this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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Shell Is Immediately Closing All Of Its California Hydrogen Stations | The oil giant is one of the big players in hydrogen globally, but even it can't make its operations work here.::The oil giant is one of the big players in hydrogen globally, but even it can't make its operations work here. All seven of its California stations will close immediately.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (10 children)

You're mostly right. But I don't agree on the last part. Hydrogen production can't be done in your backyard. But electricity can (and I forgive you if have no backyard, these next few points may be less relevant if that is the case).

Unlike hydrogen, electricity production is affordable, scalable, and ubiquitous. And that small detail changes the benefits dramatically.

  • The idea of being your own gas station, from the grid, or from your own solar, is really compelling. No one likes being at the mercy of fluctuating energy prices, or, as in this case, unreliable and scarce availability of fuel.
  • Many people don't like going to gas stations (e.g. women and personal safety). Totally doable outside of road trips.
  • If you are generating your own electricity you will need batteries anyway. Might as well put wheels on them: two birds one stone.
  • Even if you don't generate your own power, you still want power security during outage. Since the battery is on wheels, you can drive it to a place that does have power to top up.

Again, I can see that these are less compelling points if you live in a super dense area and utilities and supply chain there are really dependable. But this is hardly the case everywhere.

And then there's the build of the car itself. Honestly, I know nothing about it, but something tells me the simplicity of battery and electric motors makes those cars more practical to build, especially if the battery itself is commoditized as part of a complete electric grid solution.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Most people in the world cannot put solar panels on their roof today. Even if you exclude all the places people don't own cars I still think my statement will be true.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Whether that's true or not, it doesn't invalidate their points

[–] [email protected] -3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yes it does. If you cannot generate electricity at home, all those points are moot.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Only if you're looking at it from a purely all-or-nothing view since those infrastructure points will be improved as adoption progresses... And building that infrastructure is just the endpoints for the most part since the electricity is already being delivered, which you seem to continue to ignore or handwave as having to do with adopting the "wrong" tech (which even with your arguments is only the "wrong" tech because of infrastructure, which is a circular argument)

Right now, plenty of people can adopt this and benefit from it. Over time, as it becomes more ubiquitous, it'll make more financial sense for places where people can't put in their own stations to set those up, possibly backed by solar. Which will be far less infrastructure needed than hydrogen stations, hydrogen production facilities, and hydrogen trucks to haul it to the distribution points (stations).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

My argument is it is wrong tech because of current state of development of batteries. Slow charging, low energy capacity, heavy weight, using dangerous chemicals, etc.

I'm one of those people - I have an EV, but I wish I had a hybrid that has a tiny, light battery for ~50 miles of city driving I can charge at home and a proper size hydrogen tank I can use to travel as far as I want.

I stand by my argument that we should have invested heavily in hydrogen cars and infrastructure. Batteries will inevitably make it into cars as their development progresses. They are just not the right tech now.

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