Icelands Elding Hydrogen Ship Sets Sail Soon

January 24, 2008 | By Hydro Kevin Kantola | Filed in: Hydrogen Vehicles.

Iceland’s first hydrogen fuel cell ship, Elding (means Lightning) will set sail soon as part of the country’s SMART H2 Project. Elding will fuel up using the world’s first commercial hydrogen fueling station, which opened in Reykjavik in 2003.

At that time, there were only a few vehicles for the hydrogen station to refuel. Within the last couple of months, however, converted Toyota Priuses have been moving into the Icelandic mainstream, three of which will be operated by Hertz rental cars.

So, conceivably, tourists will fly into Iceland, rent a hydrogen car from Hertz, drive it to the whale watching ship, Elding and commune with nature upon the open seas. When Elding sets sail for the first time in April it will afford whale watchers a much quieter experience than the previous diesel motors would.

Elding is another piece to the puzzle in helping Iceland’s ambitions towards becoming the world’s first hydrogen society. In just a few months, this one puzzle piece will fall into place and tourists will be saying Ahoy to hydrogen. There will be many more Ahoys to follow as the puzzle pieces start to take shape and form a quite a clean and green picture.


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