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.

  • zurohki@aussie.zone
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    10 months ago

    Okay, but if they don’t have the electricity for EVs they definitely don’t have enough electricity to waste 2/3 of it turning it into hydrogen and back.

    • Geobloke@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Over 75% of Japanese energy is imported under current circumstances and they have a reluctance to use geothermal for social and economic reasons. Wind is another good choice but they’re restricted in where they can deploy it by social and economic concerns

      • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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        10 months ago

        And this is the same country that wanted to mine cobalt off the nearby ocean floor a decade ago. What a strange world.

    • NoRodent@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I mean yeah, but on the other hand with hydrogen you have much more control over when and where you use the electricity as you can choose to manufacture most of it during off-peak periods and when renewables create excess energy. Then you can transport it by pipes or by trucks/ships without overwhelming the electric grid.

      • zurohki@aussie.zone
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        10 months ago

        You can do off-peak charging with EVs too, that’s not a magical hydrogen thing. My hot water system is on its own circuit which can be turned off by the power company whenever they need to cut demand, providers have been doing that sort of thing for decades.

        • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          10 months ago

          So providers just prevent people from using what is potentially their only transportation option as it suits the power company?

          Hot water isn’t usually a survival need as long as you have liquid water available. Means of movement can be.

          • zurohki@aussie.zone
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            10 months ago

            They don’t just… leave it off. They turn it off for like 15 minutes in the middle of an 8 hour charging session. Nobody notices or cares.

          • gmtom@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            So providers just prevent people from using what is potentially their only transportation option as it suits the power company?

            No? Thats effectively the same thing as a gas station closing. You can go elsewhere to charge it.

        • nexusband@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          You can’t store the power in EVs for weeks and weeks and also you can’t move it around on a whim, without loosing that stored energy.

          • zurohki@aussie.zone
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            10 months ago

            What? Of course you can store power for weeks. It doesn’t just dribble out onto the floor. Go away for a month and come home, your EV is still sitting there with the battery charge whatever you left it on.

            Yes, EVs use their stored energy for driving… I’m not sure what your point was there. Do you think transporting hydrogen is free and doesn’t cost energy?

            • nexusband@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              No, it doesn’t dribble on the floored, but to keep the battery conditioned takes a lot of energy. There are countless post around all sorts of forums where the battery was empty after 2 weeks, because cooking the battery in the summer heat took a lot of energy. And you can’t leave an EV plugged in at the Airport.

              Transporting hydrogen is cheaper than having to rebuild a whole power grid.

              • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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                10 months ago

                You don’t need to rebuild the whole grid. The power over night goes up, but that’s OK because night is currently very low usage. Sometimes that has meant turning off renewables as there is no where to put the power. In fact, this can cause negative power costs were they will pay you to take power! So next is where you need it, say a charging forecourt. But that is only during the day, so put in some huge batteries you charge over night. Top up with day time renewables if you can. All this already happens.

              • zurohki@aussie.zone
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                10 months ago

                I’ve parked mine outside in the Australian summer. It didn’t magically lose energy. The battery is a dense insulated brick on the bottom of the vehicle, so it doesn’t really get hot enough to need cooling even when it’s 40C / 104F and you park in the sun.

                You can drain the battery in a few weeks, but you need something running like Sentry Mode consuming power.

          • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
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            10 months ago

            So, let’s say I leave an EV at the airport, with 60% charge, battery in reasonable health, and return 2 months later and head home, having lost maybe 3%. You are telling me that’s…not doing exactly what you’re saying I can’t and didn’t just do?

            You don’t also immediately lose all the stored energy either. In a (hypothetical, future tyme) properly kitted out scenario, I leave my EV plugged in at the airport and it’s battery contributes to local grid storage while I’m away. So the 60% I arrived with might drop down during high load, but since my utility company has a handy app I can schedule when I need to unplug and ask for the charge percentage to be topped up in time.

            I might even not have to pay to park my car in that scenario, or potentially even earn credits back…

            • nexusband@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              You will not have lost 3%. You will have lost 30-40% - because no Airport has (and probably never will have) Parking, where you can leave your EV plugged in.

              • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
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                10 months ago

                Explain to me what hypothetical means to you. Then re read my post and note where I point out the hypotheticals.

                And you definitely would not lose 30-40%. I’d meet at 8-10% but you are either inexperienced with the tech or shilling an agenda with that 30-40%.

                But what would me and my actual lived experience know right?

          • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            That’s more an issue with hydrogen than it is with EVs. Hydrogen is very leaky.

    • nexusband@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The electricity for Hydrogen isn’t bound to any place. If they put up 10 offshore wind turbines exclusively for Hydrogen, that hydrogen can be shipped around the country as needed and wanted. That’s not possible with Grid power and especially not when they have different systems in place.

      • zurohki@aussie.zone
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        10 months ago

        Transporting energy isn’t possible with grid power? Really? That’s what grids are for.

        Yes, they have the issue of separate incompatible grids, but building complicated interconnects is still going to be easier than building and operating a hydrogen trucking industry.

        • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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          10 months ago

          still going to be easier than building and operating a hydrogen trucking industry.

          Why would you have to build anything? We already truck gas everywhere. It’s a simple conversion.

          • zurohki@aussie.zone
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            10 months ago

            Trucks and trailers aren’t new, it’s the filling and emptying facilities combined with the sheer number of trucks.

            Trucks can’t hold very much hydrogen gas - you need a lot of trucks to transport a useful amount of hydrogen. One truck only carries enough hydrogen to fill 75 cars, so you’re looking at needing fourteen times as many hydrogen trucks as we have fuel trucks. If filling stations were actually busy, you’d be looking at multiple deliveries per day.

            All that infrastructure, trucks and drivers costs a lot of money.

            • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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              10 months ago

              much hydrogen gas

              You don’t transport it or store it in gas form.

              One truck only carries enough hydrogen to fill 75 cars

              Since you got the above fact wrong, this MUST be wrong. I’d like to see where you got this figure from if you’d care to share.

              • zurohki@aussie.zone
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                10 months ago

                It’s from the 380kg listed here and the Mirai’s 5kg hydrogen capacity.

                Sure, there’s also the ‘super-insulated, cryogenic tanker trucks’ with super cooled liquid hydrogen, but you were claiming nothing special needed to be built?

                • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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                  10 months ago

                  https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-delivery (choosing this source SPECIFICALLY because it’s a government entity to prove a point, not because it’s the most instructive source)

                  Delivery technology for hydrogen infrastructure is currently available commercially, and several U.S. companies deliver bulk hydrogen today. Today, hydrogen is transported from the point of production to the point of use via pipeline and over the road in cryogenic liquid tanker trucks or gaseous tube trailers. Pipelines are deployed in regions with substantial demand (hundreds of tons per day) that is expected to remain stable for decades. Liquefaction plants, liquid tankers, and tube trailers are deployed in regions where demand is at a smaller scale or emerging. Demonstrations of hydrogen delivery via chemical carriers (e.g., in barges) are also underway in large-scale applications, such as export markets.

                  Yes. I meant what I said. We already do it. Just because you recognize one option of transfer, and have a link that outlines basic details of it, doesn’t mean that what I’m talking about doesn’t exist…

                  Considering that gasoline tankers are Liquid trucks, I’m not sure why you’d jump straight to a conversion to gas and then make the an argument that I’m talking about gaseous tube trailers.

          • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
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            10 months ago

            Spoken like someone who’s never seen a land remediation project at a former gas station site.

            It’s only simple on paper.

            • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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              10 months ago

              Considering that they need to go under land remediation anyway… I fail to see how it’s a problem to do it just a little earlier and keep the land/infrastructure in use.

              • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
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                10 months ago

                Ok but now you’re moving the goalposts. Before you just said it was a simple conversion. It’s just not, full stop.

                And now suddenly it’s moot because they have to do it anyway, cost and difficulty notwithstanding.

                I remain, regrettably, firmly unconvinced that the average service station franchisee is going to be incentivized to undertake this.

                • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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                  10 months ago

                  I didn’t move any goalpost. Any gas station that being decommission in favor of electric vehicles… or being decommissioned in general will have to undergo that process. This will happen REGARDLESS of the hydrogen station being put in place.

        • nexusband@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Maybe easier, but not cheaper. Transporting hydrogen around is already being done as well - you don’t have to develop the wheel again.