California Governor orders 5M ZEV target for 2030; more hydrogen fueling and EV charging stations
26 January 2018
California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today signed executive order B-48-18, directing all State entities to work with the private sector and all appropriate levels of government to put at least 5 million zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) on California roads by 2030. Brown had mentioned the 5-million target in his State of the State address earlier this week. (Earlier post.) The state’s current target, set by Brown in 2012, is 1.5 million ZEVs by 2025.
Brown is also proposing a new eight-year initiative to continue the state’s clean vehicle rebates and spur more infrastructure investments. This $2.5-billion initiative will help bring 200 hydrogen fueling stations and 250,000 zero-emission vehicle chargers, including 10,000 direct current fast chargers, to California by 2025.
ZEV technologies include hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), which include both pure battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). According to the Auto Alliance ZEV sales dashboard, as of the end of October 2017, California had 176,681 battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles—i.e., fully zero tailpipe emissions vehicles—on its roads. When plug-in hybrids are added, that brings the total to 337,483 units.
The order also directs State entities to continue to partner with regional and local governments to streamline zero-emission vehicle infrastructure installation processes wherever possible. As part of this effort, the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development will publish a Plug-in Charging Station Development Guidebook and update the 2015 Hydrogen Station Permitting Guidebook.
Other specified actions for the state in the executive order include:
Updating the 2016 Zero-Emission Vehicle Action plan to help expand private investment in zero-emission vehicle infrastructure, particularly in low income and disadvantaged communities.
Recommending actions that boost zero-emission vehicle infrastructure to strengthen the economy and create jobs in the State of California.
Recommending ways to expand zero-emission vehicle infrastructure through the Low Carbon Fuel Standard Program.
Supporting and recommending policies and actions that make it easier for people to install electric vehicle chargers in their homes and businesses.
Ensuring electric vehicle charging and hydrogen fueling are affordable and more accessible to all drivers.
This latest action builds on past efforts to boost zero-emission vehicles, including: legislation signed last year and in 2014 and 2013; adopting the 2016 Zero-Emission Vehicle Plan and the Advanced Clean Cars program; hosting a Zero-Emission Vehicle Summit; launching a multi-state ZEV Action Plan; co-founding the International ZEV Alliance; and issuing Executive Order B-16-12 in 2012 to help bring 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles to California by 2025.
The Governor also detailed the new plan for investing $1.25 billion in cap-and-trade auction proceeds to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve public health and the environment.
California Climate Investments projects include affordable housing, renewable energy, public transportation, zero-emission vehicles, environmental restoration, more sustainable agriculture and recycling, among other projects. At least 35% of these investments are made in disadvantaged and low-income communities.
A hand to California for the continued promotion of BEVs/FCEVs + charging facilities/H2 stations.
An accelerated program to put more e-buses and FC-buses in operation would also help to reduce pollution and GHGs.
The same could be done for light and heavy trucks?
Posted by: HarveyD | 26 January 2018 at 04:30 PM
Hydrogen is gasoline and diesel in a different form; if it catches on as a fuel for automobiles, it will take huge quantities of fossil fuel stock, burned in the air by the polluting process of reforming(refining) into hydrogen, to satisfy the needs of the Nation and World. It's gasoline 2 all over again. Enough hydrogen to meet the needs of this country can not be supplied by electrolysis and this is proven in the laboratories every time the cost of the product come into play...electrolysis is a false deflection argument by fossil fuel interest to keep their hydrogen idea front and center and to slow the transition to clean energy,
The compelling advantage electricity, created by solar, wind and hydro has, is it's local and the fuel source creates very little pollution, if any at all.
Posted by: Lad | 26 January 2018 at 08:38 PM
Lad;
Continually restating something which you know to be false does not make it true.
By mandate 33% of all the hydrogen for transport comes from and will continue to come from renewable sources in California.
Are you ignorant of that fact, and know nothing at all of the subject you are declaiming on, or are you deliberately uttering falsehoods?
Posted by: Davemart | 27 January 2018 at 01:52 AM
Davemart, that leaves 2/3 to come from fossil sources, and who's to say that the 1/3 can even be maintained if the FCEV fleet grows from 1000 to 100,000?
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 27 January 2018 at 07:36 AM
EP:
I am not interested in debate or discussion with you.
I suggest you look at the publicly available documents outlining resources available at the DOE and other places, which show plenty of them.
None of that anyway changes the fact that Lad continually and wilfully continues to utter falsehoods that the hydrogen comes solely from fossil fuels in spite of repeatedly being given the links to the correct information.
Posted by: Davemart | 27 January 2018 at 08:05 AM
You can't fix ignorant egos.
Posted by: SJC | 27 January 2018 at 09:19 AM
Davemart:
What is your tie with hydrogen that you feel you must defend it to the point of being obnoxious? You are the one propagating falsehoods, not I.
As of 2015, 95% of hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels:
https://www.planete-energies.com/en/medias/close/hydrogen-production
Posted by: Lad | 27 January 2018 at 12:25 PM
Lad:
What is your obsession with attacking electric cars with on board generation of electricity to the point of making deliberately false and misleading comments when you have been offered accurate information countless times?
Hydrogen for refining is almost all from NG reforming, although trials are being made for instance in Rotterdam to change that.
Hydrogen for transport which is what we are discussing here is a very different matter, 33% of it by mandate in California and in some of the Scandinavian countries is 100% from renewables.
In addition Toyota is using biogas to power their semis in the Port of Los Angeles.
Posted by: Davemart | 27 January 2018 at 01:02 PM
Here is an analysis of resources for hydrogen production in the US, including from biomass, wind and solar:
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/55626.pdff
The resources are clearly enormous.
Reforming NG should not be regarded as equivalent to electricity production either in the potential to reduce GHG emissions, as the emissions of CO2 can be very pure and ideal for cheap sequestration or use to pump out oil reservoirs etc:
https://ac.els-cdn.com/S1876610209008601/1-s2.0-S1876610209008601-main.pdf?_tid=a1ead4fa-03a7-11e8-8f6e-00000aab0f27&acdnat=1517088094_ab67120c90ea5e4f5e36b3fc458d1a75
Posted by: Davemart | 27 January 2018 at 01:21 PM
I’m going to do my part moving toward the Governor’s 5m ZEV target by picking up a Tesla Model 3 on Monday. Will spend the next year driving it all over the US and letting other people drive it too, as part of the Electric Car Guest Drive.
Send me an email if you’d like an invitation to drive my Model 3. There is no cost.
chris@...
Posted by: electric-car-insider.com | 27 January 2018 at 04:42 PM
Then stop replying to me. I am not going to stop analyzing and rebutting anything I find questionable, and that includes any and all statements by you. You can either debate me or let me have the last word. Suck it up, buttercup. Or should I delete the last two words of the previous sentence?
I suggest you stop handwaving and
- link the documents AND
- quote the exact language which is on point
Nothing less qualifies as support for your claims.I didn't quote Lad on the 1/3 claim. I quoted you, and he's solid on his 95% figure; HE supplied a source, YOU did not. Most of the remaining 5% is probably from bulk electrolysis to make e.g. sodium hydroxide. We cannot assume that the energy supply for this electrolysis is zero-carbon, let alone "renewable" by the current narrow definition thereof. Neither can we assume that this can be scaled to any significant degree. BOTH criteria must be satisfied to have "renewable hydrogen" as the basis of our transportation network.
Davemart, WHY do you have to obfuscate what we already understand as "HFCV" when we are talking about the source and scalability of that very H? Throwing fog into the argument which was previously clear shows intent to deceive.
The reason you don't intend to debate or discuss with me is now laid bare. I'm too good at exposing your agenda. Frankly, you should retire right here. Your mission has failed, you should go home.
Why do you think a mere 33% is adequate? Do you know the most likely source of that 33%? It will almost certainly be base-loaded electrolyzers powered mostly by fossil fuels, but greenwashed "renewable" by purchase of renewable energy certificates in the amount of MWh they consume. Most of the actual "RE" will be produced and consumed elsewhere, but through the fiction of REC's its consumers will be designated "dirty" and Californians "clean".
If you won't admit what a tiny fraction of total emissions that represents, and how un-scalable it is, you are either a paid propagandist or intellectually beyond hope. We need a 90+% solution and fast. Fractional percents here and there are between trivia and enemy propaganda if put forth as actual fixes.
I suggest deleting the final "f".
The first thing I noticed in the glossary was "MTU", so I went searching for it. The map on page 23 shows some very limited areas. The Marcellus shale area is NOT shaded in blue, despite the high radon content of natural gas from the Marcellus proving that there's a lot of uranium in it. There's a large amount of uranium and thorium in REE deposits and coal ash dumps (during the Manhattan project, some lignite deposits were mined, burned and the ash captured for uranium ore). "Thorium" appears nowhere in the document.
In short, your cite cannot be trusted on some of the issues on which you're relying on it. The omissions which riddle it prove it was written with an agenda and is far from truthful.
FWIW, the achievable burnup of uranium in available-technology reactors is not 45 GWd(t)/MT LEU; it's around 84000 TJ/kg or almost 100 billion GWd(t)/ton natural uranium, about 200x as much as the enriched uranium derived from it (which includes stored depleted uranium). The current inventory of DU of over 800,000 tons in the US alone could power the country for several HUNDRED years without mining another gram.
But quoting from your source (p. 11):
It lists fecking coal?! Coal is not remotely renewable, CCS is barely in use, and the failure of Kemper suggests that it has no further markets let alone being scalable.
Honestly, Davemart, you need to (a) read your sources skeptically and (b) change your positions accordingly. You fail at both.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 27 January 2018 at 06:24 PM
EP:
As others here have noted, your childish ill manners put you outside the bounds of adult discussion.
I can't be bothered to read your lengthy list of prejudice, let alone reply to it.
Grow up and join the adults.
Posted by: Davemart | 28 January 2018 at 01:46 AM
Feigning indignation to avoid trying to rebut the irrefutable.
This is the level of dishonesty you've descended to. Time to retire.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 28 January 2018 at 03:53 AM
So, I would wager that the same electricity used for creating hydrogen would be the same energy used to go into BEVs. The sources are probably a wash then. "Big Oil wins"
people come on here and suggest drastic social change in the form of suggesting oil be phased out with a vice tax with BEVs being an alternative to our oil consumption, and it has to be done quickly and by force no matter the social and economic cost. I bring up the possible repercussions such as the mass majority cannot afford a car that parodies a gasoline car, the mass majority need a car to get to work, and a simple plugin electric isn't going to cut it yet, people won't be able to afford to consume goods.
I am met with people need to move to the city, the government should subsidize lower income individuals, and people need to change thier lifestyles in a severe way.
BEVs and FCs will become parody to ICEs over time. We will get to a renewable future eventually, we don't need to force it, we are trending towards it.
We can only power battery electrics with electricity, but where we get hydrogen can come from many sources.
I think hydrogen from electrolysis is probably not how we should use the electricity. Natural gas can be captured from several sources, even from non renewable sources it has the very potential of being greener than our current grid today powering a BEV, using advanced processes (which are still in the lab).
Assuming these technologies work as described, what does it matter if we emit some CO2 to suppress the entire emissions of our entire road going fleet?
Also, other harmful emissions like HCs, PM, NOx and various carcinogens come from ICEs. Fuel Cells AND BEVs can help displace this. CO2 isn't our only concern.
Posted by: CheeseEater88 | 28 January 2018 at 06:26 AM
Have you forgotten how many sources we can get electricity from? There's also a major efficiency hit in going from electricity to hydrogen and back. Hydro, nuclear, wind, geothermal and solar are practically useless for making hydrogen... but Greens want us to use only #1 and #3-5.
I've done some investigating down that road. Sources like landfill gas turn out to be pitifully tiny compared to our needs. (As in, the King County WA landfill that's touted as producing lots of LFG energy produces barely enough methane to fuel the equivalent of a couple of jetliners a day.) Continuing to use hydrocarbons OR hydrogen means keeping the fossil fool providers in business, and that's what they're counting on.
And that's why I find Davemart's omissions, evasions and refusals so damning. He's using the Greenwasher playbook.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 28 January 2018 at 10:38 AM
If it weren't for you two arguing, most of us probably wouldn't be so well informed from your differing points of views.
We have a lot of issues in the States as it pertains to our energy consumption and transmission. I don't think we can be idealists, not yet anyway. There is always something better than what we have now, but to reach out and grasp at extremes of what could be instead of working towards gradual and consistent improvement isn't going to net the results any faster.
We as a nation need to bite the bullet on carbon neutral power generation. I am not talking dams, or wind, or solar(I really don't like dams). We need a baseload of Nuclear, and Geothermal. Both we can do at scale to power a large portion of the United States. The government needs to step in and raise funds for secure power generation. If the scale of these plants are big enough, and we bother updating our infrastructure, we could feasibly power most of our country from a handful of carbon neutral plants. It might take high tension DC lines, and some sort of on demand system (like dispatchable H2 to power plants with battery backup, as they can be almost instant).
I think H2 should come from methane or natural gas. I don't care if its from renewables, the notion of big brother, oil, battery, or what have you is disingenuous. Its the damn retailers that really hit you below the belt, I've seen 200% markup on gasoline for a few weeks when we had oil glut. I had information on the wholesale price to the stations.
The reason I think we should get it from natural gas now, and in the future is we have technology coming out that will change the efficiency and fast. It would be more energy efficient to run a car on hydrogen, than straight BEV, if the following was built:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/11/20171120-coorstek.html
On top of that, the US has many uses for natural gas, and we are a net exporter already, we won't stop drilling or fracking because all our vehicles are electric. We frankly will never stop. We can only hope to use less of it. Oil/Hydrocarbons are an amazing substance, we frankly cannot live without it, but we don't need to burn it for power or transportation at the rates we do.
We would need to have an additional 102,000 tonnes/day of hydrogen for all the cars in the US(255 million) to run on if such a thing were to occur. The unique thing is that what I listed above in that website is scalable from 10kg/hr to however big they decide they can make it, which means in most of our stations could generate onsite without much change in infrastructure to the building.
There is this process too:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/11/20171117-ucsb.html
similar but with an added benefit of making pure carbon as byproduct.
Hydrogen has many uses, and likely we would never use more than 1000 tonnes/day for transportation in the US, but other consumers of it would easily surpass what is needed for transportation. We currently make about 25,000 tonnes/day with methane steam reforming.
Steam reforming is very wasteful, the new processes in the articles I linked will likely take the cost from $4.50 a kg, below $2/kg., or even lower if its made on site at a station. At $4/kg H2 isn't that far off from the cost to run a gasoline car, if it falls below $2, we could really see hydrogen take off.
The two technologies I listed could really tip the scales towards a hydrogen future happening sooner than later. Before this, it was more of a optimistic view point, and partly a necessity because of the limitations of batteries in cost/size/weight. These bring hydrogen from obscurity to disruptive.
Posted by: CheeseEater88 | 28 January 2018 at 12:58 PM
Future mass produced, factory built, transportable H2 production units/stations could become one of the most efficient future solution.
A complete small H2 production station could be reduced to 3 or 4 standard containers, easily transportable by ships, rails and or trucks?
Those small H2 production units could be delivered and installed in as many places where clean electricity (Hydro-Wind-Solar etc) exist or could be built, to meet local H2 requirements.
Like with APPLE and many vehicle manufacturers, ongoing R&D could be carried out in Industrial developed countries, but mass production could be done in Asia, Africa, Central & South America and anywhere labour cost is lower.
Wind-Solar-Hydro REs are almost free, specially during off peak demand hours (during 18 to 19 hours/day) on week days and almost 24 fours/day on weekends. Clean REs are (or could be) plentiful in most places to produce clean, storable, transportable, low cost H2?
Posted by: HarveyD | 29 January 2018 at 09:03 AM
The problem I have with "clean hydrogen" is than it uses electric power that otherwise could be used more efficiently. The round trip efficiency for electrolysis, compression and back to electricity via fuel cell is 25-30% and with battery storage, it is probably around 90%, so the efficiency is about 1/3. California still gets a large amount or it's electricity from coal which is mostly burned in Nevada and Utah so they import electricity and export pollution -- clever. And I live downwind of some of this pollution.
Posted by: sd | 29 January 2018 at 10:29 AM
You might notice that Davemart is not arguing any more. He's refusing to reply with substance while continuing to claim he's right. He's not even supplying hyperlinks to whatever convinced him of his position.
Don't forget storage, and your definition of "energy" appears to be limited to electricity. In 2016, the electric power sector accounted for only 39% of total US primary energy consumption. One of the invisible issues we have is that our system relies upon and requires vast amounts of energy storage. Most of that storage is currently supplied by fossil fuels. This is one of the poison pills in the "all RE" scams put forth by Jacobson and the like; their gas-mogul backers know that nothing in the pipeline is able to replace the stored energy in their shale leases.
Except ONE thing: uranium.
Carbon-neutral (or negative) energy, period. You can't leave that other 61%.
Yes, this problem is big. It is STAGGERINGLY big. Most people can't get their minds around it because they can't grasp scientific notation, and a lot of the people who can still fail. But Nature will not be denied. We work by the laws of physics, or nothing works at all.
The scale of the plants makes no difference whatsoever to the environment. Bigger is probably worse, because the learning curve from building more of them progresses slower.
You beg the question of where the electricity comes from, and it has to be pretty prompt because hydrogen is very difficult to store. The Coorstek scheme doesn't inherently sequester CO2 either.
We'll stop if something else is cheaper. I think I have something, I need to quadruple-check my numbers. It seems too good to be true and I'm always going to be afraid that it is until I see it working.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 29 January 2018 at 04:16 PM
The coorstek scheme could sequester the CO2 rather efficiently assuming there were no other transient pollutants, and if its clean enough, we could put it to use.
Its byproducts look at quick glance to be water and CO2, sure there are possibly other reactions, but methane is pretty simple to break down, you likely wont end up with anything but what is expected.
The reason why I suggested geothermal and nuclear, was because they can create tremendous generation without exponential costs if sized right from the beginning. Most of the costs are really upfront on these buildings, nuclear has the added cost of being forever a target for terrorists, We need to enable buildings like these to sell to as many markets/customers as possible(reducing the cost of kwh by way of utilization). These are very very reliable base load generation. If we can start by making a smarter and much more capable grid, we can start offlining and shuttering coal, diesel and other less efficient generation.
I brought up dispatchable H2 power because you don't need much grid storage if you can ramp up local backup/ dispatchable power in under 20 seconds. They could have the stacks running at 1% of capacity and ramp up in time of need almost instantly, and can be sustained indefinitely via shipments of hydrogen.
https://www.eia.gov/consumption/
As for energy storage in all the other sectors: Transportation is 28%, If we electrify the first 30 miles of travel (from the grid), we are talking maybe 9-12% has to come from other sources such as petroleum.
So, that accounts for 58% of our total energy, if we have plugin hybrids capable of most short trips, and places to charge them.
If we chose to store our energy in the form of H2, and produce this from advanced methods or possibly surplus carbon neutral/negative power we stand to stand to gain if we are using it to replace conventional petroleum uses.
We make 9,000,000 tonnes a year of H2, transportation wouldn't need much to be rid of ICEs. New processes would make it very efficient to produce and consume in a variety of ways
Posted by: CheeseEater88 | 29 January 2018 at 05:05 PM
From the Coorstek article: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/11/20171120-coorstek.html
"Modeling of a small-scale (10 kg H2 day−1) hydrogen plant suggested an overall energy efficiency of >87%. The researchers suggested that future declining electricity prices could make PMRs a competitive alternative for industrial-scale hydrogen plants integrating CO2 capture. CoorsTek Membrane Sciences research suggests that the ceramic membranes can be a competitive technology for hydrogen production with integrated carbon capture, even at a scale required for cost-effective ammonia production. "
Posted by: CheeseEater88 | 29 January 2018 at 05:49 PM
If they're such targets, why have terrorists been going after night clubs, bike paths, buses and subways instead?
The truth is that NPPs, especially the AP1000s at Vogtle and everything that will follow, are
Ideally we'd let terrorists waste their efforts on hard targets like NPPs instead of rented-van jihad, but terrorists are actually bright enough to have this figured out already. Ending rented-van jihad requires expulsion, and that is coming.
Exactly how do you store this hydrogen? How do you ship it, when it has about 1/3 the energy density of methane and NG pipeline congestion is already one of our biggest problems?
That's getting there (IF all your NG energy is 100% sequestered) but you still need to hit 75% of the remainder.
Remember, 1 kg of hydrogen is the energy equivalent of about 1 gallon of gasoline. The USA uses upwards of 140 billion gallons of gasoline per year; 9 billion kg H2 falls woefully short of replacing it. (Did I mention that this problem is STAGGERINGLY large?)
FWIW, the Coorstek unit consumes water; the net reaction is CH4 + 2 H2O -> 4 H2 + CO2. Pumping out the hydrogen as it's created drives the reaction to the right. However, to get carbon sequestration you have to capture and dispose of it at the end. If you're doing this at fueling stations it means CO2 trucks going out rather than fuel trucks going in. I'll let you calculate volumes and masses.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 29 January 2018 at 07:05 PM
A California bill would make the state 100 percent renewable by 2045:
https://thinkprogress.org/california-100-percent-renewable-4b7530084941/
Posted by: electric-car-insider.com | 29 January 2018 at 11:56 PM
Once current power contracts expire in 2027, it will be illegal for California utilities to get coal power from out-of-state plants. As a result, the plants will need to be shuttered or converted to natural gas.
In order to keep selling electricity to California, Utah’s Intermountain Power Project is expected to convert to natural gas by 2025. The Utah power company sells about 90 percent of its power to six California municipalities. About 45 percent of the company’s capacity is owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who has indicated that it will curtail coal use by 2025.
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power will also sell its 21 percent ownership in Arizona’s Navajo Generating Station to the plant’s operator, the Salt River Project, by summer of 2016. It gets 477 megawatts of electricity from the plant’s coal-fired generators. As part of the sale, the Salt River Project must close one of the plant’s three coal generators by 2016.
New Mexico’s San Juan plant is planning to shutter two coal-fired generators by the end of 2017 due to federal EPA regulations.
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/californias-hidden-coal-use/
Posted by: electric-car-insider.com | 30 January 2018 at 12:30 AM
Jim Robo, CEO of NextEra Energy: new renewables will be cheaper than existing coal plants by the early 2020s. NextEra subsidiaries include Florida Power & Light (America’s third-largest utility, with 4.8 million customers).
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/29/16944178/utility-ceo-renewables-cheaper
Posted by: electric-car-insider.com | 30 January 2018 at 12:59 AM