Committee Passes Hawkins Bill Promoting Hydrogen FCEVs

Sen. Brad Hawkins’ proposal to promote hydrogen-powered vehicles, the first Senate bill of the 2021 legislative session, is now also among the first measures to be approved by a Senate committee.

The Senate Environment, Energy and Technology Committee on Thursday approved Senate Bill 5000, which would establish an eight-year statewide pilot project for the reduction of sales tax on purchases of fuel-cell electric vehicles.

“I’m pleased that the committee passed this bill so early,” said Hawkins, who serves the 12th Legislative District. “The bill received a positive response during its public hearing, and I’m hopeful it will continue moving forward this session. The bill is off to a terrific start but still has a ways to go in the weeks ahead.”

Senate Bill 5000, which has bipartisan support and nearly 30 co-sponsors, has been referred to the Senate Transportation Committee for further consideration.

Back in 2019, the Legislature approved Hawkins-sponsored Senate Bill 5588, which authorizes public utility districts to produce and sell “renewable hydrogen.”

“The people of North Central Washington have been leaders in clean energy for decades and new state efforts to promote renewable hydrogen and zero-emissions vehicles will help us continue our innovative work,” said Hawkins. He added, “North Central Washington is in a real position to lead the state and perhaps the entire United States on renewable hydrogen use in transportation, from production, distribution, vehicles, buses, short haul agriculture, and other opportunities locally. It’s pretty exciting when you think big about it. Our region has a long and proud history of thinking big about clean energy.”

Hydrogen can be created from a process that separates the hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water. The Douglas County Public Utility District in Hawkins’ district plans to utilize its surplus hydropower to do just that, creating renewable hydrogen from excess renewable hydropower and possibly also building hydrogen fueling stations.

SB 5000 aims to extend a similar exemption on vehicle sales tax that purchasers of traditional electric vehicles receive. With the first hydrogen-fueling stations in Washington expected to be operational by 2022, the bill would allow a total of 650 vehicles to receive a 50-percent sales tax exemption in fiscal years 2023 through 2029.

Even though hydrogen vehicles are newer to the market and slightly more expensive due to having not been in mass production nationwide, they have shown tremendous promise given how quickly they refuel and the limited infrastructure required to get the fuel to the station.

Hawkins said his bill would help establish important parity between fuel-cell electric vehicles and traditional plug-in electrics.

“In our efforts to promote carbon-free vehicles, our state policies should be ‘technologically neutral’ so that we can give ourselves varied opportunities to reduce emissions and not unintentionally bias ourselves in the process,” Hawkins said. “Similar to diesel and gas, maybe there will always be multiple fuel sources for next-generation cars or maybe someday hydrogen vehicles will be the preferred choice.”

What the bill’s supporters are saying:

“We are thankful for Senator Hawkins’ leadership for renewable hydrogen. His support has created an opportunity for us to increase efficiencies at our Wells Hydroelectric Project and increase value for our customers.” – Molly Simpson, Douglas County PUD Commission President

 “The Renewable Hydrogen Alliance is proud to support the expansion of clean vehicle incentives to fuel cell electric cars just as Washington begins creating clean hydrogen from the state’s ample supply of renewable electricity.” – Ken Dragoon, Executive Director of the Renewable Hydrogen Alliance

“Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be critical to the future of a decarbonized transportation sector. This bill is a meaningful step to ensuring the state incentivizes a portfolio approach to electrifying Washington’s transportation sector. WSHA could not be more pleased to support Senator Hawkins in this effort.” – Roxana Bekemohammadi, Executive Director of the Western States Hydrogen Alliance

“Senator Hawkins’ pilot incentive program is an important first step to help accelerate the adoption of hydrogen, fuel cell and electrification accessibility in Washington state. Paving the way for emissions-free technologies will further generate awareness, interest and acceptance in communities seeking cleaner options.” – Doug Murtha, Group Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Planning at Toyota Motor North America 

“As we work to reduce transportation emissions in Washington state, incentivizing clean energy through an increased use of hydrogen could play a significant role toward accomplishing our climate goals. I look forward to working across the aisle with Senator Hawkins on this policy, and to continue protecting our state’s incredible natural environment.” – Sen. Liz Lovelett, 40th District, D-Anacortes, Lead Co-Sponsor

Here are links to news stories or other helpful information about this bill:

 

source:  Washington State District 12 Senator Brad Hawkins webpage

Sunnyvale Hydrogen Station Opens

The Sunnyvale True Zero station, located in Silicon Valley, was developed by FirstElement Fuel. It will be open 24 hours a day and is located at 1296 Sunnyvale Saratoga Road, Sunnyvale, CA 94087. The price of hydrogen is $13.08 per kilogram.

The Sunnyvale hydrogen station capacity is 1,600 kilograms and has four fueling positions with a total of five nozzles (four H70 nozzles and one H35 nozzle). It is one of the first hydrogen stations in California serving passenger cars to have four fueling positions and capacity up to six times the size of earlier hydrogen stations. The next-largest stations for passenger cars are similar include the True Zero station in Fountain Valley that opened in July and the True Zero station in Oakland, with more than 800 kilograms. It opened in late 2019.

This station will be able to fuel three cars simultaneously, increasing the number of vehicles served in a shorter time. This and future stations like it will help meet the needs of the growing fuel cell passenger car market in Silicon Valley and the greater Bay areas and across California.

The station offers 100% renewable hydrogen. California requires that at least 33% of hydrogen fuel come from renewable sources. For stations that qualify for the Low Carbon Fuel Standard ZEV infrastructure credit, that amount increases to 40%.

Check out this station and any other on RMP’s map of US hydrogen infrastructure which now also includes Canadian infrastructure here:  https://www.respectmyplanet.org/public_html/united_states

RMP’s map opens on retail open & retail planned hydrogen refueling stations when it first loads.  Many of the stations planned on the east coast of the USA (i.e. icons colored yellow) are fully operational but not yet “open to the public”.   You can turn on/off marker groupings by using the panel on the left to view:  bus stations, truck stations, research facilities, universities, production locations, liquefaction locations, and transfill locations.   Check it out.  Always free to use w/ no advertisements or user tracking.  Just light, simple, homegrown, and fast code for a fast responsive map with deep database & AJAX functionality.

USA & CANADA QUARTERLY H2 INFRASTRUCTURE UPDATE 2020-Q4

Welcome new readers of RMP’s quarterly H2 infrastructure report.  Each quarter we look back on the major stories related to hydrogen infrastructure advancements and we compare the current AFDC database to the AFDC database in the prior quarter to see what has changed.  The AFDC database is updated by the US Dept of Energy & can be found by clicking here.  Canada added a new data repository for hydrogen stations in Q2-2020.  The Canadian website is administered by Natural Resources Canada.   RMP will continue to use the US Department of Energy database as our primary data source as we learn more about the Canadian database.  All this data as well as data RMP collects by hand goes into RMP’s interactive map of hydrogen infrastructure in the USA & Canada you can see by clicking here.  Ok, on with the report…

The main hydrogen infrastructure story this quarter is one of disappointment but also one of promise & hope.  The disappointment was related to a lack of liquid hydrogen (LH2) availability because of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.  The promise & hope comes from the plethora of forthcoming hydrogen liquefaction projects announced that will diversify the LH2 supply chain for California drivers.  Curious minds like yours indeed might ask: How did a hydrogen liquefaction plant losing electricity in New Orleans affect drivers in California?  Let’s put on our detective hats and Continue reading “USA & CANADA QUARTERLY H2 INFRASTRUCTURE UPDATE 2020-Q4”

USA’s Public Retail Hydrogen History: A View from Late 2020

Three new hydrogen refueling stations have come online recently that mark a paradigm change in retail hydrogen refueling infrastructure in the USA:

  • Shell Oakland with 800kg capacity Oakland, California 9/20/2019
  • TrueZero Fountain Valley with 1,200kg capacity Fountain Valley, California 7/3/2020
  • TrueZero Mission Hills with 1,200kg capacity Mission Hills, California 10/26/2020

Sometimes when you want to understand where you are or what just happened, you have to look back to appreciate how you got here.  To understand something generationally new, you have to understand its predecessor technology to appreciate the contrast between the way it was and the way it will be going forward.  RMP has been writing about some BIG new hydrogen refueling stations that would be coming online soon, and now… they’re here.  They’re open now.  Now that they’re open & with more BIG stations on the way, it’s starting to set in that we have reached a milestone in retail hydrogen refueling infrastructure.  That said, it seems like a good reflection point to look back at retail hydrogen infrastructure development thus far and understand the USA’s history in hydrogen clean energy technology.

People following hydrogen infrastructure development will have many different takes on where we started and how far we’ve come.  How far to go back in history is an ambiguous question.  RMP will focus on Continue reading “USA’s Public Retail Hydrogen History: A View from Late 2020”

USA & CANADA QUARTERLY H2 INFRASTRUCTURE UPDATE 2020-Q3

Welcome new readers of RMP’s quarterly H2 infrastructure report.  Each quarter we look back on the major stories related to hydrogen infrastructure advancements and we compare the current AFDC database to the AFDC database in the prior quarter to see what has changed.  The AFDC database is updated by the US Dept of Energy & can be found by clicking here.  Canada added a new data repository for hydrogen stations in Q2-2020.  The Canadian website is administered by Natural Resources Canada.   RMP will continue to use the US Department of Energy database as our primary data source as we learn more about the new Canadian database.  All this data (and more) goes into RMP’s interactive map of hydrogen infrastructure in the USA & Canada you can see by clicking hereOk, on with the report…

The big news this quarter is California Energy Commission’s GFO-19-602 Hydrogen Refueling Infrastructure draft solicitation being awarded September 4, 2020 for $115.7M & the matching contributions from applicants of an additional $201.7M.  $5M of the total award will come from the Continue reading “USA & CANADA QUARTERLY H2 INFRASTRUCTURE UPDATE 2020-Q3”

Zero Emission Ammonia Production from Green Hydrogen

Could the future of renewable energy lie in a basic household chemical under your kitchen sink?  Ammonia might power your household cleaning and fertilize your plants, but it could become an important zero emission energy carrier for moving clean energy around the world economically. Oil & gas, which make up most of our current energy supply, can easily be shipped & stored, but renewable energy that travels through the power grid as electricity cannot.  This prevents renewables from becoming a bigger player in the world market of produced & distributed energy.  It’s also why researchers are working to streamline current processes to convert solar & wind energy into liquid ammonia which would allow it to be shipped around the world & stored as easily as petroleum products for those hot evenings & cloudy days when the wind isn’t blowing & the sun isn’t shining.

We need to master our ability to create cheap green hydrogen for essential ammonia production even if we leave the BEV-vs-FCEV passenger car debate completely out of the picture. The conventional manufacture of ammonia (NH3) is a dirty process.  But without ammonia, we would not be able to produce food for nearly 60% of the world’s population1.  Ammonia is made from nitrogen & hydrogen. Nitrogen molecules are separated from the air we breathe and hydrogen is generally derived from either natural gas or coal in a process which creates greenhouse gasses or about 1.8% of CO2 emissions worldwide2.  Once you have the nitrogen & hydrogen segregated, the Haber-Bosch process is employed to make ammonia.

Fritz Haber was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process used to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen.

Projects are underway around the world that will change how ammonia is manufactured by using renewable solar & wind energy to create the hydrogen from water instead of steam reformed natural gas.  The implications of making “green ammonia” are bigger than just fertilizer too.   Liquid ammonia is also an energy carrier with a higher energy density (11.5 MJ/liter) than liquid hydrogen (8.5 MJ/liter)3.  Ammonia is easier and much cheaper to store & transport than liquid hydrogen because infrastructure & equipment can be used that already exists (e.g. propane infrastructure).  While there are many places around the world working on green ammonia pilot plants (Oxford, United KingdomFukashima, Japan –  Iberdola, Spain& more)  RMP thinks Australia is the world leader in the large scale pilot manufacture of green ammonia.  Australia has abundant renewable energy resources & potential resources available to boost their economy through the manufacture of green ammonia.

Practical Manufacturing of Green Ammonia & Its Energy Storage Potential

There are a number of reasons why Australia is the primary focus of RMP’s first report on green ammonia.  Australia is in the spotlight because of its massive resources and investment in renewable solar & wind energy.  Australia currently has 95 large renewable energy infrastructure projects that are in construction (or due to start construction soon).  These projects will deliver over $19 billion in capital costs, 11,007 MW of new renewable energy capacity and create 13,567 direct jobs4.  Each year terawatt hours of electricity are curtailed5 or go to waste because the electricity cannot be used at the time of generation.  It’s a problem that has and will continue get worse as more renewable electricity generation capacity comes online.

Battery storage solutions that only last for 24 hours or as peakers are great and serve very important purposes.  Battery storage projects also have great payback as short term energy solutions.  However, short burst solutions are part of the problem with massive demand for energy as they only satisfy a fraction of what is needed for base-load power over extended durations.  We need solutions like ammonia that will have costs scale down as usage scales up because of solar, wind, & hydrogen abundance.  Short term battery solutions become too expensive as they scale larger than the peaker size.  Batteries also are not the right solution if we need energy for days, weeks, months, and seasons.  It is one of the toughest problems to solve with renewable energy that has its highest output during hours when humans don’t need electricity and vice versa.  We need a way to store massive amounts of wasted electrical energy so we can have it back when we need it.  As more and more renewable energy comes online, cumulative curtailed electricity numbers will continue to climb without the means to store excess generation.

When in liquid form at ambient temperature, ammonia has an energy density of about 3 kWh/liter and if chilled to negative 35 celsius, ammonia’s energy density approaches 4 kWh/liter6.  Australia can use their vast renewable resources to achieve economical manufacture, production, and storage of green ammonia by simply buying electrolyzers that turn water into H2 & O2.  Australia can be on their way to making more green ammonia with proven technology that is easy to deploy.  While ammonia is an absolute societal necessity for agricultural fertilizer in an established world market, it also has even bigger economic potential as a carrier of energy.  Energy is a new market for ammonia that will displace oil & gas market share.

The Yara Pilbara Renewable Ammonia Feasibility Study is for a demonstration-scale renewable hydrogen and renewable ammonia production and export facility on the Burrup Peninsula, Western Australia.  Yara’s Burrup Peninsula facility currently produces ammonia by using natural gas as a feedstock for its steam methane reforming process, which produces fossil-fuel based hydrogen. The hydrogen is then used to feed an ammonia synthesis process to produce ammonia. Yara is investigating producing renewable hydrogen to feed its ammonia production process, which will reduce emissions produced by the facility.

yara pilbara
The Yara Pilbara pilot plant will make 30,000 tons of green ammonia that would otherwise be made with fossil fuels. This initial amount of green ammonia replaces 3% of the plant’s fossil fuel capacity. The plant could eventually scale up to 1,000,000 tons of solar PV green ammonia that would otherwise be made with fossil fuels. This is ammonia that already has demand predominantly for fertilizer. (Click image to enlarge).

In collaboration with global energy company ENGIE, the Yara Pilbara Renewable Ammonia Feasibility Study will investigate the feasibility of producing renewable hydrogen via electrolysis powered by onsite solar PV. Yara’s objective is that for the demonstration plant, up to three per cent of the hydrogen consumed on site will be renewable hydrogen. The blended hydrogen will subsequently be converted to ammonia and sold for further processing into domestic and international markets. The feasibility study will also investigate using seawater for the electrolyzer.

The feasibility study will help manufacture 30,000 tons of green ammonia that Yara currently would make using fossil fuels. The study will be the first step on the path to achieving commercial scale production of renewable hydrogen and ammonia for export7. In the long term, Yara is aiming to produce hydrogen and ammonia entirely through renewable energy. This approach will allow Yara to avoid any major augmentation to the existing plant and therefore minimise the cost and time needed to produce renewable ammonia.

This project has the potential to ‘unlock’ the value of vast areas of vacant Pilbara land by supporting the development of a new industry that captures solar energy for conversion to hydrogen and other valuable products.  Because project’s like Yara Pilbara are likely to surpass feasibility expectations similar to most renewable hydrogen projects, its $3.76m price tag is being funded in part by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) with a $995k investment.  The Australian government recognizes how making green ammonia for export can literally transform the continent into an economic powerhouse as renewable generation scales up.

Source: Yara (click to enlarge)

Australia’s government and scientific community want to make green ammonia a significant part of their future economic plans.  Australia has renewable resource potential to produce so much more energy than Australians alone can consume which means ammonia has significant export potential which can quickly increase sovereign wealth.  A challenge associated with using ammonia as a zero carbon energy carrier is “cracking” the ammonia back into its constituent elements nitrogen & hydrogen.  In order to make green ammonia more attractive as an export product, the Aussie’s are attacking this challenge with their top scientific researchers.  Enter Australia’s CSIRO.

Cracking Green Ammonia

CSIRO is Australia’s national science research agency.  The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), says their mission is to shape the future. CSIRO says it does this by using science to solve real issues to unlock a better future for Australia’s community, economy, & planet.  You may remember it was about two years ago to the month (8/08/2018) that CSIRO published a blog post about the successful refueling of a Toyota Mirai & Hyundai Nexo hydrogen fuel vehicle with ultra pure hydrogen “cracked” from ammonia using a brand new membrane technology created by CSIRO scientists.  The news humbly/quietly signaled a paradigm change in zero carbon energy for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles like busses, trucks, trains, airplanes, and passenger vehicles.  If  you have abundant renewable energy to produce green ammonia and a method to crack that ammonia back into hydrogen on demand, you literally have a game changer for green energy.

CSIRO Chief Executive Larry Marshall was one of the first to ride in the Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Nexo vehicles powered by ultra-high purity hydrogen, produced in Queensland using CSIRO’s membrane technology.  The membrane separates ultra-high purity hydrogen from ammonia, while blocking all other gases.  It links hydrogen production, distribution and delivery in the form of a modular unit that can be used at, or near, a refueling station.  This means that the transportation and storage of hydrogen – currently a complex and relatively expensive process – is simplified, allowing bulk hydrogen to be transported economically and efficiently in the form of liquid ammonia.

Demonstration of a Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle refueled by hydrogen from ammonia “cracked” at CSIRO in Queensland, Australia.  CSIRO’s new membrane technology decomposes ammonia into its constituent elements nitrogen & hydrogen.  The hydrogen is ultra pure 99.999% (aka five nines) hydrogen which means it can refuel a Mirai like this one in about the same amount of time it takes to refuel a gasoline vehicle with similar range. Photo courtesy of CSIRO (click to enlarge)

“This is a watershed moment for energy, and we look forward to applying CSIRO innovation to enable this exciting renewably-sourced fuel and energy storage medium a smoother path to market,” Dr Marshall said.  BOC Sales and Marketing Director Bruce Currie congratulated CSIRO on the successful refueling of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, which proved the effectiveness of CSIRO’s membrane technology from generation, right through to point of use.  With this successful demonstration under CSIRO’s belt, the technology will be increased in scale and deployed in several larger-scale demonstrations, in Australia and abroad.  CSIRO’s membrane technology will make green ammonia more attractive to foreign consumers who want to import the zero carbon energy carrier into their smog & CO2 belching countries.  This is particularly relevant for enormous nearby markets like China, Japan, and South Korea who have committed to hydrogen economies to decarbonize and de-smog their cities.

Worldwide Green Ammonia Distribution Logistics

Green ammonia will be competing with many other forms of energy that are fighting for investment dollars.  Ammonia has a couple tricks up its sleeves with regard to affordability & return on investment.  One of the key fuels that ammonia will compete with out on the open oceans is Liquified Natural Gas which has a very high volumetric energy content at 6 kWh/liter compared to ammonia’s 3 kWh/liter at ambient temperature or almost 4 kWh/liter if chilled to -35C.  RMP created our map of all LNG facilities in the world when Cheniere was granted the USA’s first permit to export LNG in 2011.  Green ammonia will have to compete with LNG that has grown significantly since RMP first wrote about Cheniere in August of 2015 just over five years ago.  America now has 5 LNG liquefaction facilities permitted for export & built since 2015.  These are carefully planned investment decisions on plants that take years to build.  Even the F.I.D’s on a new LNG plant can take years because of the risk of investing so much money over such a long horizon.

While LNG liquefaction has received significant investment in the past five years on assets that are expected to deliver for 25 plus year useful lives, LNG is at a severe disadvantage to ammonia for both maritime use & for maritime bunkering.  While ammonia has big advantage over all other 100% green energy carriers with energy density, its real secret weapon against grey and potentially “blue” fuels, like LNG, is its ability to use existing infrastructure like that used for LPGs (e.g. propane).   Financial investments with the strongest bang for their buck always win.  Green ammonia will be a fierce competitor with regard to economic return on investment.

green ammonia
Figure 4 from The Royal Society, Ammonia: zero-carbon fertiliser, fuel and energy store” Published February 2020.  This infographic shows the energy densities for various green & dirty fuels.  Where ammonia lacks in volumetric energy density versus hydrocarbons like LNG, it more than makes up for it in ease of use & cost effective bunkering for maritime use.

Because ammonia can be liquified at 7.5 bar at ambient temperatures similar to propane & butane, it has an advantage over LNG as a 100% green energy carrier  and could potentially hurt LNG investments as shipbuilders might prefer 0% zero emission vessels & cargo.  Ammonia easily fits this role of clean energy ambassador to enormous cargo ships with cheaper bunkering costs.  Ammonia bunkering costs will be orders of magnitude cheaper than LNG because of the liquefaction trains & cryogenic storage required for LNG.  There is great irony here in that for 10 years we have heard that hydrogen suffers from a “chicken or egg” problem but the truth is the chicken or egg problem befalls LNG to a much more significant degree than ammonia which means hydrogen’s chicken or egg problem also could rapidly become yesterday’s story.

For LNG, the dilemma has been that shipowners have been reluctant to make the switch to LNG as bunker fuel in the absence of ports around the world able to supply it. Yet, the development of the required infrastructure is dependent on such demand. As ammonia is already produced and transported in large quantities around the world by ship, bunker supplies could be readily accommodated, though of course it will have to be expanded once the first ammonia powered vessels are realized, says Niels de Vries, a Naval Architect with C-Job Naval Architects in the Netherlands.

“Nowadays the main consumer of ammonia is the fertilizer industry,” he says. “This industry is supplied by ships which carry ammonia in bulk loads of up to 60,000 dwt. The industry’s existing infrastructure could be used to realize bunker locations for ships in the future, and current production offers the possibility of a smooth transition. There are ports available already that could supply the first ships.”

Vigor, the Pacific Northwest’s biggest shipbuilder, has launched the Harvest, the first liquefied ammonia barge built in the US since 1982. It was built for the Mosaic Co. of Minnesota, a leading producer of concentrated phosphate and potash fertilizers, and will be operated in the Gulf by a subsidiary of the Savage Company. The 508-foot hull was constructed at Vigor’s HQ and base facility, the Swan Island Shipyard in Portland, with the assistance of other Vigor divisions in the region. Photo courtesy of Vigor. (Click to enlarge)

Shipbuilders are/were already ready to make an economic case for using ammonia as low emission fuel by combusting it and scrubbing NOx.  But, with ammonia cracking technology like that mentioned by CSIRO that can turn ammonia to hydrogen on demand, you don’t need to combust it because you can use it in a fuel cell which has more than 2x the efficiency of a combustion engine with zero harmful emissions.  All of the sudden, the economics you could use to justify ammonia as fuel have just gotten twice as good & your emissions drop to zero.  It really bodes well for ammonia as a green energy carrier.  Speaking of CSIRO’s technology to crack ammonia into N2 & H2, phys.org just published a recent article August 19, 2020 regarding a new low-cost membrane technology developed by the Korea Institute of Science & Technology (KIST) to decompose ammonia into high purity hydrogen & nitrogen.  More evidence top research authorities like CSIRO & KIST are demonstrating scientists around the world are working fast to unlock the potential of green ammonia.  You can bet there are some labs in the USA & UK that will be touting some similar breakthroughs soon.

RMP had to squeeze in two photos of the new liquified ammonia barge Harvest because life is short and boats are cool.  Look at the size of this massive vessel.  The enormous self-climbing gantry crane was used to lift and position the 680-ton bow and the 470-ton stern modules.  Harvest contains four 1,100 ton ammonia tanks each having a capacity of 5,500 tons of ammonia.  This American made ship created over a million labor hours of good American jobs in Portland Oregon.  We can build more of these and make a significant amount of our energy domestically with green ammonia. Photo courtesy of Vigor. (Click to enlarge)

Recent advances in renewable energy technology have set up the new 2020 decade for continued scaling in the manufacture of zero emission ammonia for sustainable energy.  Because hydrogen is inexhaustible, abundant, and in every local community, it could mean economies of scale could make hydrogen very cheap as old petroleum infrastructure could be retrofitted for ammonia storage & distribution.  Ammonia is already transported by ocean freight by big ships like Vigor’s 508 foot hull Harvest recently built supporting millions of labor hours in America’s pacific northwest Portland area8.  The Harvest was built by American workers using over 9,000 tons of American steel & 4,400 tons of equipment.  The Harvest has four cargo tanks, each capable of holding 5,500 tons of liquid anhydrous ammonia at very low pressure.  This was the first ammonia vessel built in America since 1982!   Think about all the jobs & labor hours America could generate to make even more ships like this that transport ammonia safely across our oceans.  Speaking of safety, we need to talk about safety & toxicity in more detail.

Ammonia’s risk profile is similar in magnitude to methane or methanol.  For ammonia, the main risks are related to health, as ammonia is toxic.  Ammonia’s fire risk profile on the other hand is lower. Ammonia can be stored as a liquid either at -34 degrees Celsius at atmospheric pressure (usually applied for large scale applications) or at room temperature at 10 bar (usually applied for small scale applications).  RMP’s stated mission as a non-profit 501(c)3 organization is to protect our fresh water resources.   Toxic & water are two words that need to always be separate to protect drinking water.  How does RMP recommend a toxic substance, ammonia, and reconcile that position with our mission statement of protecting Michigan’s and the world’s fresh water resources?

Reconciling ammonia’s toxicity with RMP’s mission of protecting freshwater

Ammonia is a product necessary for humans to survive.  Ammonia is a naturally occurring compound being created in your body’s cells right now as you read this sentence.  Ammonia will continue to be manufactured, stored, and transported in the future the same way it is now and has been used in industry for over 100 years.  Like all energy carriers & fuels, ammonia is dangerous and must be handled with appropriate safeguards.  RMP was founded on protecting fresh water and eliminating the use of fossil fuels.  RMP specifically wants to eliminate crude oil from our energy mix first as it causes great harm to our fresh water resources.  Crude oil, gasoline, diesel, and other fuel oils contaminate water wherever they are produced, stored, & distributed.  Crude oil has environmental remediation costs that drain public budgets & and ruin our environment irreversibly no matter how much we spend to try to clean it up. Famous spills like the Exxon Valdez that happened in April of 1989 are still costing money to clean up today9.  That’s just one example of literally thousands of major instances.  Right here in our backyards of Michigan, we remember the Enbridge Line 6B pipeline disaster just over ten years ago that RMP wrote about on its 5 year anniversary.   Ammonia is different in relation to environmental disasters; it’s not like fossil fuels.  While ammonia can cause fish kills on release and can be deadly, its toxicity to the environment is temporary.

As soon as ammonia is released into the environment, it begins neutralizing.  Spilled ammonia, while toxic, will quickly dissipate reacting with moisture to form ammonium. Ammonium then quickly binds to negatively charged soil, organic matter, and clays. Ammonium rarely accumulates in soil because bacteria will rapidly convert the ammonium that is not taken up by plant roots into nitrates (nitrification)9.  Yes ammonia is toxic & can cause accidents that could turn deadly if they’re not handled safely; this is the same with all fuels.  The difference with ammonia is that spill or release events will always be isolated and short term clean ups.  When I think of a serious ammonia accident, I’m reminded of when I was young and I would share my scientific theories with my dad.  My dad would remind me of La Chatlier’s principle of chemical equilibrium.  Ammonia is a good example of something toxic that quickly finds an equilibrium with the environment to form something non-toxic.  I’m glad my dad taught me about La Chatlier’s principle because there is going to be FUD surrounding ammonia just like any other fuel we use.  RMP knows, no matter what form of energy we use, there will be people who oppose it [viciously].

RMP supports green ammonia as part of the solution of clean renewable energy that is safe for the environment.  While dangers exist with ammonia like any other high energy density medium, imagine the flip side:  without ammonia nearly 60% of the world’s population would perish from starvation.   The possibility of an accident is the risk to pay to avoid certain calamity if there was no ammonia.   When the ammonia FUD comes and people say the sky is falling, remember this paragraph.  Ammonia has been in use around the world for a century.  No one has any reason to panic, but ammonia certainly needs to be handled safely similar to any other fuel we use today.

Here are three bullet points from the CDC’s Frequently Asked Questions page regarding ammonia when it enters the environment:

  • Ammonia is found throughout the environment in air, water, soil, animals, and plants.
  • Ammonia does not last very long in the environment. It is rapidly taken up by plants, bacteria, and animals.
  • Ammonia does not build up in the food chain, but serves as a nutrient for plants and bacteria.

Again, the points listed above are not to diminish the serious toxic & safety hazards associated with ammonia and the importance of following strict safety protocols to prevent injury, death, or fish kills in an accidental release.   Ammonia, like all other forms of substantial energy carriers comes with strict safety protocols for manufacture, handling, storage, and distribution.

RMP hopes to have made clear in this article why the  leaders and the scientific community in Australia are all in on green hydrogen & piloting green ammonia plants & commercializing technology to crack ammonia into N2 & H2.  In less than one week, on August 27 & 28, 2020, the Australian Chapter of the Ammonia Energy Association will host their 2ND Ammonia = Hydrogen 2.0 Conference (virtual this year due to COVID-19).  The conference will be hosted from Monash University based in Melbourne Australia on the south coast. 

Australia currently has 95 large renewable energy infrastructure projects that are in construction (or due to start construction soon).  These projects will deliver over $19 billion in capital costs, 11,007 MW of new renewable energy capacity and create 13,567 direct jobs.  Source: Australia’s Clean Energy Council (click to enlarge)

China, Korea, & Japan are all in on green hydrogen and will leverage Australia as a regional trading partner.  Australia can provide clean hydrogen energy in a format with a similar economics & logistics to petroleum without the nasty BTEX environmental traits that are silent killers of sovereign wealth. Europe is also expected to be a dominant green ammonia producer according to this article.

Currently, China must invest in all sorts of remote places places in Brazil, Africa, Canada, the USA, and the Middle east to get the coal, crude oil, natural gas, & NGLs  it so desperately needs to provide energy & industrial feedstocks for its over 1.3 billion power hungry consumers.  What if China could do away with crude oil boondoggles & all those far away countries and get clean green energy from domestic production supplemented by a nearby trading partner like Australia?  This is why RMP writes about China’s extensive economic investments into the manufacture of green hydrogen & fuel cells all across China.  The exact same goes for Japan & Korea.  For those who find interest in the study of chemistry & economics, it’s not difficult to see why so many people around the world are investing sovereign wealth into green ammonia and the hydrogen economy.  Green ammonia is a stepping stone on the critical path to a decarbonized society.

Final Conclusion

There are different battery chemistries (NiCd, NiMH, Lead Acid, Li-ion, low cobalt li-ion, lithium polymer) that compete with each other for practical real world applications.  There are many different types of fuel cells (PEM, SOFC, PAFC, Alkaline) that also compete with each other for practical applications.  All will have roles to play with some more dominant than others just like a sports team made up of great athletes.  Similar to the way an artist needs all of the colors in the spectrum on their palette to paint a masterpiece, getting to 100% carbon free energy will need every battery chemistry & fuel cell type to compete with each other on the same canvass of human needs.  Because different types of energy are competitors, it does not mean they must be enemies.  This is true for humans too.

A lot of human energy goes into arguing about batteries vs hydrogen but clenched fists cannot reach for olive branches.  All the battery chemistries & types of fuel cells can compete & coexist in an inclusive arena that understands we will need batteries for some green energy storage & hydrogen for other green stuff.   For example, we will need green hydrogen to make green ammonia because ammonia is essential for life.  And, as long as we invest in green ammonia to make it cheap & abundant, we should also use it as an energy storage medium with a high energy density that replaces the oil & natural gas we use now.  Imagine blue skies & pure drinking water for everyone around the world.  Think about so many people here in America and those around the world who should not have to breathe NOx & SOx pollution because they live near a power plant.  We have hundreds if not thousands of people now living next to SOx & NOx fumes right here in Detroit near Zug Island & DTE’s River Rouge plant.  I know Detroit needs big energy to forge metal & make the cars and trucks that keep America moving, but yuck.  Just yuck.  We gotta just stop with dirty energy.  Ammonia can provide the energy needed to make clean steel in a very cost effective manner here in Detroit, the same way as it can in Australia or Asia.

RMP is a Michigan registered & federal 501(c)3 non-profit organization.  RMP writes about and advocates for clean energy that helps protect our freshwater resources here in Michigan and around the world. RMP also makes maps of clean & dirty energy infrastructure using the Google Maps API.  Follow us on Twitter and like us on  Facebook.  Please click here to make a tax deductible donation to RMP to help us keep publishing free content with no ads & energy infrastructure maps.

The featured infographic image for this post comes from the Iberdola Spain green ammonia pilot plant.  The Iberdola green ammonia plant will be a $177M investment, create 700 jobs, and eliminate 40,000 tons of CO2 each year.


Footnotes:

Footnote #1“Yara Green Ammonia” YouTube, uploaded by Yara International November 2019 @ 17 second mark of 1:54 video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVwDeMPcJio

Footnote #2–  The Royal Society, “Ammonia: zero-carbon fertiliser, fuel and energy store” Published February 2020 – pp4. https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/green-ammonia/green-ammonia-policy-briefing.pdf

Footnote #3 – Frontiers In Energy Research, “Ammonia as a suitable fuel for fuel cells” last modified August 2014 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2014.00035/full

Footnote #4 – Clean Energy Council “Project Tracker” last updated June 2020 https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/resources/project-tracker

Footnote #5 – ScienceDirect “Sunny with a Chance of Curtailment: Operating the US Grid with Very High Levels of Solar Photovoltaics” November 2019 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004219303967

Footnote #6–  The Royal Society, “Ammonia: zero-carbon fertiliser, fuel and energy store” Published February 2020 – pp7. https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/green-ammonia/green-ammonia-policy-briefing.pdf

Footnote #7–  Australian Government – Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), “Yara Pilbara Renewable Ammonia Feasibility Study” Published February 2020 https://arena.gov.au/projects/yara-pilbara-renewable-ammonia-feasibility-study/

Footnote #8–  Pacific Maritime Magazine, “New Liquefied Ammonia ATB tank barge” Published November 2017 https://www.pacmar.com/story/2017/11/01/features/new-liquefied-ammonia-atb-tank-barge/557.html

Footnote #9–  Anchorage Daily News, “Don’t let government give up on Exxon Valdez restoration” Published June 2020 https://www.adn.com/opinions/2020/06/18/dont-let-government-give-up-on-exxon-valdez-restoration/

Footnote #10–  Minnesota Department of Agriculture, “Ecological Effects of Ammonia Published on the Nitrification Cycle information page. https://www.mda.state.mn.us/ecological-effects-ammonia#:~:text=Ammonia%20in%20Air%20and%20Soil&text=Ammonium%20then%20quickly%20binds%20to,roots%20into%20nitrates%20(nitrification).

Solving the Climate Crisis – Document Review

The Select Committee on the Climate Crisis recently published (June 2020) a massive (547 page) & comprehensive report called “Solving the Climate Crisis”.   The report was prepared by the Majority Committee Staff of the 116th US Congress pursuant to H.RES.6.

RMP is a non-partisan organization and wanted to give a review of this report as it relates to sustainable energy & put partisan politics aside.  Specifically, RMP wanted to sift through some of the important parts of the report that relate to sustainable hydrogen production & storage.  There is a lot of good news on the hydrogen front in this report that RMP wants to highlight as well as some themes I picked up when reading the report.  First, let’s start with an overview of the whole document and then go back to themes & hydrogen specific news because there’s a lot in this mammoth report.

First the Link.  The 547 page document reviewed in this post is called SOLVING THE CLIMATE CRISIS – The Congressional Action Plan for a Clean Energy Economy and a Healthy, Resilient, and Just America.

Overview:

The Executive Summary starts with the urgency of the climate crisis and how America’s ingenuity & leadership are central to solving it.  In January 2019, House Resolution 6 created the bipartisan Select Committee on the Climate Crisis to “develop recommendations on policies, strategies, and innovations to achieve substantial and permanent reductions in pollution and other activities that contribute to the climate crisis.” The resolution directed the Select Committee to deliver policy recommendations to the standing legislative committees of jurisdiction for their consideration and action. Over the last 17 months, the Select Committee has consulted with hundreds of stakeholders and scientists, solicited written input, and held hearings to develop a robust set of legislative policy recommendations for ambitious climate action.

The report’s goal is to lay out congressional actions to satisfy the scientific imperative to reduce carbon pollution as quickly and aggressively as possible, make communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change, and build a durable and equitable clean energy economy.  In practical terms, this means building and rebuilding America’s infrastructure, the foundation of the American economy and communities; reinvigorating American manufacturing to create a new generation of secure, good-paying, high-quality jobs; prioritizing investment where it is needed the most, including rural and de-industrialized areas, low-income communities, and communities of color; and beginning to repair the legacy of economic and racial inequality that has left low-income workers and communities of color disproportionately exposed to pollution and more vulnerable to the costs and impacts of climate change.

The document is broad & comprehensive and it is not specific to hydrogen only.  Because RMP focuses primarily on hydrogen infrastructure, this post will examine the hydrogen production & storage portions of the document.  Hydrogen was mentioned heavily from pages 1 to 276 along with other technologies.

Infrastructure Initiatives Related to Hydrogen Production & Storage

I recently stumbled on the terms gray hydrogen, blue hydrogen, & green hydrogen.  I’m embarrassed to say I had to look up the difference between gray & blue hydrogen.  As much as I follow this vector of the energy industry, I only confidently knew what green hydrogen is.  Let’s go over the three basic types of produced hydrogen because they’re well differentiated through this big document and it’s very important to distinguish between them.

Gray Hydrogen = hydrogen made from natural gas

Blue Hydrogen = hydrogen made from natural gas with CO2 capture & sequestration

Green Hydrogen = hydrogen made with renewable or surplus renewable energy like solar & wind.  Also, hydrogen made from renewable natural gas.

 

It’s important to distinguish between gray, blue, and green hydrogen for a couple reasons when reading this document as there are certain themes that develop in the first 247 pages.  One of those themes is that our US Department of Energy has become “siloed” and is no longer fit to capitalize on synergies given its outdated structure with new technologies on the rise.  For example, here’s a quote from page 215 & 216 discussing this key bit of information:

The applied energy offices are largely organized by fuel and focus mostly on distinct technologies rather than energy systems. This has caused potentially cross-cutting technologies to be siloed into single applications—such as carbon capture for power generation and hydrogen for transportation, despite both having potential to reduce industrial emissions—and has led to fragmented approaches for or complete disregard of other key platform technologies. Separating basic energy sciences from applied energy also prevents coordination that can help technologies move from the research stage to development and demonstration. There are multiple possible ways to restructure DOE, and many experts disagree on the best method. Some proposals include keeping basic and applied energy research under one Under Secretary to maintain their coordination and organizing applied energy offices by end-use sector rather than fuel.  The reorganization should seek to create a structure that is best suited for accomplishing the updated DOE mission of decarbonization and climate mitigation, as recommended above.

That’s one of the key take aways from the document with regard to reorganizing our energy department to coordinate efforts with CO2 capture & hydrogen production as outlined on page 215-216 above.  This is an important thing to note before we look at several key passages of the document as they relate to “blue hydrogen“.   Blue hydrogen plays a key role in the first 247 pages especially as it relates to industrialized sectors of the economy and the people that live near industrialized urban areas.   Ports are a great example of places that produce tons of noxious fumes that could benefit from blue hydrogen now as green hydrogen sources are developed.  Another example of where blue hydrogen can play a key role is in steel making.  We have the hydrogen technology now to strip CO2 from CH4 & sequester it in geologic formations (as RMP wrote about #CCS in Michigan here).   This “blue hydrogen” can be used to make steel with 90% less CO2 emissions and almost negligible SOx, NOx, & Hg.

Another key thread through the first 247 pages is how hydrogen is not taking a back-seat to any other technology.  The myth of hydrogen versus battery is starting to fade and be replaced by the more common sense approach of hydrogen & batteries working together.   Hydrogen is mentioned in tandem with other technologies throughout the report with dignitas.   In fact, in the urban industrial energy section of the document, hydrogen seems to be the only technology that gets talked about for decarbonized energy (e.g steel making & ammonia).   Hydrogen & batteries are cousins and work together, not against one another.

Let’s look at some key “clips” from this big document to highlight the major points.  The number one point, the only point that can truly move the needle for clean energy, is money money money.   The “ITC” or investment tax credit has always been the #1 most important thing where the rubber hits the road.   Let’s look at this first & most important clip talking about the ITC for hydrogen production & storage technology.

Clip from page 57:

Currently, storage is not independently eligible for an ITC. Rep. Michael Doyle (D-PA) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) introduced the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act of 2019 (H.R. 2096/S. 1142), which would create an energy storage ITC for batteries, compressed air, pumped hydropower, hydrogen, thermal energy storage, regenerative fuel cells, flywheels, capacitors, and superconducting magnets. Section 102 of the GREEN Act of 2020 (H.R. 7330) would expand the ITC to include energy storage technology and extend the ITC so that energy storage technologies are eligible for a 30% ITC through 2025. The bill would phase down the ITC to 26% in 2026 and to 22% in 2027. Section 104 of the bill would allow taxpayers to choose a lower tax credit value in exchange for the option to be refunded for any resulting overpayment (“direct pay”).

As you can see above, hydrogen for storage investments is included in the proposed ITC language.  There can be no more important passage regarding hydrogen technology in the document than hydrogen storage qualifying for the ITC.  30% ITC until 2026 should give hydrogen a strong advantage to scale given large scale storage with hydrogen has better economics than any other technology even without an ITC.   With a 30% ITC, large purchase orders for salt cavern geologic hydrogen storage, multiple tank pressurized hydrogen storage, and ammonia (NH3) storage will be written quickly.   Hydrogen storage is up to an order of magnitude cheaper than lithium ion batteries in extended duration megawatt hour storage.  Manufacturers of hydrogen production equipment should be able to use this ITC to highly leverage their scaling advantage as part of the storage process for green hydrogen.  This would allow for rapid reduction of greenhouse gasses.

Graphic above shows clearly how the only week & seasonal class storage that comes close to hydrogen is pumped hydro which is only available in very specific geographies. Hydrogen is not bound by geography so it has a huge advantage in mWh class storage.  By including hydrogen for investment tax credit, growth will accelerate & meaningful reductions in carbon emitting energy will occur.  This has been something RMP has been writing about for years now.  (graphic above comes from IEA, not congressional report)

Clip from page 73:

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) introduced the American Energy Opportunity Act of 2019 (H.R. 5335), which would establish a process to standardize permitting for distributed energy systems, including distributed renewable energy generation from solar, wind, hydrogen electrolysis and fuel cell systems, energy storage, electric vehicle (EV) chargers, and hydrogen fuel cell refueling.

This clip is highlighted because it was one of many similar passages:  mentioning hydrogen in the same sentence as other distributed energy systems without hesitation and in the same regard as other solutions.  It demonstrates a paradigm shift away from over ten years of FUD & stonewalling against hydrogen.  Hydrogen has now performed a decade of demonstrations on the longevity & durability of fuel cell stacks in all temperatures & environments.  The successful demonstrations in all forms of transportation & stationary performance for over ten years has silenced the hydrogen myths & critics.  Hydrogen has been safely deployed in busses, trains, cars, airplanes, buildings and maritime vessels for years now.  It’s legitimacy is accepted and 2020 starts the decade of hydrogen scaling.

Clip from page 90:

In May 2019, Reps. Mike Levin (D-CA) and Joe Neguse (D-CO) introduced H.R. 2764, the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act of 2019. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced the Senate companion (S. 1487). The bill requires that 50% of sales for new passenger vehicles be ZEVs by 2030. The sales requirement ramps up 5% each year to achieve 100% of new vehicle sales by 2040. The bill is technology-neutral, allowing for electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and other potential zero-emission technologies to qualify.

Theme developing that I like about the document is just about everywhere there was talk about helping zero emission transportation develop, electricity & hydrogen were mentioned in tandem without debate and with equanimity.  It’s working that people are starting to understand that electricity & hydrogen  work together, not against each other.  They’re truly cousins that share an anode & a cathode in their fundamental DNA.  The only difference is one keeps its energy “inside the house” and the other keeps its energy “in the barn out back”.  Batteries & hydrogen are darn near the same thing, so it’s good to see them starting to be recognized as cousins working together to replace fossil fuels with camaraderie.

Clip from page 126:

The public and private sectors are unlikely to adopt zero-emission trucks at scale until the supporting fueling infrastructure is convenient and widespread. CALSTART estimates that converting the nation’s trucking infrastructure to support zero- or near-zero-emission fuels will require $50 billion to $100 billion in public and private investment.329

The Clean Corridors Act of 2019, introduced by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) as S. 674 in the Senate and Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) as H.R. 2616 in the House, provides grant funding to state, local, and tribal governmental entities to facilitate installation of electric charging stations and hydrogen fueling infrastructure along designated corridors in the National Highway System. The bill envisions that this infrastructure would have to accommodate large vehicles, including semi-trailer trucks.

The passage above was a gem of a find for RMP.  Actually the bit that was so cool to find was footnote #329 which explains a $137 million dollar investment in electric charging & hydrogen refueling infrastructure throughout key cross country corridors for heavy duty trucking.   Not only is this fantastic news on its face, the link also had GIS mapping of these hydrogen corridors which is the first time I’ve ever seen that.  This will allow RMP to lift those latitudes & longitudes to add these future “hydrogen corridors” to our Google Map of all hydrogen refueling infrastructure in the USA.   RMP’s map of hydrogen refueling infrastructure can be found here & is constantly being updated:  https://www.respectmyplanet.org/public_html/united_states

Clip from page 257:

To achieve wide use of hydrogen at a reasonable cost, industry will need infrastructure to generate and transport hydrogen to facilities and to store hydrogen before and after transport. One option is to generate hydrogen at a small number of large-scale facilities and then distribute it through a pipeline network to individual industrial facilities. Another option is to generate it at a larger number of more dispersed, small-scale facilities, which would require less distribution infrastructure. Instead of transporting hydrogen directly, hydrogen producers could also transform the hydrogen into ammonia or methane for transport or storage.

This important passage mentions supporting technology to transform hydrogen into methane & ammonia.  The word being used throughout the document is “building block” and there’s a heavy focus on industrial applications.  One of the things I have always thought people failed to realize is the connection between industrial applications and transportation.  When industry starts creating more & more hydrogen, it becomes more ubiquitous for refueling.  When it becomes more ubiquitous for refueling, people will look around to each other and realize the chicken/egg problem they’ve been talking about for over a decade has miraculously solved itself.  The next chicken/egg joke will be that people will ask: which came first the hydrogen vehicle or the hydrogen refueling station?

After about page 276, the document shifts to political wrangling of who is going to finance this massive overhaul of our energy sector.  The document goes into other areas after page 276 like carbon removal, taxing people who produce carbon intensive energy, and carbon taxes in general.  Basically, this is the part when you ask “Who’s going to pay for all this?” and the current companies that are dying are going to be asked to pay for the initiatives.  This is the part where I really think we need to work together to train our workers in current industries to do new jobs in new industries.  We cannot throw the baby out with the bath water so to speak.  We must let fabricators, production managers, warehouse personnel, engineers, and the like find pathways to jobs in a zero emission future from their current jobs to produce fossil based energy.  We cannot give all subsidies to startups with no track record while tax paying workers lose their jobs through this transition.  We must make sure we create good jobs & a tax paying base with people from industries that will be phasing out.

Please read document yourself as I only picked a couple selected passages out for review.  There’s a ton more information in there at 547 pages.  Thanks for reading RMP’s little review of this big document as it relates to hydrogen production & storage infrastructure.

USA & CANADA QUARTERLY H2 INFRASTRUCTURE UPDATE 2020-Q2

Welcome new readers of RMP’s quarterly H2 infrastructure report.  Each quarter we look back on the major stories related to hydrogen infrastructure advancements and we compare the current AFDC database to the AFDC database in the prior quarter to see what has changed.  The AFDC database is updated by the US Dept of Energy & can be found by clicking here.  Canada has just added a brand new data repository for hydrogen stations this quarter.  The Canadian website is administered by Natural Resources Canada.   RMP will continue to use the US Department of Energy database as our primary data source as we learn more about the new Canadian database.

For years now, most of RMP’s quarterly reports on hydrogen infrastructure in the USA have been focused on California.  The activity in California is really going strong as seven stations are slated to come online in Q3 & Q4 with 1,200kg capacities, thus doubling the amount of fueling capability in California in one fell swoop over the next half year or so.  RMP looks forward writing more about that story in 2020-Q3 as it develops.  But, the story this quarter is a different one because something new is happening:  hydrogen infrastructure outside of California is really picking up.

hydrogen refueling
A Toyota Mirai & Honda Clarity fuel cell electric vehicle are caught refueling by Google Maps street view at Air Liquide’s new hydrogen refueling station in Mansfield, Massachusetts.  You can check out this station and any other in North America by using Google Street view from RMP’s map of all hydrogen stations in the USA & Canada.  Seeing this & every other Air Liquide station listed on the data base from Google imagery adds authenticity they exist in a world where a lot of people are all talk & nothing to show for it.  Seeing is believing will the the theme of all the East Coast & Canada stations with pics from Google Street View.  You can go straight to Google Street View of the above image by clicking here. (click image to enlarge)

RMP likes to let the data do the talking with our map of all hydrogen refueling stations in North America.  Something developing on the map with real physicality is that more stations are ready to go in two places outside of California:  the East Coast of the USA & on both coasts of Canada.  RMP is now showing seven new Air Liquide stations on the USA East Coast and nine new stations in Canada.  Those are solid numbers showing hydrogen refueling infrastructure taking a foothold in key demographics for wide spread adoption & growth.  Let’s first examine what’s happening on the eastern seaboard of the USA.

Air Liquide is the major player really driving this sprouting growth on the East Coast of the USA.  When we actually look to our eastern seaboard we can find a bunch of new hydrogen stations commissioning thanks to Air Liquide.  We now have four stations in Massachusetts, two of which are brand new Air Liquide stations:  Braintree & Mansfield.  Connecticut goes up to a total of three stations with a brand new station commissioning in Hartford.  Rhode Island gets a new Air Liquide station in Providence.  The big gainer, though, is New York.   New York sees the biggest increase from last quarter with one new Air Liquide station commissioning in Hempstead NY and two more New York locations registered as planned on the database:  Air Liquide-Bronx and Air Liquide-Farmingville.

hydrogen refueling
This is the satellite imagery view of Air Liquide’s Providence, Rhode Island hydrogen refueling station that looks ready to go.  All the components needed for this station to operate on a small footprint are visible on Google Maps.  Rhode Island drivers will soon be able to refuel with zero emission hydrogen & clean the air as they drive.  Check out RMP’s map of all hydrogen stations in North America by clicking here. (click image to enlarge) #SeeingIsBelieving

These East Coast stations are all authenticated. These aren’t just rows on a spreadsheet any more.  That’s what makes putting these stations on a real Google map so much fun, you can zoom down to street level & actually see the stations & hydrogen fuel cell vehicles refueling so you know they’re real.  From 2010 to 2020 we saw hydrogen fuel cells as a proof of concept.  Busses, trains & cars around the globe powered by PEM hydrogen fuel cells passed dozens of durability & longevity tests over the past 10 years in real world test conditions.

As we move forward into this brand new 2020 decade, a new phase of the hydrogen economy is emerging: the scaling phase.  Because hydrogen is as infinite as the sun in every local economy, you can keep building stations commensurate with whatever you need to power with zero emissions.  The answer to how many stations you need is just a math equation based on how many cars, trucks, busses, boats, buildings or whatever you need to power.

hydrogen refueling station
This is Google Street View imagery of the Air Liquide hydrogen refueling station in Hempstead, New York.  If you can only see something on stage under glitzy lights by a fancy pitch man, how can you be sure it really exists?   If you can’t go touch it or go buy it right now, when will it be real?  If you can go see something for yourself, it’s easier to believe in.  My Japanese friends taught me “genchi genbutsu” when I worked for a Japanese manufacturing company, it means “go see for yourself”.  If you want to go see this station for yourself, check out RMP’s map of all hydrogen refueling stations in the USA & Canada by clicking here  or check it out on Google Maps by clicking here. (click image to enlarge) #SeeingIsBelieving

Now that we see stations starting to proliferate on the East Coast of the USA we notice something different than what we see in California: a network of connected stations with different state governing bodies.   Different governors, legislatures, departments of transportation, et Al working together.  This is really something because California paved the way for other states to start adopting similar safety standards, SAE accepted fueling standards, and hydrogen zoning standards to really get to work.  Other states like Ohio, near RMP’s home base in Michigan, are starting to build some impressive private liquid hydrogen refueling stations for busses too.  Soon more states will see what others are doing and we can work toward building a coast to coast hydrogen highway, which will be a major milestone in the hydrogen economy.  Governors from across the county will see and then get in on the hydrogen momentum to create good paying American jobs for zero emission energy.

And what about our friendly neighbors to the north?  RMP also added 8 new stations to our map in Canada between last quarter and this quarter.  In fact, just this past week we learned of a brand new station opening in British Columbia.   Molly Burgess at H2 View just posted an article that an Esso hydrogen station in Vancouver just opened bringing RMP’s Canadian station total up to 9 stations before the 6/30/2020 cut-off for this report.

hydrogen refueling station
Here is a Google Street Maps view of the Esso hydrogen refueling station in Quebec City Canada.  Quebec City is a beautiful place with abundant hydroelectric power generation for making lots of free 100% green hydrogen.   This is a list of tens of thousands of megawatts of clean Canadian generation capacity.  The power generation at Montmorency Falls is no longer active but there is power generation just upstream at Marches-Naturelles Hydroelectric Power.  Quebec City is such a beautiful place to visit if you never have.   RMP predicts Quebec City to be the first city in North America to be 100% clean green zero emission hydrogen because of abundance of hydroelectric power in the area.  Hydroelectric to hydrogen is truly a “circle of zero emissions” with “hydro” built right into the name of both words.  (click image to enlarge) #SeeingIsBelieving

New York shares a length of border with Canada and there are now two planned Shell stations between Montreal & Ottawa that are not very far from Syracuse, New York.  The Hydrogenics HQ station in Toronto is not very far from Buffalo, NY either.   Plug Power who was very active this past quarter is also bringing hydrogen manufacturing to the old Kodak Park facility in Rochester NY which is not that far from the Canadian border on the south shore of Lake Ontario.   The stations taking root in Canada are helping to bring the USA’s East Coast hydrogen refueling coverage from the south end at Air Liquide’s headquarters in Newark, Delaware all the way up to Quebec City in the north.   From Quebec City in the northeast, there is a patchwork of stations forming all the way back to Detroit in the west.  If you go from Detroit in the northwest down as far south as Ohio and east through Pennsylvania, the USA has hydrogen coverage developing from the Great Lakes to the Statue of Liberty.   

And, if all the states I just mentioned are showing they can get it done in the east, you know it won’t be long before Oregon & Washington get it going in the West.  If Oregon & Washington get something going, you’ll be able to drive from San Diego California all the way to Vancouver, British Columbia.  That will be cool and I would buy a plane ticket just to rent a Mirai to do that zero emissions drive.  Pretty cool to think how far we’ve come in just five short years since RMP wrote our first blog post in 2015 that talked about what we thought was going to be happening by 2020.  It’s 2020 and RMP predictions are starting to take a real foothold as envisioned.   More and more people are learning that one simple thing about hydrogen that RMP has known all along:  hydrogen just works economically.  Those are the two big stories for 2020-Q2, now let’s get into the data.

hydrogen refueling station
This is Google Street View imagery of the new Air Liquide hydrogen refueling station in Hartford, Connecticut.   For all of those in the hydrogen Twittersphere you have to admit Air Liquide has been very busy without a lot of hype.  Some people do & some people talk.  Air Liquide is building hydrogen refueling stations up and down the East Coast of the USA.  You can find this hydrogen station and every other hydrogen station in North America by checking out RMP’s map here. (click image to enlarge)  #SeeingIsBelieving

Let’s look at the data updates from 2020 Q2:

Several stations on the database had their planned opening dates change by three months or one quarter.  This is normal for most businesses across the country as we see drastic changes in how we operate as a country while dealing with the COVID-19 virus pandemic.  The “big” 1,200 kilogram stations in California are still on pace to open in 2020.  The big station in Fountain Valley California is already commissioning so it’s very close to opening to the public.  The big stations at Sunnyvale, Campbell, and Mission Hill should open to the public in Q3 or Q4.   The big stations in San Diego, Redwood City, Concord, and Culver City are most in jeopardy of slipping into 2021.

The big addition to the database that doesn’t seem to get reported in other publications are the two New York stations registered in the AFDC database that will be built by Air Liquide.  Air Liquide is getting a reputation of just getting things done quietly right now while others talk about getting things done in the future.  Air Liquide registered a planned station for The Bronx in New York City and a station in Farmingville on Long Island.  Based on Air Liquide’s track record, these hydrogen refueling stations in New York City will built on time & commissioning in 2021.

New H2 Stations That Opened To The Public 2020 Q2:

The only station opening to the public in Q2-2020 is the Esso station in Vancouver reported by H2 View’s Molly Burgess.  This section of RMP’s report is not that busy this quarter but Q3 is expected to be a big quarter for station openings.  Woodside, the Burbank upgrade, Berkely, Sherman Oaks, & Fountain Valley will probably open in Q3.   Those are not just stations opening, those are next generation stations with much larger capacities.  The reason this is important to note is that we will see vehicle registration numbers go up because of major hydrogen capacity increases.  Vehicle production’s only constraint is refueling stations which is why RMP writes this report each quarter to track infrastructure progress.

Hydrogen Vehicle Registration Data:

For vehicle registration data, remember we can only look at data that is one quarter in arrears.  Vehicle registration data is tabulated after the quarter ends and then published about two months later.  So, for example, data for the quarter ending 3/31/2020 is published in May of 2020.  Now that is is June of 2020, the data we look at is for 3/31/2020 and is about a month old.  The reason for this is that compiling vehicle registration data takes time & comes from 100s of different sources.  IHS Markit is the company that does this data compiling & publishing.  Let’s look at the most current vehicle registration for the period ended 3/31/2020.

FCEVs By State
California data is the only data spiked out by county.   RMP has been hearing numbers of about 8,400 cars on the road in North American from other websites that do not cite a source.   RMP trusts IHS Markit as it is an industry standard used by top auto OEMs to verify cost modeling calculations.  RMP expects FCEV numbers to grow in relation to the seven hydrogen refueling stations coming online in California with 1,200kg capacities so we will keep tabulating FCEV data as it becomes available.   The only limiting factor in the number of clean FCEVs on the road is how many stations you build.  Hydrogen is as abundant as it is inexhaustible on every corner of our planet.  As hydrogen production volume ramps up, costs will ramp down through a phenomenon called economies of scale. (click image to enlarge)

Hydrogen Headline Highlights 2020 Q2

hydrogen ferryMarch 27, 2020 – The first hydrogen powered ferry boat was contracted to AAM shipyard in the San Francisco Bay area.  The 84 passenger ferry will demonstrate a pathway to zero emission marine vessels.  Fuel cells can work anywhere internal combustion engines work.  Large marine craft can store liquid organic hydrogen for massive amounts of onboard energy.  Click here to read the story.


April 8, 2020 – Forbes published an article about the Intermountain Power Project that will bring “Green Hydrogen” to Los Angeles.  ‘It’s a ‘ginormous’ battery,’ says Janice Lin with the Green Hydrogen Coalition. “This salt dome formation can store 100,000 mWh — enough storage for the western U.S.”  She says it could become nation’s first strategic renewable energy reserve. “.  Click here to read the story.


May 1, 2020 – NREL publishes research information on how to get zero emission hydrogen fuel cell Class 8 “big rigs” on the road quicker.  The US Department of Energy establishes a target of refueling 8 kilograms of hydrogen per minute by 2030 & 10 kilograms of hydrogen per minute by 2050.   Big rigs (like Class 8 trucks & busses) is the most logical start for hydrogen to really proliferate rapidly across the globe.  Click here to read the story.


June 3, 2020 – NEL receives $30 million USD purchase order to start building hydrogen fueling stations for Nikola based in Phoenix, Arizona.  Nikola has one station at their HQ building in Pheonix, Arizona (pictured left).  When Nikola starts registering planned stations on the AFDC database,  RMP’s will add them to our map.  Click here to read the story.


June 4, 2020 – Nikola announces that it has become a public company traded on the NASDAQ.  Says the purchase order released to NEL day prior will give Nikola ability to produce 40,000 kilograms of hydrogen per day to refuel Class 8 “big rigs”.   Nikola shows off tentative design of massive refueling stations.  Click here to read the story.


June 18, 2020 – Keith Malone from the California Fuel Cell Partnership tweets that we can expect announcement of the next round of funding for the next 40 to 50 hydrogen fueling stations in California.


June 24, 2020 – PLUG Power announces acquisition of United Hydrogen to enhance its ability to produce green hydrogen.  PLUG says green hydrogen costs expected to drop by 50% by 2030.  PLUG raises revenue target to $1.2 billion after acquisition and stock price nearly doubles on the news.  PLUG Power is based in Latham, New York.  Click here to read the story.


June 25, 2020 – H2 View publishes article saying new hydrogen refueling station in Vancouver British Columbia is now open to the public.  Station uses HTEC equipment and is located at Exit 17 of Highway 1 at the 7-Eleven Esso branded station.  You can find this station on RMP’s map of all hydrogen refueling stations in the USA & Canada.  Click here to read the H2 View story.

Final Remarks for 2020 Q2

The theme of 2020-Q2 is “Seeing Is Believing”.   After following the AFDC database for so many years, we can now see Google Maps imagery authenticating the rows on a spreadsheet for stations up & down the East Coast in New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.  Seeing the station is tangible evidence of the progress made by Air Liquide.  I would venture to guess building the stations & installing the equipment is probably something very easy for Air Liquide to do as they have been working with hydrogen for decades.  The hard part is getting stations sited, approved by local governing bodies, and training technicians for new safety protocols.

Now that we have stations actually built & operating in several different states in the USA as well as multiple provinces in Canada, momentum can build.  The very first station is always the hardest & the biggest deal for any state or province.  Once you get your first one under your belt, successive stations become easier & easier to mass produce.  As station build out occurs, people become more familiar with the process and the speed of going from planning to commissioning goes a lot faster.   With hydrogen refueling now on both coasts of North America, it stands to reason that inroads of hydrogen connectivity will sprout joining west to east hydrogen mobility in the next five years.

Thanks for reading RMP’s quarterly hydrogen report.  We hope you’ll check back next quarter.

100% Renewable Energy: Hydrogen Refueling -vs- Superchargers

hydrogen

Hydrogen pairs well economically with 100% renewable energy like wind, solar, and biogas for fast recharging of zero emission vehicles like cars, trucks, busses, trains, & boats.  Wind & solar can have large footprints that make them hard to site near areas where there are large populations of people or where large scale refueling/recharging must take place.  RMP has written many times about how solar arrays & wind farms can often produce terawatts of energy each year that go wasted because the electricity produced couldn’t be used when it was made.  Wasted energy stranded like this is called curtailed energy. Modern grids have to balance electricity production to usage and must choose to dump electricity if it can’t be used.  More and more projects around the world are demonstrating power to gas is an economical way to store that otherwise wasted energy as hydrogen so we can get it back whenever we need it.

One of the knocks against hydrogen refueling anti-hydrogen folks continue to use against hydrogen is to say there are only 95 hydrogen refueling stations across America compared to thousands of locations where a BEV can be fast charged.  Given we are early in the transition to electrified propulsion, it’s important to think about the overarching goal of zero emission vehicles: to use clean renewable energy to power our transportation sector & reduce harmful emissions.  Even though there are more fast charging stations than the 95 hydrogen fueling stations right now in the USA, there are already 13 hydrogen stations that use 100% renewable energy.  Contrast that to the 908 Tesla Supercharger locations across the USA open today and note that not a single one of those 908 Supercharger locations is 100% off-grid solar, wind, or biogas.  Not one.  0%.  As we kick off this article, let’s put this important statistic up on the scoreboard when it comes to the number of 100% renewable refueling/recharging locations in the USA:   Hydrogen 13 – Tesla Superchargers 0.

This important point of delivering 100% clean energy for our transportation sector is becoming increasingly more relevant as time goes by.  Advocates of zero emission vehicles have a stated goal to move away from fossil fuels and reduce emissions to zero across the board. Without a single demonstration of fast charging paired with 100% renewable solar or wind to see how it works, we are left for years now to guess how it will ever get done.  If all fast charging stations eventually need to get to 100% clean energy shouldn’t anti hydrogen folks show us the cost & footprint & specs of one station so we can see how it works?

The Shell Sacramento hydrogen refueling station is one of 13 stations in the USA that uses 100% renewable hydrogen.  Every hydrogen refueling station in California is required to use at least 33% renewable hydrogen but several across the state, including 3 stations in San Francisco are 100% renewable.  While Tesla might put a solar array on top of a Supercharger to show some electricity comes from renewable energy, don’t be fooled.  Not a single Tesla Supercharger is 100% renewable.

According to Modernize, less than a handful of states have produced better than 20% of their energy from renewable energy sources.   Many states, like New Mexico, Kansas, Utah, Indiana, Ohio, and more get over 90% of their energy from dirty fossil fuel sources like coal, oil, & natural gas.  Manufacturing & charging electric vehicles off a dirty grid isn’t making a dent in CO2 emission reductions.   When can we fast charge BEVs with clean off-grid renewable energy?  Does the possibility even exist?  Or is it still a fantasy?

Unfortunately, hydrogen & batteries get looked at as some sort of death match of competitive technologies that leave us with an either/or decision of what technology to use, but it really shouldn’t be that way.  RMP has written for years about how it’s a red herring argument to say we have to choose only one technology.  Hydrogen & batteries work very well together; we really need both technologies to phase out crude oil, coal, and natural gas.  Even though hydrogen & batteries should be thought of technologies that cooperate, it’s human nature for people to have some fun with friendly competition.  In the spirit of friendly competition, let’s look at why hydrogen refueling has a big advantage over battery charging alone when it comes to renewable energy for fast recharging. If our goal is 100% renewable energy it’s important to keep this score in mind:  Hydrogen 13 – Tesla Superchargers 0.

While there is a lot of promise for BEV vehicles for good reason, there is also an elephant in the room:  fast charging throughput is about 20:1 slower than refueling with gasoline.  Because hydrogen refueling is on par with gasoline, it means hydrogen fueling is also about 20:1 faster than the fastest Tesla Supercharging.  According to a quick Google search, it takes about 75 minutes to charge a Tesla to 100% state of charge with a 150 kW Supercharger.  It takes between 3 to 4 minutes to fill up a gasoline or hydrogen car.  75 divided by 3 = 25:1 and 75 divided by 4 = 18.75:1.  Hydrogen’s throughput capability is a big deal when scaling to millions of vehicles because it stands to reason capital allocation of renewable energy tax subsidy dollars would also be leveraged 20:1 if spent on hydrogen infrastructure.  If the goal is to refuel as many vehicles in the shortest amount of time possible on busy travel routes, hydrogen is the clear winner.  We’ve all seen the videos & read the stories about Teslas backing up at Superchargers during Thanksgiving.  So called fast charging is already showing failure with less than 1% of vehicles on the road using it; this is very bad for scaling up.

Even if we do decide to spend our tax subsidy dollars on battery recharging infrastructure at a 20:1 disadvantage vs hydrogen, we still don’t get fast charging from renewable energy because it doesn’t exist.  We don’t even know the cost of off-grid 100% renewable fast charging.  All we can say with utter certainty is that hydrogen refueling is way faster than battery charging.

Thanksgiving 2019 Supercharger backup at Kettleman City Supercharger with 40 stalls.  At times the backup was 50 cars long or a quarter mile long.  Teslas only make up a tiny fraction of cars (less than 1%) on the road and we are already seeing major fails in how they scale to handle heavy travel.  What if BEVs made up 5% or even 10% of vehicles?  Think about it.

For three years (since 6/9/2017) we’ve been waiting for the very first example of off-grid 100% renewable Supercharging.  Its starting to appear, however, that battery fast-charging just isn’t compatible with 100% renewable off-grid energy.  The best way to charge a battery with 100% renewable off-grid energy will probably be to use a fuel cell system.  The two technologies are truly meant for each other and bound to each other’s service.  Fuel cells & their battery cousins shouldn’t even be thought of in competition, but rather technologies that compliment each other.

June 9, 2020 marks the three year anniversary of Elon Musk tweeting that “All Superchargers are being converted to solar/battery power.  Over time, almost all will disconnect from the electricity grid”.   Elon Musk likes to use ambiguous words like “all” and “soon” so often that a pattern has emerged.  A growing chorus of people has started showing & tweeting examples of how Elon Musk is not much different than the Wizard of Oz: just a man shining people on with false promises from behind the curtain.  We get promises & rhetoric of all these great things coming in order to win tax subsidies & venture capital funding from Wall Street billionaires, but the promises never materialize for working class people on main street.  The mansions and private jet are real, but off-grid renewable Superchargers…  well, not so much…

Elon’s false promises are becoming so obvious websites have emerged to demonstrate how Elon Musk is shining people on in order to raise money for his billionaire lifestyle.  It’s important to stay vigilant in making sure our tax dollars are being used responsibly to further our migration from fossil fuels to renewable zero emission technology.   If our tax subsidy money is going toward a company like Tesla & the goods are not getting delivered, we need to hold that company accountable to their promises made for our tax dollars.  We need to see results.  We cannot continue to be fed constant promises that are always years away and never materialize.  We need to see real growth in the demonstration of true zero emissions or we gotta call BS.  It’s been 3 years since Elon said Superchargers were in the process of being converted to off-grid solar but still when we look up a the scoreboard it’s:  Hydrogen 13  vs Tesla Superchargers 0.

There are three major types of air pollution caused by our transportation sector:  1) Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 2) NOx Emissions & 3) Sulphur Dioxide Emissions.   Further, most people want to focus on what’s called the well-to-wheel emissions meaning that we have to account for all emissions including manufacture & distribution of the energy to make the vehicle as well as the energy we use on a daily basis like coal & natural gas power plants.  For a great example of why hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are better than battery electric vehicles at overall well-to-wheel emissions, the best comparison is the new Toyota RAV4 Prime.  The RAV4 Prime in this post’s feature image is a gasoline plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV).  The RAV4 Prime is a good example that demonstrates why Toyota, Honda, & Hyundai are so confident about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles working along side batteries in the future as a range extender.  While the “range extender” of the battery in the RAV4 Prime is an internal combustion engine, that “range extender” will easily be replaced by a Toyota fuel cell in markets developing hydrogen refueling infrastructure.

According to a quick Google search, the Toyota RAV4 Prime PHEV going on sale in a couple months will average about 29g of CO2 per kilometer.   The Tesla Model 3 averages about 170g of CO2 per kilometer.  This stark difference goes unnoticed by many Tesla cheerleaders in the anti-hydrogen crowd.   Let’s think about that for minute:  a full size gasoline plug-in electric hybrid SUV with off-road ruggedness & three to four minute refueling will produce nearly 6 times less CO2 than a Tesla Model 3 that takes hours to charge & can have its warranty voided if you drive down a dirt road. Furthermore, if CO2 emissions are lower in the PHEV by a factor of six, it stands to reason SOx & NOx (smog) are also reduced by a similar multiple.  The RAV4 Prime seems like a no brainer to an average consumer that wants lower emissions from overnight charging.  The RAV4 Prime also comes with no long waits at the fast charger on road trips.  The PHEV is comparable in price, has more convenience & utility, and is also the best for overall air quality.

You’d think that with such a large emissions advantage over the Tesla Model 3 that you’d have to pay an arm & a leg to buy the bigger & more functional Toyota RAV4 Prime over the smaller Tesla sedan, but you’d be wrong again.  The Toyota RAV4 Prime base model is loaded with features like All Wheel Drive, 8-way power seats, power back door, & Apple Carplay and will sticker at about $38,100.  The Tesla Model 3 standard range car stickers at $39,990 and only has a range of 250 miles.  The Toyota is also getting a tax subsidy of $7,500 off the sticker price so it’s more like $30,600 for the Toyota RAV4 Prime -vs- $39,990 for the standard Model 3.

Most drivers will drive 95% of their average miles without using gasoline using the Toyota RAV4 Prime, but they will have the gasoline “range extender” for cross country trips without any slowdown to what they’re already used to with a gasoline vehicle.  This is how Toyota gets such a large clean air emissions advantage per kilometer over the Tesla.  It’s because the Toyota only has a 17.8 kWh battery while the standard range Tesla Model 3 has a 54 kWh battery.  The larger extra kilowatt hour battery penalizes the Tesla on manufacturing emissions while the under 20 kWh battery in the Toyota is enough for 95% of people’s average daily driving.  Lithium, cobalt and manganese for making batteries are mined and processed with high-energy input. A battery for a Tesla Model 3, for example, pollutes the climate with about 11 to 15 tons of CO2. With a battery life of ten years and a mileage of 15,000 kilometres per year, that alone would mean 73 to 98 grams of CO2 per kilometer, according to Autovista Group.

But wait a minute, this article is about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and RMP is comparing a gasoline PHEV to BEV.  Hydrogen refueling is not as prevalent or available as gasoline refueling or battery charging, this is true.  It’s also true that we are in the very early innings of both technologies.  There was also a time in America’s relatively short history when there were no gasoline stations, no airports, and no train stations.  Hydrogen refueling stations can be built and are being built around the world right now and they’re proliferating rapidly.  Toyota knows the switch to electric powertrains is a long term game and they also know how to pair a battery with a hydrogen fuel cell.   Toyota can very easily swap the gasoline fueled internal combustion engine in a vehicle like the Toyota RAV4 Prime with a hydrogen fuel cell system as hydrogen stations build out in markets around the world.   And that’s the end game:  smaller batteries coupled with hydrogen fuel cell propulsion systems.  Honda already has a platform called the Clarity that’s compatible with all three propulsion systems:  plug-in hybrid, hydrogen fuel cell, and battery electric.

Because we are in the early innings of building new energy infrastructure it’s important to look at how things are going to scale up to meet our energy hungry needs.  We know hydrogen refueling works with 100% renewable energy for refueling but we have no examples of how battery electric fast charging can do the same.  How can we calculate the cost of all the 100% renewable fast charging locations without knowing the cost of one?  At its core, this is the whole concept of scaling energy: make something once & repeat ad infinitum.  It’s like aiming for the moon from the earth, if your calculation is wrong as you set out on your trip, by the time you’ve travelled all the way to the moon you’ll have missed by several miles.

Car & Driver reports their long term Tesla Model 3 only charged two minutes faster at a 250kW charger in Michigan City, Indiana than it would at a regular 150kW charger.  It also says 250kW chargers are rare & majority are 150kW so let’s use a 150 kW rate Supercharger to keep our comparisons realistic.  Only the Model 3 & Model Y can charge at the 250kW rate while the Model S & X are limited at 150kW.  Whether charging from the 250kW or 150kW Supercharger, the average kW rate was under 75kW.  Car & Driver Source. 

Let’s go through some quick number comparisons using time, kilowatt hours, and kilograms of hydrogen to try to draw some comparisons mathematically.   First off, let’s note that there are 33.33 kWh of energy in 1 kilogram of hydrogen.  Several new hydrogen refueling stations in California slated to open later this year will have a  capacity of 1,200 kg of hydrogen.  1,200 x 33.33 = about 40 megawatt hours.  A regular hydrogen passenger vehicle will hold about 5 kg of hydrogen.  Therefore, the station’s nameplate capacity will fill about 240 cars.  The 1,200 kg capacity hydrogen station can be refilled and just keep on refueling cars, so it’s really not limited to 240 cars.  The larger capacity just makes refueling the station itself less cumbersome.  Let’s look at our hydrogen station differently.  Let’s say it has dual dispensers & the station was open during the travel hours of 6AM to 12AM or 18 hours per day.  If there are dual dispensers & 2 cars can refuel every 4 minutes, then about 30 cars can be filled each hour.  If there are 18 hours of operation in a travel day, the hydrogen station could theoretically fill 540 cars per day.  540 cars @ 5kg each is 90 megawatt hours of 100% renewable energy!!!  In a day!

Now let’s contrast to the Tesla Supercharger.  According to Car & Driver who is chronicling their long term ownership of their Tesla Model 3, they’re stating that recharging at a 150kW Supercharger delivers an average charge rate of just under 75kW.  Car & Driver said it was roughly the same kW average charge rate whether they used one of the more rare 250kW Superchargers like the one in Michigan City, Indiana or a regular 150kW Supercharger.  Superchargers are known to reduce the flow rate of electricity to each vehicle if more than one vehicle is charging simultaneously in rural areas, this is what is says on Tesla’s own website.  Charge rates drop as you add on more cars in rural areas because they just don’t have the kW capacity to charge multiple cars at high kW charge rates.  But even if we pretend charging rate is not diminished, the math is really staggeringly bad when comparing Supercharging speed to hydrogen refueling.  It gets even worse when you consider the footprint required for charging -vs- hydrogen refueling to keep throughput parity.

The data table above does some simple calculations to show that you would have to take up 64 parking spots to charge Teslas as fast as one dual nozzle H2 refueling station.   Keep in mind this is only theoretical math, the Supercharger really couldn’t even do this kind of charging unless a coal, nuclear, or natural gas plant was close by.  So, it really gets a lot worse for the Supercharger in the real world especially as it regards 100% renewable energy.

Final Conclusion

Modern chemistry batteries are an incredible technology RMP supports whole heartedly.   There are vast applications that are enhanced by using batteries, including hydrogen fuel cells.  Hydrogen fuel cell propulsion systems are a good example of a technology that just doesn’t work without batteries.  Hydrogen fuel cell systems have a battery as a key component regardless of whether the fuel cell system is in a car, truck, bus, train, or marine vessel.   There is also no rule that says we can only use choose fuel cells or batteries.  We can and must use both technologies to move the ball down the field.  What’s so important right now is to stay focused on is how to eliminate toxic hydrocarbons like gasoline, diesel, & coal from our energy feedstocks.  We need domestically produced clean renewable energy that can create good paying American jobs.

Grid energy comes primarily from coal, natural gas, and nuclear.  If zero Superchargers are off-grid renewable, it means Tesla cars are powered by coal, natural gas, and nuclear.  Often people say that most hydrogen comes from steam reformed natural gas which is a true statement but no one ever had a reason to make green or gray hydrogen for the consumer market until now.  The percentage of hydrogen coming from natural gas will only decline over time.  What is conveniently always left out by those same people who paint hydrogen as dirtier than batteries is that BEVs also get the majority of their energy from fossil fuels; that’s the pot calling the kettle black.  Here’s the big difference:  green hydrogen is proven to work and is scaling up.  Green hydrogen is already demonstrating it can scale up to replace gray hydrogen.  As they say, even the longest journey begins with a single step and hydrogen has already proven that it is moving down the path toward 100% renewable refueling.  100% Green Superchargers, however, continue to be a unicorn, a mermaid, bigfoot, the lochness monster or whatever other fairy tale you can think of because they just don’t exist.  If “almost all” Superchargers “are being converted to” off-grid renewable energy, why has it been three years and we have yet to see a single example of how one works?

RMP supports BEVs and the companies working honestly to produce them for so many zero emission applications, but RMP is also calling BS on Elon Musk’s false promises and believe it’s high time he honors his commitment from 3 years ago.  For all those keeping score out there:  Hydrogen 13 vs Superchargers 0.

The Failure of Edenville Dam & Sullying of Lake Huron: Safety -vs- Vanity

One of the greatest tragedies in Michigan environmental history has occurred this past week when the Edenville Dam failed May 19, 2020.   The environmental devastation from Midland to Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron is incalculable. The financial damage will crush the equity of so many downstream and strain Michigan’s environmental remediation budget for decades for cleanup of toxic sediment where we pull our drinking water & fish.  The failure of the Edenville Dam & loss of Wixom Lake is a disaster it seems that could have been avoided by targeting safe lake levels rather than vanity lake levels.  Safety wasn’t put first and the dam is gone.

In the days ahead we will hear political attacks & see sensational video of devastation of homes & property.  We will have reporters, scientists, & engineers from across the state investigating what went wrong to get to where we are today.  Two reports that RMP will investigate today are good reports to help shed light on what was going on before the dam failed:   

1) The Four Lakes Lake Level Study prepared by Spicer Group & with support from Clark Hill at the behest of the Four Lakes Task Force (FLTF), the Gladwin County Board of Commissioners & the Midland County Board of Commissioners.  The lake level study was published in April 2019.  It was the support case used to get Judge Stephen Carras’ signature.

2) The Four Lakes Task Force 2019 Annual Report and Operating Plan published April 16, 2020.   It is very interesting that the comprehensive annual report for the Four Lakes Task Force was published just a few weeks before the dam would have catastrophic failure.  The annual report gives a comprehensive view into many legal & financial considerations of fixing the dam just before Edenville’s dam failure became a national spectacle; the financial report is a snapshot of the situation just before disaster struck.

The table shown above will be a key piece of evidence supporting what “legal levels” were for Wixom Lake before it disappeared.  Table shown above comes from the appendix of the 332 page Four Lakes Lake Level Study published in April 2019.  You can read the whole document by clicking here.

A term you will read again & again in the coming weeks will be the “legal level” of the lake that was set by Judge Stephen Carras when he signed the Lake Level Order under Part 307 of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act, 1994 PA 451, as amended (MCL 324.30701 et seq) (“Part 307”). Judge Carras’ signature established normal or legal lake levels for Wixom, Sanford, Smallwood and Secord Lakes (“Four Lakes”). The Four Lakes Special Assessment District (SAD) recognized the authority of FLTF as the County Delegated Authority, to acquire, repair and then operate the four dams on behalf of Midland and Gladwin counties.  The “normal levels” of the lake were provided in The Four Lakes Lake Level Study published by the Spicer Group commissioned by the FLTF.  Dana Nessel, Michigan’s Attorney General, has already referenced the “legal level” on her twitter account stating officially “The State did not set the water level for Wixom Lake, a court did”.  She also goes on to say the purpose of EGLE & DNR’s lawsuit is not to raise water levels but it “seeks damages for the past illegal lowering of the lake” in 2018 & 2019 that killed mussels.

This notion that Boyce should not lower water levels because it could kill mussels seems illegitimate with evidence from the two key documents referenced in this article.  A more likely scenario of events seems plausible after reading both documents in conjunction with each other: the lake levels were raised for vanity, not to protect mussels.  That leads us to serious questions that need to be answered:  Why would the State be going after money from a company that doesn’t have enough money in its coffers to make safety upgrades to the dam?  The “mussels” story doesn’t pass the smell test.  A thorough investigation into what motivated the impetus of the “legal level” will be focus in this post.   Safety of the citizens of Michigan & our fresh water resources were assumed to be givens that could carry on operating safely based on the report commissioned by the FLTF that was used to set the lake levels.  But make no mistake, the levels were set to provide recreation & beauty more than they were focused on safety.

Safety does not appear to be the short term focus of the recent Four Lakes Lake Level Study but rather a long term goal to be achieved by 2024.   It was well known for years the Edenville Dam was in disrepair and did not meet State of Michigan dam safety standards, in accordance with Part 315 “Dam Safety” of NREPA, MCL 324.31501 et seq. (Part 315).  There was a long term plan to achieve safe status, but the  paramount short term impetus of the Four Lakes Lake Level summary was to keep lake levels high.  It’s stated as the first point in the in the very first page of the introduction & summary of the Lake Level Study where it reads: 

“The flowage rights for remaining lakes, for the most part, are currently held by Boyce Hydro. Due to this private ownership of lake bottoms, the riparian rights of most of the property owners surrounding the lakes are limited. Thus, the lakes can be lowered or drained with minimal consideration to the interest of the property owners who have invested into the properties surrounding the lakes. The Counties of Midland and Gladwin have petitioned the Circuit Court to establish legal lake levels to protect the interests of the property owners who directly benefit from the existence of these lakes as well as the interests of the Counties.”  Further stated in the study is that the FLTF  “are pursuing preemptive action to avert the draining of the lakes”.

Public letters in support of higher lake levels look like typical form letters to support the “legal level” but they don’t say anything about mussels or safety.  This public letter and others like it can be found in the 332 page Four Lakes Lake Level Study by clicking here. (click image to enlarge)

The property owners who have invested in lake frontage on these man made lakes commissioned a report to establish legal levels of the lakes to protect the interests of the property owners who benefit from the existence of shore front property on these lakes.  That is literally what it says in the introduction of the document.  In the 332 page comprehensive study into the establishing a legal lake level, the word “mussel” appears exactly ZERO times.  It’s a ridiculous notion that the spirit of the State of Michigan’s lawsuit filed against Boyce Hydro is about harming mussels; it’s a trumped up charge tantamount to abuse of power by the State Attorney General.  The State of Michigan surely wanted to sue Boyce Hydro, but the mussels angle doesn’t seem legitimate, it seems like a regular old schoolyard bully message “just to show you who’s boss, I’m going to sue you for millions so you’ll think twice before ever lowering that lake again” .  This is a man made lake, why would you sue someone for $5M that you’re supposed to be working with to help finance dam repairs?  If you can’t afford dam repairs before a $5M lawsuit, your ability to afford them afterward would be, well, less.  Why would you attack the company entrusted to work with the MDEQ/EGLE to operate the dam?  Even if you’re pissed off at Boyce, you have to put on a professional face and work to make things safe to protect our natural resources.  But how did we get to this adversarial point where Michigan’s Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the dam operator for not maintaining “legal levels” established by the Spicer Group report commissioned by the FLTF that acted as a key instrument in support of the decision that was signed by Judge Stephen Carras?

What prompted the FLTF to form?

The formal work of Four Lakes Task Force (FLTF) was set in motion in September 2018 when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) revoked the power generation license from Edenville Dam.  The FERC license was revoked because the dam was determined to be non-compliant with FERC regulations.  Shortly after FERC’s revocation of the license, the dam owner drained Wixom Lake by approximately 8 feet. The FLTF was not aware of objections or violations from MDEQ or MDNR to lowering the lake and this angered homeowners and was the genesis of the FLTF. 

The motivation of the FLTF is clearly stated throughout documentation they have published.  Many letters like this support RMP’s thesis of pressure to raise lake levels. (click to enlarge)

Its logical that the FLTF was formed because private owners of lake front parcels & private owners of parcels with dedicated easement access were pissed off that Boyce Hydro controlled the lake levels without their input & lowered the lake level by 8 feet.  This is the precipitous moment that ultimately led to establishing higher lake levels through a lengthy legal process not bounded to common sense & in fact made it illegal to lower the lake levels to safe levels.  Think about that:  it was now illegal to lower the lake levels even if you thought it could be for safety reasons.  Remember also that the Edenville Dam was noted for being in serious disrepair for many years & should have NEVER had its level raised until repairs were completed.

It’s obvious that the FLTF was working hard and doing all they could to establish a plan to protect the investments of parcel owners.  The FLTF was not trying to create one of the biggest environmental catastrophes in Michigan history.  To work hard to protect your investment is noble & American but oversight of the safety was drowned out for the vanity of lake levels and aesthetics.  None of the parcel owners on the lake would have wanted to see their equity lowered through this disaster for sure but that’s what happened with poor oversight.  The FLTF was trying to do what red blooded Americans do:  protect their investments as best they know how.

There are 6,555 private parcels of property with lake frontage & 1,961 parcels of private property having dedicated easement access to the four lakes.  That’s a lot of people who’s stated motivation is to raise the lake levels.  That’s a lot of peer pressure.  While the stated purpose in all the legal documents is to have the court set a “legal level” based on historical levels, there is a reasonable amount of evidence to show the mission of the FLTF was to keep the lakes at levels that looked good for their investment properties.   Who would want a dock & boat sitting on dry land because the water receded?   So if you have competing motivations of keeping the lake levels high from the FLTF and trying to keep the lake levels safe from dam failure, who would referee that debate?

Upon revocation of the FERC license to generate electricity, the FERC relinquished its regulatory oversight to Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) now called EGLE.  A serious investigation of the criteria EGLE used in setting safe lake levels & applicable contingencies for emergency lowering of the lake levels must be done as it appears this disaster could have been avoided with common sense actions.  The MDEQ/EGLE should be working to put safety first.   If the dam was known to be deficient, why allow lake levels to be set to “normal historic levels”?   Shouldn’t the levels be a much lower given the dam is in need of serious repair estimated at $20 million dollars & May is historically the most rainy month in Midland?  Rumblings percolating on twitter in the echo chamber look like EGLE’s defense is going to be it was climate change that caused the dam failure which reeks of a cop out excuse.  It is reasonable to assume that if you’re threatened with multimillion dollar lawsuits from the State Attorney General, you’re going to be afraid to lower the lake level even if you think it could prevent a disaster.  Everyone knows that May is historically the rainiest month in in Midland every year for a 1000 years. Shouldn’t May have been a month that lake levels were set to restricted levels until after upgrades were to be completed in 2024?

I have worked back & forth with MDEQ employees for more than 10 years now as a volunteer watchdog over our freshwater resources.  I have worked with MDNR employees, and the MPSC to be able to provide the best oil well spill maps of any non-profit 501(c)3 website in Michigan.  I learned so much from exchanging emails with Larry Organek  to learn how Antrim gas wells are grouped into a production unit across multiple parcels & multiple gas wells.  Larry sends me details of Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Units in Michigan too, very helpful and professional.  Susanne Biteman is a knowledgeable geologist who worked in the Kalkaska area when high volume hydraulic fracturing came to Michigan and she got an earful from all those anti-frack groups but she always stayed professional.  Susanne always returned my emails and helped explain things to me even though much of the geology is difficult to understand.  Rick Henderson always returned my emails and would explain oil well construction to me back when I didn’t know much about oil wells.  My point is the employees of the MDEQ/EGLE are outstanding people working hard to protect our environment.  I believe this through & through.  I believe more funding should be going toward engineers who assess the condition of our dams & geologists & hydrologists that protect our fresh water. I believe we should be making it easier for the safety of our water to be the loudest voice in the room with good science to back it up.  If you can’t afford the engineers to make good assessments, you should always error on the side of safety and be careful with every single dollar you have to work with.

Tweets like this one and others have been “liked” by Liesl Clark in past 24 hrs and still no official statement from the MDEQ/EGLE. For the top environmental officer of the State of Michigan to “like” this tweet right now demonstrates her mind is not on the tragedy that we think she should be focused on. (click image to enlarge)

Consternation is forming with the high leadership of the State’s natural resources not the rank & file engineers, scientists, biologists, geologists, hydrologists, and others who work at the MDEQ now called the EGLE.  Consternation is forming with the Attorney General who seems to be bullying the dam owner with a $5M lawsuit when the money is desperately needed for more engineers & remediation, not lawyers & court fees.  The director of the EGLE, Liesl Clark, has seemed to have a laissez-faire approach to the top environmental officer job in our state.  We know Liesl is on Twitter because she continues to like superficial tweets since the dam failure but has not been visible or vocal about what’s going on since this failure.

Workers in tough conditions across Michigan considered essential through COVID-19 are getting $12/hr and get two 20 minute breaks & one half hour lunch in a 10 hour shift, if they are on their phone checking social media, they get written up & possibly can get let go from their job.  The director of the MDEQ/EGLE, however, has time for Twitter during work hours & has not made any serious statements regarding this catastrophe since it occurred on her watch.

This tweet liked by Liesl Clark gives you your pandemic name.  This tweet was from just a couple days ago & liked by Liesl after the flood.  Still no official statement on one of the worst environmental catastrophes in Michigan history, however.  To like this superficial tweet at a time like this is shows mixed up priorities when serious hard work & investigation should be the #1 priority. (click image to enlarge)

Liesl Clark was appointed by  Governor Gretchen Whitmer.  The story taking shape to all this is the leadership of Whitmer, Nessel, and Clark are acting as if they’re absolved from culpability in the dam failure when their actions or lack of actions have certainly played a part in this tragedy.  Michigan leadership is not putting safety first or erring on the side of caution.  Michigan leadership does not seem to be working with dam owners but instead has become so adversarial that the State is suing the dam owner when money is desperately needed for safety related repairs.  Bullying the dam owner into being scared to lower the lake levels to safe levels, regardless of the dam owners shortcomings, was an important failure leading up to this tragedy.  Spending too much time being snarky & cheeky on Twitter when Michigan should be showing complete seriousness is a sad commentary.   Negligence by State leaders with the stewardship of our our most precious resource [our freshwater] is part of this story.  Michigan’s director of EGLE is tweeting jokes & nonsense after this crisis instead of knee deep in floodwater showing solidarity with people who’s lives have been irrevocably devastated on her watch from what appears to be a preventable disaster.  Liesl Clark has said nothing official on her Twitter in the six days since this catastrophe occurred.

I know our leaders can’t stop every problem & have to react to tough situations with lots of people coming at them.  But, it’s sad to see no seriousness or serious message from our Director of EGLE about this crisis that happened on her watch with her department in charge.  One would hope we could get some seriousness or show of kinship from the top position of the EGLE/MDEQ.

This Halle Barry tweet liked by Liesl Clark is just another example of where Liesl Clark’s focus is without giving any official statement on the dam failure crisis.  It’s disappointing we don’t have a serious response from the person we’re all looking toward for leadership in this terrible hour.  (click image to enlarge)

Please read the two documents that are linked in the introduction of this article and decide for yourself where the investigation should go.  RMP is not writing this post at the behest of any political lobbying group nor has RMP ever accepted money from any politically affiliated group.  RMP cares about the water first and foremost as motivation to write about & grieve about this terrible tragedy.  The water is the true victim. 

Lost in the near term chaos of this catastrophic environmental event is just how deep the damage goes beyond financial.   The dioxins at Dow Chemical downstream of Lake Wixom are a known issue by all Michiganders.   The sediment on the river banks of the Tittabawassee is polluted with dioxins & dioxin like compounds (TCDD, Furans, PCBs).  The containment ponds not 10 feet away from the contaminated river banks were breached in this colossal failure of the Edenville Dam.   The overflow of the Dow Chemical containment ponds has washed out to Lake Huron.  The damage is done.  Fish are dead and where we pull our drinking water just got nastier.

Whitmer’s & Clark’s decision to market the DEQ as the EGLE cost a lot of money.  It’s a microcosm of how the Whitmer administration has misappropriated focus & poorly allocated money meant for substantive environmental funding like fixing dams.  Whitmer substituted investments in dams and instead spent on marketing.  New EGLE letterhead, business cards, catalogs of digital logos needed to be created, graphic designers hired to make the logo, the logo had to be replaced in 1000s of URLs and standard forms throughout the entire department top to bottom.  Tens of millions of dollars of previously published materials with MDEQ letterhead & credits are now disconnected from the mothership MDEQ.

This is Whitmer’s & Clark’s decision to spend our tax dollars on marketing instead of substantive environmental protection or new energy solutions to create jobs.  A lot of fingers will be pointed in the coming weeks because this is big.  Lake Huron is now more polluted because of this and fingers will point.  There needs to be a serious investigation into the motivations behind setting “legal levels” to the four lakes as it regards safety.  The mussels story is not legitimate.  To even elude to climate change as the cause this dam failure is not legitimate.  Let’s point our fingers toward investigating whether safety trumped aesthetics.  Lake Huron has been sullied.  This disaster could have been avoided.  The EGLE should not be able to investigate itself on this one.  We need an independent investigation as the EGLE & Dana Nessel have culpability & a conflict of interest in investigating the Edenville Dam failure.