drsteve wrote:
Gdetrailer wrote:
drsteve wrote:
It's not inefficient. It's actually 2-3 times more energy efficient than an internal combustion vehicle--it's just currently expensive.
Well, not really, but you are more than welcome to believe it is.
Making "hydrogen" is actually really difficult, the bond between hydrogen and oxygen is very strong (which makes water very stabil).
Takes a lot of ENERGY to break that bond.
That energy must come from somewhere.
So, you must PUT energy INTO the process in order to get hydrogen.. That is nothing more than converting one energy source to another (IE LOSS)..
Sure, running IC on hydrogen may turn up the efficiency of a IC engine, but because of the huge input of energy that was used to get the hydrogen it ends up as a total loss, more energy in the end used to make that IC engine pure than if you used good old fashion gas from a well..
Man has tried for many years to make things run on nothing, but it cannot be done.
Those devices are called perpetual machines or OVER UNITY machines..
HHO is bunk, it take huge amounts of energy to net a small amount of hydrogen, a 12V battery cannot provide enough energy to make enough HHO to make a engine cough..
As far as practicality of running IC vehicles from hydrogen, price out the cost of a hydrogen cylinder.. Then consider how many cylinders it would take to drive several hundred miles.. Then try to figure out just how you are going to get them filled when empty..
Then consider just how dangerous that would be in a accident..
Yeah, lets all strap a few hydrogen tanks to our vehicles :E
Not practical on so many levels but yet folks gravitate to junk science.
My comment regarding efficiency that you are replying to, was in response to time2roll, who referenced the Toyota Mirai, a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. These vehicles extract 50-60 percent of the energy contained in the fuel (hydrogen) as opposed to the 20-25 percent typical of an IC engine.
I agree that the HHO thing is perpetual motion nonsense.
Correct.
My point was to the entire process which includes the process of extracting the Hydrogen.
The energy it takes to extract enough Hydrogen in order to make a IC engine run enough to be meaningful will be far more than the 30%-35% increase in IC efficiency!
To make this easier to understand you almost need to talk in WATTS of energy..
It takes a certain amount of work (in Watts) to produce gas, it takes MORE work (in Watts) to make Hydrogen.
IC engine on gas converts 20%-25% of watts input on gas into useful energy on the output and 50%-60% of watts input on Hydrogen into useful energy on the output.
The problem starts with the fact that getting gas is far more energy efficient AT THE BEGINNING when it is extracted from the earth and processed to a motor fuel.
This gets even more apparent if you also consider that gasoline is just ONE byproduct of extraction of oil and gas from the earth! You get other things like diesel, kerosene, motor oils, greases, waxes, plastics, methane, propane, butane and many other carbon products that make our lives far, far easier..
Making Hydrogen gives you two products, Oxygen and Hydrogen and noting else and takes vast amounts of energy to do that.
Running a IC engine from Hydrogen is a fools paradise..
Adding Hydrogen to a IC engine as a fuel additive to make it run more efficient is also a fools paradise..
If you want REAL significant increase in fuel mileage, you NEED to remove most of the alcohol that is in the gas..
At 10% Ethanol you get a 10%-15% LOSS of gas mileage!
At 1%-2% Ethanol which is what you USED to get back in the '60's up to the late '70's there was virtually no mileage penalty..
10%, not so much.
Low percentages of Ethanol can be beneficial as a "oxygenate" which helps with making a more complete burn in the cylinder.. Too much percentage of Ethanol however and the low energy content of the Ethanol dilutes the energy content of the gas..
In reality, IF you cannot afford 8-10 MPG or less, you should rethink owning a RV..
