Hydrogen Generator for my daily car

[Black97civic]

Originally Posted by joesushi

http://www.iter.org/

True for the U.S., but not for France, Germany, and Japan. Although, this obviously will fail, we've all seen spiderman....

Ok, keep completely missing my point.

What powered that dune buggy. Water, I know, but what provided the energy to break down that water?? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't an experimental fusion power plant...

[Gravy]

If he could break the water down in a small go-cart. I think we could do with in a car.

I'm just gona let you all argue over this. It probably won't be in the 2006 year, but when i get a hydrogen car, i'll let everyone know. I've seen it working, saw it drive off. But i lack the funds to do it.

[Black97civic]

Originally Posted by Gravy

If he could break the water down in a small go-cart. I think we could do with in a car.

Yes, with batteries, which get charged by pullging the thing into a wall, or with solar panels. I never said he didn't do it, or was using magic, but it is simple chemistry, bonds need energy to be broken, which is what he is doing. There is no way to do it without introducing outside energy, which is why we don't all have cars that run forever on water already, if it was as easy as that news program said, there would be a lot of backyard mechanics with old junkers running on water engines.

[joesushi]

Originally Posted by Blue89Quest

Ok, keep completely missing my point.

What powered that dune buggy. Water, I know, but what provided the energy to break down that water?? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't an experimental fusion power plant...

Well, it could have been! Yeah it was a little bit off topic. sorry.

As for Jet's response, there certainly aren't any plans for the US to get one. The frenchies are gonna have one up on us, if and when they get it going.

[Black97civic]

Originally Posted by joesushi

Well, it could have been! Yeah it was a little bit off topic. sorry.

As for Jet's response, there certainly aren't any plans for the US to get one. The frenchies are gonna have one up on us, if and when they get it going.

Fusion power aside, the real problems we have are those of power transmission.

We have nuclear power plants that, in the grand scheme of things, make little to no pollution when compared to conventional power plants. So all we have to do is use power from them to break water down to the hydrogen and oxygen.

This is where the transmission problem comes into effect. If we did all that hydrogen making at the power plant, it would be pretty cost effective, but when you transmit power, to say, a gas station with a hydrogen generator, you lose a lot of the cost benefit because of all of the work required to get the power to the places that you need it. The catch 22 thing is that if we made the hydrogen at the power plant, or at a gas station, you defeat the main advantage, filling your car up with water. The only real feasible way to do this is to have a car that you charge up with electricity in a wall outlet, which is supplied by the local nuclear power plant, and charge up a bunch of batteries, which run the electrolysis to make your hydrogen, and uses an alternator, regenerative braking, etc. to keep your batteries charged. Since there are energy losses in every system of that hypothetical car, yoiu would need to charge up the batteries occasionally as the alternator probably wouldn't be able to keep up with the energy needs of the car. This would be much like filling up your gas tank, except it would take place in your garage, with a wall outlet. If you did this, you could have a hydrogen powered car that you fill with water, that needs to be charged once a week. If you want to get even trickier, throw a small gas generator in the mix for emergencies to charge the batteries the way your current car does, and you could have a "gas powered" car that gets 500mpg.

We could do hydrogen powered cars fairly easily with our existing technology, fusion plants would be great, but I would be fine with having some really bad waste in a highly isolated, well guarded, underground bunker, as opposed to having a shitload of "not so bad" pollution that is wrecking the planet.

I don't want to sound like a hippie there, couldn't be farther from the truth, but what most people don't realize is that we have all the technology, but we are "afraid" to use it. Nuclear power is really the only feasible option we have currently, and if we keep waiting for something better to come along, we might just wait until it is too late to make up for our previous mistakes. All this because of chernobyl, and three mile island, and all the NIMBY hippie bullshit.

[JET]

Originally Posted by joesushi

As for Jet's response, there certainly aren't any plans for the US to get one. The frenchies are gonna have one up on us, if and when they get it going.

What would be the point of other country's funding France's reactor? It is so that if it works we will all be building them. If that reactor works you will see them popping up all over the world.

I agree with the last post too. We could do it and make a car that runs on water AND electricity. One other major problem is how much space hydrogen takes up. It is not a dense gas at all (because it is the lightest element and floats). It needs to be at VERY high pressure (think 1500 psi) to get to a similar concentration to gas. In their normal states hydrogen occupies a much larger area. Hydrogen gas equal to the energy of 7 gallons of gas would take up a semi trailer!

How many psi do you think that plastic little jug is going to hold?