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I was going to put this under the General EV discussion thread, but decided to create an alternative energy thread instead
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.
Shell Hydrogen will permanently close all seven of its California pumping stations immediately, the company confirmed this week. It will no longer operate light-duty hydrogen stations in the U.S., and represents another blow to the struggling hydrogen car market in the only state where the fuel is widely available at all.
Unfortunately, the reason why Shell is closing up shop should give Toyota Mirai, Hyundai Nexo, and Honda Clarity Fuel Cell owners—God bless 'em—even more cause for concern. In the letter announcing the closure, Shell Hydrogen Vice President Andrew Beard said they were shutting them down "due to hydrogen supply complications and other external market factors." It's not hard to see what Beard is referencing here.
A brief scan of H2FCP's fantastic station map shows that a majority of the Hydrogen stations in Southern California are offline or operating with reduced hours. Hydrogen Insight reports that this shortage has been disrupting stations since August 13. During my one experience in a Mirai, the Uber driver behind the wheel noted that it had become even more of a nightmare to find fuel, and the situation has gotten worse since then. Each station has a slightly different notice posted on H2FCP's map, but this one from an Iwatani hydrogen filling station captures the spirit of them all:
"Our primary hydrogen supplier has experienced a disruption that will impact our access to hydrogen for the Hawaiian Gardens station. We currently do not have an ETA to return to normal service levels and will provide updates as soon as we have more information. We greatly appreciate your patience for the additional downtime this will cause."
All of this makes the future of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles in the United States even more uncertain. The technology has struggled to catch on, as the stations and their fuel remain expensive. Though hydrogen car manufacturers usually include a large amount of free fuel in the purchase of a vehicle, once that runs out consumers are left with eye-watering prices from stations that are often broken, out of fuel, or swarmed with long lines. It's why used hydrogen cars are so cheap, and why they still aren't a good deal.
Few companies can make a better case for it than Shell, though, as the cheapest way to produce hydrogen involves a lot of natural gas. Its proximity to the fossil-fuel industry was supposed to make it cheaper, and provide incentive for robust fueling infrastructure. That hasn't played out, though, and one of the largest oil giants is throwing in the towel. If even a fossil giant like Shell can't justify investing in the future of light-duty hydrogen infrastructure, we're not sure who can.
I don't know, but I think the question has been answered regarding Toyota placing bets on batteries vs hydrogen, at least in my mind
Latest I heard Toyota is sticking to their plan of multiple drivetrain options. At least that's what they claim. Is there a single hydrogen station that generates H2 on site?
Alternative Energy Conversation
