Hydrogen refueling is here

[coetzeeh]

Been following the alternative fueling discussions here but never realised that a significant player is building a Hydrogen refueling estate.

Shell is building a network of 400 Hydrogen refueling stations in Germany, and expanding the network in California according to their website.

https://www.shell.co.uk/make-the-future/cleaner-en...

[2Btoo]

coetzeeh said:

Been following the alternative fueling discussions here but never realised that a significant player is building a Hydrogen refueling estate.

Shell is building a network of 400 Hydrogen refueling stations in Germany, and expanding the network in California according to their website.

https://www.shell.co.uk/make-the-future/cleaner-en...

Interesting, thanks for the link.

Very UK-based advert and yet the network doesn't yet exist in the UK (as far as I am aware, unless someone can correct me).

[Dave Hedgehog]

dead before it leaves the house, will join LPG

[Frimley111R]

Dave Hedgehog said:

dead before it leaves the house, will join LPG

Agreed. Why not use HFC to generate power for the grid so that EVs can use it that way. Once people can mostly charge up at home or car parks while shopping they won't want to make a special journey to fill up as they do now. There may be some limited applications for this tech but for road vehicles generally I too think it's not going to work

[oop north]

Frimley111R said:

Agreed. Why not use HFC to generate power for the grid so that EVs can use it that way

Isn’t that a bit mad given that generating hydrogen uses 3-4x as much electricity as you can get out via a fuel cell?

[Engelberger]

UK has a couple of stations I think. However, fundamentally flawed. Think Germany and EU have partly funded this project as it was a good way to hedge bets against EVs. Dead duck.

[Frimley111R]

oop north said:

Frimley111R said:

Agreed. Why not use HFC to generate power for the grid so that EVs can use it that way

Isn’t that a bit mad given that generating hydrogen uses 3-4x as much electricity as you can get out via a fuel cell?

Didn't realise that so...yes.

[Toaster]

Frimley111R said:

oop north said:

Frimley111R said:

Agreed. Why not use HFC to generate power for the grid so that EVs can use it that way

Isn’t that a bit mad given that generating hydrogen uses 3-4x as much electricity as you can get out via a fuel cell?

Didn't realise that so...yes.

Not really that mad https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/1904... it could just be that developments are quietly going on in this area with fanfare announcements by Tesla etc distracting other alternatives

[oop north]

No mention in that article of how much electricity could be produced without mucking about converting to hydrogen and back. That is a huge waste of energy - though I can there is a potential benefit with hydrogen as an energy store. If you are losing 75%-80% of the energy obtained from the original source then you’d end up having to generate 3-4x as much electricity as if you shoved it into a battery. Though batteries are of course v expensive

[Evanivitch]

I can see a future for hydrogen, but it's a niche for those that really do need constant long distance travel with few stops and short turnaround times. And I can't think of many of those.

Shell said:

Shell has already opened hydrogen refuelling stations in the UK and on the west coast of the USA, and there are plans to grow this network even further.

There are 2 Shell hydrogen stations in the UK. Majority are either in London or at universities, and barely a dozen in total.

[Munter]

Toaster said:

Frimley111R said:

oop north said:

Frimley111R said:

Agreed. Why not use HFC to generate power for the grid so that EVs can use it that way

Isn’t that a bit mad given that generating hydrogen uses 3-4x as much electricity as you can get out via a fuel cell?

Didn't realise that so...yes.

Not really that mad https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/1904... it could just be that developments are quietly going on in this area with fanfare announcements by Tesla etc distracting other alternatives

I did hear about a plan for a hydro electric hydrogen production dam. Lake water flows through the turbines, some taken off through a treatment plant and turned into hydrogen using the energy from the turbines.

The concept seemed ok. But it comes down to which is worse in the eyes of the worlds legislators. Dredging the sea beds for the minerals to build batteries. Or flooding valleys and reducing irrigation water down stream.

I suspect out of sight, out of mind, and feeding the worlds population wins the day on that debate.

[LordFlathead]

Hydrogen is dead in the water - literally. Come and quote me on that in ten years time.

[Matthen]

Evanivitch said:

I can see a future for hydrogen, but it's a niche for those that really do need constant long distance travel with few stops and short turnaround times. And I can't think of many of those .

Shell said:

Shell has already opened hydrogen refuelling stations in the UK and on the west coast of the USA, and there are plans to grow this network even further.

There are 2 Shell hydrogen stations in the UK. Majority are either in London or at universities, and barely a dozen in total.

Apart from every haulage company ever?

If it is possible to use hydrogen to bin diesel lorries off the road, that's great imo.

[HKP]

Surely the likes of the Tesla Semi will be the replacement for the diesel truck?

[Evanivitch]

Matthen said:

Apart from every haulage company ever?

If it is possible to use hydrogen to bin diesel lorries off the road, that's great imo.

Every haulage company ever doesn't necessarily need a vehicle with huge mileage, certainly not in the UK, where the distance between point of entry, distribution and consumption is a few hundred miles at worst.

Take supermarkets as an example, they already use rail from the major points of entry to their distribution hubs. I know that South Wales and the West are largely served out of the Chepstow/Avonmouth area. Not huge mileage to deliver from there, plus charging available at the point of delivery in the 30-60 minutes turnaround required.

[Chris-S]

The cynic in me just sees it as a mechanism for Shell to carry on selling their wares, but wrapped in a thick layer of “green”.

If that experimental solar to hydrogen solution can be scaled (a big if) then that would certainly help make it more viable for certain applications.

[Dave Hedgehog]

Chris-S said:

The cynic in me just sees it as a mechanism for Shell to carry on selling their wares, but wrapped in a thick layer of “green”.

If that experimental solar to hydrogen solution can be scaled (a big if) then that would certainly help make it more viable for certain applications.

i suspect it would be more efficient to chuck the solar electric into the grid to charge the cars with


of course the big advantage to hydrogen is that you will need massive chemical plants to make it and fleets of tankers to deliver it to a network of fuel stations, where as electric cars make that redundant

I do wonder what sort of company would like to run massive plants, a large fleet of tankers and a network of fuel stations, hmmmm

[dave_s13]

Dave Hedgehog said:

dead before it leaves the house, will join LPG

Hope not....I'm getting on nicely with LPG thanks!

[Toaster]

Dave Hedgehog said:

i suspect it would be more efficient to chuck the solar electric into the grid to charge the cars with


of course the big advantage to hydrogen is that you will need massive chemical plants to make it and fleets of tankers to deliver it to a network of fuel stations, where as electric cars make that redundant

I do wonder what sort of company would like to run massive plants, a large fleet of tankers and a network of fuel stations, hmmmm

You need to do a bit more research and suspend your bias, there is no need for massive chemical plants or fleets of tankers, Hydrogen can be made locally and I make mine at home

[RobDickinson]

You dont pressurise it to the required pressures for FCEV though.

Perhaps Germany can pick up some of the used hydrogen stations that have closed in Norway.