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Earth Power

America's First Big-Rig Hydrogen Fuel Station Opens in California (msn.com) 131

Posted by EditorDavid from the truckin' dept.
Oakland, California is now home to "the first commercial hydrogen fuel station for big-rig trucks in the United States," according to the Los Angeles Times — serving 30 hydrogen fuel-cell trucks.

The newspaper says the facility "could mark the start of a nationwide network for fuel-cell truck refueling. It could also flop." Hydrogen fuel is expensive — as much as four times more expensive than gasoline or diesel fuel. The fuel cells, which drive electric motors to drive the truck, are enormously expensive as well.... The vehicles themselves are expensive too. Both battery electric and hydrogen fuel-cell trucks can cost three times as much or more than a $120,000 diesel truck. Those buying the trucks can qualify for state and federal subsidies to make up most of the upfront costs.
But government regulations may spark some demand: New diesel truck sales will be outlawed in California by 2036. Only zero-tailpipe-emission new trucks will be allowed. Already, zero-emission requirements are in place for trucks that enter ocean ports. And only two technologies are available to achieve that goal: battery electric trucks and hydrogen fuel-cell trucks. "We believe a good portion of those will be hydrogen vehicles," said Matt Miyasato, chief of public policy for hydrogen fuel distributor FirstElement Fuel. FirstElement, through its True Zero brand fueling stations, is the largest hydrogen vehicle fuel distributor in the U.S...

Battery electric is gaining a strong foothold in the medium-sized delivery truck market, but hydrogen could have a leg up for long-haul trucking. While a fuel cell is comparable in size to a diesel engine, a battery big enough for long-haul trucks adds weight and size and cuts down on the total freight load the truck can deliver. And while an electric truck battery can take hours to recharge, the refill time for hydrogen is more comparable to filling up with diesel fuel.
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America's First Big-Rig Hydrogen Fuel Station Opens in California More

America's First Big-Rig Hydrogen Fuel Station Opens in California

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  • Hydrogen is energy storage... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Monday April 29, 2024 @06:45AM (#64432350)
    ...so where does the energy come from? Is it being made from fossil fuels or renewables? The answer appears to be...

    "Making hydrogen itself is now a dirty, greenhouse-gas-generating process, although green hydrogen production is an emerging option, though even more expensive."

    So is this just another case of taxpayers subsidising the fossil fuels industries & carrying on polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases?

    • The only answer to this is high temperature steam reformation by a nuclear reactor - none of which exist to produce hydrogen at the moment. The super high temperatures rip water apart into hydrogen and oxygen gas and a reactor of such design could produce gases continuously during one fueling assuming no shutdowns occur.

      Marry that with the ever elusive fusion for a true “emissions-free” design. Of course there are always emissions, or end products, but a fusion reactor won’t produce any

      • At that point, wouldn't it be more efficient (in "useful motive power per dollar", taking into account both the reactor side and the truck side) to use the nuclear reactor to generate electricity, then use that electricity to charge batteries?

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          Hydrogen is very light, even lithium batteries are not. Fuel beats, storage in terms of efficiency unless the conversion of fuel to energy is fairly poor, as does happen to be the case with combustion engines, both internal and external.

          The real question we should be asking is does end-use efficiency even matter. Remember "to cheap to meter"? If we really could find a low impact way make all the electricity we could possibly use, then we would be free to be as wasteful with it as we like in terms of doing

          • Re:The only answer (Score:5, Insightful)

            by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Monday April 29, 2024 @08:02AM (#64432524)
            Too cheap to meter? We're talking the capitalist, opportunistic, USA here. Producing anything for the greater good without turning a handsome profit just isn't the 'Murican way!

            • Uh, excuse me, we in the U.S. already enjoy 'too cheap to meter' cell phone minutes...

          • have you seen H2 tanks? They are not light... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Lavandera ( 7308312 ) on Monday April 29, 2024 @08:10AM (#64432544)

            H2 is not light - it requires heavy tanks to store... And transmission is much worse than for electricity... and there are much higher losses on conversion...

            But the most important point - we do not have any cheap green H2 technology at the moment...

            At the moment biofuel is much cheaper than green H2...

          • Nuclear power was sold with the lie "too cheap to meter" in the first place, that's literally where that saying comes from.

            It was a lie then, and it's a lie now.

        • Re:The only answer (Score:5, Informative)

          by Firethorn ( 177587 ) on Monday April 29, 2024 @09:47AM (#64432750) Homepage Journal

          When I did the analysis, using the electricity with conventional battery powered EVs did make better fiscal sense. It's a back of napkin analysis, of course.
          1. You can make electricity from nuclear power, especially if you're using a GenIV reactor, with relatively high efficiency. Current nuclear is around 30% due to Carnot cycle limitations - you can only keep water liquid at limited temperatures, even at extreme pressures. If you switch to molten salt/metal, you can drastically increase temperatures, which increases electricity efficiency - you go from 30% to 50% (roughly). Which means you go from 3GWt producing 1GWe to 2GWt producing 1 GWe, meaning you go from having to dispose of 2GW of heat down to 1GW. You just cut your cooling demands in half.
          Anyways, you want the new reactor designs if you're going to be producing hydrogen because the current plants don't get hot enough. But they can produce hydrogen using mostly heat. WNA [world-nuclear.org] predicts "50% or more", up from 25% current, using "direct thermochemical production" - which requires over 1000C. Given that current reactors are limited to around 300C...
          Conclusion: Hydrogen and Electrical production efficiency around equal.
          2. Compression: This is something that electricity doesn't have, but you're going to use around 8% of the energy potential of the hydrogen just to compress it: ~2.6 kWh/kg. There's 33.33 kWh/kilogram of Hydrogen. So even if you're using direct thermo from nuclear to produce the hydrogen, you're still going to want a turbine to produce electricity just to power pumps to render the hydrogen into a practical form for storage (though I suppose you could also use direct mechanical from steam turbines for that, but electrical is more controllable). That's 1k bar, you'd save some energy, most hydrogen cars are 700 bar, but that raises a question: Do you compress more to make shipping more compact and not need pumps at the station, or do you pressurize to 700 bar, and now need some sort of pumping system at fueling points... I used 1k bar because that's what the internet popped out when I searched.
          3. Distribution: With electricity you can use the existing power grid, though at some point you obviously want to beef it up. With hydrogen production from nuclear power, you'd need to ship it everywhere. Shipping hydrogen is a pain because it likes to leak out of everything and anything. This means either hydrogen trucks or piping. While you can apparently retask some natural gas piping with minimal refits at acceptable leak rates*, it still probably means a lot of new piping, as opposed to just upgrading electrical lines more and faster.
          4. Use: If you think batteries are expensive, wait until you see fuel cell prices. Sure, you can use an ICE with hydrogen, but then you're down at ICE efficiency levels. Worried about rare earth use in batteries, fuel cells use the really pricy stuff, and they have limited lifespans as well. Overall efficiency with hydrogen is also less than battery. Which, if you want to bring that up, means you still need a traction battery, like with a hybrid car, because otherwise you're not storing braking energy to really boost efficiency.
          5. Weight: Sure, the hydrogen is the highest energy density stuff by mass going. It's also one of the least energy dense ones by volume. And getting the volume down enough to be practical requires high pressure - 700 bar for hydrogen cars. A PWR reactor is a bit over 200 Bar. You end up with the same problem as batteries - the storage vessel ends up weighing enough to be a significant factor in mileage, and that weight doesn't really drop as you drive.

          *Tiny leaks aren't actually a fire hazard; the hydrogen disperses too fast.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by amp001 ( 948513 )
            Regarding #2, my understanding is the current fueling stations all have to have compressors between a larger storage tank (that may start out at high pressure when it's filled, but will drop as it is used) and a smaller filler tank that is higher than the destination pressure. This small filler tank drains quickly while filling a vehicle, so even if the first vehicle can be filled quickly, the next one in line has to wait for the compressor to repressurize the filler tank. In short, compressor energy is req

            • I was aware that there's pumps in filling stations currently for hydrogen, but I wasn't aware that they had an intermediate tank that could delay the fueling of the next car. That could be solved, of course, by delivering higher pressure hydrogen more often, by including a bladder that you can fill up to keep the larger tank at pressure - but that would increase maintenance costs as well.

              I was NOT figuring on the hydrogen fuel tank having a seriously limited life necessitating regular replacement. Replaci

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by amp001 ( 948513 )
                Oof, I wasn't aware the fuel cell wear involved actually losing the catalysts. That does make recycling the fuel cells a lot less useful.

                Fuel cell vehicles typically do include a battery. This is necessary because the peak current from the fuel cell stack isn't enough by itself to, e.g., get started going up a hill, or just from a dead stop on flat ground with a heavy load, or accelerating down the on-ramp of a freeway. This does mean they can take advantage of regenerative braking, too. But, that also mean
      • Is this "steam reformation" even a thing? It strikes me you would need plasma temperatures. Then you would still have to separate the ions, which you could do with electric or magnetic fields, and let them recombine in to H2 and O2 and maybe you could recover some energy some of the energy it took to ionize atoms in the first place. How is this (if it is even possible) better than electrolysis?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by grimr ( 88927 )

          Yes it is a thing, but not used for nuclear production of hydrogen. Steam reformation uses 700C–1,000C steam to get hydrogen from a methane source like natural gas.

          Nuclear uses electrolysis to produce Hydrogen.

        • Steam reformation of methane is the primary method of producing hydrogen for things like rockets today. And all the other industrial uses of hydrogen.

          So "steam reformation" very much exists.

          Now, steam reformation to convert H2O into H2 and O2? As Londo Mollari says, that basically doesn't exist today, at least not outside of laboratories. It's a relatively simple process if you can get the temperature high enough.

          This process would normally use some electrolysis, which generally would give you the H2 and

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by grimr ( 88927 )

        Steam reformation of hydrogen uses methane. Nuclear reactors would produce hydrogen via electrolysis.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )
      Your point is valid. However, there are two counterpoints that bode well for current and future deployment:
      1) If nothing else, hydrogen vehicles (like BEVs) relocate the pollution from many mobile sources - often making their way through historically disadvantaged communities - to several large-scale stationary locations. Those large locations already have pollution controls for substantially reducing or eliminating things that diesel trucks produce in spades: soot (PM2.5), NOx, ozone. And any upgrades
      • And how far do you think these two arguments support spending that much money for something that's barely arguably not as bad as what we've already got & likely to accelerate global warming if it's successful?
        • That's the beauty of the free market; we can try many things, the risk is privatized (if we let it, instead of subsidizing [energy.gov] and externalizing the costs), so the public doesn't have much to lose.

          Internalizing the costs isn't just making the capitalists pay for the investment, it's also about making them pay for the externalities. Pollute the air and cause sickness? Tax that. Or set up a carbon credit marketplace, that's much more effective than straight taxation; that encourages new technologies instead of j

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by CEC-P ( 10248912 )
      Don't forget about the complete lack of energy density compared to an 8-chain hydrocarbon. A thin, single atom gas isn't even going to come close which means limited range, which means targeting semi trucks is the dumbest start ever. What a colossal waste of money!

      • The energy density by volume is bad, but the energy density by weight is not bad at all. That makes it possibly reasonable for aircraft but not for vehicles. My guess is that it's a loser, to be replaced with synthetic hydrocarbons and batteries anyway. That doesn't mean people shouldn't try. It does mean that it should not alter policy at all until it has really visible results. We still need more renewable, more storage, more battery charging points and better transport options like trains.

      • Are you talking about energy density at their respective storage densities? Or at atmospheric pressure? Because you can pack hydrogen really close together under pressure.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Hydrogen won't be a good option for trucks anyway. Batteries are getting cheaper very quickly, and it's easy to make electricity yourself with solar panels. Electricity is everywhere already, and electric trucks already on the market work really well.

      There will be some adjustment for long distance deliveries, that's all. Adjustment for the better, to help slow the race to the bottom for driver's conditions.

    • People seem to forget that a lot of green energy is wasted because the grid is saturated. So wind parks are shut down, and solar panels do nothing.

      Even if making hydrogen is terribly inefficient, 20% efficiency is better than zero.

    • So is this just another case of taxpayers subsidising the fossil fuels industries & carrying on polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases?

      No. Precisely zero hydrogen refueling stations are being run from traditional SMRs which generate the majority of hydrogen in the world today. That would be absurdly unviable given the risk of onsight storage and the cost of transportation. Refueling stations for trucks are the one thing that are pretty much universally green hydrogen due to the low volume production required making it simple enough to run local electrolysers.

      And this station is no different, go look at pictures of it, you can see the elect

  • Meanwhile in British Columbia (Score:5, Interesting)

    by glatiak ( 617813 ) on Monday April 29, 2024 @06:51AM (#64432360)

    There is a small startup in British Columbia that seems to have a much better solution. They replace the engine in a heavy duty truck with a packaged generator, sling batteries under the cab and replace the existing heavy duty axles with powered units. Their background is logging so serious heavy duty stuff. Marketing a conversion kit for regular pickups as well. The space under the hood can be occupied by any sort of power generation, Have watched a few of their videos on Youtube -- I think they may have the right idea for trucking, especially when the going gets tough. I wouldn't want to have a fuel cell unit parked overnight in the Siera Nevadas.. The firm is called 'Edison Motors'.

    • It would be ironic if "Edison Motors" ate "Tesla Motors'" lunch on big rigs.

      • Why? Edison and Tesla never had beef with each other. Tesla had revered Edison and Edison, in like the one or two times he ever put Tesla's name in writing, seemed to have nothing but good things to say as well.

        (Edison and Westinghouse, however...)
        =Smidge=

    • So... (Score:2)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      ... nstead of using diesel power to drive the wheels directly it drives a generator to create electricity to power the wheels.

      And thats more effiicient how exactly?

      • Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Monday April 29, 2024 @09:23AM (#64432690)

        ... nstead of using diesel power to drive the wheels directly it drives a generator to create electricity to power the wheels.

        And thats more effiicient how exactly?

        Actually, much more efficient.

        Because engines are terrible - the reason we have gearboxes is because you cannot run an engine at multiple speeds efficiently. That's why you have 6, 8, 10, 12, 18 gears - you need to keep the engine in a VERY small power band otherwise it's running at speeds that just are not conducive to efficient operation.

        Of course, you're driving down roads going at whatever speed you like - and electric motors have a very wide power band, which is why basically any EV has a single speed transmission (or direct drive). It's also why EVs have very good low speed torque.

        So you can hook the engine up to a generator, run the engine at its optimal speed, and generate a fixed amount of power. That power can be supplemented by batteries if you need more than what the engine and generator can provide, and it can be diverted to charge the batteries when you need less.

        This also means you don't need a 2500 HP engine in a semi - you can run a much smaller, more efficient 1200HP engine - because if you need peak loads, you run engine plus battery for the litlte time you need it. You're not buying a larger engine than you need for the few times you need it. This makes the whole thing even more efficient.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by glatiak ( 617813 )

        Their configuration of generator==> batteries==>electric motors makes use of the locked rotor torque of electric motors to avoid the oversizing of the power plant (ICEs need to rev to generate power, hence multigear transmissions.) Its a hybrid configuration. So the generator power source can be optimized to spin the generator, which will be much smaller than the power plant of an over the road truck. Or that space could be another battery pack... depends on the workload. If one takes out the battery

      • And thats more effiicient how exactly?

        Gearing. A generator can run continuously at a specific RPM that is optimal. You can very easily vary the power given in an electrical motor because we're pretty darn good at moving electrons. This is the thing about all motors, not just car motors. In an ideal situation you run at a fixed RPM for as long as possible at a specific gear ratio that maximizes the power delivered versus the torque delivered based on application. If you're looking for maximum power, you minimize torque as much as possible.

        E

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by glatiak ( 617813 )

      One small detail that should not be ignored as we rush to embrace yet another idea before its time is that hydrogen does have a few minor drawbacks that will need to be addressed before mobile Hindenburgs become practical.

      - storage is a problem, why rockets use liquid hydrogen and other applications use very high pressure tanks
      - the tiny hydrogen molecule can slip through a lot of substances
      - hydrogen embrittlement is a problem with metals and other materials
      - it takes a long time to fuel up (ask the former

  • Hydrogen is the future and not EV for large trucks. I find it interesting to point out the cost of the H2. Since diesel is now outlawed in California (ha ha ha) there is only one choice and that is hydrogen for large trucks. This holds true for mining, forestry, and other industries that are remote work where there isn't any infrastructure and would require additional expenses of building temporary ones. And of course, you can't build temporary charging stations without the government red tape and money g

    • You are totally wrong.

      H2 has no chance with EVs.

      The cases you mentioned are like 5% of the market and there artificial fuel/biofuel would be much better option than H2.

      Currently H2 is even more dirty than gasoline - there is virtually no green H2 on the market and only such should be allowed.

      Search net what Mirai owners write - they will never buy H2 car again...

      • How about once nuclear power plants can start collecting hydrogen? Someone above mentioned something like that. Would it become green and viable, then?

        • The things you're talking about don't exist yet. There is theory, a few pilot programs using electrolysis powered by nuclear reactors, but the number of nuclear reactors generating hydrogen through thermochemical processes is currently zero. Even if the tech is proven, it takes decades to build a nuclear plant so we're at least 30-40 years out before this becomes a thing.

          We simply can't wait that long. By the time any of that technology actually exists, the entire market will have transitioned to BEV out of

        • BEVs are now and improving every year....

          H2 is nowhere near and Toyota Mirai owners turned from H2 fans into haters - just search the web on the topic...

          H2 is a distraction pushed by Big Oil/Gas allowing them to pump natural gas and slow down BEVs.

          IMHO PHEVs are the dark horse... you use battery for daily commute and gas for occasional long-range drives...

          Also IMO transition should be regulated by taxation - slowly growing taxes on gas and diesel while increasing subsidies for electric cards and home bat

    • Re:EV will never overtatake hydrogen (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Freedom Bug ( 86180 ) on Monday April 29, 2024 @07:35AM (#64432450) Homepage

      Trucking is a super low margin business and fuel is the biggest cost, much more than labor. The trucking companies that force their truckers to waste 10% of their time charging their trucks with cheap electricity will survive, and the companies that use more expensive fuel (aka hydrogen) will go bankrupt.

      • Who is paying for the grid expansion and battery banks at all the charging stations so the trucks can charge at multi-MW?

        • The same people who paid for all the infrastructure you use and benefit from today, but the cost of which is not fully accounted for in your utility bills:

          "Everyone."

          (...and I am okay with that because I enjoy living in a technologically advanced civilization.)
          =Smidge=

        • The same people paying for the gas/diesel transportation, storage, and distribution stations?

          Do you think pioneers just find giant underground fuel tanks and wild-grown gas pumps naturally sprouting along highways?

      • Why charge trucks? Trailers sit in berths for extended periods. Put the battery under the trailer.
        • They could put an extender battery under the trailer for longer range if the rules allow drivers to drive for long periods, the rig will still need a battery.
          • Sure, but a battery that would give just the cab 100 mi range would be a lot different than one hauling a load for hundreds of miles.

    • Nope. Fleet operators can safely maintain a bank of charged batteries and swap them. Five minute operation or less with a properly designed truck. That's based on commonly used technology that exists, with peak storage batteries on the grid already. You can find plenty of qualified technicians to deal with all that. It fits in neatly with various industrial operations that might have other reasons to maintain a bank of batteries in order to smooth out their power consumption and get better electric rat

  • The Mystery of the Soggy Shipment (Score:4, Funny)

    by Pseudonymous Powers ( 4097097 ) on Monday April 29, 2024 @07:39AM (#64432462)

    Zero tailpipe emissions?

    What about water vapor?

    Dear God, what's happening to the water vapor?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jred ( 111898 )
      It's adding to the cloud cover, which will reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the earth, which will cause temperatures to drop, which will plunge us into the next ice age. Then us humans will need to start burning fossil fuels again to drag us out of the ice age, just like we did last time.

  • "White Hydrogen" is the hydrogen that's present in underground deposits. Geologists say that there are enormous amounts waiting to be extracted. If they fix that, then this will all be viable, and competitive even with diesel. The white hydrogen business is just in its early stages though. It's even found underground in France!

    https://www.euronews.com/next/... [euronews.com]

  • The reality of Hydrogen on the ground.. (Score:3)

    by mrspoonsi ( 2955715 ) on Monday April 29, 2024 @08:04AM (#64432526)
    ...is very different, frequently running out of stock, fuel hose stuck on the vehicle and 1 hour to fill a single car at some places. So much so Toyota is facing class action lawsuits on the cars they practically gave away. "The Iwatani hydrogen station is fragile, has only one working pump, and dispenses fuel every 20 minutes. It also has a limit of about one-third of the full tank per fill, so a Mirai driver has to spend one hour at the pump to fill up to 100% if the driver comes to the station with less than 30% in the tank," Benko said. "[Last month] my Mirai completely lost power when I was waiting in line because I had my heater on. I called Mirai’s emergency roadside assistance. The assistance came in an hour and recharged my battery; however, the line moved up only 1 car in that time, so I was still an hour away from getting to the pump." He added, "The whole process of refueling a hydrogen car is plain horrible." https://insideevs.com/news/708... [insideevs.com]

    • Yep. Welcome to the examples of early adoption problems. In the meantime the ISO standards for refueling stations have been updated to address the nozzle freezing issue, and more and more companies are actually buying hydrogen refueling stations which can run with volume. You can build what you want, it's just a question of specifying it. Both the rate of filling for a vehicle as well as the number of vehicles per hour are just items you specify on the PO. Lots of early hydrogen stations were built under th

  • ... and the price of everyday goods sky rockets or they fail to get delivered at all, how do the eco virtue signallers plan on selling that to the general public:?

    A bit of fucking realism is desperately required right now. Electric cars are just about viable as a means of transport, Electric heavy duty trucks are not whether battery or H2 powered and I don't see the laws of physics altering in 12 years time in order to facilitate this situation changing.

    • Actually, I'd argue that "electric heavy duty trucks" range between "drastically more economical than diesel" all the way to "yeah, no."

      When you move to heavy duty equipment, it generally tends to be for very specific tasks, and designed for that exact purpose.
      So, on the "drastically more economical" end, you have that gigantic electric dump truck that never needs charging - it picks up a load up a mountain, regenerative brakes on the way down, and has picked up enough energy from that to go back up afterwa

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        "So, on the "drastically more economical" end, you have that gigantic electric dump truck that never needs charging - it picks up a load up a mountain, regenerative brakes on the way down, and has picked up enough energy from that to go back up afterwards"

        Yes that would work except its usually the other way around - dump truck picks up huge load from bottom of open cast mine and takes it up.

        • Perhaps so, but it's not "that would work", it's "it does work", as in it is operational today.

          Like I said - "designed for that exact purpose".

          And if you're taking huge loads up from an open cast mine, well, I've seen giant conveyors used to do that instead, and you can relatively easily run those off the grid. Avoid having to constantly haul the mass of a truck up out of the pit, just the relatively light conveyor belt - and you even much of the conveyor belt energy back when that portion heads down again

    • ... and the price of everyday goods sky rockets or they fail to get delivered at all, how do the eco virtue signallers plan on selling that to the general public:?

      Didn't stop us when making gasoline policy. I just got back from Louisiana and gas there is literally half the price ($3.15 versus $6.50).

      The connection between setting policy and rising prices is laggy enough that voters don't notice. California is now a nice simmering batch of economic frog stew.

  • Somebody is force-fitting their preferred solution (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Monday April 29, 2024 @09:27AM (#64432698)

    If this made sense, why hasn't this been done on trains? There you have fixed routes and fueling stations, well known fuel requirements, and a vehicle structure that would have little problem adapting to fuel cells over diesel engines.

    I would bet that someone -- probably many someones -- looked at it and realized they would have to buy more diesel fuel than they were currently using.

  • You could chemically bond hydrogen to carbon and combine into long chains so it is a easily handled liquid. It would have great energy density too! Where is my Nobel Prize?

  • ...a battery big enough for long-haul trucks adds weight and size and cuts down on the total freight load the truck can deliver. And while an electric truck battery can take hours to recharge...

    They should use smaller batteries and put a pantograph on the truck so it can recharge on the go.

    • I always thought the best approach for electric long haul would be a battery in the floor of the trailer since they spend so much time sitting at their destination.

  • Fuel up while your load is looted.

  • Hydrogen vehicles weigh less. There's less wear and tear on the roads, and less tire particles left on the road.
  • Pardon my ignorance, but why aren't we using bio-diesel sources, such as used cooking oil? From what I've seen, which is admittedly not all that much, it seems to work with few drawbacks, except for the smell of french fries, if that counts as a drawback. What's the dirty secret I don't know about bio-diesel?

  • And quite possibly the last...

  • Both battery electric and hydrogen fuel-cell trucks can cost three times as much or more than a $120,000 diesel truck. Those buying the trucks can qualify for state and federal subsidies to make up most of the upfront costs.

    The trucks still cost 3x as much as an ICE truck ($360K v $120K), but 2/3rds of the cost is shifted to the taxpayer (you and me, fellow Americans).

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