Water Fuel

And, of course, you know there are no hydrogen mines or springs. It always takes more energy to obtain hydrogen than you get back from burning it.

Think about it. Hydrogen + Oxygen + ignition = massive power release with no polution.

Yes I have thought about it, and concluded that the Hydrogen and Oxygen have already combined and released that energy...
The result is the water on this planet.
If you want to split the water back into Hydrogen and Oxygen to repeat the process it will take more energy than it will release on re-combination.

You don't get owt for nowt as they say up North.

Del

Please look at the numerous previous threads where myself and others attempt to explain water electrolysis and hydrogen generation and use as a 'fuel' and why you always loose far more energy than you can ever gain from the small amount of hydrogen that can be produced thru electrolysis.

As others have already noted, in less a natural source i.e. hydro-wind or solar, or nuclear power is utilized to make the electricity for electrolysis you are actually increasing your carbon footprint. Power plants I believe are somewhere in the 40% efficiency range, internal combustion engines are some place in the lower 20% efficiency. The net efficiency is less than half of what it would be you the fuel would be utilized directly in a vehicle's internal combustion engine.

Utilizing hydrogen to run a fuel cell (approximately 40% efficiency, and that may be overly generous) will get the numbers better but you're still below the efficiency of direct utilization of your base fuel.

Synthetic fuel production from either oral shale or coal could potentially offer a viable alternative, here is couple links if you're interested from another post, methanol can be catalyzed at point of utilization and is a good source of hydrogen.

http://mit.edu/canes/publications/abstracts/nes/mit-nes-006.html

http://mit.edu/canes/publications/abstracts/nes/mit-nes-006.html

Just in case case anybody's interested, Standards posted this link on the performance of one of the run your car on water scans. I believe there was a net loss of 2 miles per gallon.

http://www.wyff4.com/news/17036761/detail.html

Thanks for taking the time to consider my question on Water Fuel. I hope I may have kickstarted someones brain into a different thought process about the huge potential energy from H2O. I agree the Carbon Footprint producing electricity for electrolysis is not the answer. I remember reading an article about wind turbines electrical output being used for electrolysis and the collected hydrogen gas could be introduced into natural gas supplies to supplement the natural source. The theory of the wind turbine is it has a Carbon Footprint in its manufacture and maintenance but other than that is efficent.

Production of Hydro - Carbons from crops like suger cane or oils from rape or linseed is another fascination to me. The crops need a water supply and other nutriants and according to the botanists photosynthesis obtains sugars and starches that allow the plants to grow. The end product is man harvests the crop and obtains a Hydrogen rich fuel. Perhaps the plants know something else we have overlooked?

Water can be boiled away to steam yet it also evaporates at temperatures well below its boiling point. Another characteristic of water is at the point of freezing it expands bursting pipes in the wintertime. Reducing the pressure of water reduces its boiling point. Refrigeration engineers subject a system to something approaching an absolute vacuum to boil off any moisture in the internals of the system. Water will boil at temperatures lower than -30 celsius when subjected to this vacuum.

Photosynthesis, vacuums, nuclear power, electrolysis a combination of all with a catalyst other than Carbon. Someone out there may have the answer but just needs a gentle prod!

The solution to the carbon dioxide problem is to rely heavily on the planet's energy income, and not on its reserves. Sunlight, wave and wind are the way forward. There's loads of sunlight in the Sahara Desert, for example, just waiting to be harvested.

The hydrogen concept, howsoever it is stored, has its basis as an energy carrier, in the same way that a battery is an energy carrier. There is no point in making hydrogen using fossil fuels; one might just as well use the fossil fuel without the conversion step at greater end-user efficiency.

Metal hydrides offer a possibility of hydrogen storage without the huge pressures and low temperatures that would be needed to store molecular hydrogen, along with the safety issues that would be involved in adapting it to today's machines and infrastructure.

Hydrogen is just one of the ways of connecting the harvesting arrangement with the consumer, as is the production of carbohydrate-heavy agricultural crops. There's nothing new in biofuels - mankind has been powering beasts of burden with them since time immemorial. It's only of late that the bio-fuels have been available as drop-in replacements for fossil-fuels in today's machines and distribution infrastructure.

Energy storage per unit vehicle weight and power developed per unit vehicle weight are important considerations in any transport vehicle design process. Fossil- and bio-fuels have the edge over hydrogen so far in transport applications.

Perhaps it's the courage to use these energy media in new ways that needs a tweak more than anything else?

"Perhaps it's the courage to use these energy media in new ways that needs a tweak more than anything else?"

Well said!

Del the Cat's comment that energy has already been released to create water in the first place and PWSLACK and TVP45 has provoked another thought about Hydrogen.

To produce the stuff energy is required, electrolysis, pressure, very low temperatures to get it to liquid form etc. Hydrogen has atomic number 1 and at normal atmospheric pressure it is the lightest element. Helium being the second I believe. Both gasses can be used to overcome gravitational pull of earth and can lift substantial heavy weights if enough of the stuff is placed in balloons. Hydrogen is a bit dangerous as the Germans discovered a few years ago.

Once the gasses have been produced does the ability to overcome gravity represent their potential energy?

Benz and Diesel took the path of detonating the Hydrogen to give us the internal combustion engine that we have been stuck with for over the past century.

Pehaps a more subtle approach is required to satisfy mans energy requirements without the need to use massive explosions.

It's probably not useful to think about using the buoyancy of hydrogen or helium as a source of work since, once you get up high, you have to just let it go. To bring it back to earth intact would use more energy than you gained by going up in the first place.

Hydrogen, by the way, isn't that bad for dirigibles. Usually it just burns rather than explode. Of course, I wouldn't want to be on board either time.

"Think about it. Hydrogen + Oxygen + ignition = massive power release with no polution."

Jeff,

I've thought about it too, like all of the others, thousands of them, for decades.

Unfortunately I've been trained as a scientist and engineer, and have trouble seeing outside of the 'box'. So I'd have to take a lead from you. You'd have to show me a way to achieve a meaningful result resulting from the line above.

No offense, but all of the other people I know who've been engaged, some of them for their entire lives, in getting a good result from the equation you propose, have simply failed. Something to do with the laws of physics and chemistry, I think.

You may also note that at the base of this blog are ads for 'water for fuel' scam. Proposing that something free can be had for the bargain price of 49.95.

Yes, old mate, we've thought about it long and hard. And we're all waiting for that discovery of new catalyst material to make this thing possible. 'Till then, we're trying all other options. 'We'? Millions of us, expending countless billions of our own cash, experimenting. And we're still driving around in 'dinosaurs'.

Show us the way.

Cheers,

Stu.