Six years ago, on this day, June 10th, 2019,
“The costs associated with hydrogen are significant – and the safety issues of hydrogen are very significant. When Norway had four [hydrogen] filling stations, one of them exploded, resulting in the whole of the infrastructure for hydrogen cars in the country collapsing
from website that won’t let me connect
and
In Sandvika near Oslo, an explosion occurred at a hydrogen filling station for fuel cell cars on Monday. Until establishing the cause of the incident, the supplier Nel has closed ten more stations.
According to Norwegian media, the explosion took place on Monday around 5:30 pm at the Uno-X station in the Oslo suburb of Sandvika. According to the company, no one was injured but one report mentions two minor injuries.
“It is too early to speculate about the cause,” Nel boss Jon André Løkke said in a telephone interview. “Our top priority is the safe operation of the stations we supply. As a precaution, we have temporarily closed ten more stations until further information is available.”
Randall, c. 2019. Norway: Explosion at hydrogen filling station. https://www.electrive.com/2019/06/11/norway-explosion-at-fuel-cell-filling-station/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 414ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that hydrogen has many hypers, who don’t always seem to know the history (LINK).
What I think we can learn from this. Boom!! And bust cycles happen.
What happened next The hydrogen hype continued, for a while at least.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day: