Hydrogen

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of a New Flyer Excelsior hydrogen bus sitting abandoned in a weed-filled parking lot, with an angry transit operations manager looking at it.

New Flyer Bus OEM Has Its Strategy Wrong & Will Lose Market Share

New Flyer is the leading provider of transit buses in North America. It’s also the leading provider of hydrogen buses in North America, which is a problem for it, although it feels like an opportunity. That’s where the bad strategy comes in. As always when I talk about strategy — … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of an electricity meter spinning madly, with a hydrogen refueling station behind it

Real World Hydrogen Refueling Stations With Electrolysis Far Less Efficient Than Assumed

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to hydrogen, the more real-world data collection and analysis that is done and published, the worse it looks. The latest black eye for the tiny molecule that so many love is in the efficiency of making hydrogen at refueling stations. The Hydrogen Research and Fueling Facility … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of a fleet of hydrogen buses abandoned in a field, rusting and covered in bird dung

How Many Hydrogen Transit Trial Failures Are Enough?

In the past few days I’ve been going deep on some very odd results out of a Canadian transit think tank’s research and reports for client municipalities, finding that bad assumptions and worse scenarios resulted in $1.5 billion being taken off of hydrogen bus costs. Discussion around this led to … [continued]

ChatGPT generated image of a jigsaw puzzle with hydrogen bus pieces hammered into spots where electric bus pieces fit

CUTRIC’s Hydrogen Bus Study Dodges $1.5bn In Costs To Justify Higher Emissions

In the past week, I’ve been digging into the underpinnings of a few Canadian cities’ current fixation on wasting serious amounts of taxpayer money on hydrogen buses. I had been ignoring it, more than not, as I’d assessed global hydrogen fleet trials and results along with exorbitant global hydrogen transportation … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of Harry Houdini with the letters "H2" on his chest escaping a locked safe

How Much Does Hydrogen Leak And How Much Does It Matter?

Hydrogen is the gas that’s the second best escape artist in the universe. Helium has it by an edge because while helium is four times the mass of hydrogen per unit, it comes in atoms, not molecules. Hydrogen only comes with another hydrogen atom in the hydrogen molecule, which ends … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of a house of cards with hydrogen supported at the top

$360M Discrepancy In Brampton Transit Study: Hydrogen Mix Falsely Positioned As Lower Cost Option

In recent days I’ve become aware that a purportedly neutral and data-centric transit organization, the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC), has been advancing hydrogen for urban transit in contradiction of global evidence of failure. A contact forwarded me a more detailed study that they’d done for the … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of a transit bus with "Mississauga Hydrogen" on the side trailing a cloud of Canadian money

Mississauga Could Get A Dozen Electric Buses For The Cost Of Five Hydrogen Ones

Recently I published a perspective on the Canadian city of Mississauga’s plan to pilot hydrogen buses for their transit system. It included global data on the high cost and low reliability of hydrogen electrolysis and refueling systems and the high cost and low reliability of hydrogen fuel cell buses. Someone … [continued]

ChatGPT generated panoramic image of a transit bus labelled "H2" stuffed with Canadian money

Canadian City About To Buy Hydrogen Buses Because Feds & CUTRIC Captured by Hydrogen Lobby

Is there anything more compelling than free money and supportive guidance from a purported expert organization to a municipal politician? Apparently not, as Mississauga in Canada appears set on joining municipalities around the world in launching a guaranteed-to-fail hydrogen bus pilot. The federal government and the Canadian Urban Transit Research … [continued]