Run Your Car On Water Conversion Kit ?

[karfree]

Hi~
I am wondering if anyone locally has purchased or built one of these kits. I am interested in doing this and would like some feedback from anyone who has used one of these kits on their own vehicle. Thanks ~ K
www.runyourcarwithwater.com (https://www.runyourcarwithwater.com)

[Braggi]

Hi~
I am wondering if anyone locally has purchased or built one of these kits. I am interested in doing this and would like some feedback from anyone who ...

I'm VERY skeptical because if this worked it would be front page news and all auto manufacturing companies would offer it as an expensive option. Right?

Well, I don't know now because I tried to do some research and I'm finding some positive stuff (which I didn't expect to find at all) and no serious negatives yet (I'm still looking).

Read here: https://www.greentechgazette.com/index.php/hydrogen-cars/run-your-car-on-water/

and here: https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/hydrogen-generators-cars.htm

Your kit is mentioned in the second one. I still am not convinced. Why aren't these all over the road? They've been around for years.

Somebody help out here. Zeno? Auto mechanics?

-Jeff

[Braggi]

I'm VERY skeptical ...

OK, for good reason and I'm going to stop reading on this one. I found a long boring discussion on this and several chemistry scientists were involved. This post sums it up:

So... You electrolyze water in your car. That takes energy. And it is not 100 % efficient. Then you burn the hydrogen (and oxygen? ) in your car engine. That is certainly not very efficient, so you will not be close to getting back the energy you just used to make the hydrogen and oxygen. Add to that the weight you have added to your car by installing the system.

This is dangerous, hurts your fuel efficiency and can damage your car engine. That is what I found out without using the internet. It has no positive side that I can see whatsoever and several negative sides even before we start talking about cost. What am I missing?


That's enough. Save your money.

BTW, the "kit" you mention doesn't include the kit. It's only a couple of books.

-Jeff

[Karl Frederick]

Read the referenced web page carefully. The ad is selling a "guide," not a kit. I assume that means they're selling just the instructions about doing the conversion.


Hi~
I am wondering if anyone locally has purchased or built one of these kits. I am interested in doing this and would like some feedback from anyone who has used one of these kits on their own vehicle. Thanks ~ K
www.runyourcarwithwater.com (https://www.runyourcarwithwater.com)

[Karl Frederick]

Jeff, what's behind the conclusions you've drawn? I don't follow your reasoning outlined in the brief quote below. What are the measures of efficiency that you are using? Can you refer us to an example of the calculations showing the electrical energy used to create the combustible gas, the theoretical heat energy available by burning it, and the engine's efficiency in converting that thermal energy into mechanical energy?


So... You electrolyze water in your car. That takes energy. And it is not 100 % efficient. Then you burn the hydrogen (and oxygen? ) in your car engine. That is certainly not very efficient, so you will not be close to getting back the energy you just used to make the hydrogen and oxygen. Add to that the weight you have added to your car by installing the system.

This is dangerous, hurts your fuel efficiency and can damage your car engine. That is what I found out without using the internet. It has no positive side that I can see whatsoever and several negative sides even before we start talking about cost. What am I missing?

[weffers]

I think we should all pitch in and get a kit or guide and see for ourselves if this works.

wouldn't it be nice?

20 folk into it?


Read the referenced web page carefully. The ad is selling a "guide," not a kit. I assume that means they're selling just the instructions about doing the conversion.

[Braggi]

Jeff, what's behind the conclusions you've drawn? I don't follow your reasoning outlined in the brief quote below. What are the measures of efficiency that you are using? ...

It wasn't my conclusion but the conclusion of a long string of arguments from a lot of authors on a site that featured scientists who know better than I.

In a nutshell: when water is split into hydrogen and oxygen a great deal of energy is needed since the bond is very strong. At that moment a lot of energy is released as heat which is lost. When the molecules are recombined into water, energy is also released which can be useful to combustion in an engine, but the regained energy is necessarily only a fraction of that which it took to split the water in the first place. And then there are all the machinery losses too.

In short, a vehicle can't create the energy necessary to crack water and then recollect it to power the vehicle. It will take more fuel to do this than will be returned to the car as energy. It's more efficient to just burn the fuel in the engine in the first place.

If "lost" heat energy was used to crack the water that would be another story. If electrical energy is required than that puts additional load on the engine which burns more fuel.

You can't gain energy from this equation.

-Jeff

PS. The only methods to crack water to make hydrogen that make sense involve energy sources that produce surplus energy that needs to be stored. These include solar, hydro and nuclear.

[Zeno Swijtink]

I haven't read up on this but, if I may speculate, one way in which this could work is on the model of a gas/electric hybrid vehicle.

The gas/electric hybrid car original power source is the gasoline. The electric engine is powered by collecting wasted kinetic energy, such a the energy lost when you break or slow down using the resistance of the engine, and converting it to electricity that is then stored in an extra battery and called upon when needed by the electric motor.

In my car, a Honda Insight, the electric motor is used as an "assist." For example when you need to overtake a car or go uphill, the three gas cylinders of the car have insufficient power and the electric engine kicks in to assist. The Toyota works somewhat differently but the basic idea is the same.

Under my driving conditions my Honda Insight has a mileage of 60m/h, plus or minus. But I have driven this car under other driving conditions on longer trips with a mileage of 73m/g for a tank of gas. Of course the car gets this high efficiency by including other design ideas: it seats just two people, its aluminum frame is very light, it ‘s back wheels are covered for better aerodynamics, and it has a panel that gives the driver feedback how efficient he is driving so he can adjust his driving style for higher efficiency.

In the "plus-in-hybrid" you have a larger extra battery that you can recharge at home. So there part of the original power source includes the coal, methane, hydro, nuclear, or wind or solar power that created that electricity.

A car that "runs on water" may work on the same principle, but instead of storing the motive energy as electricity, the motive energy is stored as hydrogen. Of course, as Jeff explains, this car cannot solely "run on water." It would be a gas/hydrogen hybrid in which the hydrogen may even be recycled back mixed in with the gas if that's safe.

In the car that gas/hydrogen hybrid the motive power is first converted to electricity that is then used to separate the oxygen and hydrogen in the water molecule. So there is an additional step that will involve some energy loss in the form of heat diffusion.

It may therefore appear that the total efficiency of the gas/hydrogen hybrid is lower then that of the gas/electric hybrid.

But that may not be the case if you look at the greater system that involves the production of these two models of car. There is a substantial "embedded energy" in the battery of the gas/electric hybrid, energy that was used to create the battery. This is absent in the water-car which may be less energy intensive to produce.

There is also the air-car that stores energy in the form of compressed air. There could be a gas/air hybrid.

The whole question of the "embedded energy" in the battery of the gas/electric hybrid is a understudied problem and I have seen reports that argue that the Prius for instance is not more efficient that a conventional car that used similar design principles. It's a possible soft underbelly of the gas/electric hybrid enthusiasm.

By car pooling with someone else you can almost double the efficiency of any car. This can make even a Hummer transporting a soccer team do great!

[jborges3]

I agree that burning extra gas to create some other fuel would be wasteful, but there are other options that could go along the lines of Zeno's ideas.

In my little honda the alternator is spinning anytime the engine is running, so once the charge that was used to start the car is replaced and my battery is fully charged, then doesn't the alternator continue to spin and then that extra battery charging electricity isn't put to any use?

Couldn't that bit of electricity be used to create "Brown's gas" as the article calls it. This is simply the mixture of Hydrogen gas and Oxygen gas, that is produced by the electrolysis of water.

It really wouldn't mater that the efficiency is only around 70% at best if you weren't doing anything with that electricity anyway.

Then, if you could somehow inject this H2+O2 gas mixture into your engine along with the gasoline (something like what the hot rod people do with "nitrous") it would burn and give you a little extra bang for your buck.

What about at stop signs and in stop and go traffic? There are times when the engine is spinning but the car isn't going anywhere. The alternator is already spinning in this case also. Couldn't this system let you make use of that idle time?

Maybe one could also use a stirling engine to convert the wasted heat from the engine into mechanical energy to drive a generator to create electricity to use for electrolysis of water to create Brown's gas also.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine


Neat ideas :)

[Zeno Swijtink]

I agree that burning extra gas to create some other fuel would be wasteful, but there are other options that could go along the lines of Zeno's ideas.

In my little honda the alternator is spinning anytime the engine is running, so once the charge that was used to start the car is replaced and my battery is fully charged, then doesn't the alternator continue to spin and then that extra battery charging electricity isn't put to any use?

Couldn't that bit of electricity be used to create "Brown's gas" as the article calls it. This is simply the mixture of Hydrogen gas and Oxygen gas, that is produced by the electrolysis of water.

It really wouldn't mater that the efficiency is only around 70% at best if you weren't doing anything with that electricity anyway.

Then, if you could somehow inject this H2+O2 gas mixture into your engine along with the gasoline (something like what the hot rod people do with "nitrous") it would burn and give you a little extra bang for your buck.

What about at stop signs and in stop and go traffic? There are times when the engine is spinning but the car isn't going anywhere. The alternator is already spinning in this case also. Couldn't this system let you make use of that idle time?

Maybe one could also use a stirling engine to convert the wasted heat from the engine into mechanical energy to drive a generator to create electricity to use for electrolysis of water to create Brown's gas also.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine


Neat ideas :)

The spinning alternator and the running motor while standing still in stop-and-go traffic are all valid examples I think but a more efficient design would halt the alternator from spinning with a full battery or halt the engine from running in stop-and-go traffic.

This is indeed what happens in my hybrid: the engine stops when the car comes to a stop and the headlights are not on.

However, in my hybrid, when the battery is full there is not place to put the energy recovered from breaking, etc., and there is an opportunity for increased efficiency from a water-electrolyzing car. These moments are rather rare, though.

[Sciguy]

The thing all you guys have to really grok is that energy is conserved. Not a little bit, not sometimes, but universally, in every way, under every circumstance, whether you like it or not, whether you change the spelling of water etc. etc.

The alternator in your honda doesn't just spin and waste electricity. If there is no place for electricity to go, it doesn't flow and it doesn't create a back emf for the armature to thrust against. In other words, aside from dissipative effects like the friction of the bearing, which produces heat, an alternator works (and resists the turning of the engine) when it is being asked to provide electricity that can go somewhere and be used or stored. If it isn't producing electricity, it spins relatively freely. It doesn't resist the turning of the engine and it takes "no" energy from the engine and thus none from the gasoline. ENERGY IS ALWAYS CONSERVED!

Gasoline burning is different because it burns whether its available energy is used or not. When the hot gases are used to create mechanical motion, the gas does work on the piston and the gas cools down. So not as much heat is wasted. But when there is no mechanical energy being taken, the piston moves more easily and there is more heat to be wasted by the discharge of the hot gases. Doing the detailed calculations is not easy but it is possible and it is well understood (it's part of thermodynamics) and it all works out to the last erg. At least physicists who haven't done all the calculations are willing to take the word of those who have.

When conservation of energy was just being worked out in the late 1800's, some wag noted that if physicists found that energy was being lost or created without conservation they would just make up some new form of energy to balance the books. Non-physicists think that this observation is some kind of indictment of the shaky nature of energy conservation. It has always fascinated me that the wag was dead on. Yes, physicists would, and did, make up new forms of energy to balance the books. But the point is not that they jigger the books unfairly. THE POINT IS THAT THEY CAN! It is the ability to keep all the accounting straight thru every kind of transformation that allows physicists to define a quantity that they call energy that is never gained or lost. If energy was not conserved in nature, they would not be able to find any such quantity, no matter how many kinds they invented. (That was a digression).

These people with their burning of water are, I hate to be the one saying it again, but they are full of s__t. Water doesn't burn. End of discussion. It doesn't matter if you spell it HOH or HHO like the last batch of fraudulent water merchandisers did, or OHH. The water doesn't know the difference. It is still water.

However, for decades I have been hearing about an entirely different kind of effect which may be real. It seems that if you mix water into your gasoline, it may change the burning characteristics of the hydrocarbon (Not The Water) to increase the efficiency of burning. This has been discussed for many years and may be real. Sometimes alumina powder has been suggested for the same effect. Some problems occur with the separation of the contained water and the resultant rusting and corrosion and the difficulty of keeping the two liquids emulsified together. However this has nothing to do with burning water.

Now if these snake oil guys were a little more clever, they might want to wave their magic wands and talk about burning water with extra oxygen into hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). I think they would fall flat on their faces when the output H2O2 could not be detected but it would at least make a bit more chemical sense and the claim could not be dismissed outright. That is probably an endothermic reaction (sucks up heat rather than emitting heat) but I didn't look it up so I don't know. However, an endothermic reaction would make things worse not better, energy wise.

And I'm going to go out on a limb one more time in the spirit of in for a penny in for a pound. I'm going to let the gentle reader know that homeopathy is another one of those frauds. The entire claim of excess dilution is the laughing stock of science. I think the homeopaths also go for herbal medicine, about which I have nothing bad to say - I take vitamins myself without knowing if it could help me or not. So I'm not referring to that aspect of homeopathy. But this business of diluting water and selling gullible sick people expensive distilled water instead of urging them to seek out real medicine is criminal. But that's the way our society works. If you want to kill yourself pretending that water is medicine, you have a right to do it.

An ex-girlfriend of mine is a pharmacist and she brought her needed license to a well-known homeopathic so-called pharmacy on occasion. Once a client wrote in that he was reacting to his computer and did they have anything to reduce his sensitivity to the computer. So the homeo "pharmacist" took a flask of water, waved a hard drive over it, and sent a bottle of to the sufferer for about $75 a bottle. We had a good laugh over that one.

Do you know that the homepathic pharmacist takes one drop of distilled water, adds it to a gallon of distilled water and then to make it all work (in their twisted logic) he has to "succuss" the new preparation. That means that he hits it with his hand for a prescribed number of times - ten or a hundred times. And sometimes it is necessary to hold it over the homeopathic pharmacopeia (a book) while succussing it. The desperately end of plank rationalization that they have dreamed up is that the water takes on medicinal qualities when they succuss it. How absurd does it have to get before no one believes a word of it. Apparently there is no claim too absurd for Americans to accept.

One classic objection has to do with the homeopathic claim that a tiny tiny amount of some medicine, added to water changes its structure so that all the water becomes medicine too. But someone asked an obvious question (was it George Bernard Shaw?) since the operation is done in a lab where dust is constantly falling into the water, does the water take on the structure of daisy pollen, or flea legs, or asbestos or whatever other dust particle falls into the water? How does the water know to ignore these influences (which are millions of times stronger than the supposed medicine in many cases) and only take on the structure that the homeopath wants it to? I guess that's where setting the water down on the pharmacopeia comes in.

Okay, start the bricks flying now.

Sciguy


I agree that burning extra gas to create some other fuel would be wasteful, but there are other options that could go along the lines of Zeno's ideas.

In my little honda the alternator is spinning anytime the engine is running, so once the charge that was used to start the car is replaced and my battery is fully charged, then doesn't the alternator continue to spin and then that extra battery charging electricity isn't put to any use?

Couldn't that bit of electricity be used to create "Brown's gas" as the article calls it. This is simply the mixture of Hydrogen gas and Oxygen gas, that is produced by the electrolysis of water.

It really wouldn't mater that the efficiency is only around 70% at best if you weren't doing anything with that electricity anyway.

Then, if you could somehow inject this H2+O2 gas mixture into your engine along with the gasoline (something like what the hot rod people do with "nitrous") it would burn and give you a little extra bang for your buck.

What about at stop signs and in stop and go traffic? There are times when the engine is spinning but the car isn't going anywhere. The alternator is already spinning in this case also. Couldn't this system let you make use of that idle time?

Maybe one could also use a stirling engine to convert the wasted heat from the engine into mechanical energy to drive a generator to create electricity to use for electrolysis of water to create Brown's gas also.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine


Neat ideas :)

[pbrinton]

The charging of the battery by the alternator is not "free," and when it is free-spinning (i.e. not charging the battery) it is not consuming any engine power (other than minuscule friction loss). The action of charging the battery puts a resistance on the spinning of the alternator, which requires the use of more gas to overcome, so energy provided by burning the gasoline is being used to charge the battery. When the battery is fully charged, the alternator is not charging, and therefore the resistance is not there, and you are consuming less gas. Using the alternator to do something else at this time like producing hydrogen simply increases the amount of gas being used and transfers the resulting surplus into another form of energy storage, with some conversion loss. There is no free lunch.

Any time you are taking stored energy and transferring it into some other form of stored energy you will lose some of it in the process; in other words (for instance) it takes more energy to manufacture a given amount of hydrogen than that amount of hydrogen will yield when turned back into usable energy.

The only time you actually gain something by manufacturing hydrogen is when you are using some energy source that would otherwise be unused, such as hydroelectric. Even then you are tapping some other form of energy, and altering the environment in some way. It is not always obvious what energy source is being tapped; extracting power from the wind may have an effect on the rotation of the earth, for instance, and collecting solar power will reduce the amount heat falling on the ground beneath. Tis last may right now be an advantage, since we are evidently heating the earth, but my point is that no form of energy conversion is without some consequence. The consequences may seem very small and insignificant when you are doing something on a small scale, but I am sure that if some prophet had said at the start of the age of oil that this as going to lead to smog and global warming, the response would have been that such a small amount could not possibly have any real effect.

Patrick Brinton


I agree that burning extra gas to create some other fuel would be wasteful, but there are other options that could go along the lines of Zeno's ideas.

In my little honda the alternator is spinning anytime the engine is running, so once the charge that was used to start the car is replaced and my battery is fully charged, then doesn't the alternator continue to spin and then that extra battery charging electricity isn't put to any use?

Couldn't that bit of electricity be used to create "Brown's gas" as the article calls it. This is simply the mixture of Hydrogen gas and Oxygen gas, that is produced by the electrolysis of water.

It really wouldn't mater that the efficiency is only around 70% at best if you weren't doing anything with that electricity anyway.

Then, if you could somehow inject this H2+O2 gas mixture into your engine along with the gasoline (something like what the hot rod people do with "nitrous") it would burn and give you a little extra bang for your buck.

What about at stop signs and in stop and go traffic? There are times when the engine is spinning but the car isn't going anywhere. The alternator is already spinning in this case also. Couldn't this system let you make use of that idle time?

Maybe one could also use a stirling engine to convert the wasted heat from the engine into mechanical energy to drive a generator to create electricity to use for electrolysis of water to create Brown's gas also.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine


Neat ideas :)

[Moon]

What on Earth is diluted water? I scroogle.org'd it and found only references
to the detachment of the Changjiang into the East China Sea and photocatalysis.

The entire claim of excess dilution is the laughing stock of science. I think the homeopaths also go for herbal medicine, about which I have nothing bad to say--I take vitamins myself without knowing if it could help me or not. So I'm not referring to that aspect of homeopathy. But this business of diluting water and selling gullible sick people expensive distilled water instead of urging them to seek out real medicine is criminal. But that's the way our society works. If you want to kill yourself pretending that water is medicine, you have a right to do it.

[Waccomole]

I have been running my Saab on a blend of water and pureed tapioca (the balls clog my injectors so I have to puree) for some time. But I only use bottled water..Perrier, mostly...so I have not really had much of a savings. But I do get a lot of CRV for taking those bottles to recycling. Now that gasoline has almost reached the price of (bottled) water, I thinking of converting to run on piss. That way, I get to use the water for a while. Hey, here's an idea someone...install collection urinals in public places and reap a huge profit. Think of it..now the dastardly thieves are stealing cooking oil...what next...misdemeanor theft of pee-pee? For those of you who seriously replied to the original post...what makes you tick? Ignore foolishness or have fun with it...but don't give it credibility with a serious discussion. Waccomole


Hi~
I am wondering if anyone locally has purchased or built one of these kits. I am interested in doing this and would like some feedback from anyone who has used one of these kits on their own vehicle. Thanks ~ K
www.runyourcarwithwater.com (https://www.runyourcarwithwater.com)

[dandss1]

In a nut shell here is how it works. Water is placed in a jar containing an electrode. Electricity from the battery causes the two components of water to separate. Hydrogen gas is sucked into the air intake to supplement the fuel mixture. There is more to it, but basically that is how it works.

There is no real weight involved perhaps a pound or two. Won't hurt your engine, isn't dangerous, won't turn your hair blue. It will void your warantee if you have one.

There are guys in the San Jose area who have been installing these things and displaying their modifications for more than a year now. This has been on both radio and TV news numerous times, numerous articles in automotive magazines etc.

I'll give you some links so you can read the details and look at the parts and form your own opinions. You really don't need to buy the books to figure it all out and you can get most of the parts from Ace Hardware and Radio Shack or just buy a kit which comes with a how to manual. The site given below has photos of the whole thing.

This does not replace gasoline. Just supplements it. I have not personally installed a kit, but plan on tinkering with it later this summer with an older out of warantee car. What the heck, better to have tried and failed than to do nothing and complain about it.

Here are some links, you can check it out yourself.

www.water4gas.com (https://www.water4gas.com)

https://hydrogenboostsupplies.com/

https://waterfuelsystems.com/Home_Page.php

https://water4gas.com/mfg2/

Good luck!

[Zeno Swijtink]

This does not replace gasoline. Just supplements it. I have not personally installed a kit, but plan on tinkering with it later this summer with an older out of warantee car. What the heck, better to have tried and failed than to do nothing and complain about it.

Whether as a replacement or a supplement, in the form you describe it, the set-up violates the Law of Conservation of Energy, given that the process creates some dissipative heat.

Better get yourself a bike.

[Sciguy]

Dandss:
The problem is not that your hair will turn blue or that it will hurt your car. The problem is that the whole explanation is just plain silly.

You do not have some kind of free electricity for electrolyzing water just sitting in your car. That electricity is laboriously provided by the alternator to the battery using the rotation of the engine stemming from the burning of fuel. It is all accounted for and there is not one single scrap of extra energy anywhere.

If you create a lot of hydrogen, it will take a lot of electricity and may provide a lot of energy from burning. But it will take even more energy from the gasoline to create the electricity to do that. You lose!

If you create just a little hydrogen, it can't do anything for your energy input. You lose!

No matter how you slice it, the electrolysis is inefficient. You lose!

There is no way to win. You cannot make energy from thin air. Or from water. You might want to claim some increased efficiency of combustion. I could not argue with that, but that is not the claim being made.

So this whole cockamamie scheme for electrolyzing water is nothing but a scam and a shuck and a big waste of money for anyone trying it. There is no possibility of it doing anyone any good, unless they are selling some product.

I wish you gullible seekers after magic would just drop all of these crazy schemes for getting energy for free and join the real world. But then I wish for a lot of things I'll never get.

Sciguy


In a nut shell here is how it works. Water is placed in a jar containing an electrode. Electricity from the battery causes the two components of water to separate. Hydrogen gas is sucked into the air intake to supplement the fuel mixture. There is more to it, but basically that is how it works.

There is no real weight involved perhaps a pound or two. Won't hurt your engine, isn't dangerous, won't turn your hair blue. It will void your warantee if you have one.

There are guys in the San Jose area who have been installing these things and displaying their modifications for more than a year now. This has been on both radio and TV news numerous times, numerous articles in automotive magazines etc.

I'll give you some links so you can read the details and look at the parts and form your own opinions. You really don't need to buy the books to figure it all out and you can get most of the parts from Ace Hardware and Radio Shack or just buy a kit which comes with a how to manual. The site given below has photos of the whole thing.

This does not replace gasoline. Just supplements it. I have not personally installed a kit, but plan on tinkering with it later this summer with an older out of warantee car. What the heck, better to have tried and failed than to do nothing and complain about it.

Here are some links, you can check it out yourself.

www.water4gas.com (https://www.water4gas.com)

https://hydrogenboostsupplies.com/

https://waterfuelsystems.com/Home_Page.php

https://water4gas.com/mfg2/

Good luck!

[dandss1]

It is to laugh...sorry I just couldn't resist.

Honda has just announced the introduction of a hydrogen fuel cell car. To quote the press release which was on Yahoo news today.

"The FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity, emits only water and none of the noxious fumes believed to induce global warming. It is also two times more energy efficient than a gas-electric hybrid and three times that of a standard gasoline-powered car, the company says."

https://green.yahoo.com/news/ap/20080616/ap_on_bi_ge/japan_honda.html

I am most certain that Honda would enjoy hearing from you guys who claim it violates some law of physics, or it produces heat or whatever. I am sure they would stop production immediately based upon your vast scientific knowledge and expertise. Sorry I know that is sarcastic, but the personal hate spewing emails sent to my home were a bit much and totally uncalled for.

That's all this water for gas concept is, a hydrogen fuel cell. Hydrogen fuel cells are the wave of the future wheather you agree with the technology or not.

To the originator of this post, I do hope you have found your answers. Don't let people on this site discourage your quest for knowledge.

[Zeno Swijtink]

It is to laugh...sorry I just couldn't resist.

Honda has just announced the introduction of a hydrogen fuel cell car. To quote the press release which was on Yahoo news today.

"The FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity, emits only water and none of the noxious fumes believed to induce global warming. It is also two times more energy efficient than a gas-electric hybrid and three times that of a standard gasoline-powered car, the company says."

https://green.yahoo.com/news/ap/20080616/ap_on_bi_ge/japan_honda.html

I am most certain that Honda would enjoy hearing from you guys who claim it violates some law of physics, or it produces heat or whatever. I am sure they would stop production immediately based upon your vast scientific knowledge and expertise. Sorry I know that is sarcastic, but the personal hate spewing emails sent to my home were a bit much and totally uncalled for.

That's all this water for gas concept is, a hydrogen fuel cell. Hydrogen fuel cells are the wave of the future wheather you agree with the technology or not.

To the originator of this post, I do hope you have found your answers. Don't let people on this site discourage your quest for knowledge.

Dave, this car runs on hydrogen, not on water. It has to be refueled at a hydrogen fuel station. Nothing in what was said on this thread by people who have "vast scientific knowledge and expertise" contradicts or is contracted by the principles underlying this design.

[dandss1]

Yes I know and that is the real point behind all of this. Wheather it is some home made water based system used to produce hydrogen gas or an engineered system using compressed hydrogen gas and electricity, the end result is pretty much the same. Hydrogen is being burned instead of gasoline.

Of course you could skip the whole water, electrode, fuel cell idea and just haul a tank of compressed hydrogen gas around with you, with a tube going into your air intake. That could provide some entertaining moments.

[pbrinton]

Wheather it is some home made water based system used to produce hydrogen gas or an engineered system using compressed hydrogen gas and electricity, the end result is pretty much the same.

Well, no, actually they are not the same. The difference lies in the energy that is being used to produce the hydrogen. First you need to understand that hydrogen is not a primary fuel source, like oil or coal or natural gas. It takes some other form of energy to separate the hydrogen, which does not exist in pure form naturally. In the case of the onboard system, the energy source being used to separate the hydrogen is the gasoline engine. Since it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than it yields in energy, you are better off leaving it as gasoline and burning it in the usual way.

In the case of the commercial hydrogen cars, they are burning hydrogen produced elsewhere (with, by the way, the same energy loss due to the conversion). How ecologically beneficial they are depends on the source of the energy used to produce the hydrogen. If you are burning coal, for instance, you are simply transferring the pollution to the site of the manufacturing plant. Now if you are using wind or hydroelectric power or solar power to produce the hydrogen then you are indeed helping the environment, but right now there is very little of that going on as far as I know. Mostly big industries want to lock us into another fuel that they can control, for which they will have to create a whole new distribution system. We already have a distribution system for electricity. More than one, actually. Plus there are many ways that you can create your own electricity. Hydrogen as a fuel for cars is in my opinion a huge boondoggle.

The reason that electric hybrids give better gas mileage, when on the face of it the same objection described above would also apply to this technology too (since the batteries are being charged by the gasoline engine), is that hitherto wasted energy is being harvested in the form of regenerative braking. Furthermore there are driving conditions that electric motors can handle more efficiently than gasoline engines. Gasoline engines are very efficient when the car is maintaining a constant speed, which is why you get better mileage on the highway. They are very inefficient indeed when accelerating, whereas electric motors are much more efficient when accelerating, as well as having better low end torque. Additionally having an electric motor makes it practicable to use no gasoline at all when standing still, a tremendous hidden wastage of fuel.

Patrick Brinton

[Dynamique]

It sounds like this "run your car on water" thing is really a reference to Brown's Gas (aka Brown Gas), which sounds like the aftermath of a bad burrito but really is oxyhydrogen (not to be confused with dihydrogen oxide).

Check out the article on Wikipedia before getting too excited about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown%27s_Gas



Yes I know and that is the real point behind all of this. Wheather it is some home made water based system used to produce hydrogen gas or an engineered system using compressed hydrogen gas and electricity, the end result is pretty much the same. Hydrogen is being burned instead of gasoline.

Of course you could skip the whole water, electrode, fuel cell idea and just haul a tank of compressed hydrogen gas around with you, with a tube going into your air intake. That could provide some entertaining moments.

[Braggi]

...
Of course you could skip the whole water, electrode, fuel cell idea and just haul a tank of compressed hydrogen gas around with you, with a tube going into your air intake. That could provide some entertaining moments.

Maybe BMW is doing it just for laughs:
https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6154212.stm

Read more about liquid hydrogen cars here:
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/liquid-hydrogen.htm

Fuel cells are unlikely to ever be feasible in a cost effective way. Liquid hydrogen cars are available now and are actually safer than gasoline powered cars.

-Jeff

[Braggi]

Here's the real solution to all this stuff:

https://www.isa.org/Content/ContentGroups/News/20071/March33/Air_powered_car_provides_cost_savings.htm

A tiny air compressor could be connected to a flexible photovoltaic panel mounted on the roof so the car could refuel as it sits. Nice, eh?

Investment option, anyone?

-Jeff

[Zeno Swijtink]

Below is a NYT story that appeared today in the PD, about the same hydrogen fuel cell car that dandss1 reported about, the Honda FCX Clarity.

They say that it "gets higher fuel efficiency than a gasoline car or hybrid, the equivalent of 74 mpg, according to the company."

Does anyone know what that means? In what way equivalent?

Is it the energy content in Btu of the hydrogen needed to propel this car? Does it take into account the "embedded" energy in this fuel, the energy it took to get this fuel to the pump? (Most hydrogen commercially available is derived from natural gas today, electrolysis is still more expensive. See Hydrogen Basics — Production (https://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/consumer/hydrogen/basics/production.htm). Florida Solar Energy Center.)

https://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/consumer/hydrogen/basics/images/HydrogenProductionPaths.gif
From Florida Solar Energy Center

Or is it the carbon footprint of the energy needed to propel this car in comparison with a conventional gasoline car?

Or is it the fuel costs of this car in comparison with a conventional gasoline car?

In a gas/electric hybrid all these measure come out to the same since gasoline is the primary energy source, and electric is just a way to capture and store energy that would otherwise be wasted.


Does anyone know how the 74 mpg estimate was derived?

****
Hydrogen fuel-cell car rolls off Honda assembly line (https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080617/NEWS07/806170366/1036/BUSINESS01)
Mass production could trim high cost of zero-emissions vehicle
By MARTIN FACKLER
NEW YORK TIMES
Published: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 5:25 a.m.

TAKANEZAWA, Japan -- It looks like an ordinary family sedan, costs more to build than a Ferrari and may have just moved the world one step closer to a future free of petroleum.

On Monday, Honda celebrated the start of production of its FCX Clarity, the world's first hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicle intended for mass production. In a ceremony at a factory an hour north of Tokyo, the first assembly-line FCX Clarity rolled out to the applause of hundreds of Honda employees wearing white jump suits.

Honda will make just 200 of the futuristic vehicles over the next three years, but said it eventually planned to increase production volumes, especially as hydrogen filling stations become more common. On Monday, Honda announced its first five customers, who included the actress Jamie Lee Curtis.

Honda said even the small initial production run represented progress toward a clean-burning technology that many rejected as too exotic and too expensive to gain wide acceptance.

"Basically, we can mass produce these now," said Kazuaki Umezu, head of Honda's Automobile New Model Center, where the FCX Clarity is built. "We are waiting for the infrastructure to catch up."

Fuel-cell vehicles have been a sort of holy grail of the auto industry, offering the promise of driving without emitting air-polluting exhaust. Fuel cells work by combining hydrogen and oxygen from ordinary air to make electricity, in a process whose only byproducts are water and heat. They have drawn renewed attention in an era of climate change, $140 a barrel oil, and rising competition for dwindling fossil fuels.

"This is a must-have technology for the future of the earth," said Takeo Fukui, Honda's president. "Honda will work hard to mainstream fuel-cell cars."

Fuel cells have an advantage over electric cars, whose batteries take hours to recharge and use electricity, which, in the case of the United States, China and many other countries, is often produced by coal-burning power plants.

Honda says its FCX Clarity can be filled easily at a pump, can drive 280 miles on a tank, almost as far as a gasoline car. It also gets higher fuel efficiency than a gasoline car or hybrid, the equivalent of 74 mpg, according to the company.

But the technology has faced many hurdles, not the least of which has been the prohibitive cost of the fuel cells themselves.

Honda says it has found ways to mass produce them, which promises to drive down costs through economies of scale. On Monday, it showed reporters its fuel-cell production line, which resembled a semiconductor factory more than an auto plant with its humming automated machinery and white smocked workers in dust-free rooms.

Fukui said the cars cost several hundred thousand dollars each to produce, though he said that should drop below $100,000 in less than a decade as production volumes increase. In the meantime, the car company will be effectively subsidizing its customers, who will lease the vehicles for $600 a month. That is not much more than the leasing price of one of Honda's top Acura line of luxury cars.

At Monday's ceremony, Fukui presented an oversize key to the first FCX Clarity customer, a film producer from Los Angeles on hand for the occasion. Honda said it would offer the car in Southern California first because the state has been a leader in building hydrogen filling stations.

Fuel-cell vehicles have been a big gamble for Honda, which has spent the past 16 years and millions of dollars -- the company will not say exactly how much -- developing them. For a time, the company was criticized for pouring money into unproven technologies while refusing to follow the rest of the industry into large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.

With gas prices soaring, Honda is in an enviable position of not being burdened with large inventories of gas-guzzling full-frame trucks that require hefty incentives to sell, or the factories that build them. the Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric vehicle in 2010. It also introduced a test-fleet of hydrogen fuel cell Equinox SUVs.

Honda has no plans for a plug-in electric vehicle. President Takeo Fukui said he does not believe current battery technology is good enough to develop a feasible car.

The company has not revealed how much each car costs to make, and it is unclear when, or if, the car will be available for mass-market sales. Takeo has set a target for 2018, but meeting that goal will depend on whether Honda can significantly lower development and assembly costs as well as market reaction to fuel cells.