this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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Hydrogen

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Washington Is Getting Hydrogen Fuel And It's Nine Times Cheaper Than California's (www.theautopian.com)
submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Douglas County PUD hasn’t just built a filling station, but has also built its own hydrogen production facility that uses Washington State’s abundant hydroelectric power. According to the utility, electricity makes up 80% of the input costs of hydrogen production. Thus, a cheap source of power means cheap hydrogen. As a bonus, the utility can use the hydrogen electrolyzer to burn off excess power to help stabilize the grid at times when renewable energy supplies are high and grid demand is low.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

As renewable energy gets cheaper, we will be flooded by cheap excess energy. It will drive the price of hydrogen to nearly zero in time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Yup.
It's just quite common for these hydrogen production facilities are cracking hydrocarbons.
Or if they are electrolysing, it's with power from a grid backed by hydrocarbon.
So "where does the hydrogen come from?" is a common question.

While it sounds like this does come from the grid, it does sound like a high-renewable grid.
Altho if the hydroelectric is capable of pump-storage, I imagine the operators would rather fill reservoirs than convert the excess energy into hydrogen.
But still, hydrogen as a fuel is interesting and promising. I hope all the difficulties are worked out! And the first step to that is adoption & demand, which requires hydrogen.