The last time I talked Turkey was November 9, 2011 to discuss the country’s first fuel cell car which was unveiled. The fuel cell car runs on sodium borohydride (NaBH4) which is created from the main mineral mined in Turkey, boron.
Today I would like to talk Turkey again. Besides being a hotbed for development of hydrogen fuel cell cars and hydrail (hydrogen trains), Turkey has also unveiled its first H2 fuel cell boat. The Marti (which means seagull) was produced by students and faculty at the Istanbul Technical University.
According to project coordinator Dr. Filiz Karaosmanoğlu, “This boat is able to cruise for 10 hours while using only 5 kilograms of hydrogen, which is five times cheaper than gasoline. But our main aim is to motivate our society to use clean energy. The maximum speed of the vehicle is 13 kilometers per hour.”
The hydrogen boat took 4 years and 700,000 Turkish Liras to produce. So, keep an eye out for Turkey as they are looking to carve out a niche for themselves in the world of hydrogen-powered vehicles.
When people talk about hydrogen having an image problem I didn’t think it had anything to do with aesthetics……I was wrong! 😉