Conference terri::cars_uk

    Radio one had an interview with the guy. 
    
    To proved how clean it was he drank the waste water!!
    
    Greg

	It can't be as simple as this. It takes more energy to liberate
	the hydrogen from the water than you get back when it's burnt.

	Hydrogen production plants using 'spare' energy from various
	power sources have existed for some time but mainly only use
	the hydrogen as a convenient way of storing energy.

	If this really is something new then it'll be sensational but
	I remain a sceptic.

	-John

    Saw this on the front page of the Mail in the DEC shop (surprise surprise!)
    Apparently it will run on *tap* water.  Pity, 'cos as we all know, it
    won't be long before tap water is more expensive than petrol - got to
    pay the chief executives and build up the profits, you know ...
    
    Jeff.

    I heard this on the radio. There was some sentence about storing the
    hydrogen as a powder. This made no sense at all. Hydrogen is a gas and
    if it is stored then is it being liberated in the car or not?
    Given the guy's past history he isn't a crank but the claims were
    somewhat unbelievable.
    
    Andrew

    I'll bet this is cold fusion all over again :-)
    
    Jeff.

    Hydrogen spontaneously explodes when compressed under 2 bars or more.

    RE .8
    
    sorry, Patrick, but I got to disagree on that one. Hydrogen is normally
    transported as a gas under pressure (look out for a truck/trailer that
    consists of a rack of long thin cylinders all piped together and
    painted bright red) of about 100-150 bar. It is sometimes transported
    as a liquid, but if liquid is needed converted from the vapiour state
    to the liquid state just before final use.
    
    Maybe the hydrogen is being stored as a metal hydride, which if my
    chemistry memory is not failing me, tend to be solids (of various
    physical forms). This would react to give hydrogen gas which could fuel
    a power cell ........

Storing hydrogen as a metal hydride has been around for some time.  One
of the up-market German manufacturers (BMW or Mercedes) has been running
cars powered on hydrogen stored as metal hydride for some time now.

jb

The interview on radio 4 this morning said that the 
hydrogen would be stored very safely as a white powder
A car could be refuelled in 10 mins.

Does this give the chemists amongst you a clue?

    Re .10
    
    from what I can make out from todays "Daily Mail" it does indeed store
    the Hydrogen in a powdered metal form.
    
    Apparently one plugs the car into the electric mains overnight (8
    hours) which disassociates the water (not sure of the technical
    details) the car then runs on the Hydrogen component during the day
    (does it get the Oxygen from the Air ?) to produce water vapour as the
    exhaust.
    
    To my mind this is a bit like a battery only more efficient, it still
    requires a Power Station burning fossil fuels/nuclear etc. somwhere in
    the chain, so it doesn't just "run on water" as the mail would have us
    believe.
    
    Stevie.

    My understanding, from the mail, is this.
    
    The gas is stored in a metal powder. To recharge the gas you plug into
    the mains electricity. This is where the water bit comes in. If you
    need to refuel on route the the gas can be pumped direct into the
    battery, about a 5 or 10 minute job.
    
    I think this will be better for the environment. You only get a one
    stage burn of fossle fuels, ie at the power station to produce mains
    electricity. 
    
    Simon

    re .13 
    
    haven't read the newspaper reports (bit difficult when you don't buy
    any!) so am not able to comment on the technology/chemistry of this
    offering but don't we get a single stage fossil fuel burn now, Simon?
    ie in the car engine?
    
    whatever it is if it's as good as it's made out to be, you can betcha
    last barrel of oil that the oil companies will fight it all the way,
    and if that doesn't work, the politicians will tax it to hell.......

As I read it, you plug the car in to domestic mains overnight
(using an unspecified amount of power from your friendly local coal-burner),
and the fuel cell runs "in reverse" to produce free hydrogen from tap water
(how often do you have to get your car de-scaled?).   The gas is stored
in a "porous metal powder" (hydride?  - or a chemical "sponge" ?)
 in a tank, and is then burned with air to run the car during the day.

I suppose there could be the equivalent of "economies of scale" , in the sense
that it should be a lot easier to keep one big power station clean than lots
and lots of private cars.......but watch the oil companies sabotage the idea...


Ian

Anyone tried using anhydrous water tablets - sounds just as plausible.

:-)

Steve

Sorry I should have clariefied my comment of a single fuel burn.  The power
stations will alway been in existance (well at least during my lifetime). I 
take this as the first fossel fuel burn. To then use petrol to drive an engine
(or any other use) is a second fossel fuel burn. By using the produce from
the first use, ie mains electricity, to extract a fuel from a simple source, 
eg water, you remove the need for petrol and there remove the second  burn.
This in turn reduces the pollution.

Simon.

	The modus operandi seems clear but the efficiency will be
	very low.

	Power stations are the most efficient method of converting
	heat to power say 40%, twice as much as a car in normal 
	service.

	By the time the electricity has been generated and distributed
	some 10% is wasted so we get 90% of 40% = 36%.

	If used in a pure electric car with say 75% efficiency the
	overall effect is 27% which is pretty good, indeed better
	than an ordinary car and with less polution.

	However in this application the electricity is converted to
	hydrogen at say 90% efficiency, and then used in a conventional
	engine at 20%, overall effect = 6.5%. Summary, very expensive
	to run and sounds complicated too.

	-John
	

    Re: .18:  Sorry, but your argument is fallacious, at least in part.
    If all cars were converted, you would need a lot more power station
    capacity, thus nullifying the savings on fossil fuel burn.  It may also
    be more efficient to concentrate the burn in the power station, but you
    then introduce a loss in efficiency getting the power to the point of
    use, i.e. via the transmission system.
    
    Jeff.

    I believe there is some research going on into other means of hydrogen
    productions. E.g. direct conversion from sunlight. This may not be
    feasible on a domestic scale, but could produce hydrogen to be used to
    fill up a tank at a filling station in the same way that petrol is used
    today. (This would also allow governments to continue to tax the
    consumption of motor fuel, which a domestic recharging facility would
    make difficult !).
    
    Andrew

	From what I heard on the 'Today' programme on Radio 4 yesterday morning 
there is a hydrogen fuel cell producing electricity that powers an electric 
motor. Allegedly they can store enough hydrogen as a metal hydride to give a 
range of 300 miles compared to the 50 miles of existing battery powered elctric 
cars. The idea is that you recharge with hydrogen which is in turn produced 
from water by electrolysis.

It does sound too good to be true. Only those companies involved in refining & 
exploration will suffer. Everyon else e.g. car manufacturers, retail garages 
etc. etc. should be able to carry on just as before.

Nigel

    ... and they'll probably end up calling it something like "C5"
    
    Jeff :-)

    
    What is the 0-60 rating [ in knots ? ;-]
    

	Ah so now it uses a hydrogen fuel cell. Well that would
	be much more efficient, but there is a snag namely that
	these fuel cells are potential bombs.

	If this development includes a safe fuel cell then it
	may have potential.

	-John

re potential bombs...

A tank of petrol is a pretty dangerous "potential bomb" too!

Scott

    re .26
    
>> A tank of petrol is a pretty dangerous "potential bomb" too!
    
    Not really, petrol is not particularily dangerous as a liquid it needs
    to be mixed with air at the correct ratio to be explosive.
    
    I once knew someone who worked at the large refinery at Stanlow, one of
    his party pieces was dropping a lighted match into a bucket full of
    petrol and watching peoples faces, needless to say the flame was simply
    extinguished  !!!!
    
    Stevie.

	Re: .27

>>    Not really, petrol is not particularily dangerous as a liquid it needs
>>    to be mixed with air at the correct ratio to be explosive.

	From what I remember from my chemistry lessons, many moons ago,
	the same thing is true for Hydrogen.   Pure Hydrogen will not
	burn, and is not explosive (well not at non-nuclear temperatures
	anyway). 

	Alan.

    Hydrogen is generally not too bad if it's not mixed with air !
    
    If it does mix with air (oxygen) then thats when you get the 
    explosion risks.
    
    Adam

Serious rathole...

You have all seen the big gas holders that rise up and down depending on the
amount of gas in them. I was taling to a farely senior fireman friend of mine
who informed my that if a gas holder has a leek they just weld the hole,
with the gas still in it. If the gas catches on fire they just beat it out 
with a towel like cloth.

Apparently the gas is at such a high concentrate it is very dificult to burn.

Simon

    
     I heard on the radio last week and again last night, a story
    about the 'Myers Water Engine'. Apparantly Myers is an American
    who has developed an engine which runs on water, and, according
    to the news story, the product is to be launched here in the
    UK in a few months with demonstrations including a water-powered
    motor launch on the Thames, and water-powered aircraft at Heathrow.
      Last night was 5th April, and a bit late for an April fool I thought,
    but perhaps it was?
      The radio interviewee couldn't give much detail on how it worked,
    but he briefly mentioned 'extremely high voltage, low current' and
    something about hydrogen. 
    	Also mentioned were plans to launch DIY installation kits,
    projected cost 1500ukp, to convert cars from petrol to water.
        Has anyone else heard anything recently about this?
    
    Brian
    

    This car was also mentioned on the Horizon program about Cold Fusion
    a couple of weeks ago. They had some footage of what appeared to be a 
    dune buggy-type thing that reputedly ran on water. It seemed to go like
    a normal car although it wasn't running when the film crew turned up.
    The chap who designed it managed to do it on a shoestring despite the
    efforts of large motor manufacturers to buy out the patent. They also
    said that other scientists thought it may not use energy from the water
    but is just a way of transforming electrical energy into mechanical
    energy.
    
    So what? If its green and cheap I would drive one. The only problem I
    can think of (if it really works!) is that water and iron do not go 
    together too well. The temptation is to poo-poo these radical ideas
    as a money-making scam but I'll keep an open mind for now.
    
    Barry.

      I've heard that the way it works is that there's a _big_ battery
    that's used to split the H2O into H2 + O (well, O2 actually) which
    is then used to power the motor.  The claims seem to be that he gets
    more power out that is used by the battery but AKAIK he's not been 
    able to prove it.
    	The usenet group 'sci.skeptics' is probably the best one to watch
    for this type of thing...

>    is then used to power the motor.  The claims seem to be that he gets
>    more power out that is used by the battery but AKAIK he's not been 
>    able to prove it.

I wasn't the most attentive student in my chemistry class, but I seem to
remember that the amount of energy used in ionisation is at least as much
as that released by the bonding of the separate molecules; taking into
account energy losses caused by inefficiency, the above claim looks a bit
shaky (unless I was asleep in class when some other aspect of molecular
chemistry was being covered :)

Chris.

    unless you get some free energy from somewhere (wind, sun, pressure
    changes, ...)

re .38

There are two types of reaction, endothermic and exothermic. With an
endothermic reaction, more energy is required for the reaction to take
place than is subsequently released by the reaction. Conversely, an
exothermic reaction releases more energy than is input. The traditional
method for obtaining hydrogen from water is (if I remember rightly) an
endothermic process. However, the use of catalyst can modify the process
such that more energy is given out. The debate regarding cold fusion
research included a challenge that what was occuring was not "fusion" as
such, but rather a catalytic process.

Clive

PS A classic exothermic reaction is the thermite process involving
   alternate oxidation and reduction of iron and aluminium. This
   is used, for example, to weld long lengths of rail together for
   railways.

RE: .40

Hydrolysis of H2O to H2 and O2 is always endothermic.  It can be coupled to 
an even more highly exothermic reaction, however, to result in the release 
of more energy than it takes to break the H-O bonds.  But that is not 
what's being talked about here.  We're talking about electrolysis of H2O to 
form H2 and O2, then combustion of the H2 and O2 to re-form H2O.  This 
cannot possibly release more energy than was originally present in the 
battery, since formation of H2O from H2 and O2 releases exactly the same 
amount of energy as is consumed when you hydrolyze H2O to H2 and O2, and 
by the laws of thermodynamics, there is also energy lost as heat, random 
motion, etc.  You can't get out more energy than you put into a closed 
system, and in fact you can't even get out the same amount as you put 
in--you always get out less.

--PSW

    Ah yes, but is it possible that using a battery to break water into its
    component parts and thence to drive an "engine", is a more efficient
    way of powering a vehicle than simply powering an electric motor? Then,
    could one not use the downhill "free" runs to charge the battery a
    little, thus *greatly* extending the range possible per charge?
    
    Laurie.

    re .42
    
    How would you propose using the Hydrogen and Oxygen ? An electric motor
    is moderately efficient. The losses involved in decomposing the water
    are probably more than the losses in an electric motor, and that is
    before you try to convert the power back to mechanical energy. A
    combustion engine is less efficient than an electric motor.
    
    Recharging the battery when going downhill, or just slowing down is a
    useful technique, but would apply equally to an electric motor
    solution.
    
    The only thing I can think of is that you can get more energy stored in
    a tank or hydrogen than in the same weight of battery, but I dont think
    that would apply if you are carrying the means to generate your own
    hydrogen.
    
    If you only carry the hydrogen as a fuel then it may be more efficient
    to use a fuel cell to convert it to electricity for an electric motor
    than to burn it in an internal combustion engine.
    
    Andrew

    All this talk of water powered car has got me thinking of other
    alternative methods for powering a vehicle. I seem to remember one chap
    who had developed a car that runs on chicken droppings (maybe I
    imagined that one!). One I didn't imagine was an article on Tomorrow's
    World about diesel lorries that could run on solar power. The lorry was
    converted to run on powdered algae. (finely powdered algae has the same
    combustion properties as diesel fuel).
    
    The algae was grown in a huge transparent coil (seperate to the lorry),
    the heat from the lorry engine could be used to dry the algae and the
    carbon dioxide emissions could be used to feed the algae. Nice
    circular idea with water and solar power as the inputs.
    
    Any other ones?
    
    Barry_who_thinks_pedal_power_takes_a_lot_of_beating.