Hydrogen fueling station cooperatives: How to build the hydrogen fueling infrastructure without the oil companies or the federal government

With hydrogen cars making tremendous advancements, the focus has now turned to getting the hydrogen fueling infrastructure built. The truth is that the car companies are very frustrated that neither the oil companies nor the federal government has stepped up to build the hydrogen fueling infrastructure.

In order to break this logjam, I am proposing the following idea that would eliminate the need to depend on the oil companies or the federal government to get the hydrogen fueling infrastructure built.

The idea is to get 1000 people that live reasonably close to each other to agree to buy a hydrogen car and finance a hydrogen fueling station that will be built close to where they live. A figure that is often used for the cost of a hydrogen fueling station is $2 million. This would translate to $2000 per person.

Each person would pay the extra $2000 when they purchase a hydrogen car. And then they would own 1/1000th of the hydrogen fueling station which would be a cooperative.

The hydrogen fueling station could be run by members of the cooperative or the operation of the facility could be outsourced. Just like with gas stations today, this cost would be covered by money made from fuel and convenience store sales.

Once the hydrogen fueling station is up and running, the people who paid the $2000 and own part of it would get a “Member” fuel price. Any other people who buy hydrogen cars after them (and did not pay $2000 for the hydrogen fueling station) would have to pay a “Non-member” fuel price which might be something like $1 more per kilogram of hydrogen (e.g. $7 instead of $6).

Any profits from the hydrogen fueling station could be paid back to the 1000 owners every quarter or year in the form of dividend checks. And eventually the hydrogen fueling station could be sold and each person would receive 1/1000th of that amount. Therefore, each person would make back part or perhaps even all of the $2000 initial investment over time.

One of the amazing things is that this could pretty much be done anywhere there are 1000 people who live pretty close to each other who want to do this.

Furthermore, the idea is scalable. For example, it can work for one hydrogen fueling station in one part of Los Angeles. Or maybe 10,000 people would get together in a larger part of Los Angeles (e.g. the San Fernando Valley) and build ten hydrogen fueling stations and each person would get the “Member” fuel price at each location.

And down the road, maybe 100,000 people in Los Angeles or even a million in Southern California could get together and finance a solar-to-hydrogen production facility in the Mojave Desert and pipeline down to one or more locations in Southern California.

Hydrogen fueling station cooperatives could be done without any help from the oil companies or the federal government. They would be a true grassroots effort that could totally reshape the energy power structure.