Hey all,

How's this grab you? I was watching Discovery Channel awhile back, and I just remembered something I saw regarding the energy that could harnessed and used from water.

They showed an experiment by which they could electrically charge a water drop. The water drop would be injected with some kind of CO2 gas, and then at a certain temperature electicity would charge it, and it could be used to blast a 1" or so diameter hole into a 1/4" piece of steel.

I remember one of their experts saying they could eventually produce an internal combustion engine that would run on water only.
They described 2 methods by which to accomplish this.

The first was to actually induce the results accomplished in the experiment by injecting water and gas at the right ratios and hitting the mixture with an electrical charge-I guess from something similar to a spark plug. How this could work without also producing the result of burning a hole in the steel I don't know.

The second was by having some kind of high tech, seperator in the fuel line which would seperate the hydrogen from the oxygen before they actually reached the engine in the form of water.
Both gases would then be injected into the cylinders, again at a certain ratio. I don't remember if this mixture was also electrically charged or if it used compression like a diesel does.

For many reasons, I do not think that we will ever see an engine that operates like this anytime soon, but could you imagine the possibilities?
No more emmisions problems.
Fuel would be distilled water(0.25 a gallon to fill your own)-of course they'd find a way to add some sort of fuel tax to it.

God knows the HP and torque something like this could have.

Petrol would be next to useless.

Oh well, it's all BC for now, but that's what the General discussion board is for right? ...well, you know what I mean.


Regards.

 

That would be wonderful. It would turn crude oil into worthless crud. The world would change in minutes.

The ecology would improve immediately.

I would pay more for that engine.

They have been talking about it for many, many years.

 

All the major car company's have been trying to produce a hydrogen engine, but the main problem is safty. This fuel is stored in high pressure tank's. Hell people have been dealing with gasoline for year's and are still unsafe with it. But the concept is great. I learned in high school that water could be a great fuel when broken down properly. And that was 35 year's ago. As long as the petro company's are ruling the government's by padding thier pocket's, alternative fuel's don't stand a chance.

 

One of the problems they are having with hydrogen is the molicules are small and "leach" into metal, changing the structure. Dense metal is soft and not durable. They are working on it. Thermal plastics are the way of the future.

I can see my water bill going up already..

 

I hope someday this could work. But I have a few reservations about it.

1 - Water is scarce now. Most hotels and commercial businesses are on a water conservation kick (mandate). Even the congress has mandated how much water you can use to flush your toilet.
New clothes washing machines are required to be water saving, and much more expensive.

When water is used for fuel, it will be very expensive to quinch your thirst, not to mention take a shower. I am talking because of the demand, not even considering the extra taxes every government entity will add.

Gasoline is (or was before the war talk) already cheaper than water if you exclude the taxes. Check it out in the grocery store.

2 - Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen takes energy. If it was cheap and easy, anyone could do it. The first law of thermodynamics "there is no free lunch".

3 - If it takes another gas to function, then it is not a water-only fuel. The other gas may be $10.00 per gallon, or cubic foot, etc.

4 - Not trying to be a naysayer, we just need to consider all the ramifications.

 

Just my .02 cents

Yes, there's no free lunch. We have the technology now for cheap power. There's a place in California, (I can't find the darn site!), that uses solar cells as initial power to convert to hydrogen to power again. I know, it's redundant, it's expensive, but it's at a college AND it's been running for a few years now. Wind power is being used and I've seen that myself. We just need more of them. Cost at about 1.5 million per wind generator. Sell power back @ 2.5 cents/Kwh. Payback after 12 years. At least, that's what they hope.

Are you serious about water? I spend over 100 nights a year in motels and the water measures are mostly a profit saving thing. They would love it if everyone brought their own towels and sheets and have one person man the desk.

There's a place in Central Oregon that's totally off-grid, (about 100 houses), and drinking water's a problem, too. Cost them about $100/500gal delivered. I doubt we would have to go into the Circle K for Evian.

If we'd never used fossel fuels, how much would it cost to engineer, develop and implement it to the point it's at today?

I just think we have a lot of tools at our disposal today. There's just so much neat stuff going on. I hope I live long enough to see how it pans out.

Oh no! My Republican grandmother would be turning in her grave. I better go oil my gun or something....

 

This type of engine would solve a great many problems--maybe.

When the correct ration of oxygen and hydrogen are ignited you have an explosion similar that in an internal combustion engine. The exhaust (or by-product) of this explosion is h2o.

So basically you combine the gases and get water and power.

Where do the gases come from? One of two places--the atmosphere or water. If you use water to get the gases, the molecules need to be split. Thus requiring energy. However, when the gases are burned you have only water as exhaust. This could then be reused and resplit to make gases for either your car or another car. There are several ways to go from here, on-board water splitters, station type splitters (where you drop off water/exhaust and refill with gases and pay a fee), or a system in your garage.

We could also harvest these gases from the air. That would take a lot of equiptment and could be very expensive.

However, all of these ideas will require power to produce the gases. Where does that power come from?

The simple fact is that power must come from something. Right now, the power that we use to run our industrial society comes from borrowed sources. Crude oil can only last for so long--whether 100 years or 10,000 years. Uranium, coal, etc. are only present in finite qualities. Sooner or later we are going to run out of these sources of pre-made power.

Even the h20 powered vehicle is subject to this rule.

People talk about renewable energy--we use far more energy than we could ever harness from all the available solor power/wind power (they are essentially the same). When I say use you need to think in the broadest sense possible--we use solar power to grow crops. To grow timber for harvest, etc.

Mull on that for awhile.




Whistler

 

Jimmy Carter said, "We will never again use as much oil as we did in 1977". Ronald Reagan said." We will never again have our economy at the mercy of an oil cartel". Of course they were wrong. We need to invest in the R&D to develop more energy efficiency and sources. It will be expensive but is an investment in the future. Part of the cost could be raised through conversation, reducing waste and increasing efficiency ( especially in auto mileage). The rest could be funded by an additional tax on gasoline (I know you don't want to hear that). Incentives could be given to auto makers that reduce increase gas mileage and companies that reduce power requirements by conservation and inovations. Will this happen? Probably not, We are great at reacting to extreme crisis but we are also great at not reacting pre-crisis. Also we will be in deficit of over 300 billion for this year (not including the 100 billion we are going to spend on the upcoming war - 35 billion which we are using to buy "Allies" for our "Coalition"). I could rant on but this is enough.
Dono

 

Hydrogen as a fuel has three major fatal drawbacks.

First- The most common method of making it is electrolisis of water. This requires large amounts of energy which has to come from? It is not an energy effiicient process. Normally electricity is used. To make enough to power cars would require a massive construction program to build more power generation plants which use natural gas, coal, & oil as a fuel? No savings in emiisions there at all, not to mention all of the hydrogen plants that would be required. This is just a dead end and it is time to move on.

second- there is no distribution network like we currently have for gasoline and diesel fuel. Transporting and storage would be a real hazard.

third- hydrogen iqnites very easily and burns with no visible flame until it comes into contact with something else that combust, like your clothes. Refueling your vehicle would be very hazardous and heaven forbid you should get into an accident with hydrogen tanks on board.

 

I’m willing to wager that in 50 years people will look back on hydrogen powered cars the same way we look back on turbine powered cars of the 50's, An interesting idea but fundamentally an inefficient way to move us around. I really believe electric is the way of the future. This isn't to say hydrogen won't be used, but I think it's more realistic to see stationary power units in houses or local power distribution stations. Another good thing about hydrogen is that modern Jet engines could be retrofitted to run off Hydrogen relatively easily where as cars would be much more tricky.

I’d like to add that I find it a little suspicious that an administration with so much backing from the oil industry is supporting a power source that would at least initially be so dependant on fossil fuels.

There have been electric cars for more than a hundred years. Only in the last 20 have they been useful. Batteries are getting lighter and becoming more efficient every year; I remember hearing some figure like 20% more efficient every year. They also are recharging faster, within 20 years you might have a car with a three or four hundred mile range that only takes minutes to charge. No worries about pressurized tanks or fiery refueling disasters.

Trucks like ours will be relics, in 50 years gasoline might be as hard to get as whale oil is now.

~eriC

 

Let's see if I understand what your saying here.
First we extract the hydrogen from water which leaves 2 lonely oxygen molecules and a hydrogen atom,
HYDROGEN ATOM.
ok then we SPLIT this HYDROGEN ATOM. and what happens again !
Energy is released in a big way..
and you want to put this energy in a car because?

Thanks but please not in my lifetime.

Imagine
oops split too many hydrogen atoms at once!
Sorry Chicago!

 

Franklin unless you happen to keep an x-ray lazer in your trunk you'd be safe. Hydrogen is an extremely stable atom(i.e. non fissile), the energy relased is purely from a chemical reaction. Fuel cells are like chemical batteries, you put energy into a state you can store, then you use it later. Magic!

~eriC

 

Hydrogen gas can be produced by breaking down organic matter with enzymes, and the only energy requirement for the process is the heating of the vats by exposure to sunlight. This same method can be used to produce dozens of other fuels.
I don't see a big future in hydrogen power for CARS, but I think it's a great resource for producing electricity in a power plant. Hydrogen just isn't safe to move around in a vehicle; the cost of the infrastructure for transporting it would decimate its value as a fuel.
Electricity or Ethanol. Those are my bets...
Will we ever eliminate fossil fuels as an energy source? Yes, of course. As soon as we run out! It will always have a viable place as a fuel.
That's the way it is, unfortunately
BDV

 

Cars have been operating on propane for years.The only conversion to be made is carberation.Hydrogen being thee most abundant element on earth is the only logical alternative.Electric cars require batteries which wear out. The complete nuisance imposed on the persons traveling a considerable distance in one of these vehicles is too far in the negative.Fueling a hydrogen powered vehicle presents no problems whatsoever.After all peopel had to familiarize themselves with feuling a model t after selling the family horse and buggy back in the 20,s.If we are faced(and we are) with an end to the current form of fuel we are now using....im sure we'll adapt as apposed to saddling a horse again. They re too slow and and you cant shut them of ...gotta keep feeding them after the trip is over.Anyway...im sure youve all seen a propane bottle filled.Theres obviously going to be modifications to this procedure if hydrogen is the #1 fuel.Its a simple as using a quick connect on an air line. It would be a simmilar procedure as with gas.Pull the hose from the saddle,hook the female end of the fuel line to the male reciever on your vehicle(or vice versa)and turn the pump on and let it fill,turn it off ,disconnect the quick connector,go pay the attendant .The gas trucks would just be hydrogen trucks that fill the underground tanks at the station.When you fill with gasoline you smell vapors arising from your tank as gas goes in.These vapors are every bit as flammable as a small amount of hydrogen that will be expected to escape upon plugging in a quick connector.There will be even less danger if you think about it.As you fill with gas the vapors continually expell from the tank until your through.The only time hydrogen would escape into the air is when you couple and uncouple the connector. As far as a hydrogen tank being a hazard in an accident ...i believe there would be far less danger.Hydrogen woud be required to be in pressurized tanks that are far stronger than the thin sheet metal conventional gas tanks on cars are utlizing. If you put a propane carb on an engine and install LP jets in it the only other modification is the fuel tank. And just think....those of us who modify our rides wont arent far from the same technology that originaly existed.How would you soup up an electric car?......change from duracel to eveready?...bah....hydrogen is the alternative.Theres already laws in legislation in california initiating the move away from fossil fuel.The energy source to turn water to hydrogen is solar and wind generated electricity. The switch to production would cost no more than distiling crude to gas and diesel. We really need to get rolling tho...what crude there is left in the world needs to be earmarked for lubricants until we can get synthetics going full bore........just my $14 dollars worth

 

I really liked this concept when I saw the computer animated
engines at work.
I saw this as an acceptable alternative to petrol and diesel powered vehicles( even if it does require technology not yet fully understood).

I really believe that this technology should be exploited , and money should be allocated for R&D now so that it could be a viable way to power new cars and trucks in 20 yrs or so.

I do not believe that these engines would be viewed as novelties the way those experimental turbine engines in the 60's and 70's were.

The thing I liked most about these engines was how similar they would be to our present day gas and diesel engines.
Pistons, rods, crankshaft, camshaft, injectors, cylinders, heads, all these familiar parts would do exactly as they do now. These engines would also still require lubrication, oil(synthetic or petroleum) oil filters, differential oil, transmission fluids, and so on. These are internal combustion engines, not some new novelty technology.

Also remember, they werent talking about filling up with hydrogen straight from a fuel station. In both these engine types they were talking of, distilled water would be the fuel source.

The first type would have to first heat the cylinders to a certain temperature(I can't remember now-it could have been 100deg, or 400deg) as water passed through the fuel line it would be microscopically aerated with Co2 gas, and then injected into the cylinder to recieve an electrical charge. They said a Co2 canister similar to the ones used to pellet guns would be sufficient to aerate several fill ups of the fuel tank.

The second type was the one which also used water initially, but there was some sort of seperator that could seperate the oxygen from the hydrogen and both these gases would then continue to the cylinders in seperate lines. They would then be recombined at a certain ratio(perhaps O2H?) as they were injected into the cylinder-again I can't remember if this one used compression or electronics to ignite the fuel.

I know these are crude descriptions, but I'm no chemist or nuclear physicist, just thought it was cool how they said these engines could be made to work.

Which of the two would be better? Who knows? Maybe the Electronically ignited, Co2 aerated engine would have great horsepower at high RPM's. Maybe if the Hydrogen/Oxygen engine works on combustion pressure, it would have great torque.

Maybe both engines would have their uses and find their special niches as todays diesels and gasoline engines do.

This technology is a good way off from being practical, but I think it should be developed, as I don't see electrically powered cars and trucks as an acceptable alternative to what we have today.

Electric motors are great for powering circular saws and vacuum cleaners, but not 1ton pickups pulling 16000Lb trailers.

If these new internal combustion engines are given the time and allocated the research necessary to properly develop them, I would bet that in 20 yrs, they would become standard in all automobiles with the more powerful engines being put in large pickups, and at this point it would be the electric motor powered car that passes into obscurity and is viewed as a cute but impractical novelty similar to those turbine engine automobiles.




Regards.