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Norway puts hydrogen-powered cars on the road

Norway is creating a network of hydrogen filling stations to power cars that run on fuel cells.

The country is part of a growing number worldwide, especially the U.S., Canada and Japan, working to develop hydrogen technology and energy infrastructures. To date, only 20 hydrogen cars are on the road in Norway. The first batch was a fleet of 15 Toyota Priuses converted to hydrogen use; these demonstration cars are leased for five years to governments and businesses. By the end of this year, five hydrogen fuel cell Think City cars are expected from Norwegian electric carmaker Think. (A fuel cell is a device that generates electricity efficiently, silently, and without combustion by chemical reaction through a chemical reaction.) And in 2009, another 30 or so are due to be delivered as part of an agreement between HyNor and Japanese manufacturer Mazda. Two more sites are also planned for the highway: a third near Oslo and another, still under discussion, in Bergen to the north, which together would add 130 miles (210 kilometers) to the network.

That may not sound like a lot of hydrogen-powered rubber hitting the road, but only 300 to 500 hydrogen cars are in gear worldwide. More than 200 of those are in California, which has its own hydrogen highway program. "It's important for hydrogen technologies to gain international improvement and acceptance, and for clusters of hydrogen technology to form around the world," says Patrick Serfass, spokesperson for the National Hydrogen Association in Washington, D.C.

Hydrogen can be obtained from water or from hydrocarbon sources such as natural gas, methanol or petroleum products. It 's combined with oxygen to produce electrical energy. The by-product is water. In vehicles, instead of an internal combustion engine producing mechanical energy, a fuel cell creates electrical energy. The electricity from the fuel cell powers an electric motor and the entire drive train, while performing as well or better in terms of speed, acceleration and handling. A fuel cell vehicle is at least twice as efficient in using energy as a gas-powered vehicle.

Along with the zero emissions and high fuel economy, other benefits of using hydrogen and fuel cells are the potential for reducing carbon emissions by producing hydrogen using renewable energy, such as solar or wind power, and the availability of hydrogen from many sources. This lessens reliance on any one source, including fossil fuel. On the downside, fuel-cell systems cost several times more than combustion engines, the driving range is 200 miles or less and virtually all hydrogen vehicles on the road are demonstration cars.

The reliability and durability of fuel cells in real-world applications hasn 't yet been proven either. While most transport experts agree that hydrogen will be the fuel of the future, the widespread use of these vehicles still face many obstacles, including fueling infrastructure; vehicle availability and cost; and hydrogen supply. Norway 's hydrogen highway project is designed to show how these problems can be solved.

Because hydrogen is an energy carrier, like electricity, energy is needed to produce it. Norway already produces 99 percent of its energy from hydropower, and adapting these facilities to capture hydrogen is relatively straightforward. Hydrogen can be produced from water through electrolysis, a process that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. This is more expensive than producing hydrogen from natural gas, but Norway already uses so much hydropower it gives the country a competitive advantage.

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