Town Square

Post a New Topic

City's first hydrogen station opens

Original post made on Mar 16, 2018

Mountain View's first hydrogen-fueling station opened for business recently at the Flyers gas station at 830 Leong Drive. The gas station installed the hydrogen pump last month, making it the 32rd station offering the fuel in California.

Read the full story here Web Link posted Friday, March 16, 2018, 10:07 AM

Comments (7)

Posted by Hydrogen?
a resident of Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Mar 16, 2018 at 2:27 pm

Great, I'll fly my zepplin over and fill 'er up!!


Posted by Jack
a resident of Castro City
on Mar 16, 2018 at 2:56 pm

Is this really the 32rd station? I can't wait for the 33th, 34nd, and 35st!


Posted by Probably74
a resident of Cuesta Park
on Mar 16, 2018 at 3:50 pm

Could someone please give me the name of a brand or model of car that runs on hydrogen? I can't picture one. I've only heard of hybrid gasoline/electric and fully electric cars. Are there any on Bay Area roads? Thanks.


Posted by FuelCell
a resident of Rex Manor
on Mar 16, 2018 at 4:44 pm

@Probably74: Three cars that run on hydrogen, all of which I've seen in the Bay Area:

--Honda Clarity Fuel Cell
--Toyota Mirai
--Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell


Posted by Bill Michel
a resident of another community
on Mar 16, 2018 at 5:45 pm

So that zero carbon argument isn't really true, since hydrogen is
currently made from natural gas (think fraking and all the attendant
problems). Getting H2 out of hydrocarbons produces C02... Doh!

Of course the fossil fuel industry loves being able to
undercut solar/wind and other renewables. The State of CA is
blowing 2.5B on this nonsense.

How about "fueling infrastruture"? Compare the electricity grid to the
"hydrogen station" network.

There's a recent story in Bloomberg Businessweek that tells more.

Fuel Cell Research is great. It's just way too soon to be deploying
this technology


Posted by Rob
a resident of Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Mar 16, 2018 at 6:28 pm

Awesome!! No toxic batteries to bury when they go bad!!! awesome.. good bye Tesla.. wrong car type. Maybe Toyota will buy back the factor and make more Mirais.. :)


Posted by Donald
a resident of another community
on Mar 16, 2018 at 6:34 pm

Bill is almost, but not quite, correct. Industrial-scale hydrogen production is done by cracking methane with steam and uses natural gas for the methane source. On the small scale, hydrogen can be made by means of electrical separation. Some stand-alone stations, like the one at Sky Londa, use solar panels and electricity to generate the hydrogen from water, and and the only byproduct is oxygen. In that case Bill's argument falls flat.

Fuel cell cars are electric cars that use hydrogen instead of batteries to generate the electricity. One of the advantages is that you can refill in minutes instead of waiting hours for you battery to recharge.


Don't miss out on the discussion!
Sign up to be notified of new comments on this topic.

Email:


Post a comment

On Wednesday, we'll be launching a new website. To prepare and make sure all our content is available on the new platform, commenting on stories and in TownSquare has been disabled. When the new site is online, past comments will be available to be seen and we'll reinstate the ability to comment. We appreciate your patience while we make this transition..

Stay informed.

Get the day's top headlines from Mountain View Online sent to your inbox in the Express newsletter.