Week 2 Review 06/07/08

Shetland's hydrogen technology pioneers
By William Little

Source: xml=/earth/2008/06/21/sm_hydrogen21.xml

Review:

In Isle of Unst, the most northerly community in Britain, home to 500 inhabitants. Above Unst there is nothing but sea until the Arctic Circle. Self-reliance and initiative is no better represented than this small community has recently created the first and only operational community-owned renewable hydrogen energy system in the world, which Gazey conceived and designed with a small group of local engineers.

Harnessing the wind is one thing. Turning it into hydrogen, via a complex electrochemical process, is something else. Traditionally, so much wind energy gets lost because the grid doesn't need it at the time it's being produced. This system captures it all and saves it for later use.

With this new integration of wind and hydrogen technology, the world could not only benefit from tapping this new energy resource for development, it could also lesson the effect of global warming and probably do away with it. By harnessing wind energy to convert water into Hydrogen Fuel, no carbon is involved in the process, and therefore no greenhouse gases is emitted.By creating renewable hydrogen fuel, the world could now run on clean energy that is harmless to the environment.

This renewable fuel could also provide cheap source of fuel energy that would inevitably replace the increasingly expensive fossil fuel which the world currently depend heavily on. Fuel can now be produced anywhere where the is wind or other energy sources as electrical energy is needed to create hydrogen. A 'green' industrial revolution could occur where renewable energy is used to create hydrogen fuel which is an alternative to oil especially when oil runs out.

When oil runs out, countries with significant amounts of energy sources might not want to share it with other countries. Therefore, it is important to be self-reliance on local energy production. Shetland might be considered by some a rural backwater, but it could be a microcosm of how the world will have to cope when oil runs out. In Shetland, the tradition of having a right to locally produced energy symbolised in the peat-cutting rights is deeply embedded. 'Shetlanders have always been responsible for their own needs - and that's how they like it,' says Ross-Smith, a project officer from the Shetland Community Energy Company, which provides small grants for communities moving into renewables.

um... cant open source... nvm... base on understanding from ur review... juz to complete my task..

i think that even though wind energy might be inefficient, there is no harm using it unless it might takes up too much land which can serve other purposes.
hopefully there will be replacement for coal soon so as to save our beloved earth and us!!! haha

This hydrogen technology might be a new technology, but i think its holds great promise. However, hydrogen fuel has a low energy-volume ratio even when highly compressed. This will be the point to work upon if hydrogen fuel is used to replace fossil fuels. However, when using it to convert excess electrical energy, volume is not so much of a problem. Therefore, it is still a worthy technology.



@Hwee: Wind farms generate a lot of energy ok.. The improvements in wind turbines are very rapid. I saw on discovery that 1 turbine can generate 1.5MW which can power at least 100 homes. But, i think its peak efficiency, so when there is no wind then good luck.

Yes, but wind energy is not consistent and we will never know in which direction wind comes from, so it is quite difficult for us to gauge the efficiency of it. Oh oh, it's quite expensive to generate wind energy, coz of the need to build huge wind mills which in turn takes up alot of space.

i know this comment is a little short and late. haha.

Wa.. Review finish already you still post.

To show that at least i commented. hahaha!