Hydrogen Dreams

It’s a Gas Gas Gas

California has long been a couple steps or leaps ahead of much of the rest of the country regarding innovation and her approach to environmental issues.

Part of that is informed by the state’s numbers:

• most people

• highest gross domestic product

• highest personal income

• most venture capital deals made

• second highest value in exports (shout out here to Texas, which leads that arena by $300 billion)

(Some asterisks here: California is also first in the nation in bankruptcies, first in the number of computers with dial-up internet access, and 48th in the nation in production workers percent distribution.)

Cumulatively, California has the power, money, and momentum to set standards for herself, and that tends to influence the rest of the country, be it through adoption or blowback (i.e., miles per gallon benchmarks).

So, when news breaks that the “first commercial hydrogen fuel station for big-rig trucks in the U.S. is up and running at the Port of Oakland, a baby step toward what hydrogen proponents see as a clean new future for long-haul trucking,” people tend to listen.

Here’s how the Los Angeles Times frames it:

“The small station, now serving 30 hydrogen fuel-cell trucks, could mark the start of a nationwide network for fuel-cell truck refueling. It could also flop.”

Yes, there’s a huge gulf between a nationwide network and a flop. As with so much of innovation, you never know until you send it out and see what sticks. That’s why there’s the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. And hundreds of conventions in hundreds of industries in dozens of cities every year. And, for that matter, someone setting up an exploratory committee to gauge whether or not to run for public office.

Here’s the rub on hydrogen: producing it right now is itself a dirty process that generates greenhouse-gas emissions, which is counterproductive. It’s expensive. And there’s no guarantee that it’ll reach a critical mass sufficient enough to encourage competition, traditionally brings the price down.

And yet, California will outlaw new diesel truck sales by 2036. There’s the red line, and the Golden State has 12 years to find a lasting way to prevent stepping over it.