- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.org
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.
What part of that confuses you? Hydrogen is better for cars VS batteries in every meaningful way in 2024. Long range, quick fill ups, zero harmful emissions, don’t need to live in SFH or rely on landlord/HOA to grant you the privilege of charging your car.
Hydrogen cell cars are electric cars that don’t rely on severely underdeveloped technology of batteries we have today.
And where are you gonna get the hydrogen from? You have any idea how power inefficient electrolysis is!?
https://www.airproducts.com/equipment/hydrogen-onsite-generators
Uhh there are tons of companies making these now. You can literally drop one of these in the middle of nowhere running off solar, pulling hydrogen from the atmosphere.
Because solar is free?
Guys, we can stop trying to solve climate change, we already have free energy!
Are…you suggesting solar isn’t free energy?
Solar costs whatever it costs to buy, install and maintain a solar PV farm, which is not nothing.
If you’re going to build a solar PV farm, you’re obviously going to want to sell the power you generate in whatever way is most profitable.
At the moment, it’s still magnitudes more profitable to sell solar back to the grid than it is to feed it into an inefficient hydrolysis plant, create a load of hydrogen and oxygen, and then move it by leaky tanker somewhere to sell it.
These are designed to be setup and turned into fueling stations, not creating the hydrogen and shipping it elsewhere. You still need substations near superchargers, which requires a lot of power lines to be run. In the middle of nowhere they’re pointless to build.
Jesus, of course it’s not free. Solar panels are not free, the land you put ten on is not free, construction is not free and the infrastructure needed to supply energy during the nigh (storage or another source of energy) is not free. How is this not obvious?
Lol yes because a super charge station is free…and so is the land and the wires and the sub station to get it out in the middle of nowhere… totally more economical to put in a fucking substation for superchargers in the middle of nowhere than to use solar hydrogen lol
WTF are you talking about? So solar if free because ‘solar hydrogen’? You’re not making any sense.
Solar energy is free, I’m not the one that’s made a claim that it’s not. I’m also not the one that has zero understanding on how superchargers work…all of you keep thinking they can just dump one in the middle of rural America and it’ll just magically work. You don’t seem to understand the huge amount of power draw these things have.
Yes. Do you have any idea how much energy we’re wasting because nuclear power plants produce way more than we need because they can’t scale easily or that most green energy generation is at the time people don’t actually need it? Hydrogen is a prefect storage solution for that power.
It is somewhere to put energy, when you filled the efficient storage. But that doesn’t make it good for transport.
Not really. Since grid storage doesn’t have the same weight limits as EVs, there are a hundred different viable technologies. Everything from flow batteries, to flywheels, to pumping water uphill. Hydrogen fits in there, but it’s not likely to be widespread.
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.
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.
I can put two electrodes in salt water and run it off an old power brick and generate hydrogen. It’s not efficient, industrial hydrogen isn’t primarily made that way (it mainly comes from oil instead), and hydrogen has a list of other problems, but it can be done.
The trick isn’t making hydrogen, it’s capturing it, refining it (so that it isn’t mixed with a tonne of air), and compressing it into a pressurised storage tank for later use.
None of that is magic, or even especially expensive. You can do it with stuff available off the shelf to a hobbyist. It’d be a silly way to run cars, but you can do it.
Honestly, and I don’t want to sound selfish here, but never having to get out at a gas station in the middle of winter again is the biggest draw of an EV for me. Especially since I rarely drive more than about 60 miles.
You… actually can.
https://www.airproducts.com/equipment/hydrogen-onsite-generators
Lots of companies make stations like these. Granted they’re not cheap.
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.
Whether that’s true or not, it doesn’t invalidate their points
Yes it does. If you cannot generate electricity at home, all those points are moot.
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).
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.
Lol, no.
Lol, no.
Hydrogen is a great way of storing and transporting energy.
If we could find more efficient ways of manufacturing hydrogen, it may be very worthwhile as a storage technology for power plants when there is a surplus of energy.
Or for powering equipment that needs a ton of energy but can’t be tied to the grid…freight ships come to mind.
But for cars? It was a workable idea when battery technology was terrible. There has been a lot of movement in that area. There’s still environmental and political concerns over lithium…but ultimately i think either lithium will be replaced by something even better, or we’ll find solutions to those concerns, and at this point, the cons of lithium are outweighed by the pros.
Sure. All that’s great.
But I’m talking about infrastructure, not technology.
Infra is result of people jumping on wrong tech. Batteries don’t belong in cars in their current state of development.
Wait what? How in the fuck could an HOA prevent you from charging your car or installing a charger inside your space? The charger lives inside your garage, so it doesn’t effect curbside appearance and isn’t within what they can control.
At absolute worst, if you have no garage and street parking, wouldn’t you just be running the cord over to your vehicle? Non-commercial charging stations aren’t normally weather proof, so that wouldn’t be outside, and again, none of their business. If they have an issue with an extension cord running across your lawn, or a cable slightly larger than a hose, then they’d have to make sane rules about how long it can be left out, like not just leaving it plugged in for a whole weekend straight. Otherwise they’re making it against the rules for people to use corded yard equipment or use a hose.
I might be missing something here, but I don’t see any way an HOA could do anything against it.
No offense, but your response means you’re either the luckiest person in the world and live in a utopian HOA or much more realistically have zero experience with the stupid fucking cancer that is currently infesting more and more properties.
It took me years of paying lawyers and dealing with some of the stupidest and most stubborn people on the planet to try to install a charger near my spot in a shared garage. At my expense and with all requirements met, it was still easier to move than convince those fucking assholes that we’re in 2020 and cars use electricity.
No HOA on this planet will let you just run a cord even if you don’t consider that this would likely restrict you to level one charging and expose you to power theft.
Not to mention all the ecological damage mining for battery components does. I’m with you, hydrogen is the way to go
300kg of battery -> environmental catastrophe
The other 1,500kg of car? Made of unicorn kisses and butterfly dreams.
Also, hydrogen grows on trees apparently.
Yes, the batteries are smaller, but you also need the fuel cells catalyst. It’s not a clear win for the HFC car.
A huge portion of our battery materials come from the Atacama Desert. There is no life at all in a lot of it.
You do know that we get most of our hydrogen from burning fossil fuels, right?
Removed by mod
Unfortunately they’re both death sentences. It’s either public transport or climate apocalypse.
I am well aware we are doomed.