Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Impurial on April 15, 2004, 04:19:10 am

Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Impurial on April 15, 2004, 04:19:10 am
Picked this up, hope it isn't old news:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/14/1081838784511.html

Just one question, doesn't 'Hydrogen + Oxygen + Fire = BANG' ?
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Nico on April 15, 2004, 04:36:58 am
heh, we made an hydrogen car:
(http://www.annso.freesurf.fr/H2O_PSA.gif)
funny, it's a fireman car, btw :)
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Sandwich on April 15, 2004, 07:16:22 am
Reminds me of the engine tech I heard about 10-15 years ago or so, where this nobody inventor got a working hydrogen engine, but it ran in reverse to what the article above outlines. You'd pour water into the tank, it'd break it apart, use the hydrogen for energy, and pump pure oxygen out the tailpipe.

Heard the guy got bought out and silenced by some big car company. Jerks.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Turnsky on April 15, 2004, 07:24:18 am
Quote
Originally posted by Sandwich

Heard the guy got bought out and silenced by some big car company. Jerks.


doesn't surprise me much.:doubt:
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Zuljin on April 15, 2004, 07:40:07 am
human greed....blech, makes me sick to hear about stuff like that.
Just because they will make more money they silence anything that can cut their profits -_-

But as for the car, it's great news :)
anything that can improve the cars we have nowadays, and at the same time get rid of the petrol need, thats just simply superb
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: J3Vr6 on April 15, 2004, 08:10:46 am
Well there go the muscle cars and the drag racing :(
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Lonestar on April 15, 2004, 08:19:21 am
It illegal to have electric cars in north America now, only hybrid Gas/Electric is legal.
Title: Re: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: karajorma on April 15, 2004, 08:47:32 am
Quote
Originally posted by Impurial
Just one question, doesn't 'Hydrogen + Oxygen + Fire = BANG' ?


Same goes for petrol and air though :) The important thing is keeping the reaction from ever being dangerous to the people around the car.

Quote
Originally posted by J3Vr6
Well there go the muscle cars and the drag racing :(


Why? Many drag racers already run on methanol cause it's a better fuel than petrol.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Rictor on April 15, 2004, 09:12:04 am
Quote
Originally posted by Lonestar
It illegal to have electric cars in north America now, only hybrid Gas/Electric is legal.


Say what? Where are you getting this from? Not that I'm deny it, it just seems pretty insane, even for a country run by oil giants.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Bobboau on April 15, 2004, 09:16:47 am
funny, I see people in them all the time (mostly on TV :doubt: )

so is there anything new about this or is it just an overview of fuel cells for those who wern't paying atention.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Drew on April 15, 2004, 10:20:45 am
Quote
Originally posted by Lonestar
It illegal to have electric cars in north America now, only hybrid Gas/Electric is legal.


:wtf:

ever heard of golf carts?
Title: Re: Re: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: J3Vr6 on April 15, 2004, 10:43:16 am
Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
Why? Many drag racers already run on methanol cause it's a better fuel than petrol.




Methanol is not hydrogen or burns even close to it...
Title: Re: Re: Re: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: karajorma on April 15, 2004, 10:55:22 am
Quote
Originally posted by J3Vr6
Methanol is not hydrogen or burns even close to it...


I know (Almost certainly better than you - I'll tell you the story one day of exactly why I know how well methanol burns!!)  but you're acting as if this is the end of everything. That's obvious nonsense. When unleaded petrol became the norm there were people saying exactly the same sort of thing.

Even if it was true you can still get four star petrol almost anywhere. I doubt very much that hydrogen powered cars are going to replace petrol until they can give performance close to that of petrol.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: J3Vr6 on April 15, 2004, 11:28:18 am
Oh, there's no doubt that hydrogen is gonna put the hungry V8's to sleep... if the government puts a stop to it.  You'll only see them in collections and possible road shows.

You can't make a comparison between the change from lead to unleaded gasoline and changing an entire system to hydrogen.  These cars are going to be nothing like a gasoline powered V8 or an import inline 4.  Ever see an electric car do a burn out?  

But, you're right, hydrogen power will get efficient enough that performance won't be a problem.  Heck, I'm sure they could reach speeds maybe faster than a gasoline, fuel injected engine.  But it won't be the same.  

No more of people working on their cars in their garages...
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: JarC on April 15, 2004, 11:42:50 am
Quote
Originally posted by Drew

:wtf:

ever heard of golf carts?
yeah, but they isn't used for Transport, only for tranSport ;)
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: karajorma on April 15, 2004, 11:52:39 am
I wouldn't be too certain of that either. Handled correctly a hydrogen engine wouldn't have to automatically be that much nastier to deal with than a petrol one. Sure there are some parts you wouldn't want to mess with (anything involving metal hydrides is a VERY bad idea unless you know exactly what you're doing) but many parts of the engine would remain the same.

As for my point about unleaded. Have a look on the roads. Have electric cars taken over? No. Why? Cause they aren't as good as petrol cars. It will be the same with hydrogen powered cars. They won't take over until they can beat petrol.  

Lets face it. What man is going to buy a wimpy hydrogen powered car when the petrol one is better?
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Rictor on April 15, 2004, 12:10:22 pm
If I had the money, I would. See, I'm pretty young. And I'de rather live to breathe clean air in my old age than to have A1 SUPAR acceleration.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Zeronet on April 15, 2004, 12:11:55 pm
Hydrogen powered buses exist in London or will soon, the picture showed it driving about the place.
Title: Re: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: mikhael on April 15, 2004, 01:57:11 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Impurial
Just one question, doesn't 'Hydrogen + Oxygen + Fire = BANG' ?


Only under pressure. Remember: the Hindenburg didn't explode, it BURNED.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Nico on April 15, 2004, 02:07:17 pm
Quote
Originally posted by karajorma
As for my point about unleaded. Have a look on the roads. Have electric cars taken over? No. Why? Cause they aren't as good as petrol cars. It will be the same with hydrogen powered cars. They won't take over until they can beat petrol.  /B]


No?
Do you see many stations to resupply electric cars? No? Why not?
I let you guess.

That aside, there's quite a lot of GPL cars in europe. That's already a step forward if you ask me.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Flipside on April 15, 2004, 02:09:16 pm
Hey, that's pretty cool :)

Electric cars are not environmentally friendly because of our poor battery technology.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Zuljin on April 15, 2004, 02:10:21 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Nico


No?
Do you see many stations to resupply electric cars? No? Why not?
I let you guess.

That aside, there's quite a lot of GPL cars in europe. That's already a step forward if you ask me.


It's going in the right direction atleast, if a little slowly.
One of the reasons that it goes so slowly is that I doubt the petrol companies are willing to let go it's golden-goose called "petrol" that easy.
The other one is as said performance, but then again I don't know the cababilities of the car either.
But performance is always something that can be enhanced, so thats just a temporary issue anyway
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Grey Wolf on April 15, 2004, 02:33:50 pm
A hydrogen-oxygen redox reaction can be pretty effective. What do you think the main booster of the space shuttle runs on?

Of course, the solid state engines are more powerful there, but still.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Nico on April 15, 2004, 02:40:15 pm
you don't run a car with a rocket, tho :p
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Grey Wolf on April 15, 2004, 02:42:50 pm
Same basic concept. Difference is, there you're running it as a reaction drive, using basic Newtonian physics, where in a car you'd probably use some sort of piston or turbine setup.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Ghostavo on April 15, 2004, 02:42:51 pm
If you could find a more efficient (economic) method of getting hydrogen, cars run with hydrogen would have a much better chance against petrol.

That is the irony, 70 percent of the planet's surface is covered with a substance that has hydrogen but we cannot get it easily! :D
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Grey Wolf on April 15, 2004, 02:44:16 pm
Actually, water is a very good source of hydrogen. You can harvest it with a 9V battery :p
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Ghostavo on April 15, 2004, 02:45:34 pm
And is it profitable to get it in large quantities?

Of course not. :p
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Grey Wolf on April 15, 2004, 02:49:25 pm
Actually, electrolysis is the standard method for getting hydrogen for industrial purposes. It's also the standard method for obtaining sodium and chlorine (from molten NaCl and brine, respectively).
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Nico on April 15, 2004, 02:52:10 pm
Actually, getting hydrogen is very easy, the pb is to store it, it's very... hargh, I don't have the word: it takes a lot of place if you compare to the petrol needed to generate the same amount of energy.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Ghostavo on April 15, 2004, 02:52:35 pm
But like I said, you can't get it easily in mass quantities like you can with petrol.

How much would be the consumption of H2 in comparison to petrol by the way? :nervous:
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Rictor on April 15, 2004, 02:56:13 pm
In theory, what happens when the water starts getting short? There isn't an infinite amount of it. Anyone know around when we could start seeing water shortages if the whole worlds accepts hydrogen fuel as the fuel of choice?
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Grey Wolf on April 15, 2004, 03:00:52 pm
You wouldn't. The output of a hydrogen-oxygen redox reaction is water.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Flipside on April 15, 2004, 03:01:55 pm
That's the thing Rictor, water is the result of the reaction, you extract the Oxygen and Hydrogen from water, the Engine rejoins them, taking advantage of the energy change to power the car. It's completely non-loss iirc :)
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Ghostavo on April 15, 2004, 03:06:40 pm
There is only one problem, where are you going to find the energy to extract the hydrogen from the water? The car becomes "electric" from a certain point of view.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Nico on April 15, 2004, 03:08:02 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Rictor
In theory, what happens when the water starts getting short? There isn't an infinite amount of it. Anyone know around when we could start seeing water shortages if the whole worlds accepts hydrogen fuel as the fuel of choice?


Well, 70% of the surface of the planet is covered of water. I'm pretty sure that's more than the available petrol :p
But anyway, you can get hydrogen in the air too, and probably in other organic materials, and in space, in the sun, on various gazeous planets, in some other rocky planets atmospheres, and even in the "vacuum" of space, but it's really scattered around. Never gonna run pout of hydrogen, or that means the end of the universe ( isn't 99% of the materials in the universe hydrogen, actually? ).
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Grey Wolf on April 15, 2004, 03:10:39 pm
That's about right. You don't get anything other than hydrogen until a star fuses the hydrogen to form helium, and you don't get anything heavier than that until later stages of fusion. And IIRC, you don't get anything past iron without a supernova.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Flipside on April 15, 2004, 03:11:31 pm
iirc it's something to do with Ethanol, you can fractioanlly distill it from yeast etc, so it's organic, and quite easy to split or something? :)
Title: Re: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Setekh on April 16, 2004, 06:45:44 am
Quote
Originally posted by Impurial
Picked this up, hope it isn't old news:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/14/1081838784511.html

Just one question, doesn't 'Hydrogen + Oxygen + Fire = BANG' ?


Hey dude, good to see you 'round these places. Funny, just out of curiosity, why'd you post this here? :D
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Bobboau on April 16, 2004, 08:57:43 am
I can't wait untill I can get my own fuel cell vehicle.
Title: RnD breakthrough?
Post by: Rictor on April 16, 2004, 10:16:39 am
http://www.theaircar.com/

Hmm, interesting if its real.