kartweb

Interesting points. Consider:

1) Within a 50 mile radius of Gillette Wy is roughly 6 times the total BTU energy in coal as what Saudi Arabia, and Iraq combined have in oil. Coal combustion produces mostlry ***.

2) China already is banking on coal liquifaction. Shenhua is well on the way to meeting the goal of 10% of China oil coming from coal within 5 years. Coal oil costs about $30 a bbl, but its low in HYDROGEN.

3) Colorado has about 4 times as much BTU content in shale oil as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and Canad have in conventional oil.

4) Global warming is hard to dispute just look at all the glaciers melting. Now whether it has anything to do with carbon fuels is a different dispute. But no doubt, the environmentalists will continue to put pressure in legislation to reduce carbon emissions.

Hydrogen will almost certainly remain a novelty fuel for the next 10 years or more. But you have to admit its a pretty cool novelty.

½mv²

Honestly, after further thought, I think this frantic race to mainstream so many different types of alternative fuel sources is going to do more for the economy than the environment. I don't mean that in the governmental conspiracy kind of way, either. I mean, I don't think any of these alternative fuels are ever going to become mainstream, but they will get a strong enough foothold in the market to hold their own on the market. Cars that run off of these fuels might never become mainstream, but they'll definately exist - just like our rotaries!

Since no fuel will be mainstream, manufacturers will have to develop cars that run on more than one type of fuel (see: FlexFuel). Gas stations will want to appeal to all these markets, so much like how there's one lone pump at most gas stations for desiel, you'll start to see lone pumps for E85, Hydrogen, and whatever else is on the market.
Now, as we discussed, none of these fuel types are quite as efficent as gasoline, so they'll have to sell at prices less than or equal to gasoline prices. As time has shown us, the masses are easily swayed by the media, so if these alternative fuels ever start to consistantly cost less than good old fashioned gasoline, these alternative fuel vehicles sales will skyrocket (See: Motorcycle & Hybrid sales post-Katrina/Rita).
While gasoline prices won't drop dramatically and suddenly our dependence on oil will be over, it will definately loosen the grip the oil companies have on the market. Sudden price hikes with assinine excuses (summer mixes, increased taxes, production shortage, understaffed plants, along with all the other crap we were feed in 2007) will no longer occur, and producers of fuels will have to focus on keeping customers satisfied with their product for the first time ever. I can guarantee you that about the time E85 & Hydrogen pumps start sprouting up at every mom & pop gas station, Shell, Texaco, and the other Big Oil Companies will start renting out pump space to AltFuel producers at their stations, advertising everywhere that "they care about the environment, too" quickly followed by the release of new, cheaper, more efficent, less polluting gasoline mixtures.

It wont happen anytime soon, but the market is ready for the change. It'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds...

zoom44

actually they are and always are.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/10...lyst-material/

zoom44

GO PENN STATE!!

Penn State makes CHEAP ABUNDANT HYDROGEN

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071112...1IRTTG0jkDW7oF

chetrickerman

what fuels do we get from liquifying coal?

Floyd

Innovation kicks ***! This sounds very promising.

zoom44

also in the thread above some folks at U VA designed new hydrogen storage

rotarygod

Too bad the same problem exists as with ethanol. Supply. You can only convert so much before you run out. Biodegradable organic material isn't abundant compared to our demands. The term "abundant" is severely misleading. You can't make enough. You still have the problem that it can't make any power and doesn't go very far so the issue is compounded further.

zoom44

power



far

nmarz77

I'm glad some people are starting to research this subject more. Seems like a lot of eyes and minds are now open/opening. Hydrogen development is coming straight for our future faster than the general public can and/or wants to comprehend.

rotarygod

I feel like a parrot as I keep having to repeat the same thing and no one wants to listen. I DO NOT SEE AN INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE IN EITHER OF THOSE PICTURES! Hydrogen sucks as a fuel in an internal combustion engine. When you power a car with a rocket engine, then we'll talk. Until then, it sucks.

Floyd

http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/06/j...to-the-street/

pwnt

I couldn't resist!

rotarygod

Um, I don't think that's getting pwnt. This is getting pwnt. That's a JET engine not a ROCKET engine that you are showing me!




Mythbusters did strap some rockets to a car in their first episode though!

BaronVonBigmeat

I actually met that guy once in San Antonio. He was a nice enough guy, but he did seem a little bit "off". I was kind of surprised that he and his two associates were not pushing a hard sell, they had some info packets but that was about it. The weirdest thing was how the exhaust of his little Briggs demo engine didn't produce any smell whatsoever. Usually you have that smoggy smell on your clothes after you're around a lawnmower engine for a while. As far as the efficiency goes, you can't verify that without measuring fuel consumption over time, and power output so I dunno.

Also I should point out that there is no longer any real secret left to release. The device has been developed as far as Pantone ever took it. There was a GEET discussion board a long while back, but people had trouble getting cars to run with it. I suspect the problem is the variable RPM's on an auto engine (vs. a lawnmower engine). It takes a bit of fiddling to get it running at one set RPM; getting it running well across a whole RPM range is probably difficult and the device needs some more development work. It will allow the engine to run without an odor at the very least, but I'm not too sure that it works for the reason Pantone thinks it does.

Floyd

Point taken It was the best I could do on short notice. Looks like the only bug I'd be caught driving too!

nmarz77

Here is an example of hydrogen "Boost" using a hydrogen generator. His generator is a little generic because he made it himself but these can be purchased to produce much more hydrogen and fairly cheap too. I plan to install one on my 8 soon to help with mpg during cruise. The small amount of hydrogen introduced into the engine will not require any modifications to be done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJsONDo_jVg

BaronVonBigmeat

I'm not sure about those onboard hydrogen generators. If you watch this, he goes through all the calculations and concludes that there is no way an onboard electrolyzer can produce enough H2 to have an effect. If you did have a big enough electrolyzer, it would require multiple alternators, and give you a net efficiency loss. He's an engineering professor btw.

So you'd want to use a bottle of H2 in the trunk. Even so, you need to alter the timing. The Geo Metro in the video has a dial on the dash where he adjusts the timing. For an RX-8, you'd need an emanage gold or Interceptor-X or whatever.

And then the price you pay to fill up on hydrogen will exceed whatever gas you save. It's worth it under 3 situations: A) gasoline is catastrophically expensive, B) you are forced to consider poor quality alternate fuels, such as low-grade ethanol or turpines (used in the video), or C) your car runs off CNG, so you've already paid for a high-pressure tank.

nmarz77

I'm posting this one not so much for the video because it's boring but more for the comments(questions and answers) posted under it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9Osmwd-o7I

nmarz77

What people don't understand is that hydrogen generator technology is advancing by leaps and bounds in the past year or so alone! With different cell configurations it hardly take any amperage at all to create an abundance of hydrogen.

½mv²

leaps and bounds mean nothing when you're this far away from the goal...


Thre are alternative methods out there as well - not everything is about alternative fuels. We do already know of one gas that can mixed with modern gasoline and turn it into something that doesn't polute when burned, nor causes a drop in engine efficency...

perhaps someone here should google "HHO gas"....

zoom44

so you'd rather talk about hydrogen than talk about hydrogen?

globi

Me neither, but if you don't count the waste heat from the engine as energy you could at least theoretically produce hydrogen on board with an efficiency of over 100%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-te...e_electrolysis
(The 'free' braking energy powering a flywheel generator would even further increase this efficiency).

However, it's doubtful whether it could compete with a hybrid as far as efficiency is concerned even if one got this onboard hydrogen process to perform well, reliably and affordably.

As far as CNG is concerned: If you were to drive your car on CNG produced from cowdung, you'd actually generate a negative greenhouse gas emission, since the far more potent greenhouse gas Methane is burnt to less potent CO2 in your engine.
(CNG / Biogas from cowdung is becoming increasingly popular over here and so do CNG driven cars. But as always, it's no silver bullet either - but cows are here whether we want them or not so why not use them more effectively.)

nmarz77

For all non-believers that a vehicle can run and drive on hydrogen produced soley from a hydrogen generator(electrolysis), please watch this video closely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVhXrvCCILw

Like I said before, the technology has been around for longer than most of us on this forum have been alive. These guys have also spent just as much time researching and perfecting this technology.

refugeefrompistons

never doubt it could work. Doubt how effective it can be though.

refugeefrompistons

I'm really getting annoyed with some people. Ok, I learned at least basic chemistry 5 years ago and last year i took a college course on chemistry in high school. There is one law called the first law of thermodynamics. Energy is conserved and can only be changed from state to state and that no transformation is 100% effective. So this video is showing that transforming from one stable form of a molecule uses some energy while transforming into another stable form of a molecule while transforming back releases more energy? Ok, I know this is not a closed system so this energy source as to be coming from somewhere else.