You could see why some people just don't fancy for instance vehicles that are powered by compressed air (CNG). The risks to me, seems to be even more than lithium ion chemistry batteries in battery electric vehicles. Just imagine if this explosion that occurred was a car, in a heavily congested neighborhood like Lagos, or Network.
ouch! why aren't these emphasized in 'business insider' et al? because they don't present any competition to the megalopolis auto/oil industry
Well that's what, just one explosion for roughly 5,000 or so hydrogen cars on the road in the US? Heck that's not so bad is it? In the US alone there are 5,000 gas station fires per year - causing injuries &/or fatalities. So - let's see ~ There are around 275 million cars in the US, ..... ÷ by 5,000 fires? That's only one fire for every 55,000 cars! Ouch - that is bad compared to hydrogen fueling station. Maybe I can massage that stat a little bit, make it look not 10 times worse than gas fires. Okay, fuel-cell cars have been around for ½ dozen yrs so ... ÷ 55,000 by ½ dozen years? ... 9,200 ish? See? That's not even twice as bad as u.s. gas station fires in the US. Since you can only drive a hydrogen car 150 miles before you have to turn around - due to lack of infrastructure, good thing we don't count miles driven. .
OMG! Fortunately no injury. If a stationary H2 pump station can explode, I must wonder how safe the moving FCV is especially if it crushes. We had a bus running on natural gas fuel had collision accident on a road near us. There was no explosion, but police evacuated area and the road was closed for almost half a day after this minor collision.
Exactly - reinforces the point that hydrogen in a well-constructed tank within the body structure of the automobile is no more dangerous.
on a happier thought, the ratio of gasoline car fires to electric car fires is 11 to 1 - based on each billion miles driven. Equally a happy thought, lithium, unlike a gasoline fire, does not necessarily explode with the extreme ferocity of gasoline - affording extra time for passengers & drivers to escape. In the case of at least a couple of the Tesla traction pack fires, where road debris penetrated the ballistic shield, the software even gives a verbal warning of shut down, instructing driver to pull over & get out immediately. Toyota has shown videos of a hydrogen tank being pierced with a high-power rifle round. That makes it look not too bad. There is still the unknown of a traumatic car crash with Sparks happening, which is quite different than a wrapped tank being pierced by round which doesn't necessarily bring about Slparks & ignition. Time will tell .
You should sell your deathtrap Prius immediately. You have the worst of both worlds - gasoline and a battery...
H2 is a flammable gas, so if it is mis-managed, there is potential for fire. It will be interesting to hear details on this fire, but sounds to me like the filling station was not designed well or was damaged. The other thing that can happen rarely but is the H2 supply could have been something other than H2, or H2 + air or CO which again is mis-management of some kind. I am under the impression there are various vendors providing H2 filling station hardware, and not sure what Norway was doing. I worked with HP H2 my whole life and no special problems, but filling a vehicle is a potentially vulnerable time, becuase connections are being made.
Was this missed here? Bay Area experiences hydrogen shortage after explosion in Santa Clara County | abc7news.com
I don't understand the black panels surrounding the building before the explosion. They certainly appear temporary so was the station still in the construction phase? Construction error(s) caused explosion during initial start up? I think so.
It would be interesting to know if this is traditional H2 from methane steaming reforming plant, or some kind of new fangled renewable H2 facility. But manufacturing plants do have occasional upsets.
