SMUD opens solar-powered fueling station
The station, a joint venture of SMUD, BP, Ford Motor Company and the U.S. Department of Energy, is designed to demonstrate fuel cell electric vehicles and the generation of hydrogen from alternative resources.
The station produces hydrogen using power from the large solar panels. The solar panels generate electricity and an "electrolyzer" uses that energy to separate water into hydrogen to make clean fuel for powering the vehicles.
The hydrogen will be used in SMUD's own fuel-cell vehicles and similar vehicles owned by others.
The solar panels produce 80 kilowatts of electricity, equivalent to what is needed to power about 40 single-family homes, or enough hydrogen for about 14 fuel-cell vehicles.
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U.S. renewable electricity surpassed coal in 2022
WASHINGTON - Electricity generated from renewables surpassed coal in the United States for the first time in 2022, the U.S. Energy Information Administration has announced.
Renewables also surpassed nuclear generation in 2022 after first doing so last year.
Growth in wind and solar significantly drove the increase in renewable energy and contributed 14% of the electricity produced domestically in 2022. Hydropower contributed 6%, and biomass and geothermal sources generated less than 1%.
“I’m happy to see we’ve crossed that threshold, but that is only a step in what has to be a very rapid and much cheaper journey,” said Stephen Porder, a professor…
