Zero sum gains...

Is this global energy market working? Throughout Europe, United States, India, China and all areas of the known planet, we are seeing the effects of our existence as an integral part of the global ecosystem. As our oil fields begin to become depleted and there continues to be unstable regions throughout the oil rich Arab nations we will find ourselves paying increasing amounts for our energy resources. That is until our administration decides to make solid moves forward toward alternative energies that create solutions not band aids.

The motivation is clearly not do to the evidence of our direct relation to our(mans') existence within our environment that expands over twenty thousand years. Many more details have become available to us in the past one hundred years and more. Through Darwin's studies and subsequent scholars and scientists since we have measured and notated millions of various species and living environments. Despite this fact, there yet are arguments for and against the thought that the human presence has a measured effect on our use of the planet and its resources. But wouldn't it seem that as natural as a CO2 emission is in the global environment without man's presence, it should go without saying that with our presence is simply an added effect that can be measured and quantified. Due to this we, if we are not creating the Ozone depletion through our massive CO2 emissions globally, we have now in the past 100 or so odd years created a noted mark of our consumption. We must find a means to bring ourselves to a point of zero net emissions. This is is the responsible means to our existence here on this limited space we inhabit.

As we find ourselves venturing more assets more quickly into the burgeoning commercial industries of alternative energies and alternative resources we find that this presents opportunity for new generations of industry pioneers and researchers to find appropriate technologies that will carry us globally into the future. This is capitalism at its best. We must embrace and assist in the quest and desire to find these alternative sources of capitalism.

As farmers in America are subsidized for the corn crops for ethanol, we should also subsidize as much for other alternative energy methods. Since ethanol is only a 10% to 20% replacement in most petroleum based fuels, we should be subsidizing the same amount of money to companies researching and creating alternative energies. It seems only fair. In fact, in the long run the subsidies for the alternative energies will pay off better for our economy. Through this assistance we will find energies that become zero net and free to acquire once the installations are in place. This is substantially different to the subsidizing of corn. We are finding the price of food rising, water consumption is dramatically increased due to this crops need for cultivation. Studies show that the emissions from the manufacturing and shipping of ethanol do nothing for the overall cause as they exceed or negate the savings we are trying to achieve.

As we find out more about ourselves and our place in our environment we must act more responsibly to ourselves and nature. By becoming more of a society that learns to create and consume on a zero net gain equation through conservation methods, re-use and recycle practices, emissions control and containment, and more.

Iceland Pioneers a Country of Clean Energy

In 1874 the science fiction writer Jules Verne envisaged a world in which water would replace coal as the fuel of the future. Now the Icelanders believe they can turn that dream into reality within a generation - and they are taking the first steps next year in their project to create the world's first hydrogen society.

Iceland has already gone further than any other country in exploiting its abundant sources of renewable energy. Virtually all of its electricity and heating comes from hydroelectric power and the geo-thermal water reserves tapped from the hot rock layers lying just beneath the surface of this extraordinary island. But with no fossil fuel resources of its own, the country relies on imported oil to power all its cars, buses and fishing trawlers, which provide 70% of its income.

Despite its natural advantages, the small population (around 270,000 people) produces more greenhouse gas emissions per head than any other country. Iceland hopes to power its trawler fleet with hydrogen. So Iceland's next energy revolution will be based on converting its own renewable energy into a form that can power its own transport system, slashing those emissions and ending its dependence on fossil fuels completely.

The key to this change is the technology of fuel cells, in which electricity to power an engine can be generated by hydrogen and oxygen, with vehicle exhausts emitting only the most innocuous substance imaginable - water.

But producing the hydrogen economically without creating more pollution in the process is one of the stumbling blocks in turning fuel cells into a genuinely clean alternative, and this is where Iceland believes it has a head start. It's about being independent and relying on ourselves to continue the way we live

The pioneer of the hydrogen society concept is Professor Bragi Arnason of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik - who has now earned himself the nickname "Professor Hydrogen". He first put forward the idea of basing Iceland's economy on home-produced hydrogen back in the 1970s, and admits that at the time, people thought he was crazy. But politicians started to take a different attitude once major corporations started to visit his laboratories to hear more about his ideas.

The idea at the heart of the project is that Iceland can use its pollution-free, cheap electricity to "split" water into its component parts of hydrogen and oxygen through the process of electrolysis, something it has already been doing for nearly 50 years at a plant producing ammonia for fertilisers.

"Many experts say that in 20 or 30 years, solar energy could be harnessed in an economic way and turned into electric energy," Professor Arnason said. "In Iceland we don't have to wait for solar energy to become economic because we have this cheap hydropower and geothermal energy. We can start now."

Iceland already harnesses the geo-thermal energy with the creation of a hydrogen economy now official government policy, the first concrete step will be the arrival of the first emission-free fuel cell buses on Reykjavik's streets. The idea is eventually to replace the capital's entire 80-strong fleet. They will be fueled at a new filling station being built on the outskirts of the city by Shell, one of three major corporations putting money into the project. The hydrogen to power the buses will be produced on site, using clean electricity from the grid to split water.

Spirit of independence

The next stage will be the conversion of private cars on the island. Iceland's experts are also looking at the practicality of switching the huge trawlers that tie up at Reykjavik's fishing harbour to hydrogen power. My grandchildren, when they are grown up, will live in this new economy where Iceland will be totally independent of imported energy

The project director of Iceland New Energy, Maria Maack, said: "We are so reliant on our fisheries, and the fisheries are totally dependent on oil. So we have a chance to be quite independent of this. It's not about the environment so much, it's about being independent and relying on ourselves to continue the way we live."

That spirit of independence has already taken Iceland through two great energy revolutions in the past century. First, it exploited its vast hydroelectric potential to make electricity from the start of the 20th Century, and then in the 1940s it tapped the geothermal water supplies which now provide all of Reykjavik's heating needs and about 10% of the country's electricity.

Professpr Arnason believes the third revolution is within sight. "People my age will see the first steps towards the hydrogen economy. My children will watch the whole transformation," he predicted.

"My grandchildren, when they are grown, will live in this new economy where Iceland will be totally independent of imported energy, and where all the energy in the country comes from clean renewables."


By BBC environment correspondent Tim Hirsch