California Energy Commission awards $17M to expand hydrogen refueling infrastructure
16 June 2017
During its latest business meeting, the California Energy Commission approved more than than $17 million was approved for nine new hydrogen stations that will expand the refueling infrastructure network in California.
FirstElement Fuel, Inc. will develop eight hydrogen refueling stations. Five of those will be located in Southern California: in Huntington Beach, Irvine, San Diego, Santa Monica, and Sherman Oaks. The remaining three will be in the San Francisco Bay Area: in Campbell, Oakland and Sunnyvale.
Air Liquide Advanced Technologies US, LLC received funds for a refueling station in Santa Nella that will connect the Southern California and the Bay Area stations.
The Energy Commission also approved more than $1 million in grants for innovators and entrepreneurs working to bring early-stage clean energy concepts to market. Eight grants of $150,000 were the first-ever approved from CalSEED, which is the Energy Commission’s initiative to invest in novel solutions to energy challenges. The grants will fund a wide range of demonstration projects, including a new lithium extraction process, a high-efficiency electric power grid control device, and a light-emitting diode (LED) bulb that operates at a resistance level 30 times lower than conventional LED lights.
Good news for near future increased H2 availability in California. FCEV's owners will soon benefit with more H2 stations and lower/competitive price.
Californians will buy/use more FCEVs and pollute less.
CalSEED's grants & initiates are interesting and may encourage others States to follow?
Posted by: HarveyD | 16 June 2017 at 09:02 AM
Heh, Santa Nella is right next to Los Baños, where I put my fictional Supercharger station in my spoof future news article last year.
These hypedrogen stations are still running about $2 million apiece and require massive government subsidies. Superchargers are being built with private money, no? I know they cost 1/10 to 1/20 as much. There's no competition. Hypedrogen is not the fuel of the future, it's the fuel of fiction.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 17 June 2017 at 10:13 AM
Engineer-poet why are you so harsh on a superior technology.
The weight efficiency of Hydrogen blows lithium out of the water. Recharge time 3min vs 4 hrs.
The conversions do not cost 2 million a piece.
adding an island to an existing Shell costs a fraction.
You are always trolling here, work for trump he needs more bigots.
Posted by: solarsurfer | 19 June 2017 at 05:26 PM
Technology doesn't become superior by virtue of one or two numbers, but by overall performance and fitness for purpose. Hydrogen is unfit
And the Department of Energy is seeking to get the hydrogen-fraction of the fuel system up to a whole... 5.7%. At that point the all-up weight will be a mere 17.5 times as much as the fuel it holds. You also have considerable restrictions on form factor. The only feasible shape is cylindrical tubes.
Batteries can be packed into almost any desired shape. What's superior about H2 again?
BEVs have the potential to recharge in motion as well as at almost all parking. It doesn't matter how long recharging takes as long as you're not waiting for it. You are never going to be able to supply hydrogen through the road.
Then there's the real big issue: making the stuff. The ONLY competitive scheme is to reform methane to hydrogen, which starts with fossil methane. Guess who owns the fossil methane? The hydrogen car is a creature of the oil companies, trying to retain control of energy for transport and capture its revenue streams. BEVs take all of it away from them.
Nobody's going to buy hydrogen from "renewable" energy. The double conversion is less than 50% efficient, so your basic energy cost more than doubles even before you add amortization and O&M.
So explain this $17 million figure for 9 stations.
Pricking your bubbles of delusion to let reality shine in isn't trolling.
Work for Governor Moonbeam, he needs more people to sell more spending that California can't afford so it can go bankrupt while he's in office to take the blame for it.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 20 June 2017 at 02:57 PM