The City of Arnhem in The Netherlands has opened up their first public hydrogen fueling station. The Netherlands also contains two other hydrogen fueling stations.
Now this event may sounds like “Oh, yea, another hydrogen fueling station somewhere is opening up.” But on the grander scale this is much more than it seems.
I’ve talked many times about the European Hydrogen Highway being built. Europe now has about the same number of hydrogen fueling stations as does the United States. But, the European Union is scaling up the building of hydrogen fueling stations and will far surpass the U. S. or anywhere else in the world by 2015.
This recent H2 fueling station in The Netherlands is part of this effort. Next year The Netherlands will build its second public hydrogen fueling station as part of the larger hydrogen highway network in the EU.
Meanwhile, just a stone’s throw away in Denmark many remarkable hydrogen happenings are happily occurring. For instance, Denmark is also building out its hydrogen refueling network and currently has eight hydrogen fueling stations.
In addition, to show that Denmark is taking H2 seriously, one of its largest islands, Lolland has dedicated itself to becoming a hydrogen island. You see Lolland is filled with wind turbines that produce 50-percent more electricity than they consume.
In order to take advantage of this over-abundance of wind energy, they are electrolyzing and storing the energy as hydrogen. The hydrogen is then delivered directly to businesses and homes equipped with fuel cells that convert the H2 into electricity, which is especially useful in the times when the wind is not blowing.
Needless to say, northern Europe has their heads in the game when it comes to hydrogen. Now, if we could get some of this same commitment on U. S. soil this will be an energy game changer for this country.
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