The Water-Power car™…
- I’d buy one.
- I’d laugh at someone who’d bought one.
- I just don’t know.
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voters
Seems too good to be true…?
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/18289.php
And
The waterpowered car site manages to disqualify itself pretty quickly with its little anti-scientist rant. See, thermodynamics is a tricky thing and I’ll admit that I’m not an expert on it, but I will say that breaking water down into hydrogen and oxygen and then using the hydrogen and oxygen as fuel (which, errr, produces water) is a perpetual motion machine. And I think we all know that is a dog that won’t hunt.
Now, the battery is interesting, but not as great a step forward as you’d think. Batteries just store energy, so while that battery might be able to store more energy than a conventional battery, it would still need to get its energy from somewhere else and, in the modern fuel economy, that somewhere is fossil fuels.
The car that runs on water… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown%27s_ … wn.27s_gas The claims being made are a little less than they appear. It is true that Brown’s gas can increase mileage on a car - anywhere from 10-25% depending on a bunch of variables. But there is no way to safely store the hydrogen/oxygen gas. It has to be burned as it is produced. Essentially, it is “dirty” hydrogen (oxygen present) and a large volume of it, or to try to store it under pressure creates a magnificent bomb. To be efficient, the hydrogen has to be “scrubbed” (no oxygen!). This takes a lot of expensive and bulky equipment, and defeats the pure “runs on water” vehicles.
The fuel cell concept is intriguing because it produces electricity than can be safely stored. At this point, the technology ain’t ready for primetime just yet. The efficiency of fuel cells relies on very high temperatures, and so safety becomes a stumbling block.
The link I posted in another thread is exciting. features.csmonitor.com/environme … r-nirvana/ Scaled up, this has definite possibilities.
Batteries… I think this is the best short-term answer over-all. Right now, the best affordable commercial battery system relies on older technology. The Toyota Prius uses a battery pack using nickel-metal-hydride batteries (nimhs) and costs about $4000. The new lithium-ion batteries (the batteries in your cell phone and laptop) can store 10 times more energy in the same space. The problem is that it is still very expensive to create a pack large enough for a vehicle. But that will change as oil prices stay high. Large scale production will reduce the cost of lithium-ions, and there is other battery technology that hasn’t made it out of the labs yet.
Back to hydrogen… If they could come up with an inexpensive way of creating hydrates, then we would have a safe way to store and use hydrogen, but hydrogen stored as a gas is just too damned dangerous. Consider: You buy a new hydrogen-fueled vehicle and maintain a rigorous maintenance schedule on that system for the ten years you own that vehicle. After ten years, you decide to buy a new vehicle and sell the old one. The person who buys it doesn’t maintain the hydrogen delivery system… You’re sitting at a stop sign and the guy pulls up beside you in what? A frigging bomb waiting to explode! 
Think about the pics you’ve seen of the rockets that have failed and explode. Spectacular isn’t it? I don’t think I want to be driving one, or be too close to someone that is…
Funny you should mention that, I’m thinking about putting a LPG tank in my car, it’s quite normal round this part of the globe.
http://www.whatgreencar.com/lpg.php
I’ve always wanted to go out with a bang anyway.
Tab,
LP conversions have been around for 50 years and have proven themselves quite safe. You might end up with one hell of a fire, but no explosion. If it’s cheaper, do it. You’ll have to pedal a little harder, there isn’t as many BTU available, so kids on bikes will be able to pass you, but you still get from point A to point B.
Ah well, doesn’t matter, I’m past the age of dreaming of topless models in red sports cars.
I settle for plain old matrimonial A to B with a cup of tea and a chat afterwards.
Ummmm, I don’t want to come right out and say you’re lying, but as prevarications go, that was pretty close… Maybe a blue sports car? 
Keep the car, just gimme the nitrous oxide…
WRONG, on two huge fronts.
For the love of fuck, so many nay sayers that have mostly just said no to actual research.
First off, creating the hydrogen in a high combustion state is not as necessary as the poor mislead public is prone to believe by less than adequate research.
Purdue University already produced “hydrogen on demand” using a pump with aluminum plates and including gallium pellets, (of very low quality for their research budget), which led to clean hydrogen production at the press of a button. The recapture rate was 92%-93% for materials used.
To power a standard combustion engine, you do NOT need refined hydrogen. The only real changes are the storage tank, a smarter idle chip instruction set, (to account for purity variances because OXYGEN IS STILL INCLUDED IN THE COMBUSTION PROCESS), and stainless steel valves to withstand the heat produced. That’s it.
Storing hydrogen in ice, if for some moronic reason, instead of producing it on demand. Being stored as part of a solid, it is completely stable, and to liberate it, simply melt the fucking ice. Already accomplished by Japanese/Swedish engineers.
Read something outside of the American Media, paid for in large part by Big Oil, to get any real information.
Your mind may now return to its typically addlepated state of MSM programming and flailing assumptions based on belief. If this fails, please reconnect with Prof. Cookie Monster for retraining.
In the same manner that I can direct you to Purdue University so you can upgrade your user.
Research is not a crime.
Says who? I’ve always considered myself quite the dashing criminal!
The catalysts, sugc as you discussed at Purdue, are common enough. And they work fantastically well. Just not power-source-worthy well. It still takes an electric current to make the magic happen and the energy needed to produce said electric current is still more than the energy yielded from the process. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a nice alternative to the ever-rarer sweet crude, much less the horrifically expensive process of making sour crude into gasoline. But it doesn’t ultimately free us from traditional power sources in any meaningful way.
Welcome to retardation. “Tonight on CNN … with Larry Plebe Live”
No one is talking about electricity … it’s called combustion. The electricity required to initiate the process is sparse and almost insignificant in comparison to the output of hydrogen. The payoff is there …
Well, the payoff would be there except for the fact the American public has had its weak, pathetic little mind bought out by misconceptions, bad science, and thug capitalism.
P.S. Purdue also stated the fact the electricity should be coming from a much more efficient modern nuclear plant, and the ROI improves to an even greater degree.
Until you produce a paper, you are blowing smoke up my ass. Now, don’t get me wrong, that wouldn’t be a terrible thing except that it is you doing it . . . and neither of us wants that sort of thing 
Mas,
Get out of the lab and look at APPLIED technology. Gee, 92% clean hydrogen. The little bit of oxygen still present couldn’t possibly create any instability. 
You wanna store it as ICE?? Just how much energy is used to keep that ball of fire all iced up in a car sitting in an air terminal parking lot for a week in August? I’m absolutely positive that a really great system like that could go for ten years without any maintenance and be perfectly safe.
Yes, oxygen is present in the burning of ANYTHING… All “combustibles” are recombinant. That was a great lesson in applied science.
The only “safe” energy systems are those that are stable under any condition of neglect by the morons using those systems. Hydrogen will have it’s place, but not in the two car garage of Joe Sixpack - ever.
Very humorous, tent. Oh wait, not.
Except for one thing. How many people per year make mistakes with gasoline? Or other petroleum products? How many car fires per year already claim lives? (Oh, by the way, Canola oil … it can be used in machines, and it isn’t a petroleum product, it comes from the Rapeseed plant.)
Your argument is beyond weak, it’s invalid. Morons will always take a usable and beneficial technology and create some manner of chaos and destruction. Try something substantial to argue about, and consider that in the infancy of the combustion engine, they had little to no care or idea about “safety standards”. You sound like the foreward to “The American Status Quo Mentality”.
Before you argue, realise you are on the internet. The greatest single example of human enterprise turned to morbid stupidity and misuse … EVER … in the history of all “humankind”.
Xunzian,
Purdue already came up with the paper. Go read it.
Actually, storing hydrogen is easy. Generally done as a salt, but ice ought be cold enough to avoid spontaneous combustion. The trick is that it still takes more energy to make it than it is to burn it (the classical problem). If we were to switch to say, nuclear power, it would be a nice transitional medium. I just think that in a rights-based, individualistic society, such a proposition represents pushing things off onto the next generation, not an actual solution . . .
Edit: Mas, linky-linky. It involves an outside power-source. If it doesn’t, I’ll refrain from the drink for a week after m’ grand-ma-ma finishes her swan-song. You’ll understand that such an event would require a delay. But once I’m wearing a burlap-sack, I’ll gladly give up the booze. While I’m not technically obligated, it is sorta implied anyway 
Balderdash.
I presented the ice idea because the curmudgeon of doom, so indicative of his generation, resists anything that looks like change, if it doesn’t seem instantly “neat and tidy”.
Hydrogen delivery can be done in the “on demand” manner. This limits unnecessary energy expenditure, and utterly obviates the storage issue.
Changing the form of a gas tank to hold liquid hydrogen, using say, oh I don’t fucking know, carbon fiber, would nullify the rest of his argument.
The problem with the energy issue, is the mentality displayed by both of you; forever trapped “in the box”.
It’s okay with me, I’m storing the laughter up in my tanks. I can’t wait to watch this pathetic country burn in the midst of the fires of it’s own apathy.
That is when the predators win, hands down. Mmmmmm, anarchic predation and cleansing fire … half a side of cow and a keg of good ale, and that’s a fucking party.
Dude, Al/Ga is a catalyst. Not a magic thing-a-ma-bob.
I’m confused, so I added a pole, so I can just kick back and follow the herd.