Author Topic: Hydrogen Car (Read 1180 times)

Ghosth · « **Reply #15 on:** February 09, 2003, 09:04:38 AM »

Ever hear of hydoelectric?

Canada's full of dams, we have our share also.

Plus brute force isnt' the only way to split water.

Not saying it will happen tommorow but if we don't fund the research who will?

AKIron · « **Reply #16 on:** February 09, 2003, 11:52:31 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by miko2d
Come on, Funked! Every schoolchild knows that the Sun is 99% pure hydrogen. We will just build a few more shuttles and send them there.

miko

Dummy, don't you know the sun is HOT! Guess we could send 'em there at night.

bounder · « **Reply #17 on:** February 09, 2003, 12:16:53 PM »

Has anyone ever seen footage of electric powered Drag racers? Man those things go. Some guy has the nickname 'Vapor' cos that's what happened to his spanner when he dropped it across the motor connecion terminals.

Amazing thing about electric powered vehicles is that the power is all there whenever you want it. No lag, no revs to build up, just instant propulsion.

All they need now are batteries that weigh 5lb and can drive you 400 miles up a steep hill.

J_A_B · « **Reply #18 on:** February 09, 2003, 01:18:49 PM »

"I drove a hybrid civic and compared to the regular one, its just as fast and handles as well. "

That's not the issue; the issue is Hydrogen-powered Hondas sold to LA cost 3 times as much as a normal one. It's a great technology, but isn't yet economical for the mass market.

J_A_B

Boozer · « **Reply #19 on:** February 09, 2003, 03:22:51 PM »

Not to mention the Pacific & Atlantic oceans are chock full of hydrogen, the trick is to convert it using solar/wind to keep costs viable, burning. Running vehicles on it is already proven.

hawk220 · « **Reply #20 on:** February 09, 2003, 11:10:34 PM »

What I'm wondering is where they have discovered these hydrogen deposits? Is there a great hydrogen field under the US?

funked.. you're serious?

hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe.

funkedup · « **Reply #21 on:** February 09, 2003, 11:50:17 PM »

AFAIK molecular hyrdogen does not occur naturally on Earth.

Mini D · « **Reply #22 on:** February 10, 2003, 02:50:04 AM »

Make that unbound hydrogen funkedup.

Hydrogen is in alot of places on the earth... naturally. Its just that its usually bound to another molecule.

BTW... isn't GMs new concept changeable body car based on hydrogen fuel cell technology?

MiniD

funkedup · « **Reply #23 on:** February 10, 2003, 04:01:50 AM »

"molecular hydrogen" = H2

Batz · « **Reply #24 on:** February 10, 2003, 04:32:00 AM »

The ocean is full of hydrogen. H2 is easily seperated from water. So is oxygen.

Lightening striking the ocean cause hydrogen and oxygen to seperate. An electrical current is enough to seperarte H2 from the O.

Angus · « **Reply #25 on:** February 10, 2003, 05:45:24 AM »

WATER = 2xH2+1xO2, - so plenty of the stuff. Seperating is easy, with an electrical current. Hell, you can even split water with a Battery.
Storing it is another thing, - a lot worse than Gasoline, but not a lot worse than other "floating" Gases, - so in short, quite doable.
Converting energy into it is anbother thing, - a lot gets lost on the way, but NO MORE THAN RUNNING YOUR CARS ON GASOLINE, - i.e. to convert gasoline to electricity via Power plant, then the Elctricity to Hydrogen, then run your car on it, looses roughly the same amount of the original energy as tanking your cars on the gasoline in the first place. Reason: Powerplants are a lot more effective than small car engines.
However, even with the energy useage on pair, the benefit of a Hydro car is significant, - NO POLLUTION, - no soot, no lead, no CO2, no CO, etc. etc. etc.

Since there are swings in power (Electrical) usage on a 24 hr. scale etc, some surplus power can be used to produce Hydrogen, although much of those power swings are overcome in different ways (Dams, shutting fuelled generators of, etc, etc). But mostly, mankind would have to produce Hydrogen from a renewable source, such as Sunlight, Hydro power, or Bio Power.
Now there is something that is rarely mentioned, - Growing Power.
The Brazilians have been running their cars on Alcohol for a long time, - producing the juice from their own biomass. The engines have to be converted, but not much I belive. (carburettor mostly). I don't know about power output, but it probably drops some.
Another Biomass would be oilseed. Squashed Rape-seed produces oil that runs straight away on a diesel engine, - with about 10% power loss, lots of soot and short-living injection heads as a negative effect though. It can however be mixed with diesel, and also it would be burnable on larger scale powerplant with ease (oil turbines).
With large agricultural aereas unused on many places in the world, there is quite much we can do with this, - a possible benefit for the rural areas of Europe and the USA, and a drawback for the Arab states,,,,,,,

miko2d · « **Reply #26 on:** February 10, 2003, 11:54:06 AM »

It is amazing how ingorant half of the guys here are. I thought a child of 10 would know this stuff but I guess I have too high expectations based on the Soviet school system... The law of energy conservation rings the bell?

The water in the oceans is the hydrogen that has already burned - H2 combined with O2 to create H2O while the energy was released.
To make pure hydrogen out of water again we would need to "unburn" it - add the same energy, more with inevitable losses. And that energy cas to come from somewhere.
There is no free "unbound" hydrogen on in the Earth - it is too active an element to stay unattached for long and too easily penetrates stuff to stay bottled underground like natural gas.

Extracting hydrogen from hydrocarbons - oil, natural gas - and then burning it has exactly the same result as burning hydrocarbons directly. Same amount of energy, same products - water and CO2. Just done in several steps.

Animal: huh.. the.. sun?
or maybe nucular?

Solar energy is not efficient enough and disruptive to ecology - requiring a lot of surface.
Nuclear is not PC and it could use few more decades of improvement before it could be forcefully pusshed on people. Lot of issues must be resolved, not the least of them keeping spent fuel out of the wrong hands.

Angus: Burning diesel in a power plant ... STILL beats the energy converted by a normal car engine running on gasoline.

The only places I've seen that cared to provide numbers contradict your statement. It's currently about equal efficiency.
Internal combustion engines and hybrid systems can improve efficiency without radical change to the society.
And storing liquid fuel is much easier now than storing hydrogen and electricity.

miko

DA98 · « **Reply #27 on:** February 10, 2003, 12:18:58 PM »

I'm sure I'm talking out of my bellybutton here, but wouldn't it be easier to control pollution on a big, central energy station than on thousands of little cars?

Mini D · « **Reply #28 on:** February 10, 2003, 12:32:13 PM »

Miko and Funked...

Gasoline does not occur naturally either.

Most weight of vehicle exuast vs exaust to generate electricity does not include waste generated refining, transporting and drilling for oil.

Besides, its not solely about reducing emmissions, its about finding a more renewable source of energy to lessen dependance on oil (and the middle east).

MiniD

miko2d · « **Reply #29 on:** February 10, 2003, 12:58:31 PM »

DA98: I'm sure I'm talking out of my bellybutton here, but wouldn't it be easier to control pollution on a big, central energy station than on thousands of little cars?

Yes, it certainly would. But you are considering only a single aspect of a multifaceted issue.

Yes, today the central station may arguably be better by a few percent - if that - than burning fuel in today's cars. I doubt it personally but would concede this point for the sake of an argument.

Now, considering energy expenditures related to building it, the energy loss due to transmission which is about 10% for electricity, the fact that the station will be fixed at the current level of technology for the next 30-40 years while the cars improve constantly as older models get replaced by more efficient ones - would you still have any gain over the life of that station?

Mini D: Gasoline does not occur naturally either.

Yes, it does - it's the part of the oil and the energy that is contained in gasoline after it is separated has already been in the oil - not added to it by manufacturing process.

its about finding a more renewable source of energy

That's a meaningless slogan. There could be no "finding" renewable source. All renewable sources are known, the problem is using them in efficient manner.

1. Solar energy
1.1 Biomass - growing stuff and burning it (as wood, alcohol, oil, etc.) - requires a lot of land, which destroys ecosystems.
1.2 Solar cells/reflectors - requires a lot of land, which destroys ecosystems.
1.3 Wind (caused by sun) - my favorite
1.4. Solar collectors in space.
1.5 Muscular energy.

2. Gravitational energy
2.1 Tidal stations - screw up ecology on shores
2.2 Dropping asteroids on Earth - a lot of energy but hard to control

3. Geotermal.

4. Nuclear - not PC
4.1 Fusion - not controllable yet
4.2 Fission

miko