RMP is 501(c)3 non-profit organization registered in Michigan. We are committed to protecting fresh water resources by advocating for: sustainable energy production, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, remediating environmental pollution & rethinking waste management.
Blue hydrogen has been making headlines this summer. It’s made from natural gas in a two-part process called autothermal reformation (ATR). The ATR process is different than the steam reformation (SMR) process used to make most hydrogen over the past century. There has never been a market for hydrogen for energy so we learn more & more each year about how to Continue reading “The Truth About Blue Hydrogen”
Three new hydrogen refueling stations have come online recently that mark a paradigm change in retail hydrogen refueling infrastructure in the USA:
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”
America’s first hydrogen fuel cell train is expected to be operational in San Bernadino California in 2024 and there’s a cool connection back to Michigan State University. Hydrogen fuel cell powered trains are already in public service in both Germany & China. Hydrogen fuel cell trains create their own electricity onboard by running hydrogen from a tank & oxygen from the ambient air through a fuel cell. That electricity powers a motor that runs the wheels & on-board “right-sized” battery pack that buffers electricity flow and the only emission is potable water. Hydrogen fuel cell trains are being hash tagged on Twitter as #Hydrail.
The San Bernadino County Transportation Authority (SBCTA) has begun mainline construction on the Redlands Passenger Rail Project, which is bringing the next generation of passenger rail service to the East Valley. To celebrate this momentous occasion, SBCTA had a Groundbreaking Event on July 19,2019 near the corner of Third Street and Stuart Avenue in Redlands.
The Redlands Passenger Rail Project will add a nine-mile rail connection between the University of Redlands and the San Bernadino Transit Center, a multi-modal transit hub that can provide access to all points west. When completed, the project will house the Arrow commuter line, featuring specially designed zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell powered trains. The zero-emission units will be the first of their kind in North America. The Arrow system is expected to be operational in 2021 & up to date information about construction on the project & road crossing closures as the construction plays out can be Continue reading “USA’s First Hydrogen Passenger Rail – San Bernadino California”
Welcome new readers of RMP’s quarterly H2 infrastructure report. Each quarter RMP looks back on the major stories related to hydrogen infrastructure advancements in the USA & Canada. RMP compares the current Alternative Fuels DataCenter database to the AFDC database in the prior quarter to see what has changed. The AFDC database is updated by the US Department of Energy & can be found by clicking here. RMP also follows the #hydrogen hashtag on Twitter to stay plugged into the latest develops around the world. Clickthrough to read all the updates & news from the past three months. Continue reading “USA & CANADA QUARTERLY H2 INFRASTRUCTURE UPDATE 2018-Q4”
This quarterly report looks back at all the H2 infrastructure activity from the previous three months in the USA & Canada. This issue of our report is focused on activity that occurred between 6/30/2018 and 9/30/2018. RMP is tracking Hydrogen Refueling Station (HRS) development as refueling is the key growth bottleneck to wide scale FCEV adoption. Awesome hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are already available and in production, we just need refueling stations. A lot of hydrogen infrastructure activity has occurred in the USA & Canada in the past quarter. The two biggest highlights in the last quarter have got to be Hawaii’s first public HRS opening in July and Canada’s first HRS opening at the tail end of June that just missed our Q2 publication cutoff when RMP was only covering USA activity.
Honolulu-based Toyota dealer and distributor SERVCO Pacific unveiled the island’s first HRS in Oahu after traditional Japanese Taiko drummers kicked off the ceremony. SERVCO, a local 100-year-old company, hopes that the availability of hydrogen to power passenger cars will spur sales of fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs) on Oahu and eventually other Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii already ranks 2nd in the USA for number of planned & active stations in a state with nine. In fact the SERVCO station has been on RMP’s Map of all HRS in the USA since we started making our map (view our map here). Now, the SERVCO station is open to the general public.
If you’re reading this article, you might have already Continue reading “USA & Canada Quarterly H2 Infrastructure Update 2018-Q3”
RMP is based near Detroit, Michigan. The Detroit River separates the City of Detroit & the City of Windsor. The Ambassador Bridge connects the two cities and soon the Gordy Howe International Bridge, a once in a generation undertaking, will be a second major bridge connecting the two cities. Windsor is my personal connection to Canada and has been woven into the fabric of my life since I was a child. I can remember seeing Ronald Reagan at Cobo Hall in the morning & crossing the bridge to Windsor and seeing Queen Elizabeth in Windsor on the very same day. The USA & Canada border is vast and the friendship & commerce all along the USA & Canada border provides many folks from Washington to New York their own personal connections to our neighbor to the north.
Canada is also a leader in Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology. Ballard Power is Continue reading “Quarterly USA H2 Report Becomes Quarterly USA & Canada H2 Report”
This quarterly report looks back at all the H2 infrastructure activity from the previous three months. This issue of our report is focused on activity that occurred between 3/31/2018 and 6/30/2018. With things happening faster now than they have in the past, we may need to make this a monthly report in the near future. If you like keeping up to date on RMP’s H2 data observations, please subscribe to our blog by entering your email address in the WordPress subscribe widget. RMP uses the AFDC database as our main source to generate the information in this report. Several data updates on the Alternative Fuels Data Center database occurred this quarter, which is the 2nd straight quarter RMP has monitored higher frequency in data updates since we started following the AFDC database over six years ago. The AFDC database is also the main source of RMP’s Hydrogen Station Map. Areas of the database that have been stagnate for years, now show an increased frequency in updates. RMP notices every small change from quarter to quarter using special data analytics techniques developed over years of tracking environmental data & creating our environmental Google maps. You can help RMP improve our research & publications by making a tax-deductible donation (USA only) by clicking here.
Seven data records for H2 stations disappeared from the database this quarter. Two of the stations no longer showing on the AFDC database are the Continue reading “USA Quarterly H2 Infrastructure Update 2018-Q2”
Do you consider yourself as a person that cares about the environment? Are you concerned about climate change? Are you concerned about oil pipelines traversing our lakes and rivers threatening our fresh water resources? Then you understand energy production from High Efficiency Low Emissions (HELE) coal is an important part of the plan for a better environment, right? No?
If we ignore the fact that new coal powered capacity will continue to come online over the next twenty years, we bury our heads in the sand when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other atmospheric pollution. We need to change the way we use coal and start using thermolysis for gasification rather than combustion for burning. By choosing thermolysis instead of combustion, we can produce energy without producing pollution that harms our air and water. In order to foster renewable energy sources like solar and wind, we need to find a common denominator fuel to let renewables compete on a wide scale. That common denominator fuel is hydrogen. We can make hydrogen from coal with significantly reduced pollution while we wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. We can also make hydrogen from water and create zero pollution. We can increase our capacity to make hydrogen from water while we decrease our use of coal over the long term. We can phase coal out of our energy mix, but it will take time and we must have a pragmatic approach.
RMP draws contrast between the common misunderstanding between what is combustion and what is a non–combustion chemical reaction. Burning coal is not the same thing as thermolysis or the thermal decomposition of matter without releasing particulate matter to atmosphere. The byproducts of thermolysis are inert and saleable for road making material and other construction material.
Be it known to all within the sound of my voice, whosoever shall be found guilty of burning coal shall suffer the loss of his head.
-King Edward II of England, 1276
Coal has generally had three major knocks against it with regard to pollution and its negative effects on the environment: 1) CO2 emissions, 2) Sulfur Dioxide emissions, & 3) Mercury emissions. Other complaints about coal involve NOx’s and other particulate matter released to atmosphere. So if we could produce cleaner energy from our abundance of US coal without releasing those types of Continue reading “Coal Use Forecasted To Rise – How We Can Mitigate Coal Pollution”
