Norway's Oil Minister speaks to Bush's energy secretary about hydrogen.

[NNadir]

• Based on our resources, Norway has a solid experience with hydrogen production, both from renewable energy and from fossil feedstock. We have established industries in various areas of hydrogen use.
• In fact, since 1927 Norway has gained experience from large-scale industrial hydrogen production, first using electrolysis, and later hydrocarbon based synthetic gas production.
• In the future, the Norwegian natural gas represents a natural feedstock for large-scale hydrogen production, combined with CO2 separation and pipeline transport to enhance the oil recovery from offshore oilfields. While waiting for the hydrogen economy, we may obtain increased knowledge of CO2 sequestration from power production based on natural gas.
• A major full-scale demonstration project is under development on the remote island of Utsira outside the coast of Norway: two wind turbines will produce electricity for hydrogen production by water electrolysis. The hydrogen will be stored and used as a backup. As soon as the electricity demand exceeds the production of the wind turbines, electricity will be produced from a hydrogen combustion engine and a fuel cell. This is an example of a stand-alone power system where hydrogen is used as a buffer for energy from the weather dependent wind power. The plant will start operating early next year.
• In April this year the world’s first hydrogen refuelling station for cars and buses was opened in Reykjavìk, Iceland, using Norsk Hydro Electrolysers’ hydrogen technology. Another filling station delivered by Norsk Hydro Electrolysers was opened in Hamburg, Germany, last September.
• Another interesting project is the HYNOR, which is going to be launched by the Norwegian minister for transportation next week. This project will represent a “hydrogen highway” between the cities of Stavanger and Oslo, with a total length of 500 km.

http://www.iphe.net/IPHE%20Presentations/Norway%20statement.pdf#search=%22hydrogen%20production%20norway%22

I have already noted that the much talked about Utsira project - meant, presumably, to divert attention from Norway's real intentions - produces electricity for ten homes. The most recent Norwegian addition on a scale of hundreds of thousands of homes was a fossil fuel (natural gas) plant.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x64202

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x64113

There are still three years after this grand speech from Norway's oil minister to Bush's energy secretary, any plans to build an industrial scale Norwegian wind based hydrogen plant comparable to Utsira, and serving hundreds of thousands of homes.

Norway, from all evidence, is moving away from its past history as a totally renewably electrified nation, into the fossil fuel/hydrogen shell game.

No one really has a firm idea, of course, how global climate change will effect Norway's vast hydroelectric infrastructure.

(I can tell you this: It's not looking too secure in Switzerland, is it?)