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California on Track to Have 100 Retail Hydrogen Fuel Stations by 2023

Electric cars are all the rage among futurists and politicians, but don’t sleep on the idea that hydrogen fuel cell cars and trucks will not put up a fight for environmentally-friendly dominance in the market.
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Photo: Nexo
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The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has just put out a report that predicts continued - if slow - expansion of hydrogen infrastructure throughout the state.

According to CARB, that adoption is running ahead of projections and despite some setbacks, the report states that the development of the California hydrogen network will soon bounce back from a slowdown imposed by the effects of the health crisis. The report does say that the development of the projects slowed down in 2020.

CARB says that by 2026, California will sport more than 176 retail hydrogen stations (100 of which by 2023), and that number is said to be sufficient to support approximately 250,000 fuel-cell vehicles.

That said, the report also points up the fact that the number of stations built (and the number of vehicles sold) are consistently trending below projections. In California, stakeholders and manufacturers have failed to deliver on promised targets for hydrogen stations, and they’ve been missing the boat for decades.

California drivers of fuel-cell-powered cars have also seen repeated station outages due to shortages of locally available hydrogen. One fuel-cell trade group has proposed building 200 stations in California by 2035, and that is meant to feed a fleet of 70,000 fuel-cell trucks. Separately, Hyundai has plans in the offing to test a fleet of 30 trucks in California beginning in 2023.

A bipartisan infrastructure bill includes a proposal for "hydrogen hubs" meant to accelerate the buildout of stations.

The recent announcement of a process called ‘chemical looping,’ promised to help transform various waste products by using iron sulfide with just trace amounts of molybdenum as an additive, and innovations like the SULGEN process, could help with the supply issues.
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