Hydrogen - what do you think?

[Tikvah]

Take a look at this site and the videos
http://hydrogenfuelforcars.com/

I saw this in action in Wisconsin this weekend.... I have to admit I was impressed.
The system is a little crude, but it burns.

What do you guys think?

Dave

[Iceni John]

And where is this hydrogen coming from?   How much energy does it take to make it, versus its own energy output?   How much pollution is caused by the process of making it?

Hydrogen is not an energy source per se, merely an energy storage medium (albeit it a rather inefficient one).   It is no different than cars that run on compressed air.   Hydrogen is like the politicians who espouse its virtues  -  it theoretically offers a lot, but ultimately there's nothing much there, and it takes a lot of work to get any real results.

TANFL

John

[Tikvah]

I don't claim to know ANYTHING... but what I saw was some kind of electrical transformer connected to a bottle of water.  As the water passed through the current it made the water look soapy... like some bubbles on the water.  When the "soapy water" was drawn out it was explosive.

Snake oil?  Maybe. 

[Jeremy]

Hydrogen is not an energy source per se, merely an energy storage medium (albeit it a rather inefficient one).   It is no different than cars that run on compressed air.

Not sure where you're coming from there...hydrogen is a fuel in it's own right, not merely a way of storing energy created by some other fuel.

Hydrogen can certainly be used to power a car, either by burning it directly in the engine, or by using it to produce electricity in a fuel cell. And it burns cleanly and is friendly to trees and small furry animals etc etc. The difficulty is how to produce the hydrogen - it's the most common element in the universe, but almost always comes attached to other elements such as carbon and oxygen, which it doesn't like to let go of. And yes, electrolysis powered by a 12v battery will produce a small amounts of hydrogen...but no, despite what all those websites and Youtube videos tell you, you can't run your car on water.

Jeremy

[lvmci]

Hi All, we have 2 Honda Fit cars used in the city fleet provided and altered by Honda with a fueling station at the city fleet filling station that run strictly on hydrogen, granted its beta testing, but they do work. Chevy had a dealer convention here 2 years ago, BTW I liked the prez of chevy easy to talk to very much a regular guy, he is now prez of caddy, they displayed & let the dealers drive 10 demo smallest of the chevy suvs, each wheel had an electric drive motor with a tiny internal combustion hydrogen engine powering a generator, it had a whine to it as the stagehands drove it on & of the set. Looked and drove like a normal small suv, the stage demo guy said. I saw the prez again @ the caddy show about 8 months ago, asked what happened to the hydrogen suvs, he said couldn't get a supply from tany of the major gas companies,...

[Jeremy]

...tiny internal combustion hydrogen engine powering a generator, it had a whine to it....

Sounds like that might have been a turbine, rather than a reciprocating engine. That's kind of the latest technology in electric vehicles at the moment, and is a really cool idea - the turbines (effectively miniature aircraft engines) are very small and powerful, and, although they aren't necessarily very efficient, it kind of doesn't matter because they are very tolerant of the types and grade of fuel that they will run on. Quite like a 50-year-old Detroit Diesel I guess.

Jeremy

[Lee Bradley]

I think this belongs on 'Off Topic'

[Tikvah]

Not really off topic, I'm thinking of an installation in my bus. 
It does not replace the diesel in this application, just add to it.  He said I would hook it in just before or just after the Turbo (I don't remember which).
Hey, if I could get my mileage from 6-8 up to 10 I would love it!

Would it do damage?

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

[Jeremy]

Not really off topic, I'm thinking of an installation in my bus. 
It does not replace the diesel in this application, just add to it.  He said I would hook it in just before or just after the Turbo (I don't remember which).
Hey, if I could get my mileage from 6-8 up to 10 I would love it!

Would it do damage?

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

But you need to remember that the electricity used to produce the hydrogen is not free - the electricity it comes from burning diesel, and producing the hydrogen is a net-sum-loss equation.

A moment's reflection will show that, if this kind of system worked, every car in the world would have a water tank as well as a fuel tank.

Jeremy

[dukegrad98]

Ah, those pesky laws about conservation of energy.  Jeremy hit the nail on the head -- it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than the gain from burning it during combustion.  Of course, people just cannot accept this, and there's always the next guy selling his "system" or "plans" to anyone that will buy.  The old increased-MPG thing is a sure seller.

Don't waste your time or your money.

Now as for vehicles having both a fuel tank and a water tank...  I've often pondered the idea that a six-stroke diesel engine using water injection on one of the cycles has some real potential.  I'm not talking about fogging water in the intake air -- I'm talking about adding a steam cycle to the engine rotation:  standard fuel/combustion cycle, then a cooling steam cycle, standard exhaust cycle.  Such an engine would probably require a whole lot less radiator capacity...but of course you'd have to add water at fuel stops.

Cheers, John

[fraser8]

We have a large fleet of Hydrogen buses running in BC.
http://www.busonline.ca/fuelcell/
http://www.whistlerquestion.com/article/20120524/WHISTLER01/305249946/-1/whistler/future-of-hydrogen-bus-fleet-uncertain
http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/whistler/whatever-happened-to-the-hydrogen-highway/Content?oid=2283903

I also heard that the fleet of hydrogen buses are now moth balled, I don't go to the city often so I can't say for sure. Some of the BC Bus Nuts did a guided BC Transit tour recently and they should be able to add to the post.

[Tikvah]

I'm not sure I understand the concept of the electrical consumption.   We run incredible electrical loads on these coaches....everything from lights, big blowers, and huge roof-top air-conditioning.   Could these little transformers really use that much more electric that it would off-set the mileage gains?

Again, I'm well aware that there are snake oil salesmen that will sell ice to Eskimos...but I also know that once in awhile a good idea comes along and nobody will listen.



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[dukegrad98]

Could these little transformers really use that much more electric that it would off-set the mileage gains?

Yes.

When you convert electricity from DC to AC with an inverter, what happens?  You lose energy through inefficiency. 

When you convert liquid fuel into motion through internal combustion, what happens?  You lose energy through inefficiency.

When you split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity, can you guess what happens?  Yep, you lose energy through inefficiency.

Or take it from another angle...consider the enormous volume of air (in hundreds of cfm) consumed by a large diesel bus engine.  Now consider how much hydrogen even the largest "reactor" is going to bubble out in comparison (while consuming a huge electrical load off the alternator to do so).  Do you think you're really going to make a huge impact on the engine's combustion cycle or efficiency with that?  Nope.  It's roughly like taking a whiz in an Olympic-size swimming pool and hoping that the water temperature will rise. 

Sorry, but this is a classic case of "if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is."  You'd probably do better with classic water/methanol injection, with something like a Snow Performance system.  Even that company's benefits are pretty grandly stated, but there's a bit more objective testing behind it. 
http://www.snowperformance.net/diesel-pusher-rv-motorhome-mpg-max.html

Another proven option is propane injection.

Using hydrogen as a fuel is viable (but in my opinion, terribly inefficient).  What we know of physics guarantees that generating hydrogen on-board as a fuel supplement is not viable. 

Cheers, John

[Jeremy]

Could these little transformers really use that much more electric that it would off-set the mileage gains?

I understand the difficulty in understanding; the short answer is that, while it's true that the 'little transformers' you've seen aren't necessarily consuming lots of power - they're also only producing tiny amounts of hydrogen - far less than would be required to make any meaningful contribution to fuel economy.

Strange but true....my mother happens to own a real on-demand hydrogen production device - a proper commercially produced machine, not just something cobbled together from parts in a shed. She an amateur silversmith and has a little hydrogen gas torch for soldering delicate bits of silver together (apparently propane and butane torches are no good for really fine work because the flame ceases to be hot enough when it's very small). Anyway, the tiny amount of hydrogen required for that very small flame is produced by quite a large machine that sits on the floor under her workbench, and runs on 240v AC.

Unfortunately, while electrolysis appears simple and attractive, it's just not an efficient way of producing hydrogen, and it's not how it's produced commercially. It's still doesn't become cost-effective even when done on a large scale and using electricity which is produced by methods that are much cheaper than burning highway diesel.


Jeremy

[belfert]

The only way hydrogen will ever make sense as a fuel is if an extremely low cost way of extracting the hydrogen can be found.  Cold fusion if it ever works is supposed to be able to provide the energy to extract hydrogen.  One big trick will be making hydrogen safe as it is pretty flammable.