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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. (insideevs.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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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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[–] 62 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Toyota, and Japan as a whole, are in a tricky situation with their electric grid. It's been developed separately by nine different companies in each region; the southern regions use 60 Hz supply cycles, where-as the northern regions (including Tokyo Electric) use 50 Hz. Add to this the populations reluctance for nuclear power after Fukushima, and you get a very fragile supply grid with limited capacity. Toyota is gunning hard for Hydrogen because Japan itself can't support EVs and for some reason it doesn't want to/can't manufacture both.

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  • [–] 51 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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

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  • [–] -2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] -5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years 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.

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  • [+] -6 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    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?

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  • [–] -5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years 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.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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...

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

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

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  • [–] -3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    No it isn't. Toyota and Hyundai have had tanks for years now that are not leaking anything. Same goes for Linde.

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  • [–] -3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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?

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years 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.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

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

    It's only simple on paper.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years 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.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    It's actually a lot more work than "add more electricity". It's a load demand issue in areas, and if there's a bunch of high load electric cars trying to charge that needs all the extra equipment and transformers and larger gauge wiring and stuff to go with it.

    Like, look at your house. You may just have a 100 amp breaker box on it. Now you couldn't handle a high-speed charger pulling 40 amps for your car, 30 for the hvac, 20 for lights/tv/computers etc, and then trying to get another 15 or so from and oven or vacuum cleaner. You'll need a bigger amp breaker box, only you can't just install that because the line running to your house also isn't big enough, so you have to have the electric company come out and install a bigger line. But if too many houses in the area need all that, then the main run of lines and equipment going to that neighborhood will also have to be built up.

    Toyota doesn't like all electrics because they don't want to add a $15,000 battery to a vehicle and make it weigh 1,000 pounds more for a vehicle that will no longer be in working condition 15 to 20 years later. They'll fully change their tone once battery tech gets better than lithium based stuff made today. Until then hybrids are great. Cheaper lighter batteries with no range issues and easy to replace the batts when needed.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Like, look at your house. You may just have a 100 amp breaker box on it. Now you couldn’t handle a high-speed charger pulling 40 amps for your car, 30 for the hvac, 20 for lights/tv/computers etc, and then trying to get another 15 or so from and oven or vacuum cleaner. You’ll need a bigger amp breaker box

    I'm not sure if you know this, but there are smart chargers that include a sensor to put on the feed going into your house. The charger can throttle up and down as you turn stuff on and off to keep the house's total power draw under the limit, so you run all your stuff and the car just gets whatever's left over. You can even have dozens of chargers in a parking garage and program the chargers to share a limited grid connection.

    EVs aren't a fixed load, you can ramp them up or down or shut them off as needed, so they're pretty easy to accommodate.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I give simple examples of power load issues and some of y'all take it like a literal argument against just some examples and then the problem goes away. Good grief. Essentially your "easy to accomadate" is just everyone use less power and charge your cars longer".

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (2 children)

    The argument against your example scales, though. You can do demand management with EV chargers, either at the household level or grid scale. Unless your power supply is running so close to the edge it can't cope with existing normal usage, adding EV charging in the midnight to 6am period when power consumption is otherwise really low works just fine. And nobody cares if their car took 6 hours to charge instead of 5, because they sleep through it.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It doesn't though. If you convert all ICE cars to BEV tomorrow it doesn't matter how much you do demand management the grid will be overwhelmed... OR you demand managed so hard that effectively nobody can charge their car regardless of how long they leave it on the charger.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    We've got enough excess supply coming online as people install solar that we're seeing the wholesale electricity price occasionally flip negative. We might not have enough power to satisfy 2035's demand today, but we can accommodate a lot more EVs than we've got on the road.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    You know much about Tokyo? How many people there do you think live in houses with a garage compared to apartments? Your idea only works for the portion of people with a house and at least a driveway.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    What does that have to do with grid demand?

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago

    This is really not a blocker - you don’t need that high a charger, you don’t need to run it full time, nor are you running everything else full time.

    People forget about time of use metering and that this is a gradual phase in over a decade or more. A little bit of certainty in expectations should make this much easier to plan for.

    My charger has a configurable limit, and can be programmed to be active at specific times. I don’t have incentive to do that because I have flat rate metering and sufficient electrical service but I could configure it to be much more friendly to limited service.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

    I’m not sure I buy that. Yes, their electrical grid is a mismatched nightmare, that they should have taken the hit on decades ago. However I see that small chargers for things like phones can adjust to pretty much any electrical grid: why shouldn’t we expect the charger in the car to be equally flexible? Either way, it’s converting to DC

    Edit: the article didn’t talk about the differences, except frequency: if the only difference is 50Hz vs 60Hz, most analog electrical stuff probably also works on both. The real problem is they don’t have interconnects nor do they have a regulatory structure allowing separate generating oroviders

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    I thought auto ranging power supplies were typically for voltage but not frequency.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Every one I’ve seen gives ranges like 100-240v ac, at 50-60 Hz.

    Then electrical grids are large complex systems defined in analog days and subject to variances for weather, usage, distances, etc, so they also need to support that variability

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Even larger appliances like refrigerators, ovens/ranges, etc? Some of these might be 10+ years old.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Digital power supplies usually support most electrical grids

    Analog electrical stuff must handle the allowed variability in the grid and may be able to adjust from 60Hz to 50 Hz: for example a clock probably uses a crystal to establish a reliable frequency instead of relying on the grid frequency. Some labels may include this info, especially since everything has been globalized. However it’s going to depend. Some will. Some won’t.

    However analog electrical can’t usually adjust between 120v and 240v, or similar, depending on where you are. This is the part where things can fail spectacularly

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