Your tax dollars at work- building hydrogen fueling stations

Toyota Rav4 EV Forum

Help Support Toyota Rav4 EV Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

user 340

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 3, 2013
Messages
297
The California Energy Commission recently released its report "2015‐2016 INVESTMENT PLAN UPDATE FOR THE ALTERNATIVE
AND RENEWABLE FUEL AND VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM, " available from http://www.energy.ca.gov/2014publications/CEC-600-2014-009/CEC-600-2014-009-SD-REV.pdf

Some highlights of California state spending on ZEV infrastructure:

$40M spent on Hydrogen Refueling Infrastructure in 2013 - 2015, with $20M more planned for 2015-2016.
$22M spent on electric charging infrastructure with $18M more planned for same periods (Table ES-2, p.4)
9 DC fast chargers installed as of late 2014, 104 more planned (by late 2016?; Table 13 on p. 34)
DC fast chargers cost about $15,000 each vs. $1500 per L2 (Table 14, p. 36)

There are 100,000+ BEVs in CA, and probably less than 1000 (my WAG) hydrogen cars.
The CEC has spent nearly 2x more on hydrogen than electric fueling / charging stations in 2013 - 2015.

Is this how you want our state to spend our money???

If not, contact them at [email protected] or any of the other contact points listed at http://www.energy.ca.gov/contactus.html

It would be great if a few of us wrote them about this egregious imbalance of funds.
 
The CEC is also installing DC fast chargers in metropolitan areas before deploying then along long distance travel corridors. We certainly need them in both types of places, but you'd think they'd put more emphasis on the travel corridors because it would enable fundamentally new kinds of EV usage anc could integrate with the WA / OR West Coast Electric Highway.
 
tgreene said:
If not, contact them at [email protected] or any of the other contact points listed at http://www.energy.ca.gov/contactus.html

It would be great if a few of us wrote them about this egregious imbalance of funds.

I tried that e-mail and got a letter back referring me to the following address:

[email protected]


I sent them the following letter:

Sirs:
I have recently looked at your "2015–2016 Investment Plan Update for the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program" and was struck by the fact that the state is spending 50% more on the FCVs then on PEV's. There are more than 100 times as many PEV's on the road as FCVs and yet you are spending much less money on developing the infrastructure. 200 mile BEV's will become common in a few years, but there is no significant infrastructure to allow them to recharge on the road. Level 1 and Level 2 charging facilities are already obsolete and are only of use for residential and workplace charging. DCFCs will have to become much more commonplace to allow 200 mile BEV's to travel freely among our states highways.
I wonder why the state doesn't require the auto manufacturers to supply the appropriate refueling facilities for their cars? Tesla has the right idea in building the Supercharger Network for their Model S. If WhizBang Automotive provided a DeLorean with an 80 gigawatt flux capacitor would you give it CARB credits even though there is no place on earth to recharge this car? Why then are you allowing companies to build fuel-cell vehicles while requiring the taxpayer to supply the refueling stations at a cost of close to $1 million per station?
Toyotas new Bolt with its 200 mile capability will be available in two years. I am sure the GM is working on a similar vehicle. Tesla is coming out with their Model X with similar capabilities. Where will these cars charge when they are on the road? I cannot see them stopping for six hours to charge at a Level 2 facility next to the highway. We will need travel plazas with multiple DCFCs at hundred mile intervals along the major highways in the state. You should no longer allow any plug-in vehicle with a greater than 10 kWh battery to be built without a DCFC port. Manufacturers of earlier vehicles with more than 20 kWh capacity should be required to retrofit their vehicles with a DCFC in order to retain their carbon credits. Let the companies that build FCVs supply the first 100 charging stations until the vehicles become popular.

Michael Bornstein M.D. PhD

What do you think?
 
Michael Bornstein said:
What do you think?
I think that's great!

We should all send in similar notes asking why they are dumping so much of our $ into a technology that nobody uses and is not particularly energy efficient while giving BEV charging short shrift. I suspect that the oil companies and their lobbyists are attending all of the various CEC meetings / hearings and giving them PLENTY of input on why California (or at least oil / gas companies in CA) needs hydrogen.

Do keep us posted if you hear back.
 
Michael Bornstein said:
Toyotas new Bolt with its 200 mile capability will be available in two years. I am sure the GM is working on a similar vehicle. ?


I'm sure the GM guys are cringing at this statement as they spent a ton of money to design, develop, and promote the GM BOLT, while Toyota has no plans for any EV.
 
Somewhat off topic...

The not totally rational Japanese fixation on hydrogen is interesting to me. I wonder if this is at least partially due to the country's experience with the Fukushima tragedy. That showed the danger of a lot of their "green" energy generation, and taking all of their nuke plants offline severely stressed their electrical grid. Building out a hydrogen energy infrastructure provides an energy source that does not rely much on their electricity grid, giving them some redundancy in case of future failures. I wonder if they see battery EVs as yet another stressor on their electrical grid and the cars would become less functional in case of another massive failure.

I bet that the California government fixation on hydrogen is easier to understand - I suspect that hydrogen has been 'sold' to CA by the fossil fuel companies.
 
tgreene said:
I bet that the California government fixation on hydrogen is easier to understand - I suspect that hydrogen has been 'sold' to CA by the fossil fuel companies.

Toyota and Honda (both currently based in California) certainly helped the CARB / CEC to believe in hydrogen. Doesn't is strike you as odd how little help California based Tesla gets from the state, but Toyota and Honda get "private" hydrogen refueling?
 
Here is the letter that I just sent to [email protected] and [email protected].
It will be interesting to see whether they respond in any way. I wonder if any press in the
state might be interested in the fact that the CEC has spent $40M of taxpayer money on
hydrogen infrastructure but only about $150K on DCFCs in the last 2 years...


Subject: Requesting information on CEC alternative vehicle infrastructure strategy

Dear California Energy Commission,

Thank you for recently publishing your report "2015‐2016 INVESTMENT PLAN
UPDATE FOR THE ALTERNATIVE AND RENEWABLE FUEL AND VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY
PROGRAM." I am happy to see that our state is investing in making
alternative technology vehicles more practical to use here, and I
appreciate that you are communicating your work so clearly.

That said, I am concerned and somewhat alarmed by the choice of your
investments of taxpayer funds; they do not seem to be consistent with your
stated goals to "reduce greenhouse gas emissions, petroleum dependence,
and criteria emissions" in an efficient manner. I am particularly
concerned by the fact that you have spent twice as much ($40M vs $22M) on
hydrogen refueling infrastructure than electric charging infrastructure in
the 2013 - 2015 period, with little better planned for 2015 - 2016 (Table
13, p. 4).

I simply cannot understand this severe funding disparity given the current
and near-future distribution of alternative energy vehicles in our state.
There are about 100,000 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in California,
and I assume that there are currently 1000 or less hydrogen fuel vehicles.

The many BEV users in California need and deserve better service. I was
particularly disheartened and perplexed by the fact that you have deployed
only 9 DC fast charging (DCFC) stations to date (late 2014), and you have
adopted a strategy of deploying these in metropolitan areas instead of
along long-distance travel corridors. A rudimentary network of commercial
L2 and DCFC stations exist in our state's greater metropolitan areas, but
we have nothing along long-distance corridors.

The prompt installation of DCFC stations along long distance corridors is
essential for enabling wider adoption of BEVs in our state. Current BEV
owners are frustrated that we cannot travel long distances along high
traffic (I5, 101) conveniently, and potential owners are put off from
purchasing BEVs because this limitation restricts their utility.

Frankly, it is disappointing to see so much money ($60M including planned
2015 - 2016 expenditures) put into deploying a hydrogen infrastructure
that will serve only a few thousand vehicles, largely in government or
corporate fleets, while less than about $150K has been spent on DCFC
stations that are needed today (9 stations x $15,000 mean cost per Table
14, p. 36). I certainly hope that you have not adopted your strategy in
order to ensure that BEVs fail to be adopted in our state.

I do not understand how your investment decisions could have been made on
concerns over either energy efficiency or the reduction of greenhouse
gasses (GHGs) or other pollutants. As you are likely well aware, a large
fraction (~30+%) of BEV owners in CA have added photo-voltaic solar panels to
their homes, helping our state achieve its renewable energy goals. Current
hydrogen vehicles are considerably less efficient than BEVs (considering
the full fuel cycle), and the use of hydrogen does little to reduce GHG
emissions given that it is derived from natural gas that is extracted with
considerable leakage and then energy must be used to transport it, convert
it to hydrogen and compress it before using in in vehicle fuel cells that
are only about 65-70% efficient (vs ~90% for batteries).

I do look forward to learning about the strategy that has driven your actions,
and I would appreciate receiving any information or links to documents
in this area. I do wish to gain a better understanding on what our elected
officials have mandated and why the CEC is on its current path.

Sincerely,

Thomas Greene
Redwood City, CA
 
Thanks a lot for sharing this information. All EV owners need to know this so the EV community has opportunity to try to save the situation before it's too late. The concern is CEC might sit on these email without taking any action or respond. So if anyone knows someone from the press that can put out article to express the concern to the general public, it'll be powerful and a lot harder for CEC to ignore or "hide" the emails concerns sent directly to them.
 
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, tgreene. I also emailed the following:

To Whom it may concern,

I have recently been made aware of your spending priorities with regard to L2 EV charging infrastructure vs. hydrogen fill stations. It seems to be much more cost effective to install scores of L2 EV chargers than just a few hydrogen filling stations especially considering their are already 100,000+ EVs on the road and maybe just 1,000 prototype hydrogen cars.

I'm also having a hard time understanding how using hydrogen as a fuel derived from a fossil fuel will be very effective in cutting back on greenhouse gases. An EV is much more effective in doing so and clearly much more carbon-neutral when charged with the increasing number of solar arrays.

Thank you for you time,

Bill Battagin
Taylorsville, CA
Owner of a 2012 Toyota RAV4EV

I never used to be much of a letter writer and this is not nearly as comprehensive or well thought out as others have shared here but if we all chipped in $.02, we'd be L2 rich.

Also, sorry about being the bearer of less than good news. I've seen around the forum a couple times where folks think Enphase is a USA product. Yes, Enphase is USA born and engineered (Petaluma). However, from an email I received from [email protected] on 14 Aug 2014 regarding my inquiring about this issue, I received the following reply:

"Hi Bill,

ALL Enphase microinverters are currently manufactured (parts and assembly) in China.

Thanks!"

Please note however, there are a very few exclusive arrangements made with some big time installers that are able to negotiate with Enphase to access USA micros. These are not available to the general public.

This is part of the reason I use pretty much only SMA inverters in my solar PV installations...they are German engineered, made in Colorado, USA. SMA service is great, they pay me $150 to change out an inverter which is at ground level. The new TL version of their inverters (3~7.7KW output) is light enough for this 61 year old installer to lift and mount on the wall and they have sophisticated software/algorithms that compensate for shade almost as well as microinverters...if shading is even an issue. I wonder if there have have been fewer Enphase micros failures of their latest iteration only because they have only been out for a few years, I've been installing SMA for 12+ years. I could go on. I genuinely hope micros work out OK for those who went that route, they have a couple advantages in some installations....I'm just not one of them.
 
Nice going Rav4EVoom and sierrabill!

I was also thinking about going to the press if I / we don't hear anything back from the CEC within a week or so. I think that the "green" press may be most sympathetic and was thinking about writing greencarreports.com. Any comments or other ideas?
 
tgreene said:
Nice going Rav4EVoom and sierrabill!

I was also thinking about going to the press if I / we don't hear anything back from the CEC within a week or so. I think that the "green" press may be most sympathetic and was thinking about writing greencarreports.com. Any comments or other ideas?
Has anyone heard back from CEC yet? Green press is a great idea. I am not sure how change.org works but i heard they have wide audience and had contributributed to environmental issues such as banning fracking... if someone has experience working with them, might be able to help?
 
Don't assume the "green car press" will jump on H2 criticism. This stuff is their bread and butter. It would be like going to any university receiving grant money to study hydrogen and asking them to bad mouth hydrogen. Good luck.
 
TonyWilliams said:
Don't assume the "green car press" will jump on H2 criticism. This stuff is their bread and butter. It would be like going to any university receiving grant money to study hydrogen and asking them to bad mouth hydrogen. Good luck.
You are probably right. Fuel Cell is supposed to be a "green" vehicle as well, however, if the concern can be properly explained and exposed to the public somehow, I suspect CEC would have certain challenge to justify their decision of investing more $ in the immediate future to Fuel cell station instead of EV charge station when there's almost no Fuel Cell vehicle owner but quite a few EV owner who can benefit it immediately. I wonder what does it take for them to reprioritize their bigger budget for EV infrastructure development? Hope it's not too late.
 
I had a long talk with Jean Baronas of the California Energy Commission and tried to present our point of view. Hopefully I did a good job, but there are more able speakers on the forum. She did tell me that there will be an EV Infrastructure webinar on January 28th. Details are at:

http://www.energy.ca.gov/2013-ALT-01/documents/2015-01-28_workshop/2015-01-28_workshop_notice.pdf

I will try to attend but will be in Hawaii on vacation that day.

Can anyone send me the link from ?EPA that shows the relative carbon footprint of EV's, ICE's, an FCV's? I believe it shows it as a circular chart. I promised to send it to Jean in order to show that BEV's have a much lower carbon footprint that FCV's.
 
Back
Top