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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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[–] 25 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

That's it of course isn't it the hydrogen is generated through fracking so they're just trying to maintain the existing business model.

That alone is the reason that no one should have ever paid attention to it. It wasn't ever intended to actually work it was supposed to just look like it might work so that they would continue to get some money.

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

    Yeah. There was a time, 10 or 20 years ago, where I would have said we should invest into all possible solutions, including batteries and hydrogen. It would have been nice to have it all be funded 10 times more than they were, but they were funded.

    And then batteries won. The pseudo-reasonable argument "we should fund every possible avenue" no longer applies. We did that, and now is the time to go all in on the winner.

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

    The materials to make batteries aren't readily available in the quantities needed to add grid scale storage to all countries and replace all global ICE vehicles. Hydrogen is also ideal for countries like Japan where their grid isn't all connected (it's loads of small grids) and can't handle either the increased load from charging vehicles, or transport the energy from productive renewables areas to non productive renewables areas.

    Like with most energy tech, we should be investing in it all so we have a diverse mix of solutions.

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

    The materials to make batteries aren’t readily available in the quantities needed to add grid scale storage

    Let me stop you right there. The batteries for grid scale are not going to be lithium, which I'm guessing is what you're thinking.

    Like with most energy tech, we should be investing in it all so we have a diverse mix of solutions.

    We did. Batteries won and hydrogen lost. Now is the time to deploy what we have.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    There's also upcoming solid state batteries, and maybe flow batteries if they can get the electrolyte mixture efficient.

    I am very intrigued by flow batteries. It basically behaves like a gas fuel concept. Pump some out, pump some in, charge it slowly somewhere else,. hopefully from solar and wind, or fusion haha

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

    Flow batteries currently don't have the kwh per kg to be competitive in EVs, but they're great for grid storage. There are some lab advancements improving that of late, but as with all battery tech lab advancements, you shouldn't rely on any one of them working out to mass production.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    Hydrogen is simply less efficient. Switching to it would increase total load on the grid, even if you try to distribute production then the losses takes away available energy for other uses. At some point it becomes cheaper to invest to connect the grid together.

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

    I am not familiar with it, would you mind telling me how much works? Why would Hydrogen not be sourced from ocean water and then compressed/stored? How did fracking come in, it seems like a chore to have made it so

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

    Because electrolysis requires ungodly amounts of electricity in order to work on industrial scales in theory it's doable but no one does it. We would practically have to crack nuclear fusion to make it viable, which sort of defeats the point.

    However you can get it from shale gas quite easily because it's just in there mixed in with the gas, I assume some geological process creates it, so you just need to separate it from the gas. The trouble is it involves doing the actual fracking, even if you don't actually ever burn the gas, which they also do because of course they do.

    It's just a totally stupid system all around.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    requires ungodly amounts of electricity in order to work on industrial scales in theory it’s doable but no one does

    Namibia is set to produce 15Mt/a of hydrogen by 2050, using about 15TWh/a of renewables, mostly wind. Germany is estimating an approximate need for 2Gt/a for its industry which is why we're also tapping e.g. Canada, they're planning on scaling to 20Mt/a by 2050. Transport will be in the form of hydrous ammonia.

    Yes it's still a steep climb and the numbers are staggering but remember that this is replacing oil not just as fuel but also chemical feedstock and BASF Ludwigshafen alone consumes more resources than several small countries combined.

    There's literally no alternative to that, same goes with steel smelting. Application in vehicles are going to be an insignificant blip compared to the overall hydrogen economy.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    It can be through electrolysis, but it is almost never done that way. It's less efficient than simply using the grid to charge batteries, in that usecase the ONLY benefit it has its energy density (and that might not last either).

    In practice the main source is as a byproduct from refining fossil fuel like oil or gas which is separated and collected.

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