Anyone watching Mythbusters?

[AlbanyCartel]

They're "de-bunking" items that claim to increase fuel economy.

I can't describe any of the results yet; the show hasn't ended yet

[razr_88]

i think they did the hydrogen thing wrong... pure water doesn't conduct electricity they needed to add an electrolyte!!!

[vinnym86]

i thought it was an interesting episode. too bad the hydrogen tank posed a bit of an explosive situation.

[SaabJohan]

Originally Posted by razr_88

i think they did the hydrogen thing wrong... pure water doesn't conduct electricity they needed to add an electrolyte!!!

If you do this using electricity from the alternator in your car you can only end up with a worse gas mileage.

There's no free lunch...

[Hofmeister]

Hydrogen doesn't seem like the solution to our energy concerns right now. It takes more energy to produce it than gasoline meaning we're polluting more (by creating the hydrogen) with the intention of creating cleaner burning cars. Once hydrogen becomes easier to make it'll be a viable solution.

[SaabJohan]

Originally Posted by Hofmeister

Hydrogen doesn't seem like the solution to our energy concerns right now. It takes more energy to produce it than gasoline meaning we're polluting more (by creating the hydrogen) with the intention of creating cleaner burning cars. Once hydrogen becomes easier to make it'll be a viable solution.

One must be clear about the difference between energy sources and fuels. Gasoline is not an energy source, neither is hydrogen, these are both fuels, a way to store energy. Crude oil, coal, natural gas, uranium are examples of energy sources.

In order for hydrogen to become a good fuel which can replace gasoline we must find a good energy source for hydrogen production, and that we doesn't have.

[thecackster]

I watched one about letting your tailgate down for better milage....it accually gets worse....Becsause of the pocket of swilering air in the bed that gets created the other air just bounces off that instead of creating force on your bed. They got 2 exactly the same trucks and ran them till they died and the one with the tailgate down ran out of gas first! They proved the theory in a fish tank with oats in the water to see the effect...it was pretty sweet.

[razr_88]

Hofmeister said:
"Hydrogen doesn't seem like the solution to our energy concerns right now. It takes more energy to produce it than gasoline meaning we're polluting more (by creating the hydrogen) with the intention of creating cleaner burning cars. Once hydrogen becomes easier to make it'll be a viable solution."


THAT'S A LIE!!! hydrogen is a very easy gas to extract. i admit electrolyses is not the best way of get hydrogen, but using sodium hydroxide as a catalyst with water and scrap bits of alluminum you can produce an enormous amount of hydrogen, depending on how much the sodium hydroxide is dilluted. these two reactants can also be controled with water valves, and spring loaded reaction tubes. producing the hydrogen is actually much easier to make then gasoline.

and for your information, i have an electrolysis unit running in my car at this very instant. since hydrogen is easily combusted it does NOT take a lot of hydrogen to keep a car running, due to the fact that the momentum of the moving engine parts are only combusting fuel in 1/4 of the process of reciprocating pistons. my unit is made up of a soup can, a tuna can, strips of old tin soup cans(for electrodes) and a few bits of wire laying around the garage(total cost: $0.00). even though i am limited with the amount of hydrogen i can produce my gas mileage has gone from 22.7 mpg, to aproximately 29.4 mpg... pretty damn good just for hydrogen

You probably heard how hydrogen isn't a good fuel source. it is my personal opinion that gas companies are spreading negative rumors to keep people using their polluting, rapidly depleting, expen$ive fuel source.

[SaabJohan]

Originally Posted by razr_88

Hofmeister said:
"Hydrogen doesn't seem like the solution to our energy concerns right now. It takes more energy to produce it than gasoline meaning we're polluting more (by creating the hydrogen) with the intention of creating cleaner burning cars. Once hydrogen becomes easier to make it'll be a viable solution."


THAT'S A LIE!!! hydrogen is a very easy gas to extract. i admit electrolyses is not the best way of get hydrogen, but using sodium hydroxide as a catalyst with water and scrap bits of alluminum you can produce an enormous amount of hydrogen, depending on how much the sodium hydroxide is dilluted. these two reactants can also be controled with water valves, and spring loaded reaction tubes. producing the hydrogen is actually much easier to make then gasoline.

and for your information, i have an electrolysis unit running in my car at this very instant. since hydrogen is easily combusted it does NOT take a lot of hydrogen to keep a car running, due to the fact that the momentum of the moving engine parts are only combusting fuel in 1/4 of the process of reciprocating pistons. my unit is made up of a soup can, a tuna can, strips of old tin soup cans(for electrodes) and a few bits of wire laying around the garage(total cost: $0.00). even though i am limited with the amount of hydrogen i can produce my gas mileage has gone from 22.7 mpg, to aproximately 29.4 mpg... pretty damn good just for hydrogen

You probably heard how hydrogen isn't a good fuel source. it is my personal opinion that gas companies are spreading negative rumors to keep people using their polluting, rapidly depleting, expen$ive fuel source.

Stop dreaming and get down to earth!

Production
2H2O + energy -> 2H2 + O2

Use
2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O + energy

In order to produce hydrogen you need large amounts of energy (in one way or the other), if you create it from water, you need to add more energy in production than is released by burning the fuel in your engine.

Today, the simplest way to produce large amount of hydrogen is to crack it off gas and oil, this is however rather inefficient compared with the production of gasoline. Gasoline, just like hydrogen produced in this way is of course using the energy already stored in crude oil, so no energy must be added to produce gasoline. A part of the energy is lost in the conversion though, and this loss is greater with hydrogen.

In order to produce environmentally friendly hydrogen it must be produced using an environmentally friendly energy source. For example, boil water using heat from the earth, use the water to power steam turbines, the turbines then powers a generator and the electricity created is used to create hydrogen from water.

Hydrogen is like any other fuel, to release its energy you need to add a certain amount of fuel to a certain amount of air and then burn it. Hydrogen has a high octane number (about RON 106) but it has low density so for an engine to run on it a large volume of hydrogen is needed. Some special care must also be taken regarding the engine too. For example, injecting gaseous hydrogen into the inlet manifold will cause a risc for backfiring (hydrogen cars use water injection and lean mixtures to prevent backfires). So to operate on hydrogen lean mixtures must be used, unless liquid hydrogen is direct injected, this will also cause a power loss. In the end though, any hydrogen vehicle is dependant on how the hydrogen is produced.

To increase mileage by using electricity from the cars alternator to produce hydrogen is impossible. Any claim otherwise is wrong since more energy is needed to free hydrogen from water than burn hydrogen into water. If hydrogen is stored in your car this might improve your mileage, that is if you only include gasoline use in you mileage calculations. In the end a certain amount of energy must be used, this energy must be taken somewhere, it doesn't matter if its gasoline or hydrogen we talk about.