The thing to remember about Robert Zubrin is that in his universe no one is right except him. He's well known in the space community as someone who likes his own ideas the best.

There are considerable roadblocks to using hydrogen to be sure. We don't have the infrastructure to generate it or distribute it. And it's likely that we won't for the foreseeable future. Does that make it a bad idea? No, it just makes it an idea that still needs a lot of work.

My guess is that the way to hydrogen is through fuel cells. Not the fuel cells we have today, but the ones that we'll develop tomorrow.

Your Prof is either outside his discipline(English Prof), or senile, or part of the con game that looks for $$.

Hydrogen has large problems, and is currently more expensive than oil or ethanol.

The only thing hydrogen has is pure exhaust if burned in a fuel cell. If burned in an IC engine it makes nitrogen oxides ( a minor problem) and falls heir to the Carnot limit that a fuel cell avoids.

Hydrogen is costly to make and costly to store, and has the widest explosive range of any volatile gas. Schemes to lock it up in hydrides can cost you 30-40% of the yield in energy.

I think the future is enzyme based ethanol and methanol. They are liquds at room temp = no stirage problem. They can both be used in fuel cells and are part of a carbon cycle that does not use fossil fuels.

Yeast based ethanol = fools game that has already pushed corn prices far higher than many can afford.

I agree.

Infrastructure: Until hydrogen pipelines are installed or on-demand-generation stations built everywhere, we have a pretty big shipping problem. Hydrogen is a gas. The amount of mileage that one tanker truck of hydrogen can provide (i.e. how many cars it can fill x how far they'll go) is much lower than the amount of mileage that a liquid fuel truck can provide.

The future: Yes, I do think hydrogen will find it's niche somewhere. Perhaps small, ultralight vehicles for in-city-only commuting. Their light weight and low speeds would compliment the hydrogen and super-capacitor-hybrid systems while leaving the open roads for other technologies. Why does one idea necessarily have to be the perfect one for all situations.

Corn ethanol: ridiculous. It takes so much time/energy/effort to produce that it's a bit of a fad. Countries (i.e. Brazil) with established sugar production (via sugar cane) can get to the ethanol stages of production much faster and easier...pretty tough competition for the corn based stuff. Apparently (I read somewhere, but unverified) last year something like 1/3 of the corn production in North America went towards ethanol production...did anyone notice a difference in prices, foreign dependency or ANYTHING? Starving people aside, if we took ALL of it would anything significant happen?

I was thinking that his story sounded a little far fetched.

But that guy mentioned a few things that would make transport of hydrogen very improbable. One such thing was how hydrogen can permeate through steel piping. I've never heard about a thing like that so I don't know. He also said that the permeation of hydrogen tends to make the pipes brittle and shortens their useful life.

Do you think that we've met the carnot limit? I don't believe so. There are so many small cars that just get mediocre gas mileage, sometimes they are rated the same as big sedans. The Chevy Cobalt only gets 32 mpg and has a crappy little 4 banger. That little Cobalt should be getting 50 mpg having such a small engine (and being so light). My friends Buick Le Sabre gets almost that good and it feels like it's twice the size and has 110 more horsepower... It seems that they don't put enough developing in the small cheap cars. In my opinion gas mileage hasn't improved a whole lot since the 80's.

Your comment about what vehicles in the USA should be getting in fuel economy is a touchy subject with me. You are correct that vehicles should be getting better fuel economy. So please allow me to move off topic for a brief rant.

To clarify the issues have a look at these two sites:

http://www.40mpg.org/pdfs/021407_fuel_efficient_vehicle_gap.xls
http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/ (this UK site can be searched by either mpg, make/model, or fuel type)

Interestingly, a significant number of the "over 40 mpg(US) [48 mpg(Imperial)] combined average" vehicles are manufactured by companies with substantial presence in the USA ... including the "Detroit Big 3". There is even the Cadillac BLS diesel that is rated at about 39 mpg average.

Now take a look at http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byMPG.htm for what is available in the USA. How many vehicles have a combined average above 35 mpg? Maybe 15 and none actually built by the "Big 3".

Is this radical disparity the result of the "domestic" auto industry ... or ... government? Has CAFE really worked since 1990? Is anyone really concerned about or interested in establishing OIL INDEPENDENCE?

Here is the punchline ... my letter to Congress ...

Congress (and President) should waive import restrictions on cars getting more than 45 mpg(US) average and that meet or exceed Euro Step IV emissions and latest Euro Safety Standards (or the Japanese equivalent) for 24 months ... then grandfather these vehicles. This will clarify customer acceptance thereby reducing domestic auto industry doubts and investment RISK!

Consider it a "jump start" for the auto industry. This IMMEDIATELY RAISE THE MPG BAR! CAFE is no longer a delaying debate!

It occurred to me that the domestic auto industry will say this as a severe THREAT to a troubled industry .... BUT they also say there is (nor has been) NO DEMAND!

IF THERE IS NO DEMAND, THERE WILL BE NO SALES, therefore, NO THREAT!

*** IT CAN NOT BE BOTH WAYS! ***

IF THERE IS NOW A DEMAND ... GET MOVING IMMEDIATELY to deliver 40+ mpg combined average LIGHT VEHICLES!!! If the industry can not commit to delivery within 2 years (against financial penalties for failure to deliver) immediately waive the import restrictions!

Note that normal market forces will limit the number of vehicles available for import. These imported high mpg vehicles will be reduce emissions due to the 50% (approximately) reduction in fuel consumption.

Today few US consumers even know that 60 mpg cars are possible ... let alone exist or how they perform. Many are diesel ... and now we have ULSD and NO CARS.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

You have some good ideas. I agree with you entirely. I just don't understand why we Americans don't buy more fuel efficient cars. I have a VW Jetta TDI. I get great mileage. Even if I drive 85mph against the wind during winter, I still get 43 mpg. During the summer driving the speed limit, I probably average 48 mpg (US gallons). My parents also have a Jetta TDI, just a couple years newer and they get about the same efficiency. And those are nice cars too! They are competitively priced to American cars, and are undoubtedly more reliable and safer! Why don't people buy them? I have no F%$&ing clue. A lot of people that I've talked to (mainly the non engineer type) ask "why would you want a diesel car?"... then I just die a little inside...

You're right, the VW diesels are really great cars. Nice to drive, phenomenal mileage, reasonable price, excellent handling and "feel" -- who could want anything more? If logic ruled, they should sell like hotcakes. And in Europe such cars really do sell well. Sadly here, in the US, we (as a population overall) really don't care much about fuel efficiency -- and we shout that loud and clear in out buying habits. How else could the Ford F150 pickup be the best selling vehicle (selling about three times as many as the Honda Accord, and 30 times as many as a Jetta Diesel)? The F150 is a nice truck, but we certainly don't need anywhere near that many pickup trucks. For the few times I haul a pickup sized load, I hitch up my 4 x 8 trailer.

Further rambling on here...

Imagine if everyone in the US did what you do: drive a nice functional car that gets 45mpg. Imagine if we had been doing that for the last 30 years. If that were the case, would we be having these discussions about global warming and the hydrogen economy now? Would we be going to war to secure oil supplies? (You could argue that we'd just be putting off the discussion for a little later... but I think that if we had been a country in which everyone thought seriously about energy supply and the environment, as reflected in buying lots of cars like yours, then we'd have been thinking all along about these issues, and would have already made a huge dent in solving these problems.)

Yeah, it's crazy how little people today care about conserving energy (and college students especially...). Whenever I hear of someone looking for a new car, I tell them to look at a Passat or Jetta Diesel, or something that's fuel efficient and a good car all around, but they never like the idea for some reason. My parents drove my car from Toledo Ohio to as far north you can drive in Canada (where the roads stop!!!) and back for only $83 of fuel. That was over 1400 miles round trip!!! (it was two tanks of diesel!) If you drove an SUV that far it would probably cost $250 at least, and use about 95 gallons of gas compared to 30 gallons of diesel. I tell people things like that, but they end up getting a Malibu or something like that... and which would you rather have? A all around mediocre American car, or a German car that is safer, handles better, more efficient etc...

We thought about converting my Jetta to run on used cooking oil. You don't actually have to do much, just add a valve that switches over to the tank of cooking oil (in the spare tire compartment) after it warms up. That's it. All the injectors etc can use it no problem, just straight vegetable oil. It does need diesel to warm it up though.

Great research. I need people like you on my team. Unfortunately people need to feel "SAFE" and accepting any of these "CONSPIRACY THEORIES" chips away at their basic understanding of "SCIENCE". Current gasoline engines are very inefficient at best. I consistently attain 25% or better fuel mileage increase with hydrogen. Results vary depending on vehicle. My vaporizer generator has attained around 90% fuel efficiency increase and has been documented from start to finish showing everything you have to do to build the vapor setup and replicate my results. The hard part about engineering is building a working prototype and proving your concept. The easy part of engineering is bashing someone else without replicating their study. I think it is time for the "SCIENTIFIC" community to get off their posterior and use some grey matter along with some sweat and bruised knuckles to replicate and post results from testing along with descriptive videos of the entire process like I have done. I am not trying to disprove scientific theory or any laws of physics. I build systems to test the validity of claims and show those results in an informative and descriptive manner for easy replication. Isn't that what "SCIENTISTS" are supposed to do?

Hydrogen Embrittlement is from hydrogen being pressurized or a concentration gradient causing the hydrogen to embed itself into the iron and reduce ductile strength eventually leading to a crack.

The real question for you is to explain to everyone what your definition of "the fact that he hasn't done much anything productive as president"....since you seem poitically motivated addressing an engineering website.....which should be void of emotions, politics and religion.....unless there is a topic that involves such subject matter....i.e. can it be deduced that democrats in general are an uninformed, emotonally driven electorate?

...anonymous political comments being the most inappropriate.

Yes Thank you Bhankiii, I don't think that it's appropriate either. At least show who you are. I don't believe that political statements should be banned from an engineering forum, it will end up being part of it anyways. I wasn't calling anyone bad names or making fun of anyone. I was stating my opinion and you can state yours if you disagree.

I was gonna say that.

OK 'guest'... why don't you log in? Never mind... Well look at the deficit... things are improving slowly, but he didn't do everything he could to help it. Look at the war, you call that productive? ... but anyways I really do apologize, I shouldn't even have mentioned it. But now you asked, I just felt that our president put that out there to make it look like he did something. I'm not sure what to think about the "Hydrogen Economy" idea. I feel that there are too many other things that he could do to help our economy and our energy problems now. He could have pushed building more wind farms and things like that. He could push for even stricter fuel economy standards (than he did), because places like "the-rest-of-the-word" have. I'm not saying that I hate hydrogen or think that using it is a bad idea. I do happen to like the idea of using wind turbines to power hydrogen electrolyzers. Then you could have local hydrogen plants. It would be astronomically expensive but we might eventually have to do that.

Anonymous Keyboard Kommando flames from Secure, Undisclosed Location:

"..since you seem politically motivated addressing an engineering website.....which should be (de)void of emotions, politics and religion..."

and

"..i.e. can it be deduced that democrats in general are an uninformed, emotionally driven electorate?"

-----

Kind of a self-defeating post, wouldn't you say, AKK, AKA "Guest?" You did inhale between sentences, didn't you, or was that all said in one breath?

-e

PS: Smirky-the-Chimp...

...is despicable on his own merits. One needn't be associated with any political party to grasp this concept. If you aren't simply appalled, you aren't paying attention... - Political "Atheist"

I think aurizon covered the Hydrogen pretty well, but I do feel compelled to speak to the corn and the ethanol. So much corn is being bought up by the big ethanol producers that the price is going up - not so much now, but hog farmers are having to look really hard at cutting other expenses because corn feed prices are driving up the cost of pork. The price of corn is up so high that farmers that otherwise could not compete can now get in on the action and make money. The problem is that many states are subsidized, I think by the USDA, to pay farmers NOT to grow corn. With all of those potential producers not growing, that is driving the price of corn through the roof. The big ethanol producers like ADM are already contracting with many farmers to bring them all the corn they can grow! Some people are saying that the cost of corn going so high will cause a slow-down on ethanol refineries, but I know for a fact from people within the industry that they are working on larger refineries, not fewer! I guess we'll have to see how the whole thing shakes out. In the mean time, bacon might get very pricey!

Corn prices have gone up between 50 and 100% here in North Carolina since about September 06 according a friend who was an Ag agent.

Something kinda related... The US is one of the few places in the world (if not only?) where Corn Syrup is cheaper than sugar. Almost every soda company uses high fructose corn syrup in their drinks in the US. No other country that I know of does that. Does that mean that corn is cheaper here? I read that in 2005 when gas was more expensive, E85 fuel was cheaper than straight gasoline. Not sure how true that was, but it said it was about 40 cents cheaper per gallon. If making alcohol from corn is so inefficient, why is it fairly cheap? Even if it's more expensive than petroleum, maybe we should switch to it anyways! Is it because the energy content is so much less? All I could find was gas is 34 MJ/liter, and ethanol is 24.5 MJ/liter. I found that Isopropanol is closer to the energy content of gas. I found that buying in 330 gallon amounts, it costs about $6 per gallon for isopropanol. I don't know if that kind of alcohol would be better than others.

an alcohol is a long chain hydrocarbon with one hydrogen swapped out for an OH group.

Since you have added oxygen to the molecule, it is partially oxidized = less heat when you oxidize it the rest of the way when you burn it.

simplest alcohol is based on

CH4-----CH3OH methanol

then

C2H6----C2H5OH ethanol

then

C3H8----C3H7OH propanol 2 isomers, on an end or the middle

then

C4H10---C3H9OH Butanol 2 isomers again

as you get into a longer and longer chain you get a higher % hydrocarbon and the % oxygen declines = more energy when burned.

There is a large farm subsidy corn to ethanol, which as oil increases in price bids up the price of corn. It is a crooked system, but it is kept alive by pork barrel politics.

There is a similar pork barrel that keeps US sugar prices twice as high as world prices for sugar in order to protect sugar beet farmers. What a waste of land to make beets for sugar, That is why they use these syrups. In other places they use more sugar

Organic Fuels

Corn syrup vs sugar ~ large tariffs to protect domestic sugar growers. For a while sugar was smuggled in mixed with rice.

Alcohol pricing ~ watch out for H₂O content ... I suspect that automotive fuels should be close to 99.9% (Just think "E85" diluted with 2-5% water ~ what a scam?)

NickJD,

The New Atlantis article was excellent. It brought out pretty much all the issues that no one seems to discuss. Certainly I have not checked all of the facts in the article, but the main points are 100% spot on.

I think it is absurd that almost all of the articles I have read say that the biggest hurdle to be faced regarding H2 is infrastructure, storage and transport. True, this is a big hurdle, but it is a minor one compared to using H2 as a "fuel". Thermodynamics is the huge hurdle.

You indicated that you felt that a few facts were left out of the article which would make a H2 economy less impossible. What did you have in mind?

Your "on demand" comment shows the most common misunderstanding. It takes more energy to electrolyze water than you will ever get back from the hydrogen. This is a thermodynamic fact. In other words, if you obtain H2 from electrolysis and then obtained energy from the H2, you have wasted energy, not gained it. The only worthwhile use of electrolysis is if you have an extremely cheap method method of creating electricity that must be produced at a central location (like nuclear power). H2 could be produced from this source, transported to where it is needed (like a car), then converted back to energy (fuel cell or combusted). You would lose the vast majority of the energy originally produced (likely you would end up with 40% or less than created at the central location), but you would get the energy where it is needed, in the car. Thus, H2 is an energy storage compound, not a fuel. A poor energy storage mechanism at that

The only commercially viable way of producing H2 today is by stripping it from hrdrocarbons, such as methane (natural gas). Here, too, you end up with H2 which will produce less energy than the original methane. In other words, if you just used the methane as a fuel, you will get more energy than if you use in to make H2, and use the H2 as fuel. You are basically throwing away enegy, and still producing CO2.

I believe that there is some hope for cheap H2, but I have heard very little to encourage me to date. Some thoughts: a catalyst which would make breaking the O-H bond less energy intensive or a biological process which evolves H2. I wonder how much money is being spent in research towards finding a viable method of producing H2 (the major problem) vs. reasearch in storage, transport and conversion to energy (only worth doing once the major problem is solved, but seems to be the only focus right now).

As for your professor: if he is in a non-scientific field, just count him among the vast majority of folks who are clueless about these issues, and don't remember even the basics that are taught in chem 101. I suspect that his story is really a "friend of a friend" variety. Look around the web. There are plenty of these hoaxes floating around.

Please re-read the article. It expalns these issues in great detail.

Tad

Thanks Tad, you answered my question. 100% spot on sounds good to me, I just wasn't sure what to think.

I know that lots of energy is lost when you get H2 from water, and I know it's not really a fuel source, but really a means of transporting energy, like I stated (or I at least thought it!). I should have worded that differently. I meant that instead of having 100 huge H2 plants across the country, have one in the outskirts of every city. It's so hard to transport H2 that it would probably be cheaper to do it like that. That would be more "on demand" where it's needed, than having only a few huge plants.

I guess that there wasn't much that I disagree with. There was really only one thing that bugged me. It was about how he said that you would need a 75 kW fuel cell to power a vehicle. It's not very often that a vehicle would use it's full horsepower rating for more than a few minutes at a time. Have a large bank of super capacitors or batteries or probably a combination of the two, so you can reap the benefits of both. As a side note, I actually did some calculations (based on real world numbers) on how much energy is stored in capacitors versus batteries, and to get equivalent capacitor storage it would take up so much room and cost so much money there wouldn't be any benefit to using them. It would be like getting a $3000 super capacitor and it would have less energy capacity as a motorcycle battery.

Your "on demand" comment shows the most common misunderstanding. It takes more energy to electrolyze water than you will ever get back from the hydrogen. This is a thermodynamic fact. In other words, if you obtain H2 from electrolysis and then obtained energy from the H2, you have wasted energy, not gained it. The only worthwhile use of electrolysis is if you have an extremely cheap method method of creating electricity that must be produced

Start the process with grid power for about 2 minutes then use the H2 from cracked water to run a generator which in turn provides a trickle charge to batteries. the cheap energy source you suggest is the return of energy from the batteries which than cracks more water that runs the generator. Are ya with it??

That won't work. What you are suggesting is like having an electric motor turning a generator, that is being powered by the generator and turning it by some other means to start it moving. You're getting energy from somewhere, and getting h2 from water takes more energy than you get out of burning h2 in an engine. I never suggested something like that, and I don't think the other poster did either.

never suggested something like that, and I don't think the other poster did either.

I didn't say you or the other said it. I said it but you didn't read what I said right.

What you are suggesting is like having an electric motor turning a generator,

I said to use grid power for about two minutes then shut it down. Then use the H2 cracked during the two minutes to fuel a generator. The generator can charge batteries and the batteries can continue to crack water. But the generator will produce far more power than that used to power the battery charger and that extra power can be counted as surplus to be used in a home etc..

yeah, you're energy from the grid is like me turning the electric motor/generator combo to start it... it doesn't work. Lets say your electrolyzer is 100% efficient. You get 1000 joules/second (aka watts) of energy of h2 from 1000 joules/second of electricity input. Right? You can't get more energy out than in. Even the most advanced electrolyzers are only about 95% efficient. Ok, so now you have 1000 joules every second of energy to play with of h2.

Internal combustion engines are typically 35% or less efficient, and that's for the absolute best available. Then they are actually slightly less efficient burning h2. Now you only have 350 watts of output from the engine. Now the electrolyzer has 350 watts to make hydrogen with... now you see the trend, the engine then has 350 joules to give to the electrolyzer. I don't have the time to model this, but after each second, you would have like 35% less energy that the second before. And that's not even taking into account the losses from the electric generator that powers the electrolyzer and other losses. Using the electrolyzer powered by the engine is just introducing losses that didn't need to be created in the first place. That lost energy would have been better off put to another use.

Last spring, I spent the day with the Director of Research and Development of BMW. They of course have had h2 powered cars for nearly 2 decades (don't remember how long).

That's me standing with Dr. Raymond Freymann from BMW.

Here's a link with a picture of Dr. Freymann from a reputable site:

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=105640

It's actually an interesting article, but I just included it for the picture to show that that's me standing next to who I'm talking about.

Anyways, I spent a whole day with him talking to him about engineering. He came to Wright State University to give a presentation. One of my former professors used to work with Dr. Freymann and invited me to speak with him. We went to dinner with the dean of the school of engineering, and other important figures from WSU. I was the only student invited, and as far as I know, the only one without a doctorate.

Anyways, if you still think I'm wrong, please explain. Maybe I'm not understanding what you really mean. I don't see how running the electrolyzer for a few minutes on the grid will help you. At most like that, you'd get just a few minutes of power from the engine, and less in fact, than you put in from the grid.

I'm not using the generator to power the electrolizers, the generator is charging batteries and the batteries power the electrolizers.

Yes, yet even more losses. Charging even the best batteries with the best chargers is only about 80% efficient. So on top of the 35% losses, you have another 20% loss on top of that. Just because you're using batteries doesn't mean anything at all. It's just storing the energy generated from the engine for later use. Trust me, it won't work. You can't get more energy out of batteries than you put in. You get worse than 20% less.

Just curious has Dr. Freymann introduced you to Mr. Cornish?

Sorry... I don't know if I get your reference.

US Patent 4,702,894 - Cornish -October 27, 1987

Inventor: Mr. Francois P. Cornish, UK

Last seen in Canada ( summer 1988 ).

Specifications:

Water is split into Hydrogen and Oxygen

Oxygen is cleverly combined with aluminum

Hydrogen is collected and sprayed in a standard carburetor like with methane-gas.

A 900 Kilo car runs 600 Kilometer on 20 liter water and 1 Kilo aluminum.

Clean energy, once put in Aluminum at 1$/Kg, refining Bauxite, is released here first
making oxygen inoffensive.

Why we don't see these cars yet ?

At the time (1981) only some minor difficulties existed (see the BMW letter).

Electronic control developments might make this easier to implement today. Please think about the following:

To develop a smooth way to get rid of the aluminum oxide powder from the bottom of the water reservoir.

Find an absolutely sure check signaling if oxygen remains although the BMW-letter is not speaking about that point.

Don't experiment if you are unqualified

, . . .
remember combining O² and H² is highly dangerous - - -
Use oxygen sensors.

Engineers must attack this subject before this planet runs out of time !.

A Letter from BMW on the subject

BMW AG
Muenchen 40 Postfach 40040

References: 3895-5538
Nov 5, 1981

Proposal for improvement

Dear Mr. Cornish,

In reply to your telex of 17th October, our findings to date are as follows:

The unit as present assembled in a 2000cc car produced sufficient gas to power the engine continuously.

The aluminum consumption averaged out at 180 cm per minute over a 70 minute test run.

With the capacitor (as per your specification) connected up, we were able to work in our 14v environment.

The water temperature remained low, and even without the radiation system was found to be well between your limits.

No acid was found on analysis after the test run.

We however feel that one possible problem area may be the disposal of the oxide deposit. Could you please let us know what your findings have been on this side.

Yours faithfully,

Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft
Service Division
I.V. Henseler
V. Krause

Here follows a complete text of this neglected
June, 30, 1982 European patent Publication N° 0055134A1

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

(text 8/8/96 OCR-scanned and partly corrected..)

This invention relates to hydrogen generation.

It has already been proposed to replace conventional fuels with hydrogen in the running of internal combustion engines. Conventional proposals are to produce hydrogen by the electrolysis of water and then to store the hydrogen in some form or another. No economically viable storage system for the highly explosive hydrogen gas has yet been evolved. Whatever system is evolved would involve fairly massive tanks of some kind or another and precautions to prevent explosions. The present invention is based on the desire of the inventor to be able to provide hydrogen on demand from materials which are in themselves safe to handle.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

. According to the invention a method of generating hydrogen comprises the steps of exposing a fresh metal surface to water and heating the interface between the metal surface and the water at least to the lowest temperature at which the metal reacts with water to form a metal oxide and hydrogen, the metal being chosen from metals which are higher in the electromotive series than hydrogen and having stable and safe handling characteristics. Preferably the metal surface is exposed and the interface heated by pressing an electrode of the relevant metal against a second electrode under water and applying a high voltage between the electrodes while preferably moving the electrode surfaces relatively to one another.

In other words in the preferred form of the invention hydrogen is formed by creating an underwater electrical discharge between two electrodes at least one of which is made of a metal as defined above.

The electrical discharge and the relative movement between the electrode surfaces ensure that fresh metal surfaces are exposed to the water while at the same time the discharge heats the interface between the electrodes and the water to the required temperature at which the metal reacts with water to form its oxide and to liberate hydrogen.

Also in the preferred form of the invention rile metal is aluminium which has the advantage that it is in relatively abundant supply relatively cheap is formed with a protective oxide layer on its exposed surfaces and reacts with water at a relatively low temperature. Aluminium wire fed against a rotating aluminium drum has been found to give excellent results to provide hydrogen for powering small internal combustion engines.

A convenient way of securing the high voltage required is to employ the conventional distributor and coil arrangement which provides the sparking for an internal combustion engine. Two coils in parallel fed from a common distributor has been found to give excellent results. Other methods of generating high voltages from the.comtery or the drive shaft of an internal combustion engine may also be used. The method of the invention lends itself in an excellent manner to supply hydrogen on demand. In this case hydrogen is fed to a small buffer store and as the pressure in the store exceeds a predetermined level, the electrodes are separated so that hydrogen generation is interrupted. As the pressure drops to a certain level the electrodes are again fed towards one another.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

The invention will now be further described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawing, in which: Figure 1 is a schematic representation of apparatus for generating hydrogen, and suitable for powering a motor vehicle; and Figure 2 shows a portion of an appropriate electrical circuit.

DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

In the illustrated embodiment there is a generating tank 10 fed with water from a reservoir tank 11 through a float valve 12 to keep the water level 1o in the tank 10 substantially constant. When the apparatus is used in a motor vehicle, the tank 11 can take the place of the conventional fuel tank of the vehicle with a pump 14 in the line 15 to pump more water into the tank 10 when the position of the float 12 indicates that this is required. Water is consumed as hydrogen is generated, and so the tank 11 has to be periodically refilled. The generating tank 10 is in communication with an air cooled heat exchanger 16, which may take the same form as a conventional motor car radiator.

The generating tank 10 is surmounted by a collecting vessel 17 from which hydrogen is drawn through a restricted orifice 18 of an internal combustion engine. Inside the tank 10 there is a drum 19 driven by any suitable means to rotate at a constant speed. The drum 19 is made of aluminium. A depending flange 20 provides a water seal to the top left hand corner of the tank 10, so that that corner is not in gas communication with the vessel 17.

A coil 21 of aluminium wire 22 is fed through a push-pull unit 23 of the kind used to feed welding wire to argon arc welding devices. The unit 23 is arranged to feed the wire against the surface

of the drum 19 and to traverse the wire along the length of the drum on a bar 24. the wire passes along a insulating sleeve 25 which enters the tank 10 through, a suitable wiper seal.

In the vessel 17 there is a pressure sensor 26 connected to a control unit 27. When the pressure sensor senses a pressure above a predetermined value, it signals the control unit 27 which in turn stops the unit 23 so that wire is no longer fed towards the drum 19. When the pressure drops again, feeding is resumed.

In use, the coil 21 is connected to the high tension side of s two ignition coils or transformers 30 and 33. These transformers have primary windings 31 and 34 and secondary, nigh tension windings 32 and 35. A capacitor 36 is connected across the high tension connections. The terminals 28 and 29 are connected to a conventional vehicle.comtery.

At the point of contact between the end of the wire 22 and the drum 19 an electrical discharge takes place. As a result the adjacent metal surfaces are heated to high temperature the protective oxide film which naturally forms on exposed aluminium surfaces is disrupted, and the exposed aluminium surfaces react with the water. In fact the electrochemical situation at the interface is such that the wire 22 is consumed with the following reaction taking place.

2al+3h2o ---- A12 + 3H2

As a result, hydrogen bubbles from the contact point while the aluminium oxide collects as a white powder in the base of the tank 10. A grid 37 in the bottom of the tank allows the powder to pass through, and then keeps the powder substantially free from currents in the tank 10. The hydrogen passes through the vessel 17 and the orifice 18 to the carburetor of an internal combustion engine.

There may be a tendency for bubbles of hydrogen to adhere to the surface of the drum 19 which rotates in the direction indicated by the arrow 38. to prevent this To prevent this happening a wipper blade 39

can be located in the position shown in Figure 1, so as to separate any adhering bubbles from the drum surface.

Alternatively, a wiper blade 40 may be arranged on the opposite side of the drum. In this case a small volume of hydrogen gas may collect 5 beneath this blade, and it may be possible to pivot the blade 40, thus releasing this pocket of hydrogen in order to facilitate startup of an engine fueled by the hydrogen.

It may be possible to use salt water in the tank 10, rather than fresh water.

The drum 19 preferably rotates at a speed between 400 and 700 rpm, but the rotation may be as slow as 50 rpm.

During operations the temperature of the water in the tank 10 may rise as high as 95°C, although it is likely that a unit mounted in a moving vehicle, for example, will be able to maintain the water at a lower temperature.

A unit substantially as shown in the drawings has been used to drive a 500cc motor cycle engine. The wire 22 had a diameter of 1,6 mm and was of commercial purity (98°'~A1). The unit produced over 1000 cc of hydrogen a minute, with an aluminium wire consumption rate of 140 to 180 cm per minute. The rate of deposition of aluminium oxide was about 4 kilograms per 500 kilometers traveled.

Conventional modifications were made to the carburetor to enable the engine to run on a mixture of hydrogen and air. The wire 22 carries a voltage of about 18000 volts with a current of about 1 amp.

The invention may equally be used to power stationary industrial engines ,as well as motor vehicle engines.

CLAIMS

1- Apparatus for generating hydrogen comprising a tank 10 for containing water, a metal surface (22) arranged in the tank, means for heating the surface at least to the lowest temperature at which the metal reacts with water to form a metal oxide and hydrogen, and a chamber (17) for collecting the generated hydrogen.

2- Apparatus as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the metal surface (22) is aluminium.

3- Apparatus as claim 1 or Claim 2, wherein the means for heating the surface in an electrical discharge between the surface (22) and another electrode (14)

4- Apparatus as claimed 4, wherein a second metal surface (19) i arranged in the tank, and means are provided to move one surface (19) relative to the other, the two surfaces being connected in an electric circuit (Figure 2) so that they form electrodes between which an electrical discharge can take place.

5- Apparatus as claimed in Claim 4, wherein the second metal surface is aluminium (19).

6. Apparatus as claimed in Claim 4 or Claim 5, wherein the first metal surface (22) is a wire and the second metal surface (19) is a drum, the drum being mounted for rotation and the wire being supported so that it approaches the cylindrical surface of the drum at an angle to a tangent to the drum surface.

7. Apparatus as claimed in Claim 6, wherein the wire (22) is supported by a device (23) which continuously feeds the wire, as it is consumed, towards the drum surface (19).

8. Apparatus as claimed in Claim 7, wherein means (26,27) are provided for sensing the pressure of hydrogen gas in the chamber (17) and for regulating the feed rate of the wire feeding device (23) in accordance with the sensed pressure, to control the hydrogen output.

9. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the tank (10) is connected to a heat exchanger (16), so that water can circulate from the tank, through the heat exchanger, and back to the tank.

10. A method of generating hydrogen comprising the steps of exposing a fresh metal surface (22) to water and heating the interface between the metal surface and the water at least to the lowest temperature at which the metal reacts with water to form a metal oxide and hydrogen, the metal being chosen from metals which are higher in the electromotive series than hydrogen and which have stable and safe handling characteristics.

11. A method as claimed in claim 10, wherein the metal (22) is aluminium, and a fresh metal surface is exposed and the interface heated by pressing an aluminium electrode (22) against a second electrode (19) under water and applying a high voltage between the electrodes.

That's very interesting, I've never heard of a system like that. I've heard of methods using aluminum powder as fuel in a normal engine. The aluminum oxide would be collected and refined again and made back into something useful.

One problem I see with that system above is that it takes 18,000 volts at 1 amp... which is 18000 watts, or nearly 25 horsepower. And that makes sense, because a 500 cc engine would be 25 HP or less. Using aluminum you probably get considerably more hydrogen out for the same amount of electricity input compared to the kind of systems that don't use a spendable material, but then you have to factor in how much energy it takes to get aluminum. It's interesting, the energy requirements for refining aluminum are so great, it doesn't take that much more energy to mine bauxite than to recycle aluminum products (that's why aluminum recycling isn't very profitable). I would have to do some math to figure it out, but there's so many energy transformations... coal (most likely) to electricity for refining the aluminum, then electricity from some other source to get the hydrogen from the H2O+Al reaction and then finally chemical energy to mechanical energy. If you got the energy from the engine for the electrolysis you could be talking about 30% or more losses right there, because getting 18000 volts at 1 amp is no easy task...

That really is a slick method though. I try to think about the total energy consumption, not just the energy consumption at the vehicle or whatever. That's why I don't like all electric cars one bit. Sure you pollute less where you drive it. BUT, power plants and the grid are only about as efficient as modern gas engines, and actually less efficient in the cases of some of these new diesel engines.

Sorry if I'm being a stick in the mud... but I'm just thinking aloud about the problems that I might see.

I thought so too

Sorry if I'm being a stick in the mud... but I'm just thinking aloud about the problems that I might see.

You are not being a stick in the mud at all. Actually, getting H2 from aluminum requires a lot of energy, even in a well-thought-out system, such as the gallium-aluminum proposal from Purdue. Even in it, there are a lot of "ifs":

• The electricity to re-refine the alu oxide back to aluminum has to be obtained cheaply (economically and environmentally) from nuclear plants or from aluminum plants located at hydroelectric dams
• The H2 has to be used in a 75% efficient fuel cell, driving highly-efficient electric motors. I don't think even the Honda fuel-cell vehicle is that efficient yet, with a lot of fuel cells down around 50% or 60%.
• You have to develop the logistics of transporting all this aluminum, gallium, and aluminum oxide back and forth. Per unit energy, it is much heavier (2.5 times as heavy) than gasoline.
• The aluminum recycling process would have to be made more efficient than current technology supports.

Even given all those "ifs," the cost would be higher than $4.00/gallon gas. Just yesterday, I made a 410 mile trip in my Honda Accord using 11.9 gallons ($47.60). Even after investing the billions in research and infrastructure to satisfy all the ifs (and assuming that the price of a fuel cell car could drop from about $1,000,000 down to something close to what people will pay) the cost for a 350 mile trip would be $60, per the promoters of the technology.

The Cornish system looks much worse. At least the Purdue system does not require 25 hp electrical input to make allow the aluminum to react with water.

To feed the H2 generated to an ICE (with 25% efficiency rather than the proposed 75% of an advanced fuel cell) would be insanity: $180 for a 350 mile trip is just loony.

Better to to use the electricity at the recycling plant and charge batteries in electric cars. This might be 3 times as efficient (from hydro power to wheels) as the fuel cell version, and 9 times as efficient as an ICE version.

Oh good, I'm glad you agree with me then. Yeah, I have a '03 diesel jetta, and on the last long trip I went on (1100 miles) I averaged 43 mpg, and we were driving mainly at night so we were going between 85 and 100 mph the whole way there. I seem to always get around 42-45 mpg, no matter how fast I drive on the highway (which annoys me, because I should be getting better mpg going 65). I can get about 55 or better mpg in the city which is nice. I don't think my computer is always consistent though...

I think it cost about $4.30 per gallon at the time so it only cost me about $111 bucks for 1100 miles. Not bad at all. It will be a long time before there is something that can compete with that. The new 2008 VW diesels are much much cleaner than mine too, meeting the strictest pollution standards there are. Biodiesel derived from algae is the best. This is an interesting chart, I had no idea there was that much of a difference between corn and other sources:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20080503/biofuels_compare.gif

Biodiesel is the way to go... but the average American would never go for a diesel car, and for that reason I have no idea. They think they are slow and dirty, but the new ones are amazingly fast, and burn incredibly clean.

The Cornish system looks much worse. At least the Purdue system does not require 25 hp electrical input to make allow the aluminum to react with water.

25hp? Where from do you get that? The Cornish system uses a 12V battery to power a small wire feed of aluminium and arc upon a rotating drum in a water filled tank.

Yeah, but you said 18,000 volts at about 1 amp, which is 18,000 watts. One hp is about 745 watts, and 18,000/745 = 24.16 hp.... ok, so I rounded up to 25 for some reason. But... the fact remains, you have 24.16 hp of electricity to get from somewhere. That's a tremendous amount of energy... you could easily power someones house with that much electricity with no problem. If the 1 amp thing was a typo... that changes it entirely, but I suspect that it's not, the energy has to come from somewhere in order to power an engine. Wow, just the heat involved with that reaction, I wonder how efficient that aluminum hydrogen process is. I bet it's only 50% efficient, because anything with an arc creates a tremendous amount of heat, and any heat (that doesn't end up splitting the h2) is waste energy.

Well yes and they were using it to turn a genset to recharge batteries and provide the power for thirty homes in the settlement.

Well yes and they were using it to turn a genset to recharge batteries and provide the power for thirty homes in the settlement.

Was this post intended for this thread? The patent shows wire 22 as being supplied alternately by one of two transformers. The patent text says: "The wire 22 carries a voltage of about 18000 volts with a current of about 1 amp." That's where Nick came up with 18,000 watts, or about 24 hp.

Are you saying that the 500cc motorcycle engine mentioned in the patent application was used to drive a generator, which was used to supply homes in a settlement?

"Are you saying that the 500cc motorcycle engine mentioned in the patent application was used to drive a generator, which was used to supply homes in a settlement?"

What I am saying is the 500cc engine listed in the patent was used in actual circumstance to drive a genset which supplied energy to recharge of batteries which being part of a system of wind and photovoltaic energy to produce power for a small community.

I know H2 isn't regarded well in this forum but I am dutch and I'll keep at it, trying to get the concept through the fog of dissent. Though why it is that recognizing H2 as useful when employed within a system rather than as a stand alone product advancement of the subject can not be had?

we burn gas and oil, bot of which came to us free of any cost to make. All we have to do is find it, extract it and distil it for use here and there.

Now it is running out and the cost has mounted and soon it will pass the price at which otherb fuels can be made to supplant oil. It has in fact passed the price of gal/oil from coal, but we lack the physical plant to thermally crack that much coal, and until we build these facilities, oil will stay up. It may never come down.

From nuclear electricity and hydro-electric plants we can already make hydrogen to compete in price wih gas and oil, unless the prices of electricity are driven up by market forces to match the oil price??

Now we cannot pipe hydrogen, yet, we cannot store it yet(except at 3000 PSI = bomb in a crash), but cars can run it fine.

In 20-40 years we hay have hydrate storage methods, but, they cost thermodynamically too and double the price of hydrogen

Now we cannot pipe hydrogen, yet, we cannot store it yet(except at 3000 PSI = bomb in a crash), but cars can run it fine.

In 20-40 years we hay have hydrate storage methods, but, they cost thermodynamically

H2 stores well and safely too in it's form we know a water.

yes, those are the ashes of the use of H use. With care you can make a closed system, burn it, disassociate it and burn it again.

You make it sound so simple minded.

It is as you say

I know H2 isn't regarded well in this forum but I am dutch and I'll keep at it, trying to get the concept through the fog of dissent. Though why it is that recognizing H2 as useful when employed within a system rather than as a stand alone product advancement of the subject can not be had?

There are actually two entirely separate issues involved.

1. The first issue is whether it makes sense to use H2 created by standard industrial processes (such as electrolysis of water or reforming of methane) in powering an automobile. The Zubrin article talks about that: there are many valid reasons for rejecting the "hydrogen economy" which was mainly a political invention. At the most fundamental level, there is the problem that it costs energy to create H2, which does not exist by itself in nature. If you split it from water the energy you get out cannot equal the energy you use to do the splitting, no matter what the method. So, if you wanted economically and environmentally cheap H2, you'd use solar energy perhaps -- but solar energy is not itself economically cheap, nor is it environmentally free, because a lot of energy is consumed in making the solar cells -- several years worth of output. Right now most of that energy comes from fossil fuel sources. As the Zubrin article points out, the H2 economy is not impossible, it's just very difficult and costly to implement. Ignoring range limitations, if you have available cheap energy to make H2, you would be far further ahead to charge batteries, and use that electricity at very high efficiency in a battery power vehicle. If you actually burn the H2 in an ICE, then the efficiency of a battery electric vehicle can be 4-5 times better. If you use it in a fuel cell, then the battery electric vehicle is at least twice as efficient.

2. The second issue is generating H2 on board. If this is done with electrolysis, then you are trying to create a perpetual motion machine, and the electrolysis would need to be 500% efficient just to break even on running the process (assuming you are burning the H2 in an engine.) 101% is impossible. 500% is well beyond impossible. If instead you generate the H2 with aluminum etc., then the energy carrier is not water, it's the aluminum. The current best scheme for this may be the one developed at Purdue, but there are many hurdles to overcome before it makes sense: we'd be increasing aluminum refining by nearly and order of magnitude, I'd guess. (Coincidently, aluminium is refined by electrolysis too.)

So, in the first case, the costs and complexity are just incredibly high -- but the system works, if you ignore the energy cost -- you can really fill up a Honda FCV and drive it around. There are just a very large number of "IFs" in making the system economically and environmentally viable. Given the Tesla as evidence, better a $90,000 vehicle that goes like a rocket and can be filled up inexpensively anywhere, than a million dollar vehicle that can be filled up hardly anywhere. It's easy to see, given it's simplicity, that a Tesla-like vehicle (but with lower mass-market acceptable performance) could be produced cheaply, and no new infrastructure is required.

In the second case, either you try to produce a perpetual motion machine, or you use something other than water (such as aluminum, sodium, magnesium, etc.) for the energy carrier. Water is not an energy storage medium. To use H2 as an energy carrier, you input energy to the water, and carry around that energy (for a long or short time) as H2 (which can be burned in a low-efficiency engine, or used in a 50-60% efficient but incredibly expensive fuel cell to drive electric motors).

It's not H2 that isn't held in high regard here. It's overly simplified (or just plain wrong, or fraudulent) schemes that are not held in high regard. You are clearly not a fraudster, so if you are willing to experiment with the Cornish concept, I applaud your efforts: being "dutch" can often be a good thing. Bear in mind however, that an 18 hp generator of around 500CC produces 10,000 watts, just a little over half the energy required to run the process, so you could expect the process as described in the patent to run at a net loss of 8000 watts. Perhaps there are typos in the patent.

Well said... Very good response. You said what I was trying to say but I wasn't quite able to

Thank you and kind regards I will persist to my own amusement and achieve economy.

It is not as if oil or any other form of energy were useable right out of the ground so efficiency is a debatable issue with merit at the discretion of the beholder.

I don't think the description within the Cornish patent is any more accurate than that of the Tesla report but the concept does warrant speculation and intent to experiment towards that end don't you agree?

Thank you and kind regards I will persist to my own amusement and achieve economy.

Cool. It should be fun to experiment, and I wish you luck.

Cornish Hydrogen Generator uses 1 amp of 12 volt feed. So it uses 12 watts.

Hi Nick:

I think Zubrin's article was pretty accurate, for the most part -- although it finishes with some odd conclusions.

We've been discussing this article a thread titled The Hydrogen Hoax. http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/36976/Re-The-Hydrogen-Hoax

You might want to take a look there too.

As far as running a car on hydrogen by electrolyzing water: if you did the electrolyzing at home, it would be possible, but it takes a large piece of equipment to generate enough to run a car -- and then you have the storage problems. There is a guy, Stanley Meyer who claimed to have a car that ran on water. Some claim he was murdered... conspiracy theories abound... but the chemistry suggests that you can't get as much energy out of hydrogen as you put into splitting water.

Thanks for pointing out that other thread. I didn't realize that there was another one about the same article just a few days old! Ugh... story of my life... I usually spend way to much time reading this forum but I didn't see it. I suspect that the story that my prof told me wasn't true. Oh well. I read an article in Popular Science a long time ago about the possibility of using a small electrolyzer to create just enough hydrogen so that every time your car starts up, it's running on hydrogen and not polluting. That enables it to warm up so the catalytic converter can do it's job. That's at least a start. This would probably be a fairly cost effective way to reduce pollutants, but I suppose if the process is that inefficient you would end up using more gas.

Nick

Stan Meyer was not murdered, he died of a stroke.

You can bet your ass he did run cars on hydrogen, you just dont want to believe it.....

You can bet your ass he did run cars on hydrogen, you just dont want to believe it.....

Statements like these are just noise. They might fly in forums in which people simply engage in pissing contests, throw insults back and forth or simply provide one unsubstantiated opinion after another -- but here, we expect at least some explanation for why a poster might believe in extraordinary claims. In other words, supply some facts to back up your opinions. Otherwise, your statement is the logical equivalent of saying that "you can bet your ass than he did run cars on quarts crystals".

It should be obvious to anyone with a 7th grade education that cars can be made to run on hydrogen. It should also be obvious to anyone who passed high school chemistry and physics that generating hydrogen on board via electrolysis from water, and then burning that hydrogen in an engine to power the alternator used to supply the current for generating the hydrogen is a perpetual motion scheme. As I and others have said elsewhere, the efficiency of the H2 generation process would need to be 500% simply to run the process, let alone supply enough energy to make the car move.

Perhaps, a better attempt at a contribution would be to explain the new concepts in physics and chemistry which you believe permit over-unity machines to operate, and to provide articles from peer-reviewed publications that suggest that the physical laws (conservation of energy, thermodynamics, etc.) that have worked so well, and which continue to be reaffirmed and strengthened every day, are wrong.

There are millions of people around the world who believe in magic. Making people in an engineering and science forum believe in magic will require something a little more creative that "you can bet your ass".

"One of my professors mentioned that he had a friend that made a big old V8 Cadillac get 100 mpg, by partially running on hydrogen by electrolyzing water. Hasn't sold out yet, for fear that it would be bought and buried by "big oil"."

Your professor was either naive and duped or ignorant of the facts of chemistry and electrolysis. It takes more energy to electrolyze water than is gained from recombination, i.e. burning the hydrogen & oxygen.

I can confidently predict that he will sit on his alleged "invention" for fear of BiG Bad Oil stealing it to rob him of his just due profits until he dies and the alleged "Secrets of his Invention" with him.

He is just one such of a long list of self styled geniuses who die and take their alleged secrets of abundant energy for all to the grave.

Just publish the method, secret, etc for all to use and be a widely heralded hero for all to adore and the fame will be immediate, fortune will follow.

I have spent too much time reading Zubrin et al and the Hydrogen Bashing thread without ever hearing the phrase, "nuclear energy" coupled with the "electrolizing of water to produce hydrogen". The latter requires more input energy than can be recouped after electrolysis .... what if the input energy was nuclear, utilizing fission or fusion(?). Would this still be the case? Let's hear some ideas.

I mentioned nuclear power in my post above. When I was a kid in the '60s, I read a lot of articles that said that when nuclear power plants were built, electricity would be so cheap it would not even be worth metering. Youd just pay your $10 or whatever a month to pay for the infrastructure. What happened?

Then again, if this super cheap electricity were available, why bother with H2? The infrastructure to distribute is already there, so why not just focus on electric vehicles etc.? This would be much more efficient then trying to distribute H2.

Tad

Nuclear energy.... FEAR.

Interesting, isn't it, that nuclear energy is demonstrably far safer than mining coal, yet is viewed as being dangerous. In the US, terrorism is viewed as a huge threat, but smoking or driving, both of which kill several orders of magnitude more people every year, are treated as relatively minor threats.

Really, even if the energy to electrolyze water came from wind or solar energy, (or nuclear) it would still be a bad deal, in my view. The best energy conversion is from electricity into batteries (electro to chemical and back) or capacitors (AC to DC, hardly a real conversion). The infrastructure is already there, the Tesla is proof that even today's technology works well, and there are many signs that the technology will continue to improve rapidly and naturally, without the need for government subsidies.

If you already have the electricity available to electrolyze water, then why not use the electricity as directly as possible? In vehicles, the dramatic improvements that have come about as a result of hybridizing (even the real world 45 mpg that a Prius gets is approaching double the mileage of my 4 cylinder Accord) would disappear in a fuel cell or hydrogen fueled ICE car, unless that car is equipped with a hybrid system itself, using, once again, batteries and capacitors for storage. Already the trend is toward plug-in hybrids -- both from the manufacturers -- (the next gen Prius will plug in) and from DIYers.

Wouldn't it make more sense to work with the things we know work well already, and improve efficiencies where we know there are many opportunities: the grid can be fed by biofuel (methanol, ethanol, oils)-driven generators, wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, coal, etc. Once the energy is in the grid, it is so easy to transport it, and its use thereafter is very highly-efficient (100% for heating, 90% in motors, 85% in charging batteries, etc.)

Using hydrogen seems only to compound inefficiencies. Why use it? If it were a fuel, rather than a storage medium (in other words, if you could drill a gas well and find hydrogen instead of natural gas) even then there would be hurdles to overcome re transportation, storage, and conversion of equipment to use it.

In industry, there are many process that require motors of 20 to thousands of HP. Most engineers would laugh if you suggested converting the electrical motors used for these purposes to gasoline, diesel, natural gas or hydrogen. Electricity is just too efficient to transport and use, and the motors run too smoothly and quietly to make the alternatives seem reasonable. But for things that move, we haven't been able, till now, to provide a way to store electricity efficiently enough. But now there is the Tesla. And battery and capacitor improvements are on the way. So where does hydrogen fit? Nowhere, in my view.

Ken writes: "Interesting, isn't it, that nuclear energy is demonstrably far safer than mining coal, yet is viewed as being dangerous. In the US, terrorism is viewed as a huge threat, but smoking or driving, both of which kill several orders of magnitude more people every year, are treated as relatively minor threats."

-----

Terrorism is a threat, to be sure, but Bush & Co. have made Fear & Loathing into Big Business. How else can he (and his handlers) justify their dubious political aims except by demonizing countries whose oil they want? Of course the U.S. media - a sort of privatized Bureau of Propoganda - are happy to comply. Today's Bad Guys? Iran:

Tomorrow...Canada?

-e

Loved the cartoon! If I were running Canada, I'd make darn sure that the flow of maple syrup and good hockey players to the US does not get interrupted!

Greatest Oil Reserves by Country, 2006

(Bush-demonized countries underlined)

Rank: billions of barrels

1. Saudi Arabia: 264.3

2. Canada: 178.8

3. Iran: 132.5

4. Iraq: 115.0

5. Kuwait: 101.5

6. United Arab Emirates: 97.8

7. Venezuela: 79.7

8. Russia: 60.0

9. Libya: 39.1

10. Nigeria: 35.9

11. United States: 21.4

12. China:18.3

13. Qatar:15.2

14. Mexico:12.9

15. Algeria: 11.4

16. Brazil: 11.2

17. Kazakhstan: 9.0

18. Norway: 7.7

19. Azerbaijan: 7.0

20. India: 5.8

World total: 1,292.5

Why isn't Afghanistan on this list? It has proven oil reserves, yes, but not enough to make the Top Twenty. So why are we there? Because Afghanistan lies between the Caspian Basin and the Gulf. So does Iran. Consider this report from EurasiaNet.org.

-e

I just came to a realization... Soon we will hear a very very loud "whoops" as people realize that we have many thousand times more oil that we thought.

Consider this quote from EurasiaNet:

In comparison, Saudi Arabia has 261 trillion barrels of oil, while the United States, China, and India's proven oil reserves are respectively 22.677 trillion, 18.25 trillion, and 5.371 trillion barrels.

Those figures are at least 1000 times higher than I would have thought. But maybe they are quoted in British terms, in which case they are a gadzooksillion times higher! We could be talking about something times 10¹⁸! Avogadro would love this. I'm gonna go by a Hummer... or two.

Per AskOxford.com:

`American' `British'

10¹² trillion >> billion

10¹⁵ quadrillion >> thousand billion

10¹⁸ quintillion >> trillion

10²¹ sextillion >> thousand trillion

Hi Ken,

I noticed that, too. What I think we're seeing here is a cultural/regional difference in terminology, rather than a numeric one of magnitude. The two systems are called the Long and Short Scales. In the U.S., which uses the Short Scale, "billion" means 10⁹. Elsewhere in the world where the Long Scale is preferred, "trillion" also means 10⁹.

-e

Sorry Ken (and my apologies to other CR4 readers, as well), my post was incorrect. One Long-Scale billion equals one Short-Scale trillion; not the other way around.

Concerning EurasiaNet.org's article, the Long and Short of it is that the author seems to freely mix trillion and billion. For example, "The Persian Gulf contains 715 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, representing over half (57 percent) of the world's oil reserves, ..." while earlier he states, "In comparison, Saudi Arabia has 261 trillion barrels of oil, while the United States, China, and India's proven oil reserves are respectively 22.677 trillion, 18.25 trillion, and 5.371 trillion barrels."

Perhaps the article should have concluded with: "So, folks, if you can count your trillions, you're not a billionaire."

-e

Well, we simply have to standardize on megabucks, terabucks, starbucks, etc. What could be easier?

That would be after we decide, of course, on the value of a kilo: 1000 or 1024.

But despite all this, I am convinced that the US reserves are 22.677 trillion barrels on the long scale, which I take to be 22.677 quintillion barrels on the short scale. Therefore, I am going to live henceforth as a glutton in all things.

You buying a Hummer? You?! If the Ford F-150 has a nemesis, it would be you!

Hummers don't really appeal to me. A Hummer is just 3/4-ton Chevy Suburban school-bus MiniMe. I even saw a chrome-yellow one the other day and actually wondered if the local school district had suffered another cutback. My mistake.

For my part, I'm investing in a pimped-out full-size Peterbuilt with an extended sleeper cab (w/Jacuzzi), juxtapositioned with tricked-out-but-conventional c. 1948 pick-up bed and ebony felt liner, candy-apple red opalescent finish and pinstriping all around. With flames and plenty o' chrome. Put some monster meats on it and full-spectrum LED-illuminated stacks, undercarriage lights and xenons and I'm ready to Boogie to the 8 kW 7.1 sound system (with external woofers for these seismic sidetrips - and to set off those stupid ignore-me auto alarms).

Move aside, you piss-ant rice boxes, here comes Papa!

-e

For me, Hummers are like Tamara "Tammy" Faye LaValley Bakker Messner, more widely known as Tammy Faye Bakker. I always use her complete name, out of deep respect, and also to remind me that she's not mine... yet.

Although I'd feel right t' home in your Peterbuilt if it were a Mack, the name has always made me feel uncomfortable. Reminds me too much of my tragic high school days, when people would ask: "Hey, how's your Peterbuilt?" I should have replied, "Like a brick #(*&house, and twice as big." But instead, I felt I should reply in an emotionally honest way, and so would talk about feelings of inadequacy and insecurity... So to this day, seeing a Peterbuilt on the road brings tears to my eyes.

But Hummer makes me think hummer, a more pleasant association.

Also, since my taste runs to women like Tammy, whose minds are simple and pure (well, at least simple) the Hummer is a perfect vehicle for me. Such women rarely perceive that Hummers are purchased by men as a compensatory act, and I've found that a Hummer can be a real babe magnet for picking up the sort of uncritical thinkers I prefer.

Recently, I bought one of those little Civic Halfbreed things like you have, and put a trailer tongue on the back of it. I hitch it up to the Hummer, put the throttle to the floor on the Civic, and drive around with the Civic tires smoking, as if trying to pull the Hummer backward. It's the tractor pull idea updated with more relevant cultural icons. Just the tire smoke alone, and the wasted petroleum thereby represented, does my heart good. Just shows that some good ole American power can conquer any amount of smarty pants electro-Mr-Wizard-science-fair-project-smarty-pants-crap-from-Japan.

Well, OK, OK, OK... maybe I really do drive one of those teansy cars and maybe my taste runs more to Molly Ivans (no, I don't mean dead people) than Tammy... but chances are, that as I get creakier and more feeble, before too long I'm going to have to make that choice: Viagra, Hummer, or Mack.

Next time (if they still do that to you) someone associates Peterbuilt with Waterworks, just tell 'em "Built like a Mack and twice as rugged." Works for me and the ladies dig it.

-e

I'm totally up for this invading Canada idea. I hear they'll welcome us as liberators.

...and this wiki describing the new, trans-Afghanistan pipeline - possible only because the country is now conveniently occupied by "friendly" forces.

-e

I would agree completely that the hydrogen initiative is currently
little more than a pork barrel for Bush's friends. New technology always
offers some benefit 'down the road`, but the stated purpose is ridiculous.

Unless the source of the hydrogen is CO2 free, it is of no enviornmental benefit
and costs more energy and more polution than the burning of other, more
convenient to handle fuels.

There appears to be little we can do except sit back and admire the shiney objects
and blinking lights ..until Novenber.

As to that '100 MPG Cadilac` - Dump it on the roses.

If the hydrogen comes from electrolysis the energy input to get it
has to be greater than the energy output from burning it, so either
the 100 MPG comes from adding another fuel not considered or it's bullshit.

Remember those 'run your car on water schemes:
First you take this big chunk of calcium carbide............
(where you were supposed to get it or how much it cost were not mentioned.)

Guest writes: "As to that '100 MPG Cadilac` - Dump it on the roses."

-----

I understand your skepticism, but it really is true that Caddies can get that kind of mileage. Take my dad's old Caddy, for example: it got over 500 mpg - until you started the engine.

-e

Since dominant objective of H₂ is automotive fuel as a "alternative" to oil imports. Please consider that currently there 92 vehicles available in the UK that are rated between 61 and 70 mpg[Imperial] combined average city/highway ... that's about 50 to 58 mpg[US]. Nearly all (85) are diesels and 2 are HEVs. SEE: http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search/fuelConSearch.asp

That compares to only 2 (HEVs, the same ones in the UK) rated more than 40 mpg[US] average in the USA market for model year 2007 according to www.fueleconomy.gov 2/17/07.

It appears that diesel and bio diesel are the best near term options to reduce consumption and emissions. This is particularly true when bio diesel is considered with algaeculture (capturing/recycling about 40% of industrial CO₂ emissions using algae and photosynthesis) for high energy transportable fuel.

Algaeculture has been projected to provide Annual Yield/Acre estimates: 8k gallons biodiesel + 5k gallons ethanol + 70 tons feed/fertilizer (this is a mid range estimate … theoretically biodiesel yield might be as high as 15k gallons per acre year). For biodiesel, agricultural yields typically are in the range of 40-200 gallons/acre-year and the best (oil palm and coconut) is about 700-900 gallons/acre-year.

In other words, one acre of algaeculture could provide boidiesel needs for about 26 (high mpg like in the UK) light vehicles while mediating industrial CO₂ emissions.

You decide....

I'm sure we've all heard about the HydroGen3 H₂ powered car. It can go between 150-180 miles on 3.1 kg of hydrogen. It has a top speed of 99 mph. It's not that spectacular now, but will it be in 10 years? Who knows. I do like the idea of having your car usable as a generator for when the power goes out. It would already have the electronics to make 3 phase AC current. I'm sure there would be some way to modulate that for powering your house, if it could already power a 3 phase motor with up to 300 volts (which is what the cell stacks in the HydroGen3 can get up to). What could be cooler than that?

If this was not such a serious subject to me these comments would be laughable. In 1975 I did some figures a 5,000 pound car, shaped like a box (large dragg, not airodynamic at all) requires 8 horsepower to run at 60 MPH that is roughly 15 miles per pound of fuel and at 6 pounds per gallon that is 90 miles per gallon. with an airodynamic car this 90 MPG should increse to an escess of 200 MPG That would save thse billions of tons of CO2 per year. To the people in the know a CO2 free power source has been around sence the 1800s robust enough to feed our ravinus appitites for power. finantual power brokers have been dismembering the production of these devices for over 100 years because it would cost billions of dollars a year in fuel sales and taxes to feed greedy poloticions and there bribes to "oil companys" to get them elected

Guest: "To the people in the know a CO2 free power source has been around sence the 1800s robust enough to feed our ravinus appitites for power."

Please explain this "source" to one that is apparently not in the know.

One can calculate the HP requirement for a boxy 5000# car, and come up with figures far higher that those you presented. However, even better than calculation are figures from actual coast down tests, the "gold standard" for showing actual HP requirements. In the 70's, many of these were published, and an average, moderately streamlined 3500# (CD = .40) car requires about 15 hp at 60. If you increased the weight to 5000# and changed the CD to .8 to reflect "shaped like a box" you would see an HP requirement of closer to 25HP.

What C02-free power source do you have in mind?

Some radom automotive thoughts about gasoline, diesel, hydrogen, and hybrid vehicles.

It is said that it reguires about 0.35 to 0.45 kilowatt hours per mile for a reasonably high efficiency 3000# electric vehicle ... that seems to be about 18 hp at 60 mph with a CD ~ 0.2.

In thinking about electric hybrid vehicles and there seems to be two problem areas:

For the plug-in electric hybrids ~

It is generally understood that it requires about 30 kilowatt hours worth of fossil fuel to deliver 10 kilowatt hours of energy to the vehicle. [I suspect the same problem exists for hydrogen vehicles in the absence of some revolutionary discovery/invention.]


For new clean diesel engine electric/hydraulic hybrids ~

You do know what the problem is with a diesel hybrid? ... PEOPLE!

The current high mpg gasoline electric hybrids (PRIUS and CIVIC) utilize about a 1.3 liter gasoline engine. It is general understood that a turbocharged diesel could produce roughly 20 to 35% more horse power and torque compared to the same sized gasoline engine. This suggests that a 0.9 to 1.2 liter turbo diesel could satisfy the performance needs of these two vehicles while offering about a 25 to 35% improvement in mpg.

Whats the problem then? Why the consumer?

Can you imagine the typical USA consumer trying to understand ... and accept a vehicle run by a 1 liter diesel "motorcycle" engine regardless of its performance and mpg [probably above 70 mpg(US) combined average ... that's about 90 mpg(Imperial)]. The "smaller just can not be better" mentality.

Consumer response would be very interesting to watch, particularly in the USA market with their "supersized high engine displacement" personal vehicles.

On the other hand, a 1.7 liter clean turbo diesel would do the job fairly well without hybrid and still deliver 50+ mpg(US) combined average.

Am I wrong?

You're not wrong at all, in my opinion. In fact I think everything you've written here makes a lot of sense.

Re plug-in hybrids, a lot of the promise (ecologically) has to do with the likelihood of increases in the overall ecological efficiency we'd like to see occur. (In other words, it makes sense to develop these vehicles now, so that they can take advantage of future improvements in generation.) Some of these are already happening: greater reliance on wind, etc. There is clear potential for improving generation via conventional methods, as well. It's probably not too unreasonable to think that we could raise the overall efficiency of grid power generation from low 30's percent to low 40's percent fairly soon. Even grid power in the 30's applied to an EV represents a reasonable alternative to petrol-fueled cars. Compelling, no, but reasonable. Where EVs and Plug-ins can be compelling right now, economically, is in areas where electricity is low priced and gasoline is not. Where I live, we are right at the break-even point re petrol vs electrons: if gas goes back up to $3.00, then EVs have a significant pocketbook advantage.

If we dream a little about about sources of energy that work well environmentally, then powering cars from a grid supplied entirely from clean sources (wind, solar, wave, hydro, etc.) becomes something of a no-brainer. I think we could be pretty close to meeting that goal, if we were convinced that the goal is important. In terms of the way we act, we are clearly not convinced that the goal is important -- but if that were to change, then we could be generating lots of clean power, soon.

I think a small diesel hybrid makes sense, if we are trying to provide optimized fuel efficiency. If we are going to reduce the overall fleet fuel consumption in the US, we will need to have many cars consuming very very little to compensate for the great many more cars, trucks, and SUVs that are consuming a great deal. On the one hand, we've made incredible progress in improving fuel efficiency and controlling emissions since the early eighties. But on the other hand, our fleet average fuel efficiency has not improved at all, because in the US, we have been buying bigger and bigger vehicles.

But to provide, today, a vehicle that is both environmentally and economically efficient, a "1.7 liter clean turbo diesel" would be hard to beat. However, we've had such a vehicle in the Jetta and diesel Beetle for quite a while, but people don't buy them in meaningful numbers in the US. The problem, as you say, is People. Fortunately, we have people like our original poster, who are really helping curb our dependence on oil. He, and Europium (who drives a Hybrid Civic) are both demonstrating that you can get better than twice the current US fleet average while driving a really nice car.

Perhaps the biggest people problem is the consumers: they don't value low fuel consumption. But another part of the problem has to do with the manufacturers, most of which take the low hanging fruit approach to profitability. To make highly efficient cars attractive through really effective marketing and advertising takes both creativity and work. If SUV's sell like hotcakes, what's the point in trying to make efficient cars appear really attractive? Perhaps long term viability (as demonstrated by companies like Honda and Toyota).

Wish my Civic Hybrid got even better mileage. It's still less than the window-sticker average - like every other car sold in the U.S. Speaking of my Hybrid, one question I have involves another difference between gasoline-powered IC engines and diesels: is it recommended/economical/practical to frequently start and stop a diesel engine? I'm not really all that knowledgeable when it comes to IC engines, so perhaps I can be forgiven for asking a silly question. My Civic Hybrid shuts off the engine whenever I'm stopped at a light or at a standstill in traffic. As soon as I release the brake pedal, the engine quickly re-starts. This little feature helps to conserve fuel, although at times it seems a little bit too "eager" to shut down (and when stopped while attempting to drive up a steep hill, this engine-stopping behavior can be downright hazardous, as the car will immediately begin to roll backward down the hill as soon as the brake is released but before the engine engages. One quickly learns how to play the emergency brake). Regardless, I'm wondering if small diesel engines can be operated in the same way - stopped and started repeatedly; 20-50 times while driving across town, for example. Perhaps this may be why Honda chose a gasoline engine for the Hybrid, rather than using a diesel? They'd know better than I, I hope.

Comments anyone?

-e

It is my understanding that "engine off at stop" is fairly common practice in the greener EU vehicles, both gasoline and diesels.

Well, with respect to my diesel (which is a 1.9 liter turbo if I didn't say that already), it doesn't run top notch until it gets warmed up (meaning it's loud and doesn't have as much power). As long as the ambient temperature is arount 65-70 F, you don't even have to wait for the glow plugs, and it will start up just fine. From a cold start (like below 0 F) you have to wait about 10-15 seconds for the glow plugs, and then crank it for another 10 seconds. But as long as you run it often enough, and it never goes real cold, I imagine it would start really fast (but I wonder how inefficient it is when cold?)

-Nick

For your amusement ... I drive a 95 CIVIC CX that gets about 45 mpg(US) on long trips at 65 mph. The average is about 38 mpg overall. I have a 15 year old engine with 28k miles on it (& transmission) in the garage that should allow the CX to get about 50 mpg average ... hope to install it this spring. It'll take some electrical modifications to get everything to work correctly since the power plant is from a VX (the son of the Honda CIVIC HF).

I just hope it holds out until I can get a a 4 door midsize 50 mpg machine.

Observation: It is a BEAR to get accurate mpg reading on a "sipper" for a single 10.5 gallon tank.

Another thing that annoys me about cars today is that it doesn't seem like they are making them as aerodynamic as they could be. My first car was a 1991 Mercury Sable (.... everyones first car was a piece of crap, right?). It had one totally amazing thing about it. It had a drag coefficient of 0.29. I read that at the time, it was the most aerodynamic mid size sedan in the world. It still only got 27 mpg and broke down every 800 miles... but anyways... a 2005 Corvette has the same Cd as my Sable did! And a freaking Corvette is looks very aerodynamic! It actually has a better Cd than my '03 Jetta (which is 0.31). My only guess why the sable's drag was so low because of the lack of grille and the relatively smooth underside.

There should be a diesel electric hybrid (I think that Ford had a concept car though)... I can't imagine what mileage my car could get as a hybrid. It would be cool to make conversion kits for regular cars (it would be really difficult but still...). Aren't there hybrids that have the motors actually part of the wheel? I bet there would be a way to have something like that in regular cars (especially in the back wheels), because there is lots of room in between the disc brakes and the inside circumference of the rim. Then have a bank of batteries in the spare tire compartment, and have a really beefy alternator. It wouldn't take much of a motor on each wheel to make a difference. Maybe get 40 hp total, and you could drive that at highway speeds no problem. Even if you kept the diesel engine idling when not needed (so you could have more power instantly for passing), it would use very little fuel. We bought a computer link cable for our Jettas. We hooked it up to our laptop, and it would tell you everything you could possibly want to know about the car, from basic things like velocity, engine rpm, to more complicated things like what the alternator load is, how many milligrams of fuel per revolution each cylinder is using. It said that it was using around 3-5 milligrams of fuel per revolution in each cylinder. It dynamically varies each cylinder to make it smoother. So at 12 mg per rev * 900 rpm = 10.8 grams per minute. That's only 648 grams per hour that it takes idling. And that is about 1/5 gallon an hour... that actually seems kinda high for how efficient that engine is.

Oh... I'm wasting so much time...

Nick writes: "And a freaking Corvette is looks very aerodynamic!"

-----

Yes it does - until you look at the underside. For reasons I simply cannot explain, automakers design cars as if no air blows past all that very non-aerodynamic stuff on the underside of a car. As if this particular side of the car is immune to the laws of aerodynamics. Why is that? With some car designs, it looks as if oncoming air is actually forced by the leading edges to flow under the car. Now you have air that is bounded both by the street surface and the rough, messy underside of the car. That's a sure recipe for drag, yes?

-e

In car aerodynamics, there is often more (or less) there than meets the eye. One notably sleek looking car from years ago was the original Jaguar XKE, which had a Cd of .44 -- actually slightly worse than the Cd for a VW bus of the same era! (Of course the VW had greater frontal area, so its total drag was higher) But the Jag is a good illustration of a point: that being, that once you've pushed the air in one direction, it is better not to push it again in another direction. In the Jag the air moving along the top of the front fender is first driven up, and then down before the door, and then up again for the rear fender, and then down again to the tail. It's almost as if the car parts the air, lets it come back together, and then parts is all over again -- generating the drag of not one car but two. The Sable, by contrast, has few such reverses: the cross section gets progressively larger, then progressively smaller: it slips through the air like soap from your hand.

Only the newest Corvette is reasonably clean, but even then (at .29) it is worse than a 2007 Camry hybrid (.27). The 2006 Z06 and the 1995 Chevy Caprice were both .34. The coke bottle Corvettes of the late 60's through about 1984 were especially poor. But then they are not in bad company, I suppose. The Lamborghini Countach had a Cd of .42!

Those crotch rocket motorcycles that look streamlined? .6 - .7

Bike manufacturers like to quote CdA (Cd times area) so that their figures don't look so atrocious. For cars it makes sense too, although the aerodynamics guys might not like it so well, because all their work gets hidden away, sort of: a large car with great aero work can end up looking worse than a small car thrown together mainly with an eye toward styling alone. But good aero and small size versus bad aero and big size can make for dramatical differences: this number is 6.24 for a 2004 Prius and 26.3 for a Hummer H2

Wikipedia has a pretty good article on such things, with one of the most impressive in the list there being the 1935 Tatra (.212) (Makes you wonder how they got it to three places). Most of the figures given for cars are about right, although those given for other things are either wrong, or in need of more detail re test conditions. (For example, I've never seen a sphere described as having a Cd even remotely close to .1 -- if that were the case, we'd all be driving around in overgrown soccer balls.)

Robert Zubrin is right. Even if H2 was available as a natural gas, its use on a car would be difficult and dangerous, both with a IC engine or with a fuel cell, as they are made nowdays.

Arturo Pérez Rodríguez

Sorry for the mistakes.

Nickjd:

Thanks for your time and information. I am not intending to sell and am not concerned if less than peak efficiency is to be had. I will take into account the information and sources you have given though my calculations differ and method may differ too. If greater efficiency than hydro electric power can be achieved satisfied I would be. And to be fair this would be coupled with wind and photovoltaic systems too for personal uses.

It is not the front burner project anyway...

Thank you kindly

Yes Pres. G. Bush has been disappointing but the next in line will not be any better because the powers that be use the US Presidency to distract the world from what is the case of what is.

Ok thanks for the clarification, then you are right this would work if you used wind power or solar power to charge the batteries/power electrolyzer. It's just the way you were describing it, it sounded like a perpetual motion machine almost. But running a generator from the engine just to charge the batteries to power the electrolyzer would cause extra unnecessary losses, unless you had a use for the electricity other than the electrolyzer or a use for the hydrogen other than powering the engine.

It would still be a cool demonstration even if it didn't work all that well. It is possible to store quite a bit of energy in compressed hydrogen.

It's just that when you're given electricity in an easily usable form, like from a generator or solar cell or wind turbine, it's best just to leave it in batteries so you can use super efficient electric motors to get the mechanical work.

Something I do wonder about, is the price comparison to energy storage for a large tank safe for hydrogen, compared to a comparable bank of batteries. Is that something you have calculated? I could almost bet, that storing energy as hydrogen would be nearly as cheap in a large medium pressure chilled insulated tank, compared to a bank of batteries for the same energy content. Chemical batteries certainly have a downside with all the nasty chemicals in them, that is if you're trying to be 'green'. But then again, with h2 tanks... you've got this huge bomb ready to go off in your basement

Something I do wonder about, is the price comparison to energy storage for a large tank safe for hydrogen, compared to a comparable bank of batteries. Is that something you have calculated? I could almost bet, that storing energy as hydrogen would be nearly as cheap in a large medium pressure chilled insulated tank,

It is my intent to store hydrogen in water and crack it upon demand thus there is no need of a large medium pressure chilled insulated tank.

Thus you need some kind of energy storage method... batteries or an h2 tank . Rarely does mother nature give you enough light or wind when you want it. So to store h2, you can do one of three things. Keep it so cold that it's a liquid at atmospheric pressure (-423 F) or under so much pressure that it's a liquid at room temp (not sure what pressure that is, but it's really high), or you can be somewhere in between. BMW goes in between, with a medium pressure chilled tank. They actually use the hydrogen to keep it cold, so when the car or whatever is sitting for long periods of time, it lets out a small amount of liquid h2 to boil away through tubing wrapped around the tank to cool it. Boiling away liquid h2 can absorb lots of energy... like liquid nitrogen can, so you have a fairly long term storage method that takes little external energy. But you can store a ton of energy in a small tank of liquid h2, but the problem is it's dangerous and expensive to make those tanks.

We enjoy a fairly high average daily wind speed about 18mph at 100' above ground level.

Yeah, that's a good wind speed. In Ohio, we get wind... and sun... but neither are very consistent in a lot of places (especially wind) compared to out west. I'm trying to convince my parents to get a wind mill built in their field, it would be perfect. At 35 feet, I suspect there is almost always enough wind to get at least a little power. I guess it depends on what kind of application you are aiming for powering with the h2... something that needs a constant amount all the time, or if it would vary at all with time, which might end up needing some kind of buffer for energy storage to make sure you don't run out.

I'm trying to convince my parents to get a wind mill built in their field, it would be perfect. At 35 feet, I suspect there is almost always enough wind to get at least a little power.

A rule of thumb is a minimum eight mph wind speed to develop power.

I guess it depends on what kind of application you are aiming for powering with the h2... something that needs a constant amount all the time, or if it would vary at all with time, which might end up needing some kind of buffer for energy storage to make sure you don't run out.

I could still be attached to the grid if necessary to feed or draw at will. It is for home and small manufacturing business.

Holy Smokes, Bat Man........Looks like a nerve was touched here!

Not being a proper engineer, sorry, I can't give such eloquent reasons why HH will not work in the common internal combustion engine, BUT, I am not here to bash, I am here to support HH.

I have personally seen a fuel injected Nissan 1985 (I believe, just fairly old) RUNING ON HH, from a cracker or HH generator in the trunk. Just a back yard, shade tree type mechanic, that made it work!

Trust me, although, I don't believe you guys trust anybody, the exhaust was clean, after my time in the automobile business, I can tell by the smell if it is clean, the cat is bad, it is running lean. Of course my nose does not have a digital readout so I cannot quote exact numbers.

I am putting together one myself from all the information on the net from all over the world. Some good some not so good. Knowing automobiles from the technical end and not the engineering end. IT WILL WORK PERIOD!!!!!

I have seen things on automobiles that are of course engineered, that just do not work, not his issue, he just doesn't understand that all the engineers, engineering their system do not factor in how his system will effect other systems engineered by another engineer. Get it. From the field we have solved engineered problems.

Because, we are not trying to analyze to death and make absolutely unbelievable complicated, some things that are in fact relatively simple.

Those fuel cell cars recently given to the STARS in LA, I would love to see them drive one to Daytona Beach !!!! Think they would make it ?????

The Wright Bros., Took an idea that man could make powered flight. Bicycle makers, very intelligent to be sure, I am almost positive there wasn,t available to them loads of information on the basics of how to do it. To be sure they were ridiculed, called crazy, nuts and probably some other flowery adjectives.

We cannot today, build a propeller, that is as efficient and the wooden hand built one the Wright Bros. created.

Through all that, They made it work, and rest is history. They could not know to what degree that short flight would change the world.

We, on the other hand, know exactly how running a car with on board generators will change the world, and there in lies the problem. So do the Oil producers. Don't get me wrong, petroleum will ALWAYS be necessary. Just not in the same ways it is today.

I saw figures earlier on how much various countries had. It was dated 2004. I think those numbers need to be revisited today, looking not only at how much oil is available to each country, but how much of a percentage of oil development each country has made in the last 20 years.

We are looking for the Wright brother of today. Someone that can get past all the bashing and why it will not work, and just make it work. I believe that someone will come from the most unlikely place...more than likely he will not be an engineer, or a Professor of Everything that will not work. He will be and obscure, humble, secure with himself, person, his invention, if not already made, will change the way we view the automobile.

Cafe standards of 35 mpg are going to raise the price of a gallon of fuel and surely the price of the automobile.

Using food for fuel is crazy. I am old enough to remember gasohol. Did not work then will not work now. I remember huge repair bills from the damage the alcohol did to fuel systems. Not all cars today are ready for it either. Watch for the repair bills. I seem to remember an article recently addressing that issue.

Why not just tell the Middle East, 135 Dollars a barrel oil, 135 a bushel for corn, wheat, rye, or any other food they cannot grow for themselves.

And, We need to DRILL DRILL DRILL. Ever been to Anwar, I didn't think so. I would love to watch Gore tell the Ice Truckers, or the Alaskan Crab fishermen all about global warming... Now that, would be fun.....

I would not want an tank of compressed Hydrogen in my trunk either, what a bomb.

I would, however, like and will have a Hydrogen generator in my car soon...

Just a rant from a crazy old man, pay me no mind. Maybe I am just still a young at heart dreamer ????????

Other proponents of perpetual motion schemes invariably bring up the Wright brothers, and invariably have no knowledge of the actual history of flight. The Wright brothers were anything but the first to fly, and relied on textbooks already written on the principals of flight. This post and its follow ups (post 19 and 20) will help acquaint you with the history of flight.

We cannot today, build a propeller, that is as efficient and the wooden hand built one the Wright Bros. created.

You'd need to explain this in some detail for it to be believable. There are many examples of propellers more efficient that the Wright brother's. You seem to be suggesting the science behind aerodynamics as all wrong, and that we are going backwards rather than forward. I have a fairly strong background in both theoretical and practical aerodynamics, and can't produce any evidence that what you say is remotely close to being true.

Trust me, although, I don't believe you guys trust anybody...

On the contrary, we have great trust in the principals of science, in the laws of thermodynamics, in physics, in scientists in general, and in engineering principals. Without all that we'd be in the dark ages. What we don't have a lot of trust in is scammers and fraudsters.

Hello RiverRat,

The engineers on this forum are contributing ideas in an effort to produce systems, not excluding individual technologies but conceptually inclusive.

Can an automobile use H2 as fuel yes of course.

But when designing a complete cycle of production including every article necessary to manufacture and operate on a national scale, logistics can be prohibitive.