Shell Is Immediately Closing All Of Its California Hydrogen Stations | The oil giant is one of the big players in hydrogen globally, but even it can’t make its operations work here.::The oil giant is one of the big players in hydrogen globally, but even it can’t make its operations work here. All seven of its California stations will close immediately.
Hydrogen will have an important role to play in the future of green energy simply because it’s a portable high density fuel, that doesn’t require a battery to work.
The trade-off is that hydrogen takes more energy to create, then you get back. That doesn’t make a lot of sense when you’re using fossil fuels, but it would in a future with significant amounts of excess green energy e.g. wind, solar, fusion, etc.
“Doesn’t require a battery to work” is a fairly meaningless upside when it does require a fuel cell, a moisture exhaust, and a cannister of compressed, flammable gas.
You can mine hydrogen. They recently found some pretty large reserves of pure-ish hydrogen underground.