Hydrogen power.....

[mok86]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fuel_cell

just thought this was pretty interesting to read....does anyone kno more information about this?

http://www.nextenergynews.com/hydrogen/hydrogen10.html

[w4rrior]

hopefully this will be the way the way we power our cars, its really promising but the technology used is too expensive atm.

[mok86]

haha the thing is i've never heard seen this kind of electrolysis...if what stan meyer (who apparently was murdered) says is true....zero-point energy electrolysis is crazy....hahha apparently the pulsating electric wave is amplified through resonance....enough to just destabilize the covalent bonds between hte hydrogen and oxygen atoms..

[scottmcl]

yeah folks...get out the zpm's to power the city..were taking off

[rchong]

There's something similar to this on the roads. I saw a Ford Focus FCV on the road a few months ago.

http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_display.cfm?release=19297
The Ford Focus FCV uses a fuel cell powertrain supplied by Ballard Power Systems, the world leader in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell technology. The FCV is hybridized with the addition of a nickel metal-hydride battery pack and a brake-by-wire electro-hydraulic series regenerative braking system. The fuel cell engine converts chemical energy into electric energy using hydrogen fuel and oxygen from air. The electric energy then powers the vehicle's electric drive motor, producing only water vapor and heat as by-products.


I couldn't find a picture of the one I saw, but this one is close enough.
http://www.gov.bc.ca/empr/img/gallery/img_ballardcar_july06.jpg

How about a hydrogen flashlight?
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/canada/story.html?id=21212013-72b2-48f1-84a7-9a13ec624237

[BlueMax]

The Ballad fuel cell has been in "testing" for what... 10 years now? :mad: Fracking oil barons.... I remember the Ford commercials from then...

This, and the electric car, should have been released ages ago....

[AnimeEd]

There's something similar to this on the roads. I saw a Ford Focus FCV on the road a few months ago.

http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_display.cfm?release=19297


I couldn't find a picture of the one I saw, but this one is close enough.
http://www.gov.bc.ca/empr/img/gallery/img_ballardcar_july06.jpg

How about a hydrogen flashlight?
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/canada/story.html?id=21212013-72b2-48f1-84a7-9a13ec624237

I drove this car when I toured the NRC :cheesygri
imo, hydrogen is a dead end road, way to many difficulties to deal with.
We should focus more on super capacitors and battery technologies

[dealguy2]

Hydrogen is a way to store energy, not create it. This is one of the reasons why it's not exactly the magic bullet.

[abu_sme]

Why use hydrogen as a mean of storage when it is more electrically more efficient and much more cost effective to simply run it on a pure NIMH battery system. Skip the hybrid, skip the gas, I just want an all electric vehicle that is mass produced in Oshawa and sold for the same price as a regular car.

That isn't unfeasible at all. Hydrogen is a crock, and it will NEVER come to pass as a real form of usable energy.

[AnimeEd]

Skip the hybrid, skip the gas, I just want an all electric vehicle that is mass produced in Oshawa and sold for the same price as a regular car.
Why skip the hybrid?
it is an awesome half step toward an all-electric vehicle
although technology might not need this half step, the consumer market does

[Nai]

Why use hydrogen as a mean of storage when it is more electrically more efficient and much more cost effective to simply run it on a pure NIMH battery system. Skip the hybrid, skip the gas, I just want an all electric vehicle that is mass produced in Oshawa and sold for the same price as a regular car.

That isn't unfeasible at all. Hydrogen is a crock, and it will NEVER come to pass as a real form of usable energy.

1) Lead-Acid bats may be cheap (and extremely heavy), but the much lighter NIMH is much more expensive (10-20x more). There is no way NIMH-powered car costs could be compareable to conventional cars (right now).

2) Fuel cells are already being used for specific applications (e.g. indoor forklifts, etc.).

This leads me to believe that the costs of fuel-cell cars are at least compareable (if not lower) than NIMH-powered cars. Add that to the fact that the energy to charge NIMHs must travel great distances (with some of some of it lost in the process), and I would say that fuel cells still have the POTENTIAL to be viable.

[plucky duck]

Is there any way to take advantage of the proximity of vehicles on the road today or vehicles of the future with the same "technology" to move energy sources from one vehicle to the next over air? Renewing or recharging off of each other while on the road?

Something along the lines of using magnetics and gearing to maintain momentum once the drivetrain is started. Perhaps the same magnetic forces can be implemented into braking systems?

I know I'm talking of my arse, but just throwing thoughts out there.

With battery driven automobiles, is disposal of them down the road also not an environmental concern?

[AnimeEd]

Is there any way to take advantage of the proximity of vehicles on the road today or vehicles of the future with the same "technology" to move energy sources from one vehicle to the next over air? Renewing or recharging off of each other while on the road?

Something along the lines of using magnetics and gearing to maintain momentum once the drivetrain is started. Perhaps the same magnetic forces can be implemented into braking systems?

I know I'm talking of my arse, but just throwing thoughts out there.

With battery driven automobiles, is disposal of them down the road also not an environmental concern?
Well, it IS possible, just that no one would dare try since it would mean replacing all the roads in the world.
As with the disposal of batteries, batteries can actually be recycled at the end of their life. Although pollution due to batteries is a big concern, at least when you need to throw away a battery, it is a solid mass and not air-borne pollution caused by gasoline combustion.

[izzyzz]

With battery driven automobiles, is disposal of them down the road also not an environmental concern?

I was following the industry developments pretty closely on the subject of electric cars. Tesla Motors (http://www.teslamotors.com) will bring their Roadsters to the market this fall @ $92,000 a piece. The important thing is they WILL make money. This is not just a showoff project like the hydrogen-powered cars which cost close to $1,000,000 to produce (at this time).

As to your question about the batteries, the disposal question was thrown at the Tesla Motors chairman during the Wired Sceince interview. The answer is they are fully recyclable and landfill-safe (non-toxic). I don't know about batteries for other manufacturers (Toyota, etc.).

Tesla will bring the $50,000 electric sports sedan to the market around 2009 -2010 and they envision producing even cheaper models as the technology improves and production costs go down.

[mok86]

hrm the thing about electric cars is the generation of the electricity to actually charge the vehicle it comes from SOMEWHERE....so someone is crapping up the environment somewhere else....this hydrogen technology that i posted in the OP stated a greater than 100% effeciency which was why it was so revolutionary....

[ZenOps]

Hydrogen is a little bit more dangerous than gasoline.

To use it effectively it you have to pressurize it like propane.

Ballards power cell is interesting, but may not be overall too practical for a car. The plates that do the direct conversion are large and bulky, and the extra weight might nullify any cost savings over a regular engine. Maintenance is also an issue, long term studies have not been done, and the direct conversion to water could create some interesting problems of its own (IE: excessive rust)

[BlueMax]

Another concern over the Ballard fuel cell... just what would happen IF it worked and was brought to market? Gas stations would have priced water pumps....

...we have issues with water quality and water shortage already. I suppose that water would no longer be wasted in the oilsands, and would be less polluting, too. I don't think the oil barons would like losing that project....

I can't see it being a good thing on our water supply though.

Gotta' go electric - maybe with some way of fast-charging every...200KM? 500?

Stop at a "gas" station and charge-up in a minute or so. That's no worse than the mileage of a hummer. ;)

[abu_sme]

hrm the thing about electric cars is the generation of the electricity to actually charge the vehicle it comes from SOMEWHERE....so someone is crapping up the environment somewhere else....this hydrogen technology that i posted in the OP stated a greater than 100% effeciency which was why it was so revolutionary....


Ahh! But there is one principle rule that cannot be broken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics


I stand by my statements by saying that hydrogen powered cars are a pipe dream and we will NEVER see them in production.

I also stand by my statement that they can be very competitively priced against regular cars.
Hybrids are already pretty affordable, and they have BOTH NIMH and gasoline engines in them. Would it not be more cost effective to dump the gas engine, make the motor a little bigger and put in a larger battery?

NIMH may be expensive now, but if you mass produce 3,000,000 a year the price would come down to the point where the fuel system and drive train would be very comparable to a regular old dino powered engine.


We have the technology, we have the infrastructure, we have it all! Electric cars are the future. Hell, they have already be produced and shown to be economically viable.

It all comes down to money, and fuel cell cars will never come down in price simply because it is inefficient to produce the power.

NIMH have a charge efficiency rating of 66%, which can be improved with formulations over time. Hydrogen is 70% and it is NEVER going to become more efficient, the laws of therodynamics stands on that. Add to the fact that hydrogen makes metal brittle, requires expensive storage, and the vehicles are extremely un-reliable and you have a technology that has no future in automobiles.

[BlueMax]

what about electric cars - and save the hydrogen power generation to... power stations! So you're getting energy without pollution at the plant level, and no pollution from the vehicles either...

[abu_sme]

what about electric cars - and save the hydrogen power generation to... power stations! So you're getting energy without pollution at the plant level, and no pollution from the vehicles either...

You can't get something from nothing though. Think of hydrogen as a battery, it is nothing more than that, you can't produce electricity from hydrogen unless you put energy into the hydrogen in the first place.

Electric cars are going to be the future, but sadly it won't have anything to do with environmentalism, it will all come down to economics. Gasoline is going to be VERY expensive in the next decade, to the point where the economics between a gas vehicle and an electric vehicle will no longer exist.

Instead the power will be produced with good old fashioned and domestically plentiful...coal:(. Watch "The Great Global Warming swindle" and you'll come to realize that the gloabl warming theory is not exactly iron clad. I still think that coal will be the dominatnt energy sorce, but I think that is also very bad in what it produces. Sulphur Dioxide, Mercury, Radiation, particulate matter, heavy metals are all some of the things that burning coal produces at this point. I think the answer is coal gasification that produces only water vapour and CO2, neither of which are toxic pollutants.

It is absoltely essential to the world that we get energy to the entire population. Don't give African countries food aid, give them a big coal power plant with srubbers in the chimney to get MOST of the crap out of it!

[BlueMax]

Too bad the whole "cold fusion" thing just isn't happening. ;)

It'd be lovely if solar panels and battery/capacitors were so efficient and mass-produced, that everyone could have one in their back yard and produce enough energy for their own households... empty, toxic/desert fields could house hundreds of solar/wind stations.

Anything mass-produced would likely be very affordable, and would save this damn planet before we ruin it past the point of no return.

I swear this'll be like the beginning of "Lost in Space"... They thought their new revolutionary recycling technologies would save the world, but they came too late. The Earth's death was assured because they passed the point of being able to repair it. "Soylent Green" was similar...


Cheap, available, non-polluting energy is our only bloody chance. Fracking oil barons couldn't give a crap though.