Off Topic, Hydrogen question, it may power your Stang someday

67 evil eleanor · 05-17-2008, 05:07 AM

I know this may get canned but, I have a friend that is making Hydrogen (or something that goes boom) in his garage. We all know, (or should) that OIL is going to run out in a few years. Well anyway, he and another friend has rigged up a contraption that is apparently seperating water. What ever it is, I know he has toasted his eyebrowls at least once and blew the lid off at least three times (Hindenburged). They are using only water and a device made mostly of stainless steel and an electric fence controller. Even though they are not powering their vehicles completely, they are supplementing the gas and increasing their mileage by about 40 miles per tank. These are amateurs? I understand the Japanease have now in production, a Hydrogen powered vehicle, what are we doing? We all know that BIG OIL is killing our economy as they make billions, and personally I don't haveany faith in our Goverment to solve anything except their own well being. As usual, its going to be left up to us, the American citizens to fix things, hopefully before its too late. So, whats in the future?

jonward786 · 05-17-2008, 05:36 AM

Hydrogen powered cars are not new technology, but do you really think the oil companies are gonna allow someone to start mass-producing something that could potentially put them out of business? Hell no! some bright little guy says "hey look what i did, i invented a hydrogen powered car!" oil companies approach that guy and say "hey man thats really great, good work! but listen to this, how bout instead of waiting 10 years for your design to really take off, we will make you rich right now. sell us your plans and we will pay you x amount of millions" of course the guy is like sure here ya go.

now what will those oil companies do with that technology? release it to the public and start mass producing hyro cars? hell no, they are just gonna throw it in a file cabinet and continue making billions on oil until there is not a single drop of fuking oil left. they are not about to watch some super nerd take a hit at their oil business.

rmodel65 · 05-17-2008, 05:40 AM

the govt has no business in solving our energy problems. that comes from the private sector. if you dont want to pay for gas demand a product that doesn't use it. there hasn't been a demand in such a product till recently. if i was working the parice of gas right now even as high as it is would be largely insiginifcant, seeing how i dont live an hour from work and if push came to shove i could ride a bicycle.

if we really want to get a grasp in spirialing energy cost we need to look at liquified coal as a fuel, along with more small diesel car and trucks, heck even a diesel motorcycles a regular gas powered bike around 1000cc gets 60+ mpg so imagine a diesel you could easily get into 100-200mpg imo because the diesel make torque so easy and the motor can be made smaller and add transmissions with more gear maybe a 10spd on a bike.

65Coupester · 05-17-2008, 08:31 AM

Quote:

but do you really think the oil companies are gonna allow someone to start mass-producing something that could potentially put them out of business?

Hydrogen is not ready for prime time.
There are 2 ways to use hydrogen. Burn it in internal combustion or use it to power fuel cells in an electric car.
In either case there are no cheap storage options for a car. no good way to fill tanks and no infrastructure to distribute hydrogen to the masses. Many big cities don't even have E-85 fuel, hydrogen is light years from mass distribution.

To add insult to injury, most commercial hydrogen is made by breaking down natural gas, which releases carbon. Sure some of the carbon is recovered but the overall carbon footprint is larger with hydrogen than gas.

E-85 or pure ethanol is the only practical solution because the infrastructure is already in place. Search for flex fuel cars in Brazil. Brazil did it right starting way back in the '70s.

PReal · 05-17-2008, 08:53 AM

Quote:

ORIGINAL: 65Coupester

Quote:

but do you really think the oil companies are gonna allow someone to start mass-producing something that could potentially put them out of business?

Hydrogen is not ready for prime time.
There are 2 ways to use hydrogen. Burn it in internal combustion or use it to power fuel cells in an electric car.
In either case there are no cheap storage options for a car. no good way to fill tanks and no infrastructure to distribute hydrogen to the masses. Many big cities don't even have E-85 fuel, hydrogen is light years from mass distribution.

To add insult to injury, most commercial hydrogen is made by breaking down natural gas, which releases carbon. Sure some of the carbon is recovered but the overall carbon footprint is larger with hydrogen than gas.

E-85 or pure ethanol is the only practical solution because the infrastructure is already in place. Search for flex fuel cars in Brazil. Brazil did it right starting way back in the '70s.

E85 isn't practical. It takes almost as much energy to make as it produces and has made the cost of food rise worse then gas prices.

Mr Rudolph Diesel himself originally designed his motor to run off powdered coal, maybe we could learn a thing or two...

Also, keep in mind that the primary oil company not working alternative energy is Exxon Mobil. BP is working on biofuels, is the worlds largest producer of solar panels, has a ton of wind farm investments and in investing heavily in research in of hydrogen. Chevron is on the leading edgeof geothermal energy and has major investments tied into other forms of alternative energy as well. Shell is also playing heavily in alternative energies.

Remember that oil companies are business that are owned publically. When they make money, people make money. If you look at profit margin, oil companies make less per dollar invested then McDonalds, Starbucks, Walmart, and a multitude of other industries. Look at how much drug companies make off of every dollar invested and it will make you sick...

Starfury · 05-17-2008, 10:15 AM

The process you're talking about is electrolysis. That's how submarines make their own oxygen. Catch is, it chews up electrical power. That means it costs money for the electrical bill, and it uses more energy to make that electrical power.

67mustang302 · 05-17-2008, 10:48 AM

Hydrogen is proving to be an impractical fuel source for the reseaons stated, no infrastructure and prohibitive cost. E85 isn't practical because we make it from corn, which is inefficient and has increased the cost of most foods. Brazil's ethanol fuel economy is effective because they make it from sugar which is more efficient and can grow in vast quanitities in their country. Alcohol based fuels have other challenges as well in terms of distrobution.

As far as the panic mongering in the oil futures market that has driven the oil costs through the roof, we are not anywhere even close to running out of oil in the next 2 years, or the next 20, or even the next 200. Oil is a naturally occuring compound(it's not the remains of dinosaurs, contrary to popular belief). We don't know the mechanism behind it, but the oil wells replenish themselves, and many countries are sitting on top of unimaginably VAST reserves of oil that remain completely untapped. The United States for instance, we sit on top of the 2nd largest amount of oil in the entire world, just behind Russia. And that's out of what we KNOW about.

Ultimately we need to find something better than oil. It generates pollution and there are other environmental factors invloved in it. Gasoline combustion is highly innefficient. That's why the oil companies(which these days are more aptly energy companies) are investing in things like wind, solar, geothermal etc. I'm sure Chevron alone spends more money investing in alternative energy than every small business dedicated to it in the US combined.

mustdoc · 05-17-2008, 10:48 AM

Star and 65 are on target.

Hydrogen by your description is being produced by electrolysis. It produces both H2 and O2 - both very flammable.

Hydrogen as a car fuel, at least with present mass-production technologies (natural gas production) is WAY TOO EXPENSIVE and not environmentally friendly (lots of energy expended to produce a little hydrogen). Problems with storage, transport, infrastructure, etc. do not make it an ideal candidate for automobile applications. It does hold promise as a way to "De-centralize" energy production and this scares the hell out of large energy companies who are spending billions on how to develop and own (i.e. patent) the technologies having to do with hydrogen. Look at BP and Royal Dutch Shell's research... they see the writing on the wall after "Peak Oil" hits... likely with the next decade or two (and if you think gas prices are high now... just wait until then!!!).

Its promise is that it is a potentially storable form of electric energy and this offers advantages over present electric generation and batteries; if power plants today do not use up the energy, it is wasted. And we all know the problems with batteries. If we can find a way to cheaply produce hydrogen and store it (big problem at the present), then we can all live off the grid and convert every thing to electrc. That is where the big hope really lives - De-centralization of energy. Right now we all get our energy from Central sources (Power company, Oil company, Natural gas company,etc.)

mustdoc · 05-17-2008, 10:57 AM

Almost forgot...

2 good books on Hydrogen if you want to learn more:

The Hydrogen Economy by Rifkin

Hydrogen (forget the author) offered by MIT press.

I read both several years back and they cover the problems and promises.

PReal · 05-17-2008, 10:58 AM

Quote:

ORIGINAL: 67mustang302

Hydrogen is proving to be an impractical fuel source for the reseaons stated, no infrastructure and prohibitive cost. E85 isn't practical because we make it from corn, which is inefficient and has increased the cost of most foods. Brazil's ethanol fuel economy is effective because they make it from sugar which is more efficient and can grow in vast quanitities in their country. Alcohol based fuels have other challenges as well in terms of distrobution.

As far as the panic mongering in the oil futures market that has driven the oil costs through the roof, we are not anywhere even close to running out of oil in the next 2 years, or the next 20, or even the next 200. Oil is a naturally occuring compound(it's not the remains of dinosaurs, contrary to popular belief). We don't know the mechanism behind it, but the oil wells replenish themselves, and many countries are sitting on top of unimaginably VAST reserves of oil that remain completely untapped. The United States for instance, we sit on top of the 2nd largest amount of oil in the entire world, just behind Russia. And that's out of what we KNOW about.

Ultimately we need to find something better than oil. It generates pollution and there are other environmental factors invloved in it. Gasoline combustion is highly innefficient. That's why the oil companies(which these days are more aptly energy companies) are investing in things like wind, solar, geothermal etc. I'm sure Chevron alone spends more money investing in alternative energy than every small business dedicated to it in the US combined.

I'm pretty sure we are behind the Saudi's as well. OPEC owns the world right now though.At the least the USdrives the world's food supply. We can live without oil, you can't live without food.

If the "greenies" would less us produce our natural resourses along the coasts it would really help, and the alaskan wildlife reserve also has vast resources.

I just wish the public realized that it takes a minimum of 10 years to develop an oil field. There is a lot more work involved then punching holes in the ground.