Missing in action: Iceland's hydrogen economy; Once aimed boldly at the 21st century, Iceland's hydrogen dream seems to have been hijacked by privateers with a 19th-century vision.

• Author: Sverrisson, Freyr

In 1998, the tiny country of Iceland (population 300,000) stunned the world by announcing its intention to be the vanguard of the scientific and engineering quest to achieve a hydrogen energy economy--that is, to eliminate its dependence on fossil fuels in favor of the limitless possibilities of clean hydrogen. An article in the November/December 2000 issue of World Watch described Iceland's activity and aspirations: the Icelandic Hydrogen and Fuel Cell company had been formed; a prototype ship was expected to be launched by 2006; the energy transformation could be completed by 2030 or 2040. A leading proponent was Bragi Arnason, a chemist nicknamed "Professor Hydrogen," who had argued as early as 1993 that Iceland was an ideal laboratory for showing the way toward the energy economy of the future. Arnason was "something of a national hero," wrote author Seth Dunn.

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"Many people ask me how soon this will happen," Arnason said in 2000. "I tell them, 'We are living at the beginning of the transition. You will see the end of it. And your children, they will live in this world.'"

Perhaps--but events of the last few years suggest that Professor Arnason might have cause for disillusion. Officially, the national hydrogen agenda is unchanged, and Iceland continues to receive tremendous favorable media attention for its hydrogen plans. But the only material evidence of the transition is three hydrogen-powered buses that have roamed the streets of Reykjavik since 2003, fueled by a single electrolyzer station. No fleet expansion seems imminent, despite promises, nor are there any hydrogen ships or cars. More importantly, no research facilities have been built and no hydrogen industry is materializing. In fact, Iceland's hydrogen production is actually declining. The country used to produce a fair amount of hydrogen from electrolysis, which was combined with atmospheric nitrogen to make ammonia-based fertilizer. But the fertilizer plant was shuttered in 2004. As a result, hydrogen production has fallen to almost negligible levels in 2006--just enough to power those three buses, the lonely harbingers of Iceland's presumed new hydrogen future.

There seem to be no concrete plans to alter any of this, either. In mid-2006, Jon Bjorn Skulason of Icelandic New Energy (INE), a company owned in part by the National Power Company (NPC) and ostensibly formed to promote Iceland's hydrogen economy, was quoted repeating a common refrain: "People are asking when it will be a reality, and it will take some more time.... I think it will be about 10 to 15 years ahead." A visit to INE's website reveals a plethora of acronyms representing past and current projects such as the hydrogen bus demonstration, many of which appear to be European Commission-funded initiatives where INE merely tags along. There seem to be little or no tangible deliverables in these projects, nor concrete timetables. A faint ray of light is a proposed Hydrogen Energy Technology Centre, which promises, in some undetermined future, collaboration between Icelandic academic and research facilities and INE. Considering that INE was founded in 1999, the pace of progress is unhurried.

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Indeed, it seems that Iceland is passively relying on others to shoulder the initiative and the critical funding of research, while merely offering the country as a staging ground. In a 2003 ministerial meeting of the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy in Washington, D.C., industry and commerce minister Valgerour Sverrisdottir said of Iceland's plans, "Our contribution would be to offer the country as a suitable base for hydrogen demonstration projects and a technical testing ground."

All this is disappointing enough. But worse, Iceland's government is now engaged in a blitzkrieg against its beautiful wilderness, working furiously to dam some of the country's most powerful and scenic rivers and erect hydroelectric power plants to supply electricity for polluting aluminum smelters owned by foreign interests.

The country's first aluminum smelter, built in 1970 outside Reykjavik and now owned by Alcan, was expanded to 160,000 metric tons per year in 1997 and has been authorized to produce as much as 460,000 tons per year, provided the electricity becomes available. Noroural, owned by Century Aluminum, has operated a smelter that uses geothermal co-generation power since 1998. Its capacity was expanded earlier this year from 90,000 tons to 220,000 tons, and a...