Iceland, Greenland, Norway and the Faroe Islands have teamed up to form the North Atlantic Hydrogen Association (NAHA). One of the main goals of NAHA is “focusing on the development of the hydrogen technology within the North Atlantic region in general.” The other main object is to promote hydrogen as a viable fuel resource worldwide.
Iceland has already declared its goal to become the world’s first hydrogen society. And, in that spirit, today they have just opened up their first hydrogen fueling station, created by Shell, in Reykjavik. A General Motors HydroGen3 minivan was on hand for the inaugural fueling. Iceland plans to generate hydrogen for the fueling stations (20 could supply the whole country) by using its over-abundance of geothermal and hydroelectric energy sources.
This past Wednesday, the foundation was laid for the first hydrogen fueling station in Norway at the Herøya Industrial Park in Porsgrunn. To be completed in 2007, the Porsgrunn fueling station will be an important piece to the Norway HyNor Project, which is building a hydrogen corridor from Oslo and Stavanger.
Greenland will host the NAHA Kickoff Workshop on August 7 – 11, 2006 at the Cultural and Conference Center in Katuaq. This will be the first meeting of the NAHA alliance.
While many of the warmer countries have given hydrogen the cold shoulder, leave it to the colder ones to warm up to the idea and put it in practice.