Quebec Hydrogen Fleet After 4 Years: $500 Per Kg Hydrogen, & No One Used Them – CleanTechnica – TechnoNews

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A 12 months in the past, I used to be having enjoyable with the Odyssey of the Hydrogen Fleet, a tragicomedy in six elements. One of many many enactments of this tragicomedy had left Act 5, the place the hydrogen fleet is completely parked. The provincial authorities of Quebec quietly returned roughly 50 gasoline cell vehicles they’d leased to Toyota.

I had assumed that like many pilot initiatives, the outcomes would by no means be made public, however immediately a Quebec correspondent shared the report with me. It doesn’t look good for hydrogen mild autos, however that’s unsurprising.

Let’s begin with a reminder of the tragicomedy’s elements. In act one, oil-slicked lobbyists push for hydrogen transportation funding and pilots. In Act 2, well-intentioned however STEM- and economics-illiterate authorities apparatchiks are seduced and unlock massive pots of cash. Act 3 sees a fleet operator, cash-strapped, salivating over the massive pots of cash and shopping for a hydrogen fleet and attendant costly pumping station and hydrogen with it.

Act 4 sees a wiser governmental head take a look at the extraordinary prices and poor outcomes and transfer the pots of cash right into a extra appropriate program. Within the absence of additional funding, Act 5 sees the fleet operator coping with the return of fleet or maybe simply scrapping it, and determining what, often nothing, to do with the hydrogen refueling infrastructure. Act 5 sees the return of rationality with an electrical fleet, what ought to have been bought within the first place.

In 2019, the Quebec authorities began down this journey. In December of 2023, they quietly returned the 45 Toyota Mirai to that quixotic tilter at hydrogen-powered windmills, and did the identical with the only Hyundai Nexo.

Preliminary information on this system indicated that it was very costly. The refueling station in Quebec Metropolis, the place your entire fleet was primarily based, was able to refueling a single automobile at a time and price CA$5.2 million. Over CA$1 million extra was spent on leases for the autos, for probably the most half. The price of the hydrogen was unspoken on the time, however information from the remainder of the world reveals that hydrogen at retail charges at pumps prices from $15 to $35 per kilogram. Extra on that later, however let’s discuss fleet utilization statistics first, as a result of they’re eye-popping.

One factor may be very clear: the hydrogen vehicles weren’t in style with Quebec governmental workers. After they’d a while with the vehicles, they voted with their accelerator pedal-pushing toes to drive different governmental autos as an alternative, or perhaps simply stroll or bike. I don’t have statistical information on driver desire in fleets with blended electrical and inner combustion autos, however the anecdotal information is wealthy that drivers vastly desire EVs to ICE vehicles and vehicles. That’s what Pepsi discovered with its Tesla Semis and that’s what others discovered. In a single case, to keep away from battle, they needed to put hour-limits on drivers getting the EVs in order that others may drive them too.

Even at that, some statistical assessments begin to present much more starkly that there’s an enormous downside right here. The report signifies that the fleet traveled a shade underneath 500,000 kilometers in 4 years. For 46 autos, that turns into solely 2,700 kilometers per 12 months on common. US governmental fleet information reveals that its autos common 16,000 to 24,000 kilometers per 12 months of driving, which is to say that they drive about as a lot as the typical American. As a result of Canada’s growth was simply as sprawl-based because the USA’s, that’s an affordable comparability.

This fleet was pushed about 13% as a lot as comparable fleets. A few of the autos have been so little used that they needed to create a class for them and exclude them from a number of statistics, in any other case issues would have seemed even wonkier. What was the constraint that they used? A automotive needed to be pushed greater than 200 kilometers in 1 / 4 to be included. That’s two kilometers a day.

There was one other tantalizing tidbit from the report on chilly climate efficiency. That’s a trope that’s thrown at battery-electric autos always by gasoline cell and inner combustion proponents.

This slightly busy chart principally says that colder temperatures noticed plummeting gasoline name automobile effectivity. Per the report:

The overall top of the bar within the chart above is the typical variety of refuelings tried every week within the quarters. The blue bar reveals profitable refuelings. The orange bar reveals failed refuelings. In January to March over the 4 years, the typical try and refuel one of many hydrogen vehicles failed multiple in 3 times, requiring an try and refuel at one other time. The ‘good’ quarters nonetheless noticed failures to fill one in six occasions.

This isn’t some uncared for electrical automotive charging level behind a dusty lot with the mistaken charging card or connector. That is the one hydrogen refueling pump in Quebec and it’s on the lot of a gasoline station that’s staffed and pumping gasoline all day. It had the 45 Mirai, the one Nexo, and the roughly 20 different hydrogen gasoline cell vehicles within the metropolis.

This pumping station was constructed particularly for the governmental fleet, and the opposite 20 house owners, whether or not non-public or industrial, have been suckered in with the federal government, one thing that Mirai house owners in California have instructed me makes them remarkably offended. Attempt to do the fitting factor, one thing your elected officers guarantee you is the fitting factor, solely to seek out out that you simply’ve been suckered into an unreliable useless finish.

So sure, along with having just about precisely the identical lack of vary as electrical vehicles, hydrogen vehicles fail to get any vary at pumps when it’s chilly.

You may see this within the declining utilization information from the month-by-month kilometers cart above. There are dips in kilometers pushed within the winter time which are seen. The individuals who had these vehicles accessible realized that it was higher to determine one other strategy to get round slightly than to try to use them when it was chilly. And notice, that is Quebec Metropolis, whose nicknames embody the Metropolis of Snow and the Capital of Winter.

One other chart within the report gives the hours of station unavailability by part that failed. The overall hours add up simply over 11,000 hours of downtime for the 4 years. How a lot is that? Properly, that’s nearly a 3rd of the entire hours in 4 years. I’m fairly positive that a couple of casual chats sprang as much as let individuals in the identical ministries know that the station was down once more and to keep away from utilizing the Mirais in the event that they weren’t full already. Those who drove extra most likely had Quebec’s Centre de gestion de l’équipement roulant (CGER) do the refueling after hours, a service that the group gives for some governmental fleets as required. The particular person being paid to drive vehicles to non-working refueling stations most likely doesn’t care as a lot that the station is useless and is keen to hold round being paid whereas it will get mounted.

Then there’s the price of all of this. The report is slightly absurdly quiet on this. I’ve by no means seen a fleet operator report that doesn’t care deeply about complete price of possession, and there’s precisely zero point out of this. I assume that an earlier model of the report was clear about it, then it went as much as the extent beneath the Sous-ministre adjoint (assistant deputy minister), the place somebody broke out in a chilly sweat and realized how a lot cash they’d wasted, and the way embarrassing it could be given how fully predictable it was.

The one reference to prices within the doc are an estimation of the price of the electrical energy required to fabricate the hydrogen consumed over the course of the 4 years. At Quebec industrial charges, it was assumed to be about CA$9.10 per kilogram, with the electrical energy getting used on the refueling station to electrolyze water and saved in tanks at 350 and 850 bar. In fact, 850 bar requires about 5 kWh of electrical energy for compression of a kilogram, in order that’s one other 10% on that price.

As an apart, the one excellent news story on this total debacle is that Quebec’s grid electrical energy is now at 1.2 grams CO2e per kWh, about one of the best on the planet. Because of this, every kilogram of hydrogen had a carbon depth of about 0.07 kg CO2e, which is definitely inexperienced hydrogen. That is value calling out, because it’s extremely uncommon for really inexperienced hydrogen and even electrolyzed hydrogen from a dirtier grid being utilized in these hydrogen trials. What inexperienced hydrogen is being pumped into Barcelona’s hydrogen buses, when they’re working in any respect, is created from Spanish electrical energy which averages 175 grams CO2e, for a carbon debt for hydrogen of just about 10 kg CO2e per kg H2. Sure, that’s worse than diesel buses. The Plug Energy electrolyzer on the Amazon’s Colorado distribution heart for its gasoline cell forklifts is even worse when it comes to carbon depth.

The vitality in a kilogram of hydrogen is the same as a US gallon, that fully nonsensical measure used nowhere else on the planet, and immaterial in Canada, in fact. As a bit of historic notice, the dimensions of the US gallon originates from the English wine gallon, which was outlined in 1707 throughout the reign of Queen Anne. The English wine gallon was established as 231 cubic inches, a dimension derived from the amount of a cylinder 7 inches in diameter and 6 inches in top. This quantity was used to measure wine and different liquids and ultimately turned the idea for the US gallon. (Sure, I proceed to be bemused that the USA clings to the skirts of the British Empire on this means.)

In models that the remainder of the world makes use of, a kilogram of hydrogen has the vitality of three.785 liters of gasoline. A gasoline cell drivetrain is extra environment friendly than the extremely inefficient inner combustion drivetrain present in vehicles and lightweight autos traditionally. Because of this, the precise ahead movement per kilogram is about double what that means. Let’s name it equal to eight liters of gasoline. Proper now, the price of a liter of gasoline in Quebec Metropolis is about CA$1.50, so on a ahead motion foundation, an affordable value on the pump could be round CA$12.00 per kg for fleet working price parity.

That would appear to counsel that the CA$9.1 per kilogram price of producing the hydrogen was lots lower than the price of gasoline for an equal fleet, though the report doesn’t go as far as to say that explicitly. The aforementioned lack of effectivity within the winter by itself meant winter prices of gasoline have been above gasoline prices, to not point out far above the prices of simply utilizing the electrical energy in electrical vehicles.

However the CA$5.2 million spent on the station was largely funded by the federal government instantly, with CA$2.9 million from Transition énergétique Québec (TEQ) and one other CA$1 million from Pure Sources Canada (NRCan), for CA$3.9 million, a full three-quarters of the associated fee. Apparently, Air Liquide, a worldwide chief in gases and associated applied sciences and providers, constructed and operated it in partnership with the federal government of Quebec underneath the auspices of the non-profit umbrella advocacy group Hydrogène Québec. Presumably Air Liquide ponied up a lot of the CA$1.3 million within the useless hope that they’d have the ability to hook the federal government on hydrogen in perpetuity, so it was a great advertising expenditure.

However let’s fake that the CA$3.9 million was amortized throughout the governmental use of hydrogen, with a 40% uplift for the small variety of non-public autos. The overall consumption of hydrogen within the governmental fleet was simply over 6,100 kilograms. When you’re pondering that CA$3.9 million is a fairly giant quantity and 6,100 is a fairly small quantity, your mathematical insights could be spot on.

Assuming the uplift for the opposite 20 or so hydrogen autos in Quebec Metropolis, that’s round CA$500 per kilogram of hydrogen over the 4 years. Instantly, that CA$9.10 doesn’t look almost nearly as good. The CA$1.3 million from Air Liquide was about CA$150 per kilogram, so I’m fairly positive that they now not take into account it a worthwhile advertising line merchandise.

Then, in fact, there’s the price of the entire individuals making an attempt to refuel and being unable to refuel as a result of the station was out of service a 3rd of the time. Then there’s the price of fixing the station all of the occasions that it broke. In contrast to California’s gasoline cell buses, that are out of service 50% extra of the time than their diesel buses, the Mirais have been pretty dependable, partly as a result of they have been barely used, and naturally they gave all of them again final December, so don’t have any ongoing liabilities on their books.

The Quebec hydrogen mild automobile four-year program shouldn’t have been run. Outcomes have been accessible from fleets globally that made it clear it could be an costly failure. The efficient prices of CA$500 per kilogram of hydrogen, equal to about CA$63.00 per liter of gasoline, have been fully predictable. The report is an train in face-saving, containing numerous particulars, avoiding numerous extra pertinent particulars like context, and refusing to attract the apparent conclusions, that hydrogen floor autos aren’t remotely match for function.

The one excellent news is that it’s over and unlikely to be repeated. Not less than, in Quebec. The Odyssey of the Hydrogen fleet retains being restaged in cities around the globe, every new venue refusing to study the teachings of each different venue during the last quarter century, you can’t flip a revenue on this tragicomedy.