As the wind whistles across its treeless landscape and the waves crash on the shore, the very remoteness of the island on Unst quickly enters the soul of any visitor.

This is the most northerly island in the UK, lying some two and half hours, and two ferry journeys, north of the Shetland capital, Lerwick. For the 700 or so hardy souls who live here, supplies of food, drink and clothing can, at times, seem unreliable. And needless to say, when it comes to the matter of lighting and heating, the island is at the end of the supply chain. Unst is precisely the kind of place where locals would pay high electricity bills even if they did not have to contend with severe winter weather and dramatic wind chill. They face both, so most spend one-fifth of their household income on energy.

But now the Pure project (Promoting Unst Renewable Energy) aims to provide a clean, cheap alternative by turning Unst into the world’s first “hydrogen economy”.

Pure produces hydrogen from the wind power generated by two 15- kilowatt turbines. The result is a fuel that can be burned for heating and transportation or stored for conversion back into electricity. The project has the only hydrogen fuel cell car in Scotland and is developing a second hydrogen-powered vehicle.

The car is the brainchild of Ross Gazey, a native of Unst who returned home after taking a degree in electronic and electrical engineering in Aberdeen, and the project manager, Sandy Macaulay.

“We have shown that renewable hydrogen is not a pipe dream,” says Macaulay. “It can be produced right now and is clean and green.”

I had a taste of this kind of technology earlier this year when I rode on the first fully functioning prototype of the Emissions Neutral Vehicle, a motorcycle powered by electricity generated by a hydrogen fuel cell. Like the car on Unst, the bike’s only waste product is water.

The ENV doesn’t look bad at all, resembling one of the speeder bikes ridden by the Imperial scouts in Star Wars. Smooth, silent power delivery makes it appear to be gliding rather than rolling along. At 50mph the only noise is a low hum.

To me, test driving somewhere in deepest Hertfordshire, hydrogen felt like the perfect fuel: a clean power source that can propel cars, buses and motorcycles and also generate electricity for domestic use. Scientists think so too. There is just one flaw. Most of the hydrogen in the world is made by burning fossil fuels. So advantage lost? No, say environmentalists, not if Pure can reach commercial fruition.

The Unst project illustrates a fundamental scientific truth. As long as there is electricity, hydrogen can be produced via electrolysis, a process that divides water into its component parts: hydrogen and oxygen. The problem is that the conversion process from renewable electricity to hydrogen can be wasteful, as the company that makes the ENV bike acknowledge. But, says Dr John Moore of Intelligent Energy: “Poor efficiency only matters when you are using dirty fuels. Wind power is clean and the nearest thing to free energy there is.”

Karen Hall of America’s National Hydrogen Association is spearheading efforts to create a coherent British campaign for hydrogen energy. She regards Gazey and Macaulay as world leaders. “The goal is to generate as much hydrogen as possible from renewable energy. The people pioneering that effort are way ahead of schedule. I think the Unst project is great. The work they have already done means these guys are going to have a skill that is unique.”

Similarly innovative approaches to energy generation are evident round the coast on the islands of Islay, Jura and Gigha.

The latter has Scotland’s first community-owned wind farm comprising three turbines known locally as the “dancing ladies”. Since switch-on in December 2004, Creidas (Faith), Dochas (Hope) and Carthannas (Charity) have generated nearly 1.3m kilowatt hours of power. They churned out 119,388 kWh in August — not traditionally the windiest month, even on Gigha.

Renewable energy enthusiasts predict that neighbouring Islay could be the first island in Europe to become self-sufficient in energy created from clean, renewable sources. Islay has pioneered the use of small-scale wind turbines in homes and micro-grids, small-scale electrical networks that stand apart from the national grid. It was the first British community to introduce an electric bus, a noiseless, pollution-free 16- seater with running costs just one-third of its diesel equivalent.When it was launched, Greenpeace broke a bottle of Islay malt over the hubcap in celebration. Michael MacRae of the Islay Development Company described it as a “stepping stone” on the road to Islay’s ultimate aim of a sustainable economy in which homes, businesses and vehicles will all run on hydrogen generated from green electricity.

Scotland has an excellent academic base for its work in renewables, according to Professor Jim MacDonald of Strathclyde University whose Institute for Energy and the Environment is the biggest establishment of its type in Europe. “In terms of electrical and electronic engineering, Scotland punches above its weight,” he says. “We are blessed with the best renewable core sources in the form of wind and wave power.”

But amid the optimism, the former British energy minister Brian Wilson advises caution. “Wind is the bird in the hand. It works, but the rhetoric is not matched by the reality. It has limitations. Scotland does have fantastic expertise in renewable energy generation, but we must try to develop it with our eyes open.”

Another experiment on Islay brings home the truth of that. Until recently, the Limpet wave-energy station on the island by Inverness-based innovator Wavegen was widely predicted to become Britain’s first commercially viable example of wave power. Enthusiasts pointed to it as proof of the claim that if less than 0.1% of the renewable energy within the world’s oceans can be converted into electricity, then it will satisfy world energy demand five times over. The problem is that, so far, converting wave energy into power has proved devilishly hard.

“In terms of the amount of energy we are generating, we are doing very poorly,” explains Tom Heath, the engineering manager of Wavegen. “The plant we installed was rated at 500kw, but at present we are getting no more than 15kw from the Islay plant. We simply are not getting the power conversion efficiency we planned for.”

Wavegen was saved from bankruptcy earlier this year when it was bought by Voith Siemens Hydro of Germany. Its short-term future lies in research and development not large-scale energy generation. Ocean Power Delivery, a Scottish company, seems closer to achieving that dream. In May, it signed a £5.5m deal to develop a wave energy plant off the Portuguese coast. The three Pelamis generators will be built by Camcal on the Isle of Lewis. The prototypes were developed at the European marine energy centre in Orkney. If it works, OPD’s scheme may become commercially realistic, but few energy experts would wager their mortgages on it.

An enthusiast like Hall can admit: “Wave power is much less mature than wind.” Wilson is more brutal. “People who glibly promote this are doing it on the basis of ignorance,” he says. “There isn’t a single operational wave power station in the world. That does not mean it can’t be done, but it does mean that no meaningful assumptions can be made.” And, despite his commitment to generating electricity from wave power, Heath of Wavegen agrees. “The jury is totally out on this type of technology,” he says. “It is not going to replace conventional power. Of itself, no renewable technology can replace man’s energy demand.”

On Unst, Macaulay admits there are difficulties even with the island’s hydrogen technology. “There are teething problems,” he says. “This is the only off-grid hydrogen system in Europe and we have had problems with the turbines.”

That is the reality underpinning Scotland’s position as a world leader in alternative energy. The wind turbines on Gigha, Unst and Islay work. So, eventually, will the oscillating water column technology developed by Wavegen in Inverness. Last week the crown prince of Tonga visited the company and was impressed by its potential to reduce energy costs in his poor and unstable realm. The Pure project is negotiating the sale of its innovation to communities in Chile, France, New Zealand and the Philippines. But, despite these achievements, and separate experiments with biomass energy, Scotland’s biggest accomplishment to date has been to test the practical limits of existing alternative technology.

The expertise acquired in the process will help realise the Scottish executive’s ambition to increase energy generated from renewable sources from 12% now to 18% in 2010. But it is far from certain that target will be reached, and still less certain that it can be exceeded.

Three of the renewable energy experts I spoke to while compiling this article asked me not to quote their support for an urgent programme to build new nuclear power stations. Their views are best summarised by the engineer who told me: “As a passionate and lifelong supporter of renewable energy, I cannot see that anything other than nuclear power could reliably guarantee the supply of Scotland’s electricity without contributing to global warming.”

Others insisted that the cheapest way to generate the hydrogen that can deliver clean motor vehicles and reliable energy storage is as a byproduct of nuclear power.

“I would not set pessimistic limits as to what will be possible within our lifetimes,” says Wilson. “Hopefully wave and tidal power will come properly into play, and I think Scotland will be at the forefront of that development. The economics of all of these systems are changed by high oil prices.”

He emphasises, though, the same point as the environmentalists who dare not say it out loud. “Do not pit renewables against nuclear. It is a false dichotomy. If you approach this from a carbon-reduction standpoint, nuclear and renewables are two sides of the same coin.” And at Strathclyde University, McDonald echoes his view. “I believe that to guarantee security of supply, nuclear has a place in a balanced energy policy,” he says. “Nuclear and renewable energy are complementary.”

If Scotland’s unique and determined experiments with alternative energy serve to emphasise the urgency of that argument, they will have performed a huge service to the environment. It is time to recognise the energy pioneers of Hunterston, Torness and Dounreay as environmentalists just as dedicated as their new counterparts on Unst, Gigha, Islay and Orkney.
 

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