Does a california mirai produce less ghg than a prius?

For plug-in cars someone set up a prius test. It was worthwhile if the plug-in produced less ghg than a prius on that regional grid. UCS has published mpg (ghg)e the equivallant ghg to some gasoline mpg. Since the mirai is in only one state I was curious to see if it passed the prius test. Those talking about these things often exclude grid tied renewables, although I think they should be included so we will do it both ways.
How Clean Are Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles? - The Equation
This UCS makes it seem like fcv are cleaner than a prius, because california will build so much renewable hydrogen. 46% by the end of 2015 was supposed to be renewalbe hydrogen in california. The SMR figure they use is based off of 14kg of CO2/kg of hydrogen from SMR. I'll use that number for now, but we can discuss that too.

According to fueleconomy.gov a mirai gets 66 miles /kg of hydrogen

14kg/66miles = 212 grams per mile for SMR. Perhaps it is even better with all the renewables california has built. This compares to 213 grams for the gen III prius, 205 grams for the gen IV prius, and 190g for the gen IV prius eco. I'd call it a draw.
Compare Side-by-Side



California was supposed to build a lot of renewable hydrogen by now
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2015publications/CEC-600-2015-004/CEC-600-2015-004.pdf
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/ab8/ab8_report_2015.pdf

but they are way behind schedule, which we discussed in another thread.
Portable Hydrogen Fuelers Go To Six Toyota Mirai Dealers As Stations Lag

Now those 6 new mobile hydrogen stations need to driven with diesel to be refueled meaning they are going to have a much higher ghg footprint than UCS decided on 212 g for permanant stations that only needed hydrogen moved short distances. The first 6 commercial stations include no renwable stations. That is SMR for everything. Some of those next 6 have grid tied renewables to offset their net carbon footprint, but .... I thought we didn't count grid tied renewables. What happened to all those renewables that were there in 2014.

They are demonstration stations.

I'll try to update this with when california mirai cross over and produce less ghg than a prius. Right now they produce more.

 

I'm not trying to make any over riding statements, but statements about ghg on California's current end of december 2015 infrastructure.

If you only fill up at commercial stations a mirai will produce roughly the same ghg (212) as a gen III prius (213) and more than a gen IV prius (205).

If you fill up at commercial and dealer stations the mirai will produce more ghg than a gen III prius.

This is definitely not true in California for bevs. The thirsty model X P90D is estimated at 150 g/mile. The leaf 30kwh is 120 g/mile. The volt running on gas and electric 160 g/mile. Some states have much higher emissions than california, but plug-ins don't sell well there. UCS said weighted plug-in nationwide had lifecycle emissions equivalent to a 68 mpg gasoline car using 2012 emissions and not even counting owners renewables.

There has been the strange demand that plug-ins should not be allowed funding in places where they produce more ghg than a prius. I am just noting that today, any mirai bought is going to be likely fueled where ghg emissions are higher than the gen IV prius, so it fails the prius test.

What happened? Renewable hydrogen has not been built as fast as promised. Why not credit electricity for plans to clean up, if you are going to make up much cleaner hydrogen than is being built?

If you count grid tied renewables for net ghg then plug-in owners are much cleaner than the numbers as they have bought a great deal of solar panels and wind. If you don't count that way, most of the planned renewables for hydrogen don't count either.

I'd like to continue this proof of concept phase for hydrogen, but we should use the same accounting. CARB seems to want to count future good intentions for fcv, yet promises rarely get built.

 

I have only heard it here on prius chat.

Those are fueleconomy.gov estimtes which include upstream emissions. Whether you agree with them or not is anouther matter. I included the link with the estimates.

UCS was using GREETs 2013 hydrogen analysis, with california's electricity profile, and CARBs projection for renewable hydrogen from summer 2014. All I did was transform the hyundai tucson figures to epa mirai figures, and include The current california reality of hydrogen fueling.

There seems to be big differences in projections of fcv based on infrastructure. I included the carb reports of 2015 as to stations, and toyota's description of the 6 full functional stations (2 are soft openings, allowing some cars to refuel, but perhaps not all) now open, the 6 temporary dealer stations, and you can see the 6 demonstration stations toyota describes in the carb descriptions. There should definitely be some grid tied renewable stations coming on line in the next couple of years that should change calculations. One of the suprises is the much press released fountain valley "tri-gen" biogas facility is demonstration only and not properly upgraded to work to quickly refill the mirai or operate as a public station.

 

Japan is triply screwed. It has an aging population that will suck more government yen. The wind and solar resources are not nearly as good as the US or Europe. They have very little fossil fuel. My guess is they are very lucky that saudi is making oil cheap as they can use hybrids until they figure it out. My guess is if fcv make it in Japan it will be from coal power, and ghg may be sequestered. Japan greatly increased coal since the tsunami.

 

Sure I just don't understand how two California governors are still believing the same lies. I mean if we were 10 years away in 2004, why doesn't it look any closer in 2015.

I do belive it is just a matter of money to get this test going, but there seems to be a lack of competance in Mary Nichols CARB in getting it done, even with $20M/year. After over $40M has been spent on top of 9 stations it is shocking that their are only 6 public retail statoins with 0 renewable. Now we have 2 steps back with these mobile refueliners. The promise was 44 stations with most of them retail and 46% RENEWABLE by today.