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.

  • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    They make solar stations that will pull hydrogen right from the atmosphere. What carbon are you talking about…and you do realize the same power that would be used to make hydrogen in your example would also be charging batteries.

    • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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      9 months ago

      That is a waste of solar. It’s more efficient to put in batteries then kinetic. If there is no more batteries to put it in, you transmit the power over wires.

      With hydrogen it’s wasteful to create from electricity, then wasteful to turn into kinetic. Its wasteful to store as it’s the smallest atom so escapes easily, it’s low density so needs compressing. Then, to move it, you have to move storage around instead of just transmit over wires.

      • NekuSoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de
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        9 months ago

        Exactly. And just to be clear, because it’s annoying me every time people gloss over this, it’s not just some percentage points lost in the conversion of energy, it’s actually ~75% of the energy that goes to waste, from energy production to the final motion of the wheels. EVs on the other hand only waste ~25% of energy. Even with the wishful thinking that the hydrogen can simply be created in times of energy overproduction, you can’t beat a factor of 3.

        • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Hydrogen is basically free energy though. Using solar to pull it from the atmosphere and then it goes in an ICE motor. Stations like these can supply hydrogen basically anywhere without needing to run wires to it. Providing fuel to ICE powered hydrogen cars.

          • frezik@midwest.social
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            9 months ago

            You know that 75% loss of energy the GP mentioned above? That’s for hydrogen fuel cells, not hydrogen ICE. It’s even worse for ICE. Why the hell would we do that rather than putting that solar directly on the grid?

            • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Because you can drop one of these and fuel hydrogen ice cars in the middle of nowhere. You can’t do that with solar and superchargers , they require substations.

              Sounds like all of you people live in the city. Figures how ignorant you all are, the USA is massive people don’t just live in apartment blocks in walking distance of their jobs and stores.

                • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  The fuck are you talking about, these micro plants, use solar energy to pull it from the atmosphere. This isn’t rocket science…

          • NekuSoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de
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            9 months ago

            It’s not free though. There’s such a thing called ‘opportunity costs’: If I have the choice between a ‘free candy machine’ that spits out one candy every hour, and one that spits out three candies every hour, I know what I’ll choose.

            I also wasn’t aware you ware talking about ICE powered hydrogen cars, where the efficiency is even more comically abysmal.

            • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Cool your candy machine requires 10xs the investment and maybe even more because supercharger stations need substations near them. They can’t run on a 400amp box.

              • NekuSoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de
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                9 months ago

                It seems to me like you’re comparing the costs for building one at the most out there location possible. Putting the questions aside if building anything in such locations would ever be profitable enough for something to be build, or if fast-charging is absolutely necessary: This absolutely isn’t true for the majority/average location, where your solution is the one that prohibitively expensive, not to mention that a good chunk of people wouldn’t even need a charging station at all when they can charge at home, maybe even using the solar panels already on their roof.

                There may be some limited space for hydrogen ICE cars on the market, but it won’t be the solution that’ll see widespread adoption and support by car manufacturers as long as there’s a much cheaper and comfortable solution for 99.9% of people on earth (number made up).

                Though if anything, I predict that specialized EVs with swappable batteries (which already exist) that can then be charged slowly with solar will become viable as they’re much cheaper and efficient in those areas.

          • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            This is crackpottery and your repeatedly re-posting this assertion without citing anything isn’t really supporting your position.

            Yes, yes, electrolysis is a thing.

            No, it is not free.

            FFS if you’re going to go for crazy theories why not dream big: here is a potential paint we could research for a few megacredits and buff our science to coat our walls and make hydrogen with. For not free but cheaper than electrolysis.

          • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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            9 months ago

            Right now, it doesn’t seam like we energy to waste. Not until all the energy is clean. Also, it’s always going to be cheaper to use a lot less energy. Until energy is free, which it isn’t even with renewable because of install cost and maintainance cost.

      • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        A…waste of solar…internal ICE hydrogen motors is what these would be used for not fuel cell hydrogen.

        How are you wasting solar? Lol this makes no sense. These can be stood up anywhere, you cannot use these as super chargers for batteries…

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          9 months ago

          Because you can put that electricity directly into the grid rather than wasting it making hydrogen.

          • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Lol that’s not the goal, the goal is to charge a car… you’re finding a problem to solve that’s not even in the same area…

            • frezik@midwest.social
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              9 months ago

              You can use electricity on the grid to charge a car. Not sure if you were aware of that. It’s going to be a whole lot more efficient at it than hydrogen.

              • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                No shit. You know you need a substation to power a supercharger grid…you know how many substations just randomly exist in rural areas to power superchargers? And how expensive they are to build and maintain?

                • frezik@midwest.social
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                  9 months ago

                  And hydrogen won’t get you there. It’s much easier to build a substation than the new infrastructure for hydrogen.

                  • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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                    9 months ago

                    Lol no it is not, do you know what goes into building a substation? They’re expensive and require a lot of upkeep.

        • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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          9 months ago

          Look at the efficiency of the energy conversions. It is literally wasting solar.

          • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            How is it wasted if it completely free energy? You cannot charge up electric cars quickly via solar…hell solar in general isn’t super efficient anyways lol

            • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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              9 months ago

              No energy is free because there is always installation and maintance cost. Lot’s of people change their cars off solar. Most of a car’s life is sat parked for hours. So slow is fine. My charger has a solar divert function I’m yet to get the solar for. Also, you change a house battery slow and then a car fast from it. Even here in the UK there are people doing it. Not solar all the time, but a lot in summer. House battery changed when your in the office, car overnight from that.

    • wewbull@feddit.uk
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      9 months ago

      Hydrogen isn’t in the atmosphere. The atmosphere is 20.9% oxygen, 70% nitrogen and some trace other gases, none of which are hydrogen.

      Hydrogen is produced either by splitting water (the H in H²O) or splitting hydrocarbons like Methane which produces CO² (the carbon part bonding with oxygen from the atmosphere, making that stuff we’re trying to cut back on).

      That second method is why the fossil fuels companies are so keen on it. Hydrogen can be a repacked form of natural gas.

      • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Yes totally forgot how there is no water in our atmosphere…forgot the globe just has water in a few places and humidity doesn’t exist…

        • wewbull@feddit.uk
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          9 months ago

          Oh yes, that 1% water vapour (on average) that you want 2/3rds of.

          Gimme a break. I don’t think your machine producing hydrogen “straight out of the atmosphere” is going to be fueling many cars.