8/14/2019 Cond Nast Traveller June 2007

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8/14/2019 Cond Nast Traveller June 2007

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Great rive

Fromar eft: he eco-friendly ar and ts ueF

cell-powered ngine; he comfy us stop on Unst

dense han air, so should anY of the

sas eak out it will rush uP into

ihe sty, not Puddle under the car

as petrol would.We stoP o look out towards the

northernmost lighthouse n Britain,the gloriously named Muckle Flugga:

Gazey's grandfather was one oI

the lighthouse men' in the daYs

when t wa s manned. t is a sPeck

which has been specially ltted (at a

cost of some 50,000) with the fuel cell'

Made in India, it is a two-seater with

additional space or luggage or small

children and a 20hPmotor. PURE's

G-Wiz can reach sPeeds f 45mPh

and run for 60 miles or more on a tank

(actually three small cylinders) of

hydrogen. Although tiny, the car is heavy,

at three-quarters of a tonne.GazeY akes me lor a sPin uP owards

the disused RAF base at Saxa Vord'

(There are Plans o turn Part of the

base, which closed n March last year,

into tourist accommodation')If the

car were lighter, we could go a lot

faster,' Gazey says on the climb' It is

heavy because n PURE's PrototYPethe G-Wiz's weightY batterY had to

be retained, and the fuel cell's output

charges t; in a fuel-cell car built from

scratch, he Power generated goes

directly to the car's electric motor'Remembering from mY school

days ha t even mallamounts [

hydrogen exPlode sPectacularlY,enquire about safety. But Gazey pornts

out that hYdrogen s 10 times less

DRIVER'S ANUALThe most eco riendlyway o get o tneShetlands s o take atrain o Aberdeen,then ai l o th e slandswith NorthLink erries(0845 60 0 0449; ww wnorthli kferries.co.uK);ih e erminal s 10minutes' al k rom nerailway tation. hereare sailtngso LerwlcKevery vening, ithfares ro m S20.BO neway cabins re extra)AlternativelY,ritishAirways 0870 85 09B5O; ww.ba.com)

in the distance, on rocks utting out

of a stormY ea .Driving back to Lerwick we conslder

the prospects or fuel-cell cars' PURE's

G-Wiz is constrained by the size of its

engine, but there is nothing to stopthJproduction of fuel cells capable of

powering family saloons' ndeed, Ford''tvt".."a"sand Toyota have all'built

prototypes. But without hYdrogen

avallaUility at fuel stations, he cars won't

become mainstream; and without fuel-

cell cars, he investment n hydrogen

oroduction, storage and distribution

won't make sense. sPokesman rom

Mercedes-Benz, or whose F600 Hygenius

fuel-cell oncept ar no produclion

date has been set' said wistfully that'In an ideal world, in the future, we'llhave hydrogen at fuel stations''

PerhaPs Mercedes's ival BMW

can bring the future a bit closer: his year

it plans o have on the road 10 0 xamples

of its prototype 7 Series saloon, which

.un .rr., on hydrogen or petrol' That will

make it viable in Parts of the world

where hydrogen s not so readily available

as on Unst. O

u".G-E.'eEiflies o Lerwick ro mAberdeen, dinburgh,Glasgow, nvernessan d KirkwallS,60-t132return). n summer'AtlanticAirwaYs 02 07823 4242, www.atlantic.fo) ies omStansted rom f,176return. he bu s an dferry ourney o UnstfromLerwickakestwo-and-a alfhours.

For urther nformatlonon PURE al l01595692871 r visitwww.pure.shetland.cok

Thecar can each peeds f45mph nd un or G0milesor moreon a tankof hydrogen

> harnessed, nd ts form changed'

Most cars run on Petrol, using solar

energy rapped millions of years ago

by plants . he by-products. s we know

all too well, are noise, heat, carbonemissions and other chemicals. An

increasing number of cars run on electric

power, with little in the waY of bY-products; but the waY n which the

electricity they use s generated and

stored has a dramatic imPact on the

overall ecological erlormance f

the car. f it is generated n a traditional

oower station and stored in batteries -

which introduce nasty heavy metals

such as ithium, cadmium and lead

into the environment - then the electric

car is little better than one with apetrol engine (except n so far as thepollution it causes akes Place at

the power station rather than in apopulation centre).

The power that PURE generates s

very clean. ts wind-powered urbinesproduce electricity, which is passedthrough water o creale ydrogen nd

oxygen. The oxygen s currently released

into the air (although t could potentially

be used or aerating ish farms, of which

there ar e many n the Shetland slands)'

and the hydrogen s stored n largecylinders. PURE's car fills its fuel tank

from these cYlinders.A fuel cell is an electrochemical

device hat consumes Ydrogen and

oxygen and gives you electricity,' says

Gazey;it other words it reverses heprocess by which PURE Producedthe hydrogen. n the car's uel cell -

which s about he size and shaPe [

abreeze block and consists of small,

neat aluminium squares, ooking like

a hi-tech honeYcomb the two gasesproduce electricitY as required.

The car itself is a G-Wiz, a commerciallyavailable, battery-powered vehicle

98 Cond6 Nast Traveller.June 40 7