On August 25th Chevron and the California Fuel Cell Partnership put on a “Road to Zero” event in Richmond, California at the Craneway Pavilion where organizations came to talk about their efforts in the global hydrogen economy, and members of the public came to learn about, as Chevron pointed out, the second energy transition within the past 200 years.
The event was attended by a multitude of organizations including AC Transit, Contra Costa Building Trades, Hydroplane, Nel, Nikola, and many others. California State Senator Josh Newman and others from governmental organizations were also in attendance. Mr. Newman gave the closing remarks for the day’s event and in them he highlighted that a lot of work needs to be done at the state government level to support hydrogen. While California’s efforts about ten years ago were designed to be ZEV agnostic, the reality has turned out somewhat differently with California presently spending less than 10% of the available funds on its hydrogen efforts. This is perhaps made even worse by the fact that California’s BEV efforts have left many drivers behind, which is why Mr. Newman acknowledge that despite California’s green successes a lot of work still needs to be done.
FCEVs on display
United States Congressman John Garamendi talked about the importance of recognizing that tomorrow is gone and how it is essential to focus on what we can do today. He also mentioned that the recent Inflation Reduction Act that was signed into law in the United States is going to help propel the green transition in the United States, since some of the funds have been designed to bolster previous legislative efforts over the past 12 months.
Chevron’s Tolly Graves talked about the fact that about two hundred years ago the United States, and the world, was working on transitioning from fuel sources, like whale oil, to fossil fuels, and Contra Costa County’s John Gioia reinforced that fact by talking about the event’s location being held in an automotive factory that used to make Ford automobiles.
The event was perhaps the clearest indication in California about how serious Chevron is getting about hydrogen, which was exemplified by Mr. Graves talking about Chevron’s efforts with Iwatani to build thirty additional hydrogen refueling stations in California.
During one of the second panel discussion Parker Meeks who is the CEO of Hyzon and Joe Cappello who is the CEO of Iwatani North America emphasized the importance of taking meaningful steps. Specifically, they talked about getting hydrogen to customers using the effective market segment of back-to-base operators, since such operators will in time lead to the establishment of national hydrogen refueling networks.
The event was easily attended by 200 people, which was really encouraging given that it demonstrates the importance of hydrogen rise in the mindset of more people and companies. Due to hydrogen’s growing value the California Fuel Cell Partnership mentioned during the event that it is expanding its efforts to cover the whole of the United States, which is another clear example of hydrogen’s momentum. As the global community continues down the road to zero education remains of incredible importance, and hopefully events like today’s will quickly spread both in the United States and globally as we move into 2023 and beyond.
Honorable Josh Newman, California State Senate gives closing remarks
Jesse Lyon, Contributor
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