Moronic politicians in California have spent $257 million in taxpayer dollars on "hydrogen-powered cars"

My first career was as an Air Force pilot, but my degree is in engineering.  You have no idea what that entails, which is fair enough: I know nothing about fashion or how to market creatures like "Lizzo" or Dylan Mulvaney (Bud Light).  We all have our areas of expertise, eh?

The difference is that our country would work perfectly well without either Lizzo or Mulvaney. By contrast, real engineering makes everything you see around you work.

Engineers know how real things work.  And when politicians--who have no idea how physical systems work--pass laws that substitute utter horseshit--say, "cars powered by unicorn farts"--for physical laws, things will get unbelievably bad really fast.

(And by the way: so-called "software engineers" are NOT real engineers.  They appropriated the name to make themselves seem more accomplished.  Yay!)

And with that intro:  With almost no exceptions, politicians know nothing about science or engineering.  Most are grifters, glad-handers on the take.  Think Nancy Pelosi, Chuckie Schumer, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Porridgebrain and...Cackles.

As a result, when some moron comes to any of those pols with some pie-in-the-sky idea that will win votes from gullible wokiez, the pols quickly adopt the idea, no matter how unworkable AND massively expensive it is.

This is what the communist grifters who run the "California Energy Commission" did with "hydrogen fuel."  And the result?

Aww, you already guessed!  

The LA Times is a totally leftist rag.  Any idea the Democrat party pushes, the Times loves.  So when "Green New Deal" grifters bleated that hydrogen was the greatest fuel evah, the Times immediately jumped on-board.

Now, chemists, engineers and assorted sciency types have known for over a century that combining hydrogen with plentiful oxygen releases energy, and produces only water.  Yay!  But compared to gasoline, hydrogen has so many problems that the free market has stuck with gasoline.

The kicker is, this isn't a plot by duh eeeebil Rethuglicans.  Hydrogen gas--easy to create--is nasty and aggressive.  And because it's a gas instead of a liquid, you need lots of cubic feet of the stuff to make useful energy.

But by using their absolute power, politicians in California made it possible for hydrogen to work like a charm!  Well maybe not "work" in the sense of "solve problems," but "work" in the sense of enabling connected grifters to make millions from pushing the "fuel of the future."  Classic!
 
SO...wokie execs at Toyota and Hyundai--wanting to look woke to gullible wokie consumers--designed cars powered by "fuel cells," which use hydrogen to produce electricity.  And the cars were beautifully engineered, and worked.  And as the wokie execs guessed, wokie Democrats slobbered over these cars: "We gon' save duh Erf!" they swooned.

But as you probably guessed, hydrogen cars need...um...hydrogen to run, eh?  Problem was, there weren't any hydrogen fueling stations!  Ooohhh.

So how do ya think the grifters solved this small problem, eh?  Of course: they turned to the Democrats who ruled California--their political allies.  And since saving duh Erf wins votes, the Democrat pols who've run Cali for decades voted to spend $257 million to build hundreds of hydrogen fueling stations.

So the Democrats who rule Cali spent those millions to build 200 stations by 2025.  So far only 54 exist.  And in the last couple of years the price of hydrogen has more than doubled, currently the equivalent of $15 a gallon of gasoline.

This, kids, is called "burying the lede," meaning burying the real story under 40 paragraphs of crap.  The REAL story--which the Times does NOT want you to know--is that predictably stupid, gullible, greedy, vote-bribing Democrat politicians promised they'd have 200 hydrogen fuel stations in the state by next year.

If you're familiar with California, 200 stations over the whole state is damn near nothing.  Yet the Democrat legislature has already given $257 million tax dollars to three "connected" grifter companies that promised to install 146 more hydrogen fueling stations by the end of next year.  Admittedly the companies still have 16 months to go to complete the contract.  Wanna take a bet?

If you pay attention this sounds exactly like the horseshit the biden/harris regime pulled in one of the cunningly mis-named *laws* passed by Democrats by a single vote (Cackles) to spend $7 BILLION to build EV charging stations.  That was two years ago.  And you heard how many have been built, right?

And of the 54 hydrogen stations that exist, many either don't work or they’re out of fuel.  But don't worry, citizen!  That's what tow trucks are for!

The state paid one VERY skilled, non-grifting company--the major oil company Shell--a whopping $40 MILLION to build "some" hydrogen stations.  After building SEVEN Shell quit, closed the stations and gave the full amount back to the state.

Shell has lots of sharp people, and if they gave up, how do ya suppose the grifting companies are doing, eh?  What does Shell know that made them give the money back?

Don’t ask, cuz you won't like the answer.

The umbrella group for the grifters is called the "Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems" (ARCHES), and if governor Hairdoo is telling the truth, them sons of bitches have already raped taxpayers for $12.6 BILLION.

https://archesh2.org/

https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/07/17/california-launches-world-leading-hydrogen-hub/

https://www.energy.gov/oced/california-hydrogen-hub-arches

You can see the scam when you read as one of ARCHES's lede paragraphs

"Equity and Justice Centered: Prioritized in all decisions with a focus on California’s impacted, disadvantaged, low-income, and tribal communities."

With BIG pics of smiling chirren of all races.  Yeah.

SOooo...last month, since hydrogen wasn't readily available in California, wokiez who bought cars that used this faaabulous new green fuel sued.  (Surprised?)  But instead of suing the state, they sued Toyota, claiming the salespeople told 'em hydrogen fuel points "were convenient and readily available.”

You won't be surprised to learn that the plaintiffs' law firm is called "Beverly Hills Trial Attorneys."

They sued Toyota instead of the state because companies often settle out of court to avoid bad publicity.  By contrast, the state uses the Democrat-fellating media to suppress bad publicity.  It also helps that courts depend on the government.

So the LA Times totally buries the real story, instead letting their focus be the lawsuit against the car maker.  So typical.

So how much money has the California Energy Commission spent on companies promising to build hydrogen refueling stations--the original topic of the article?

By 2006, 20 hydrogen stations had been installed in California.  Since then the state has spent over $260 million of taxpayer dollars (the Times uses its preferred term "state money") and has installed 34 more, mostly in greater L.A. and the Bay Area.

Hmmm...so how much has the average new station cost taxpayers, eh?  If you're an adult with at least average intelligence you should be able to do that in 20 seconds.  So what did you get?

A bit over $7.6 MILLION each.  ($260 million divided by 34 new stations.)

At that rate, how much will it cost taxpayers (or as the Times cunningly phrases it, "the state") to build the remaining 146 specified in the faaaabulous original plan that got this piece of shit rolling in the first place?  

Around $1.2 BILLION.

Dems: "But we NEED doze stations!  Cuz hydrogen cars iz gon' be duh way we saves duh Erf!"

The state's lackeys in the Energy Commission claim hydrogen-powered cars are "a key pillar in the state's decarbonization plan."  The Air Resources Board claims that by 2035, 180,000 hydrogen-fueled cars will be sold *every year.*  And the trend looks good: In the first half of last year 1,765 such cars were sold or leased. This year's first half: 298.

Wait...you must have gotten those numbers reversed, buddy.  Surely dat's a mistake!  Cuz duh state experts predicted dat in 10.5 years 180,000 hydrogen-powered cars will be sold every year!  An duh harris/biden DOE is "investing" (hahahaha!) a staggering $12.6 BILLION on the "hydrogen hub" crap.  So surely the figures above are reversed!

Sure.  Except they're not.  And if, in ten years, the total number of hydrogen-fueled cars sold in Cali is only one-tenth what the state's lackeys predicted, no one will remember.

The lackeys' prediction is based on the result desired by the corrupt pol rulers.

So who's building the hydrogen stations in California--for an average cost of $7.6 MILLION apiece?  Iwatani, Air Products and True Zero, which is owned by FirstElement Fuel.  Remember those names for when they solyndra.  (That verb "solyndra" comes from a faabulous solar panel company that Obozo's corrupt energy secretary awarded half a BILLION in loan guarantees--a month before the firm declared bankruptcy.)

The Times again:
>>Hydrogen-fueled cars, like electric cars, emit no greenhouse gases.>>

Horseshit.  Where do ya think the electricity comes from?

Democrat voter: "Whut are ya, dumb?  Electricity comes from *a socket in the wall!"*

Really, sparky?  Sorry, no.  Although the entire Democrat party is built on the notion that you can get something for nothing (see: "welfare," "forgiveness of student loans," "free housing and food and money for doze po' "refugees" Cackles has allowed in after punting the 'border czar' gig), it takes a source of heat to *make* electricity.  But Dems claim the same 5% of electricity generated by wind and solar will provide all the electricity for everything the Dems are pushing.

They think you don't realize that they've assigned the same 5% to 40 different things they want to use "green" energy.  Democrat accounting.

One other small problem with hydrogen (other than the fact that there are only 54 refueling points in the entire state): unlike electric vehicles, you can't fill up ("charge") at home.

Major oil company Shell had installed seven hydrogen stations in California with more on the way, but earlier this year it shut them down and refunded the $40-million in grant money from the state.  Think Shell realized something?

The Times claims that the state's 54 hydrogen stations have cost Californians nearly $5 million apiece.  That contradicts their earlier number ($7.6 million), lower by about 35%.  No explanation, of course.  Democrat accounting.

The leftists at the Times say "It wasn’t supposed to be this way."  You don't say.

Under Dem governor Jerry Brown, after the 200 state-funded stations were built, his gummint "experts" claimed "the free market would take over and hydrogen stations would proliferate."  Cuz, duh gummint "experts" haz lotsa experience running private businesses, profit and loss, paying taxes, making a payroll and so on.  

So when a state "expert" says "duh free market would take ovah," yew knows dat beez a reeeally careful calculation based on dere great experience in running a business, eh?

As a huge incentive to consumers, Toyota and Hyundai have been *giving* buyers of new hydrogen-fueled cars a debit card worth $15,000 of fuel.  But the recent doubling in the price of hydrogen (which the Times here calls merely a "steep hike")--has cut the "free" miles in half.

And here's another surprise: The Times says the state Energy Commission *declined to let their reporters interview either the chair of the agency or commissioner Patty Monahan.*

It's like Cackles: don't ever appear in person to answer controversial questions, since what you say could haunt you later.  Instead the agency issued a prepared statement saying nothing is their fault, and that hydrogen power is absolutely critical to saving duh Erf.  Oh, and they would have had a thousand stations open by now, but the money needed to do that was somehow diverted to the "High-speed rail to nowhere" between Bakersfield and...some small town 150 miles north.

This year the Energy Commission gave an *extra* $9.4 million to FirstElement and Iwatani for operating and maintaining stations the two companies had already built.  Of course the state's original "gift" was supposed to cover that, but...um...not enough profit to kickback the required grift, so there ya go.

("Surprisingly," neither of those companies responded to requests for comments.)

https://www.energy.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2023-12/CEC-600-2023-069.pdf

Unlike previous gifts by the corrupt commission to the companies, the latest gifts contain a provision requiring "95% uptime performance." Great idea, eh?  But the commission didn't define how "uptime" is to be determined, nor what the penalty would be if either company doesn't meet that undetermined requirement.

Of course if you're an adult you already recognize that these two crucial elements were omitted to allow the graft to continue unabated.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/drivers-hydrogen-cars-annoyed-california-100052443.html