Nikola Gets Real on Hydrogen with 60 Stations planned by 2026

• It’s seems only natural that Nikola is planning to build out a Hydrogen network to support their fuel-cell trucks, so assuming these will largely be built on the interstate system… And assuming that this interstate system is also available to personal vehicles, that would be awesome as it’d open up cross country trips for us Mirai owners!
• Also interesting to note how much money they’ll looking to get from the government to support this initiatives. Lots of examples in the article, but the one that caught my attention was: “It offsets the cost of construction for up to $100,000 per dispensing equipment item.”

Renault Scénic Vision hydrogen hybrid concept offers 75% smaller carbon footprint than a conventional BEV

• First example I’ve seen of a true plug-in style hybrid, but with a fuel cell instead of a ICE as the alternative source. The 40kW battery is comparable to a Nissan Leaf, so it would seem that you could probably run a relatively standard commute off the battery, while reserving your hydrogen for extended range (Renault is claiming around 800 km or almost 500 miles).

NamX Rocks the Paris Motor Show With a Hydrogen Powered SUV Concept Using Removable Tanks

• The idea of capsules definitely captured tons of people’s attention… and I’ve been envisioning a future where we could refuel our car as easy as trading out a propane tank (i.e. could be done at a Home Depot, 7-11 or anywhere that wanted to distribute pre-filled tanks) ever since I saw the Toyota announcement a few months ago.
• However, the more I’ve read into this, the more it sounds like a novelty item as the capsules don’t hold much hydrogen as compared to the in-car tank and not really sure it makes any sense to have a dual fuel vehicle where both are using hydrogen (The Renault concept of a battery/hydrogen hybrid makes a lot more sense to me than a hydrogen/hydrogen hybrid).

New Bladeless Wind Device Could Help Homes and Businesses Be Energy Independent

• After seeing @SolarFred link out to a story about the Aeromine tech, I did a bit of a deep dive… and “Wow!” this seems so darn cool. In a nutshell, it’s essentially using the same physics that causes a wing to lift up an airplane (ie. the shape of the wing causes a low pressure side and a high-pressure side on a wing that gives “lift”), but instead to spin a turbine that’s stored inside a giant tube. Here’s a great video with an overview of the aeromine technology.
• Early tests show it’s provides a lot more energy than a solar panel in terms of a footprint and cost, and with no moving parts exposed to the elements, I’d imagine the typical aeromine turbine could also for years with very little maintenance… similar to how dam turbines run year after year with the flow of water. Throw in that that’s no rare minerals needed and I’m hard pressed to think of anything that’s not to love about this tech. Obviously, there could be some drawbacks that make this tech impractical for mass adoption, but I just don’t see what it is now.
• Finally, it might go without saying, but the connection to “green hydrogen” is that this would seem to make an ideal source for generating hydrogen locally… I could totally see a world where an office complex, large apartment building, etc. could throw these on their roof in order to power an electrolyzer that’s making hydrogen for local use and/or back up power.

Building a fuel-cell racing car

• Finally, I’m thrilled that Toyota decided to sponsor a club at my son’s high school that will be competing in the Horizon Hydrogen Grand Prix competition. We just unboxed the set earlier this week and expect lots of fun ahead… I’m sure I’ll be posting lots of updates on Twitter, so follow along at @tyr for updates or simply subscribe to my weekly blog posts below!

The post Nuggets of Green Hydrogen News appeared first on Dustin Luther.

It seems inevitable that just as we’re seeing all kinds of green hydrogen announcements (Germany/Canada deal, Amazon/Power Plug, etc.), there’s going to be a focus on how our existing hydrogen infrastructure relies on polluting resources. We’re even seeing professors make the case that green hydrogen shouldn’t be used to heat homes that inspires others to tweet about how we shouldn’t be building out the infrastructure to burn hydrogen for power at all.

But I’m not buying all this negativity.

It’s largely because of the chicken vs egg dynamics of leveraging hydrogen energy. I’ve become convinced that we’ll make the fastest progress towards climate progress if we build out both the supply and demand for green hydrogen. Let me explain with three reasons we shouldn’t fear promoting grey (or “blue” if there’s enough carbon capture involved) hydrogen for our short-term needs.

1. Location of Green Energy Production.

There are quite a few interesting ideas for how we can produce green hydrogen at scale and many of the options, such as in Canada and Australia are in relatively remote locations and far from their intended energy production. By storing the energy in hydrogen molecules, (as oppose to trying to transmit the energy over wires), the energy production facilities will be in a much better position to leverage that energy when and where they need it… (as in: It should be easier than ever for a country like Australia to send green energy to a country like Korea).

2. Likelihood of substantial price decreases in green hydrogen production.

Word on the street is that green hydrogen could be cost competitive with grey hydrogen in the next two years and cheaper by 2030.

Doing things like decreasing the cost of green hydrogen (such as providing a $3/KG subsidy) is definitely going to help make green hydrogen a reality.

So, if the process of leveraging gray/blue hydrogen in the short-run helps build out the infrastructure that can be leveraged by green solutions in the long-run, I think we make the most of the opportunity.

3. Better to have the oil companies involved.

If we want to move quickly to a green energy future, it’s way more likely to come if we have the existing powers-that-be on board.

In the article I mentioned about how burning green hydrogen is a bad use of our resources, the professors seem keen on talking about the lobbying done by big energy and the cost of rebuilding their existing infrastructure for hydrogen, but far from bothering me, if feels like that just gives them skin in the game. In other words, let’s get big energy producers “inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.” If that means that we rely on grey/blue hydrogen with only minimal benefits of solutions like natural gas production, I’m still a fan as it helps pave the way for solutions that are sustainable.

In summary…

There are some people with very good intentions who want to see us move towards a green energy future for all the right reasons and, yet, it seems short-sighted for them to be looking for holes in how we produce hydrogen in the short-run.

Personally, I could easily see a world a decade from now where we’ve started to leverage tidal, wind and/or solar energy to “boil” the ocean to make green hydrogen energy. However, I just don’t see how that’s going to happen without a concerted effort to build out both the the supply and demand for green hydrogen.

Assuming we want to 1) produce energy in places/times far from where it will be consumed, 2) at extremely cheap costs and 3) make allies with the people/companies who can make it happen quickly, then we’re going to need to dramatically increase the production of green hydrogen and that feels way more likely to happen if we also increase demand for hydrogen.

Our biggest stumbling block will be if we try to boil the ocean all at once… and insist on solutions that are anything less than perfect. An even better approach would be to super-charge the development of green hydrogen production would be to get cars, commercial trucks, scooters, airplanes, power plants, etc that are powered by hydrogen on the roads and in our communities.

With real demand, we’ll be way more likely to fund the entrepreneurs who are looking to build the greener solutions we so desperately need.

The post Let’s not try to boil the ocean… Or the “case for grey hydrogen“ appeared first on Dustin Luther.

Interestingly, the green energy community is quite active on twitter… and reminds me of the activity I’d see back when I was active in the real estate space. However, I’ve been stuck in boring industries for so like, like business credit and personal injury law, that I forgot what it’s like to see people who are actively replying, retweeting and otherwise engaging with each other.

(I clearly have some catching up to do in reminding myself how to get the cobwebs out of my twitter fingers in addition to my blogging fingers!)

Yesterday, one of the people I’ve started following, Craig Lawrence, tweeted out about an upcoming event RE+ that looks fascinating (and relatively local!)…

I quickly realized I need to get me (and my fuel cell Mirai!) down to Anaheim next month so I can build out my collection of interviews with industry execs and influencers! Plus, this gives me a nice kick-in-the-butt to get the podcast launched BEFORE I show up!

It gets better!

In following the hashtag #replus22, I couldn’t help but noticed that there’s also a tweetup at the event. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to a tweetup… and based on the vibe I’m getting from @SolarFred, I’m pretty sure there’s gonna be lots of great connections made!

One last thing!

I’m super new to the green energy industry and actively looking to see if I can find my way into the industry by connecting with the people doing building interesting solutions. If you’re one of the people attending #REplus22 who has a story to tell, connect with me.

I’m looking for people I can interview for an upcoming podcast series, and even if that doesn’t work out, at least we can meet up at the event!

(Some ways to connect: Leave a comment, twitter, linkedin)

The post Connecting at #REplus22 appeared first on Dustin Luther.

Here’s the insight about the IRA, I hadn’t seen till this announcement:

The new regulations signed by US President Joe Biden stipulate that electric cars built outside North America are excluded from tax incentives.

Hyundai to accelerate schedule for US plant

So, for companies that want to take advantage of the substantial benefits of producing green cars, they gotta make them in the US…

Craig Lawrence just summed it up well: “Policy has consequences.”

For background, the plant will be located outside of Savannah and is expected to grow to make 300,000 EV cars/year.

Update on Aug 24:

Looks like Fisker wants to join the US manufacturing party!

The post Will the Inflation Reduction Act lead to more Green Jobs in the US? appeared first on Dustin Luther.

Didn’t know to look out for the fuel cell boats when I was in Venice a few weeks ago… So cool… and so much more interesting than looking out for people surfing the canals.

As it was my first time in Venice, I woke up one morning early so I could capture some photos of the city waking up. One thing that was so fascinating was how much commerce is done from boats. It makes total sense in retrospect, but there’s nothing like seeing a city wake to put it all in perspective.

The post Fuel-cell boats cruising the Venice Canals appeared first on Dustin Luther.

Drive was recently able to take a first-hand look at General Motors’ emission-free hydrogen generator at its proving ground in Milford, Michigan – and watch as it fast-charged a Hummer EV.

Trent Nikolic

Especially in parts of the world where the electrical grid isn’t as well built out, I could imagine this would be one of the more effective ways to get fast charging into relatively remote areas.

The post Twist: Bring Hydrogen Power to Electric Vehicles appeared first on Dustin Luther.

It’s clear that for us to really see the benefits of a hydrogen economy, we’re going to need to be using renewable sources of energy to create the hydrogen.

However, one of the things I’ve been grappling with is the idea that we should be hating on “blue” hydrogen (i.e. hydrogen created from fossil fuels). There’s definitely a case to be made that blue hydrogen will just prolong us putting hydrocarbons into the atmosphere and promises of the carbon capture promises are probably overblown.

Personally, I like following Justin Mikulka because I think he does a great job regularly making this case.

However, if I had to make the case for advocating for the continued production of green hydrogen, it’s be because of these two factors:

• Increase Demand. A hydrogen economy is going to need incredibly investments on both the supply and demand side of the equations. If we can get the price of hydrogen down, even if that means some of it is created from more polluting resources, then we’re way more likely to see interesting products developed, such as commercial trucks, airplanes, cars, etc.
• Global Persuasion. The oil companies have incredible power in our global politics, so it’d be best to have them promoting a hydrogen economy rather than fighting it. There’s a case to be made, for example, that the substantial climate initiatives that came from the Inflation Reduction Act were only possible by getting at least some of the coal and oil execs on board with the short-term benefits.

Or put another way,

“It’d be better to have the Big Energy in the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.”

It reminds me of the idea of how McDonald’s reinterred how chickens are treated when they moved towards a goal of only buying cage-free eggs. It’s one thing when individual consumers try to do the right thing, but it came make a real impact with the major players in an industry decide to join the conversation.

In other words, what if the long-term strategy is to build up our hydrogen infrastructure using both green and blue hydrogen in the short-run with the idea that we want to dramatically increase supply by proving relatively cheap energy that at least has the huge potential to be “green.” Then, once that industry is well established, we’ll be able to tighten the screws down the road to make sure more green hydrogen is produced.

Maybe I’m a bit jaded at this point, but I have a hard time seeing how we reengineer the our energy economy unless we bring big oil on board.

By the way, I’m not writing this argument because I’m convinced, but rather because I think it’s a really interesting question. If you’re game to make the case for saying “screw it” to all green hydrogen projects, I’ve love to hear it.

The post Should we be hating on green hydrogen? appeared first on Dustin Luther.

I’ve become a believer that using hydrogen to store energy offers us the potential to put a serious dent in the damage that we currently do to the environment through our reliance on fossil fuels… But know that especially for the uninitiated, this might take a bit of time to explain. Luckily I have a bit of time on my hands, so here goes.

In this article, I thought I’d break things out by first reviewing some of the science that feeds the concept of the hydrogen economy and then follow it up with some of the changes we’re seeing from both a supply and demand perspective.

Let’s jump right in.

Energy Requirements Driving the Hydrogen Economy

No surprise, our modern life requires vast amounts of energy and the way we generate energy generally falls into three buckets:

1. Renewable resources (solar, wind, tidal, etc.)
2. Non-renewable resources (fossil fuels)
3. Nuclear sources (fusion / fission)

At the highest level, the idea behind a hydrogen economy is that for many uses hydrogen can help us store and leverage energy produced by renewable sources far more efficiently than alternatives.

For example, you could use something like wind, tidal or solar power to separate hydrogen molecules out (generally, water molecules) and then store those hydrogen molecules until you need them later. Then, when you want to create energy, you expose the hydrogen molecules to oxygen molecules in such a way that energy and water (H20) is produced. In other words, use some naturally occurring energy source to break a water molecule apart and then recombine the molecules at a later date to get some energy back out.

Surrounded by hydrogen atoms

That’s the idea, although currently, much of the hydrogen that we use in buses, cars, trucks, etc. is produced from non-renewable resources, since it’s even less energy intensive to get hydrogen molecules from fossil fuels than water. Although, absent some serious carbon scrubbing equipment, this creates the similar levels of carbon dioxide gases that are currently contributing to climate change.

And while nuclear energy is always part of the discussion as a clean energy source because it doesn’t emit CO2, it comes with tons of baggage including being a prime target for all kinds of unpredictable and nefarious things. While I get there are reasonable people who recommend we go back to putting an emphasis on nuclear power, I’d much rather see a world where we build up a hydrogen economy powered by renewable resources.

With the basic overview of the Hydrogen fuel cycle, it’s seems clear to me that if we’re going to make a major impact on climate change, one key approach would be to improve both the supply and the demand for green hydrogen.

If you’ve been following the news lately, then you know I’m not alone!

Increased Supply of Green Hydrogen to fight Climate Change

Just over the past week or two, it feels like we’ve turned a major corner recently with governments putting money towards substantial hydrogen investments. to give you an idea, here are three recent announcements:

• The US government has put billions of dollars aside to help fight climate change through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that was signed this week
• The German government appears to be way more interested in replacing their use of natural gas from Russia by investing green hydrogen from Canada
• The Chinese government announced they’re building the world’s largest “green hydrogen” factory

In terms of their impact, industry players seems most excited by the idea that clean hydrogen can get up to $3 per kg of tax credits from the IRA (via Charlie Currie).

My understanding is that the current price for “dirty” hydrogen (i.e. generated from oil, shale, etc.) is around $2 to $2.50 per kg, whereas “clean” hydrogen (i.e. generated from renewable sources) is about $5 per kg. (These are super rough numbers as the actual cost depends on tons of factors, and only meant to put things in perspective). By giving companies $3 per kg to produce clean hydrogen, the price of renewable sources quickly becomes competitive with the cheaper, but often polluting, sources of hydrogen that are largely used today.

Glenn Zorpette has a solid overview on the potential of a hydrogen economy.

However, it’s going to take more than just governments getting involved in the production of green hydrogen, which is why it’s great to see announcements this week like:

• Dutch Company Develops Offshore Wind-Powered Hydrogen Production Platform
• SunGreenH2’s nano-scale engineering could double green hydrogen production
• Pertamina eyes green hydrogen production at Ulubelu geothermal plant

In other words, if you’re hearing about the hydrogen economy in the news more lately than ever before, it’s probably because both governments and large companies have gotten serious about developing hydrogen from renewable resources at scale!

However, producing hydrogen at scale is only part of the equation. At the same time we’re producing more hydrogen, for the hydrogen economy to have it’s intended impact, we’ll want to see the demand for hydrogen increase as well.

Increased Demand for Hydrogen Products

The best use case for hydrogen is when it replaces fossil fuels, either because it’s cheaper or more efficient to use (or both). In general, I can think of three large buckets where hydrogen could replace fossil fuels. 1) Industrial uses (such as power plants like this one in Korea), 2) heavy vehicle uses or 3) consumer vehicles.

I don’t have a lot of insight into the industrial uses, although I image that what the German government is envisioning with this deal they’re doing with Canada. However, on the heavy vehicle (commercial trucks, airplanes, etc.) and the consumer (cars, scooters, etc.) side of things, there’s been some awesome news about products being developed this week:

• BMW Will Mass Produce Hydrogen-Powered SUV By 2025
• American Airlines Invests in Hydrogen-Electric Engine Developer ZeroAvia
• Triton EV unleashed designs Triton’s Hydrogen-Fuel Scooters

From a consumer point of view, the big hump for fuel cell vehicles is definitely going to be the perception that the elective vehicles have already “won” the future… and we don’t really need a second solution. That may be right, although the case for fuel cells is solid:

• Fuel cell cars have a refueling time similar today’s gas cars vs the 30 min plus for an electric vehicle… with potential to have cartridges that could make for even faster refuels.
• Especially for long-haul, airplanes, etc. use cases, batteries aren’t always practical as you’re carrying around “dead” weight much of the time, whereas the hydrogen fuel turns into water and is gone from the vehicle once used
• Batteries require more rare minerals and other scarce resources, which is likely to continue to keep pricing rising for the foreseeable future.

On the negative side, fuel cells require a regular source of “fuel” that require a delivery mechanism, whereas that the electrical grid needed to power EVs is already built out in the developed world.

And while I’m a fan of my hydrogen powered car, I could easily see a world where hydrogen “wins” as a storage mechanism for both industrial and commercial uses, but our consumer vehicles become powered by batteries… Much more important is that we do all we can to quickly move the energy production that powers both batteries and hydrogen to renewable resources.

Did I get some of the science wrong? Or make a case for something that’s just not realistic/true? I’d love to hear it! I’m way more interested in learning than being “right”.

The post Why Hydrogen Now? appeared first on Dustin Luther.

First some background… When Ford first announced the electric F-150 truck , all I wanted to know was: Could F150 Lighting pull my travel trailer?

Could the F-150 Lighting pull a ~5000 lb travel trailer from California to Vermont?

At first my searches seemed promising…

The basic F150 Lightning package has a 7,700 lb towing capacity and pretty sure I read there are upgrades to get it to 10k pounds. However, my initial excitement with the idea of replacing our 2016 Mercedes 350 GLE with a F150 Lighting was quickly sunk when it became clear the range of an F-150 Lighting when towing is only about 150 miles…

Thinking back to my travel last summer of going from California to Maine and back, the idea of needing to stop every 150 miles to recharge is beyond painful and obviously totally impractical. (Let alone our much more common trips to Paso Robles)

On that trip, there were plenty of adventures that would have simply been impossible with an electric truck towing a trailer even if it got 250 miles to the charge while towing.

For example, at one point we were hanging out with friends for 4th of July in Michigan and then planned to meet up with family in a campground in Idaho 3 days later. The idea of needing to sit to recharge a battery for even a half-hour every few hours of driving has me thinking this trip that took us 3 days would have taken at least a week…

Which leads me to the idea of fuel-cell truck. This is where the range and refueling options could make a world of difference.

And love that both Ford and Toyota have recently announced initiatives recently to bring fuel cell trucks to reality.

• SoCalGas, Ford developing F-550 Super Duty Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Truck
• Toyota to launch new hydrogen fuel cell trucks in Japan in 2023

Now, neither of these appear to be trucks geared towards the consumer market, (nor does Nikola’s fuel cell truck) but the idea of testing them out in commercial/industrial settings makes a ton of sense. Assuming they can deliver the power and range needed in these settings, it would seem a no-brainer to make a less powerful (but still powerful enough) consumer version.

So, who is going to make it happen! I want to buy a fuel cell truck even more than a fuel cell scooter and would happily replace both our Mercedes (really only keeping it around because it’s needed for towing our trailer) and our Mirai with one vehicle.

Finally, I realize the trip I mentioned above that would be so painful in an electric truck would be impossible with today’s hydrogen infrastructure. But still, assuming fuel cell trucks can retain the range of a gas powered truck when towing, I’d have to think the infrastructure issues would be easier to solve with hydrogen than vastly extending the range of battery packs.

If you think I’m wrong, I’d love to hear why.

The post How long before someone sells me a fuel-cell truck that can tow a travel trailer? appeared first on Dustin Luther.

But first a detour… A few months ago, my wife and I started making plans to travel through Italy… and when it became a reality last month, there were only a few things on my “must do” list… One was taking pasta and pizza making classes and the other was riding a Vespa through the wine country. I seriously love love love driving scooters (and even posted some way too long videos of me riding through Vietnam a while back). There’s something super liberating about scooters and I only wish it made more sense to make it my daily vehicle here in SoCal.

Which leads me to today’s news that comes out of India: Triton EV unleashed Hydrogen-Fuel Scooters .

How cool is this! I start researching hydrogen and within minutes, a company announces a fuel-cell scooter.

With a son who’s going through the process of getting his driver’s license, I’m fascinated by the idea of getting him a scooter and think fuel-cell scooter would be like icing on the cake. We live in a beach community where he really doesn’t need to go far or get on a freeway, so this would give him a ton of freedom without the high cost of car-ownership (and parking) in our area.

This news about the Triton EV Scooter sent me on a deep dive of others making fuel cell scooters. The two that seem to get reasonable press, were the Mob-ion out of Paris and the Suzuki Scooter that was being tested in the UK.

The Suzuki scooter isn’t all that interesting in that the news seems years old… Maybe Suzuki will do something interesting with this scooter at some point, but I’m not seeing any evidence online.

The Mob-ion, however is FASCINATING. I’ve been translating some of the pages, so not sure I got it all right, but it seems that the vehicles are already in production and ready to buy… but the part that makes it so interesting is the use of hydrogen cartridges.

I saw a few months ago, Toyota was demonstrating a similar cartridges concept for cars, but had no idea it was already in production in a slightly different setting.

As a buyer of a fuel cell vehicle, I can confirm that getting access to hydrogen stations is the biggest pain point… The idea of a cartridge systems similar to the way propane tanks are sold would open up the opportunities tremendously. I envision a world where tanks are dropped off at my house and/or at least as easy to pick up as a propane tank (who needs a gas station when you can refill at any Home Depot or 7-11).

I’m still in the beginning stages of understanding the vehicles currently being developed with fuel cell technology. If I missed a viable fuel cell scooter, I’d love to hear about them.

And if you’re aware of a company that’s even remotely close to launching one of these for the California market, definitely let me know!

The post Who’s going to bring a fuel-cell scooter to California? appeared first on Dustin Luther.