H2 filling site in Cobham Services - gone?

[dan_b]

Unconfirmed reports on social media that the H2 filling station run by Shell at the Cobham services on the M25 has been completely removed, and they're in the process of doing the same at Beaconsfield.

They don't appear to be showing on Zap-Map anymore, so I guess this could be true.

[Stinsy]

Good!

It existed as a prop to allow FF companies to fight the proliferation of BEVs under the lie that "Hydrogen is just around the corner carry on using petrol and diesel until then." .

[Mr Gus]

Well that was likely when you mentioned it the other week Dan, now I suppose we have indire t confirmation of that, ties in with the disappearing hydrogen lease cars too i guess.

At least we have an up to date argument as to why hydrogen isnt going to rock the conventional world any time soon.

[Oldgreybeard]

Pity, as I think the timing was just wrong, really. Toyota has shown that hydrogen fuel cell technology is very definitely up to meeting the needs for an emission-free EV, that's quick and easy to refuel. It's the other end that's just not economically viable, making hydrogen from excess renewable generation. What's condemned hydrogen as a fuel is simply the economics of two competing technologies. The very expensive process of getting hydrogen by electrolysis, from renewable energy surplus (and there is a MASSIVE amount of surplus wind generation at times) versus the relatively cheap process of producing hydrogen from fossil fuels.

Had the renewable energy hydrogen production process been more cost effective then I can't see any good reason against hydrogen being used as a clean fuel for fuel cell powered vehicles. It's a pity that the liquid fuel cell technologies are still so expensive. Fuel cell generators for caravans etc have been around for years, and work very well, but they are still extremely expensive for what they are, plus they tend to have a pretty low power output.

The neat thing about them is that they use alcohol, and that is very easy to produce from fermented waste. One snag is that most use methanol, rather than ethanol, but the process of fermenting, distilling and converting the distillate to methanol isn't that difficult (although it does present some legal challenges). I did look at one of the caravan-type fuel cell generators as a back up system, just to trickle charge the battery pack in the event of a long power cut. Far too expensive for what they are, though.

[Mr Gus]

you can get a gin distillers license for about £15 these days OGB, its held on the same premise of bio-diesel, keep scrupulous records & be prepared for a likely never to happen visit, pay taxes on product.

Where you pour your finished product, or what you do next is essentially up to you I guess, its all haphazard where distillation chemistry is involved, unless you are a big boy farmer diversifying, all those hectolitres keep "them & us" in the area of "never the twain"

[Oldgreybeard]

you can get a gin distillers license for about £15 these days OGB, its held on the same premise of bio-diesel, keep scrupulous records & be prepared for a likely never to happen visit, pay taxes on product.

Where you pour your finished product, or what you do next is essentially up to you I guess, its all haphazard where distillation chemistry is involved, unless you are a big boy farmer diversifying, all those hectolitres keep "them & us" in the area of "never the twain"

The plan that went through my head when thinking about this was to use some of the mountains of fermentable food waste we produce. Our local farm shop tries to sell as much of the non-supermarket standard foods as possible, they even run competitions for kids to choose the funniest misshapen vegetables, in a bid to get away from the "all food must look perfect" policy that the supermarkets encourage. Even so, their efforts are a drop in the ocean, and they bin vast amounts of food that they can't sell and that they can't use for animal feed.

This year was a bumper year for windfall fruit, maybe because of the long dry spell earlier, and with the best will in the world slightly damaged fruit can't easily be stored for later consumption. It can very easily be fermented and distilled though. Wouldn't be that hard to set up a waste food to fuel plant at a small scale, just need to find an economic way to use the fuel produced. Ethanol stoves are one option, but they do produce a fair bit of moisture. Pretty good as a standby heat source, though, as they don't need a fireplace or flue.

[Mr Gus]

set up costs & officialdom, c-ckblockers.
However, farmers get access to diversification subsidies, if they havent done the math perhaps they ought have some planning assistance from an nfu rep who has someone doing this already.

[Mr Gus]

oh yeah, champagne yeast can take your fermentation to 16-18% in the fermentation bucket (pre any distillation) its getting wider use for some beer fermentation leaving clean product, if someone *were* to distil that has already raised the game in terms of end product potency & times through a basic still let alone a proper big unit on a commercial scale saving hours of energy use & time running it through repeatedly (as I understand it)
A very capable yeast.

[dan_b]

Cobham H2 station is confirmed removed.

[Mr Gus]

See other thread @dan_b