a short attention span and lose interest in crying out for alternative fuel methods.
I hope that within my lifetime, I can say to my grandchildren, “There was a time when cars needed gasoline to move!”
always on the cutting edge of environmental and social issues
>AE – We are clever on tunnels – more than 70 is longer than 3000 meters (the longes is 24,4) – the total is about 1000 tunnels. It is alway exciting to see if there are people living on the other side when we make a new tunnel, if not – then we make a new and celebrate when we find a small settlement ;-)
Øystein, first elevators (aka lifts) in US skyscrapers were not free. People had to pay – and the higher they go the more they pay. Until they realize that it makes very hard to rent upper floors. Since then lifts are free all over the world. ;-)
BTW. There is unmanned, extremely safe, extremely reliable free public transportation system that moves hundreds of millions of people every day!
Have anyone heard about a drunk lift that drives on wrong side of the shift twice above speed limit? :-)
> Balkanson, you are welcome to come here and build roads for free ;-).
Norway has beautiful but terrible and toll payed roads.
I am deeply interested in the future of fuel-cells but I am very confused as, according to different sources, the range of fuel-cells varies between 200 km as mentionned in your article, to 400.
It is nevertheless a piece of very good news; besides, Norway is a very good model among the oil producing countries among which a large number are squandering their oil wealth on developping weapons or stupid building projects.