The "Water Fueled Car"

[Occhidiangela]

The News Blurb on the car that runs on water.

Does anyone have documentation, or some published test information, that shows the kW requirements for the electrolosis process in volved with this?

The core problem of this tech, as I see it, is that there is still an energy cost, sytem wide, for electricity generated (there is always loss in energy conversion, always) to conduct the electrolysis, but the back end benefit, of significantly reduced emissions, may present a "total system's" benefit.

Comments? Another argument for nuclear power plants . . . even in Iran. :shuriken:

Occhi

[Doc]

I hope they hurry up with this... The water powered car has been around in one form or another since the 70s and not much progress yet.

Yet another example of a great idea that nobody can get to work.

Atomic filter seperates the hydrogen and oxygen, hydrogen is burned as fuel, car burps out pure oxygen out of its tail pipe.

In the 80s, I don't remember if it was Pop Sci or Pop Mech, but there was a piece on how it was going, and they had a big breakthrough when they had a test car that weighed almost four thousand pounds drive I think it was like 30 or 40 feet on several hundred gallons of water. In the 90s, there was a few more quiet victories. The atomic seperation equipment was made considerably lighter and better, which would allow for cars in the 1000 pound range.

If somebody would just dump a few million or even a few billion dollars in to this project, I bet it could be refined in the space of just a few years. I know I would like to see it work.

And speaking of water powered cars, I think steam might make a bit of a comeback. I was reading not to long ago how some student from one of those big colleges, might have been MIT or Mellon, made a steam engine that could run on average 100 miles per gallon on biofuel. Biofuel powers a small engine, which powers a small copper wire wrapped motor, which produces electricity, which in turn runs a boiler. Along with coasting and a flywheel mechanism that I fail to understand, the motor uses electricity to keep the water boiling.

I feel as though we have been on the brink of something great and something has held us back.

I know somebody that just converted their old 60s model VW microbus to a biodiesel. They get 80 to 90 mpg now that the engine is burned in. Reeks like french fries.

[the Langolier]

Atomic filter seperates the hydrogen and oxygen, hydrogen is burned as fuel, car burps out pure oxygen out of its tail pipe.

Water is a molecule. You can't just "filter" out the hydrogen like you can filter out rocks from a pile of dirt. It takes a reaction to seperate them. In this case, it would take an endothermic reaction because it requires energy. Furthermore, you wouldn't be emitting oxygen, you would be emitting WATER - the product of burning hydrogen. So what we have is an engine that starts out with water, eventually to produce water - and since no process is 100% effiecient, you would just be losing energy. In fact, even if it WERE 100% effiient, it still wouldn't matter because you would be getting nothing more than what you put in.

If you had an engine that seperated the hydrogen out of a given amount of water, then used that hydrogen as fuel for the engine to seperate more hydrogen, it would not have enough energy even to process the same amount of water as before - let alone get enough energy out of the process to do actual work - like moving a vehicle down a highway at 65 mph.

And speaking of water powered cars, I think steam might make a bit of a comeback. I was reading not to long ago how some student from one of those big colleges, might have been MIT or Mellon, made a steam engine that could run on average 100 miles per gallon on biofuel. Biofuel powers a small engine, which powers a small copper wire wrapped motor, which produces electricity, which in turn runs a boiler. Along with coasting and a flywheel mechanism that I fail to understand, the motor uses electricity to keep the water boiling.

Laugh out loud. That makes absolutely no sense. First you lose energy creating mechanical power from chemical potential, then you lose more converting the mechanical to electrical, then you lose more converting electrical to heat, then you lose THE MOST converting heat into mechanical energy! If you notice, we already had mechanical energy in the second step of the process! Do you have any idea how "hard" (i.e. energy intensive) it is to boil water? It has one of the highest energy/temperature ratios (called specific heat) of all compounds.

[DeeBye]

The News Blurb on the car that runs on water.

I've seen that clip before and I found it very interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown's_gas

Personally, I wouldn't mind more nuclear power plants. I'd prefer more hydroelectric, wind, or solar plants, but nuclear appeals to me more than those that burn fossil fuels.

edit: The gas being burned here is NOT pure hydrogen. Watch the clip again and visit the Wikipedia link. It is another type of combustible gas - HHO gas, or "Brown's gas".

[Nystul]

In terms of having actual hydrogen fuel cell powered cars in the U.S., the emissions issue is a non-starter outside of the west coast. Does the west coast actually have electricity to spare, or are they still fresh out? The only way this technology can come into actual use nationwide is if it can compete and win economically against traditional cars. There's an awful lot of variables involved in trying to figure out that competition. (Even if it could win the economic competition easily, it is still no guarantee. Look how many people drive gas-guzzling SUVs and pickups who don't use them for anything that would require an SUV or pickup, and higher gas prices have not been a big deterrent to this yet.)

I don't know. Maybe the smart course would be to get back into those nuclear plants you mentioned first, and then start talking about fuel cells when surplus, or at least sufficient, production of electricity is more of a nationwide reality.

[Doc]

Water is a molecule. You can't just "filter" out the hydrogen like you can filter out rocks from a pile of dirt. It takes a reaction to seperate them. In this case, it would take an endothermic reaction because it requires energy. Furthermore, you wouldn't be emitting oxygen, you would be emitting WATER - the product of burning hydrogen. So what we have is an engine that starts out with water, eventually to produce water - and since no process is 100% effiecient, you would just be losing energy. In fact, even if it WERE 100% effiient, it still wouldn't matter because you would be getting nothing more than what you put in.

If you had an engine that seperated the hydrogen out of a given amount of water, then used that hydrogen as fuel for the engine to seperate more hydrogen, it would not have enough energy even to process the same amount of water as before - let alone get enough energy out of the process to do actual work - like moving a vehicle down a highway at 65 mph.
Laugh out loud. That makes absolutely no sense. First you lose energy creating mechanical power from chemical potential, then you lose more converting the mechanical to electrical, then you lose more converting electrical to heat, then you lose THE MOST converting heat into mechanical energy! If you notice, we already had mechanical energy in the second step of the process! Do you have any idea how "hard" (i.e. energy intensive) it is to boil water? It has one of the highest energy/temperature ratios (called specific heat) of all compounds.

I have no clue what so ever how this stuff works, but in all fairness, until you make something better, I don't think laughing at it is a good idea.

The steam engine is a lot more complicated than I can explain. It uses fuel to generate electricity to boil water. It burns a lot of energy getting the car moving. Once the car is actually moving, fuel consumption goes way down and the car produces most of the electricity it needs to keep the water boiling as it coasts. There are wires running through the boiler that stay red hot from the electricity and keep the water around them very hot.

Now, I can't explain it, but the issue of what you describe was addressed. The steam engine is specifically used to provide more power than what an electric motor offers. In theory, this system could drive a loaded delivery truck, and the heavier the truck is, the better it can coast. Steam engine assist would be available for hills and such.

I don't recall if there were electrical motors powering the wheels or not. Might have been. I just remember the steam engine bits and how it provides more power for going up hills and what not.

[kandrathe]

Roughly ~4.5 kWh/NM3H2

or by looking at some product literature,

Hogan 40 series Hydrogen Generator specifications

It is more realistically 5.6 to 9.0 kWh/Nm3 H2 (14.7 to 23.6 kWh/100ft3 H2)

There is a ton of interesting research into how to generate new bio-friendly fuels with the least energy input.

Here are some interesting links;

Cracking Water
Nano catalysts convert Alcohol into Hydrogen
Interesting Brit page on transport fuels with all the scientific number crunching.
Lanny Schmidt's hydrogen reactor
Capstone Microturbine -- Convert Low Yield Biomass Fuel into Heat and Electricity

For those who are advocates for solar power, and I've tried to make this point here before... You will never get past the issue that the sun delivers in the best places on earth solar radiation somewhere between 125 and 375 W/m², between 3 and 9 kWh/m²/day and the best solar panels deliver 19 to 56 W/m² or 0.45-1.35 kWh/m²/day (annual day and night average), which would equate to 18,000 square meters / megawatt of solar panels at maximum efficiency. Wind power is a form of solar energy which can be captured a different way, but still the sun delivers the same amount of radiation to us each day.

Our current electricity generating power plants are in the 300 to 1000 Megawatt range, which means to replace the new fairly large 775 mW plant at Calpine it would have taken a minimum of 13,950,000 sq. meters of land or 5.39 sq miles, but realistically due to spacing of solar panel arrays for maintanence it would be double that.

I did some digging into world energy consumption which show a current demand for energy of about 500 quadrillion (500,000,000,000,000,000) BTU/hours per year (divided by 3,414,000 to get Mwh) or 146,455,770,357.35 Mwh. If we assume about 8700 (99% uptime) hours for all the power plants in the world then we need a minimum of 16,833,996.6 Mw generating capacity or 116,993.6 sq miles (or double that actually). For comparison, Britain is roughly 90,000 sq. miles in size, Libya is 679,362 sq miles. There are some big open land areas in the US, Asia, or Africa that might be appropriate to house some large solar array's.

I'm not suggesting we shouldn't invest in solar in areas with lots of sun and space to devote to millions of acres of arrays, but I do believe it is more inefficent than chemical or nuclear energy production methods.

[Occhidiangela]

Roughly ~4.5 kWh/NM3H2


I'm not suggesting we shouldn't invest in solar in areas with lots of sun and space to devote to millions of acres of arrays, but I do believe it is more inefficent than chemical or nuclear energy production methods.

Thanks for the links, but I do not believe the entire answer is "efficiency" related, but a more holistic cost benefit analysis, which is why I discuss "total system cost."

For the rest in the thread, the water is converted to HHO by electrolysis, the hydrogen burned, and H2O is a byproduct. You still have to have the battery power/flywheel/Generator, etc, to sustain the electrolysis reaction, if you "fill the tank with water" or you have to create tanks of HHO and fill your car's tank up with HHO at a "filling station." The filling station, of course, requires a lot of electricity to keep converting H20 to HHO for you to "burn" in your car. The issue at hand is how beneficial the non carbon emissions are, what efficiencies one can accrue from that (no more catalytic converters for cars that are pure HHO driven) and what weight and performance savings can be passed along to reduce total system's cost.

The remark about "we want to drive an SUV anyway" is another cost benefit consideration for some customers, but not for those on a budget.

Occhi

[roguebanshee]

The remark about "we want to drive an SUV anyway" is another cost benefit consideration for some customers, but not for those on a budget.

I don't see any kind of benefit in owning a SUV, unless you're desperate for some kind of compensation. Cars are tools and should be treated as such.

I wouldn't mind a substantial worldwide tax (10% or so) for owning anything that goes less than 15-18 km/l (or ~38-45 mpg). The money from this should go towards improving alternate energy sources.

Not that it'll ever happen.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I don't see any kind of benefit in owning a SUV

I own an Explorer, a '93 model with about 89,000 miles on it. I've used it for commuting (14 miles each way, wasting less gas than those who use a 30 mpg car to commute 50 miles, not that unusual in the Seattle area). I've used it to haul four adults with all the necessary gear for week long golf and ski vacations. I've used it to haul all the plants, supplies (except the ten yards of fill), and materials to establish and maintain a quarter acre yard. I've used it to haul the materials to convert a 500 sq ft unfinished area into a large family room. I've routinely used it to haul our monthly bulk shopping from Costco. When I decided to sell the house and move to a condo, it carried load after load of stuff that I'd been storing 'in case I ever needed it' to Goodwill or the dump. It carried my 70 boxes of books to the storage shed, and almost everything I wanted to keep from the house to the condo (I did rent a truck and two movers for one day for the really big stuff). It has served me well in a dual role as a pickup truck (and only twice in 13 years did I wish it had had an open bed) and a personal vehicle. But look again at the age and the mileage.

So, take your anti SUV prejudice and shove it. Just because you are blind does not mean there is nothing to see.

--Pete

[roguebanshee]

(14 miles each way, wasting less gas than those who use a 30 mpg car to commute 50 miles, not that unusual in the Seattle area).

And you would have wasted even less if you had gotten a proper car instead. For the other cases (moving large amounts of stuff) you could have rented a car or trailer for the occasion.

And 30 mpg? That's horrible fuel economy, something I'd expect from a badly maintained mid-90's car. Anything from this century should go at least 40 mpg, unless the driver doesn't know what (s)he is doing.

[Artega]

Just because you are blind does not mean there is nothing to see.

--Pete

Yet another quote for my text file containing Lurker Lounge quotes:)

I think our SUV predjudice is fueled by Soccer Moms™ driving around gargantuan monstrosities like Hummer H2's, Ford Excursions, and Chevy Suburbans, completely disregarding use of standard day-to-day things like turn signals, stop signs, and yield signs:)

[--Pete]

Hi,

And you would have wasted even less if you had gotten a proper car instead. For the other cases (moving large amounts of stuff) you could have rented a car or trailer for the occasion.

Notice that it was used about once a month for something needing its size? Suggesting I rent a large vehicle once a month is truly idiotic and shows how much your chauvinism against SUV overcomes any attempt at rational thought.

And 30 mpg? That's horrible fuel economy, something I'd expect from a badly maintained mid-90's car. Anything from this century should go at least 40 mpg, unless the driver doesn't know what (s)he is doing.

Then you are ignorant. Consumer reports has a list of the most efficient cars that they've tested. These are the only ones getting over 30 mpg:
Honda Insight 51
Toyota Prius 44
Honda Civic Hybrid 37
Volkswagen Jetta TDI 34
Scion xB 32
Scion xA 31
Mini Cooper Base 30
So, you are effectively giving people a choice of two cars to buy, one of which has (last time I checked) a six month waiting list and the other of which is a useless POS except for its gas mileage.

If you go by EPA values, then you have been fooled. Both Consumer Reports and Edmunds point out that the EPA values are inflated.

--Pete

[SwissMercenary]

Water is a molecule. You can't just "filter" out the hydrogen like you can filter out rocks from a pile of dirt. It takes a reaction to seperate them. In this case, it would take an endothermic reaction because it requires energy. Furthermore, you wouldn't be emitting oxygen, you would be emitting WATER - the product of burning hydrogen. So what we have is an engine that starts out with water, eventually to produce water - and since no process is 100% effiecient, you would just be losing energy. In fact, even if it WERE 100% effiient, it still wouldn't matter because you would be getting nothing more than what you put in.

But the benefit of this technology, is that you could use electricity to seperate water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. Electricity can (Key word being 'Can') potentially be produced in more environmentally friendly ways then burning fossil fuels. (See - geothermal, solar, hydroelectric (despite all of its flaws), tidal, nuclear).

This isn't a magical energy pancea, but if more of our electricity is produced from non-polluting processes, then this will produce less pollution in the long run. Oh, and it'll reduce our reliance on oil.

[Doc]

There are illegal carb kits for VWs that allow you to get 60 to 75 mpg. These work best on old Rabbits and Golfs.

No, these carb kits do not cause dangerous emmision levels, and they don't cause your engine to become unstable or dangerous or increase any risk of your engine bursting in to flames. They were made illegal in this country simply because somebody is making a lot of money off of selling gas.

There are even conversion kits for old VW Rabbit diesels that allow them to get up to 80 mpg on diesel, at the cost of a loss of a bit of horsepower. For people that live in very flat areas, these rock. These too, are illegal, for claimed engine instability and hazards.

If anything, the diesel kit for Rabbits makes the car even better, because the engine runs a hell of a lot cooler and there are people out there with well over 500,000 miles on those old motors... I seriously doubt that the conversion kits are going to make those mills blow up any time soon.

[roguebanshee]

Then you are ignorant. Consumer reports has a list of the most efficient cars that they've tested. These are the only ones getting over 30 mpg:

And I thought the overall bad mpg of the US was just a myth. I am reminded of the hostage scene in Robocop with the mayor.

Lt Hedgecock: What kind of car do you want?
Miller: Something with reclining leather seats, that goes really fast, and gets really #$%&ty gas mileage!

Most new cars around here (Denmark) get 15-20 km/l (or ~38-50 mpg) with mixed highway/city use and a competent driver. One VW model got as much as 30 km/l (or ~70-75 mpg) but it's not in production anymore, apparently due to bad worldwide sales. Bigger cars do get a worse fuel economy, but those are also a lot more expensive to both buy and own (taxation of cars is partially based on fuel economy). I'd toss a link, but the only site I know of with impartial tests requires paid membership and is in danish.

[Doc]

And I thought the overall bad mpg of the US was just a myth. I am reminded of the hostage scene in Robocop with the mayor.
Most new cars around here (Denmark) get 15-20 km/l (or ~38-50 mpg) with mixed highway/city use and a competent driver. One VW model got as much as 30 km/l (or ~70-75 mpg) but it's not in production anymore, apparently due to bad worldwide sales. Bigger cars do get a worse fuel economy, but those are also a lot more expensive to both buy and own (taxation of cars is partially based on fuel economy). I'd toss a link, but the only site I know of with impartial tests requires paid membership and is in danish.

That VW you mention, it was outlawed here in the USA... Failed emmisions tests. Actual truth was, it had better pollution controls than any other American made car at that time, and many other imports.

The US does not want to actually fix the gas crisis. They want to keep making money off of it.

[roguebanshee]

That VW you mention, it was outlawed here in the USA... Failed emmisions tests. Actual truth was, it had better pollution controls than any other American made car at that time, and many other imports.

That doesn't surprise me all that much now.

Then again, I guess something has to keep the US economy going. Even if it means plugging your ears and yelling whenever someone starts offering a cheaper and better alternative.

[Doc]

That doesn't surprise me all that much now.

Then again, I guess something has to keep the US economy going. Even if it means plugging your ears and yelling whenever someone starts offering a cheaper and better alternative.

I forget which state it is, might be Indiana maybe, but one of them is attempting to lobby a tax that would make biofuels more expensive than gas. It's one of those states that grows a lot of soybeans and corn, and could easily produce a ton of biofuel of whatever form... It is just assinine that they plan to tax it to the point of where it costs more than gas.

There is some loon around here trying to get bio diesel outlawed, saying that the smell of cooking french fries coming from a car is distracting and dangerous, and a public menace. His name is Hank something or other... No suprise, he owns several oil rigs down in the Gulf. He is spending a lot of money trying to keep biofuels out of South Carolina. He also keeps saying that there has been no real tests to study the effects of emissions from bio diesel cars on the environment. Should I ever meet him in person, I would very much like to slap him upside his skull and make his eyeballs pop out of his head.

[--Pete]

Hi,

For the rest in the thread, the water is converted to HHO by electrolysis, the hydrogen burned, and H2O is a byproduct.

I keep seeing this 'HHO' thing, but I have no clue, and can't seem to buy one, about just what it is. If it is supposed to be some different structure of water, then I can't see that there would be much energy available and the molecule of water would just thermally revert to its polar V shape in a short (millisecond, microsecond, faster?) time. If the split is in a H, OH manner, then the chemistry gets interesting since both are very active bits, indeed the basis for most acids and bases. And separating water into a hydroxyl and a proton is probably very energy intensive. But, if the split is just into gases, then the output is just O2 gas and H2 gas.

--Pete