Japanese Company Genapax reveals Car that runs on Water.

[netwolf]

This is just brilliant, finally the fuel crisis is generating some outcomes. Its more than likely that most of this technology was shelved under Oil Company pressures but now its coming out due to the outrageous prices of Fuel.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/13/genepax-shows-off-water-powered-fuel-cell-vehicle/

They think they can get the mass production cost down to 5000$. That's quite reasonable. What do you guys think about this.

Regards
Fahim

[dugnsuz]

Excellent - but why have they got Jason from Friday the 13th driving it!?

[tornado33]

one minor problem. Breaking H20 into Hydrogen and Oxygen requires at least the same energy input as that released when burning the hydrogen or using it in a fuel cell. Then theres the problem of storing gaseous or liquid hydrogen.

[Zuts]

Cmon, with a cool name like Genapax it must be true.......

Paul

[peter brown]

if something sounds too good to be true...it usually is

[dugnsuz]

...yeah,but the hockey mask, the hockey mask!!!!!:shrug::shrug::shrug:

[dugnsuz]

Netwolf - in the discussion in your link, one guy suggests peeing in the tank for fuel!!! Now that's innovation!

ps..sorry for lowering the tone! If this is for real and cost effective - Thank God (whichever one tickles your fancy)!!!

[GrahamL]

They will need to widen the fuel fill on all cars to 4" across to make that work though doug :P

[dugnsuz]

Of course Graham!!!:whistle:

[renormalised]

They've had the technology to run cars on water since the 50's-60's, yet they've done nothing about it. The big petrochemical companies and their government cronies had all the plans shelved, for the most part. Just so they could keep up their profit margins. No thought for the planet or the people....or even their oil reserves.

[Zuts]

The americans could not even keep the atom bomb a secret from he russians or the chinese, but they could keep water fuel a secret? Give me a break.

The chinese and indians have such a high demand for fuel they would use a technology like this in a second, if it existed. So it doesnt.

Paul

[Ian Robinson]

I've seen bigger shopping trolleys.

When they come out with a 3.2 or 3.5 litre water powered engineer that I can exchange for my old 3 litre petrol engine in my Pajero , I'll be interested.

[Gargoyle_Steve]

Get ready to ante up some day soon Ian, Perth has been running (EDIT) hydrogen fuel cell powered buses since 2004. This is using stored hydrogen as a fuel currently, not an on board conversion from water. (END EDIT)

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1215269.htm

While the system isn't perfect yet it's getting closer each day as they explore new methods of obtaining clean H2 from non-greenhouse producing sources, solar looks like being the biggest likelihood here in Australia.

(ADDITION) You can buy a small scale fuel cell car with "solar powered refuelling station" that makes hydrogen from water from Jaycar right now for under $200.

" * TIME Magazine product of the year *

Hydrogen fuel cells promise a viable alternative to fossil fuel-guzzling cars. No combustion occurs inside a fuel cell - all you need for the H-Racer is water and sunshine. The fuel cell converts hydrogen and oxygen into electricity. The palm-size car has an on-board hydrogen storage tank, a fuel cell system connected to the car’s electric motor, and a hydrogen refuelling system linking the car’s storage tank to the solar-powered refuelling station. The H-Racer is also very safe as only tiny quantities of hydrogen are needed to power the car. Today, many of the world’s car manufacturers including Toyota, Ford and Honda are developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles with the hope of introducing this technology in the near future. "
(from http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=KT2529 (http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=KT2529&CATID=&keywords=fuel+cell&SPECIAL=&form=KEYWORD&ProdCodeOnly=&Keyword1=&Keyword2=&pageNumber=&priceMin=&priceMax=&SUBCATID) )
manufacturers website : http://www.thamesandkosmos.com/products/fc/fc2.html

(END ADDITION)

I reckon if they can power a bus (EDIT) and have it convert hydrogen from water on board(END EDIT) your Pajero isn't a hard target at all.

[Zuts]

It's not a water powered bus, it's a hydrogen powered bus. The amount of energy that was required and pollution caused by making the hydrogen to fill the bus was far more than if the bus was a petrol powered V16.

Paul

[Gargoyle_Steve]

You are of course correct Paul :thumbsup: and so to clarify the situation I have edited and added information to my original post above, clearly showing where I have done so, to maintain accuracy and alsoto promote the view point that I had originally intended, that is that such things are not only becoming possible now, today, but that the foundation work has been in progress for some time, and to avoid giving a misleading angle to my post.


Could you please explain the calculations behind "The amount of energy that was required and pollution caused by making the hydrogen to fill the bus was far more than if the bus was a petrol powered V16" or was it (at best) a very rough guess with no actual mathematics involved?
;)

[Zuts]

Hi,

The best that can be said about it is that it probably uses as much energy as that used to produce the energy to power an electric car. It's still dirty in the same way as an electric power station is dirty.

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

Nothing is free. To produce the energy required to run a bus is more than the actual energy expended in running the bus. Most buses have great big engines, so a V16 expenditure to produce the energy to run the bus is not unreasonable at 80% efficiency at best in producing the energy in the first place.

Paul

[CoombellKid]

Didn't they do the same thing with lightbulbs :shrug:

Btw Graham and Doug....4"??? a real mans **** wouldn't fit :D:P

regards,CS

[Gargoyle_Steve]

I acknowledge that, it's fact at this point, but people ARE working on it - HAVE made it work on small scale - and todays fact is tomorrow's history.

It isn't science fiction at all to consider that we could have vehicles larger than the one this thread was started about on the roads in the very near future. The Japs already claim to have this small size car working, it may be very small steps that lead to full blown vehicle production on the sort of scale we'd all like to see happen.

[renormalised]

How dogmatic can you be...that Paul, is a dangerous way to be.

It's not that they kept the technology secret...that they couldn't do. The petrochemical companies, with the help of the politicians they have in their hip pockets, basically tied up the patents and such for the engines and never bothered to make them. It's quite easy to acquire an invention/patent and then lock it away in a bank vault or company safe.

I'll give you an example. A friend of my father's, Arthur Glenn, designed a new type of carburetor (back in the 60's) that allowed him to travel from Sydney to Wollongong and back, on about a third of a cup of fuel (petrol) in a 3 ton Dodge truck. Know what happened to that??....BP bought the patent off of him, promising to look into putting it into production. Instead, they locked the patent and the plans away in their offices in the UK and that was the last anyone ever heard of the design.

Anyway....Genapax. Sounds more like a pharmaceutical company than an engineering/manufacturing firm:P:D:D

[dugnsuz]

Ouch!! Way to kick us in the Ego Rob!!!:lol:

[Lee]

Now the price of water will skyrocket! Will be $87/kL next week!

[renormalised]

No doubt, and someone will try to monopolise it.

[Ian Robinson]

Too late.... it's already happened.

[renormalised]

Figures!!!!:eyepop:

[Bassnut]

And we are not even close to running out of oil. The 2nd biggest producer in the world (after saudi arabia) is Canada !!!, from oily sand, they have 50 billion barrels in reserve. Australia has more than that in shale oil. The only thing holding back these kind of sources is the cost of extraction, and they are very close to being viable (well, Canadas is now).

[netwolf]

Weather this particular technology is real or not, i still think that there are truck loads of patents that have been shelved in order to protect the Oil interests. I also think there are many methods on using less fuel to get more mileage and these to would not be in the interest of the Oil Tycoons to release. In computer technology we have gone from Building size computers to microchips. And yet in the Oil industry we are still using an age old technology. It is just to difficult for me to think that alternative, weather they be more efficient fuel use techniques or alternatives to fuel do not exist. One way or the other the current fuel prices warrant us to take a harder look for the truth and find alternatives. How about Tesla's Car...

[renormalised]

Might come as a great surprise that early on in the 20th Century, there were more electric cars on the road than internal combustion engined cars. Henry Ford and Edison even wanted to produce them in larger numbers still. However, the oil companies....more importantly Standard Oil (the mother of all present day oil companies), managed to corrupt enough politicians and gain enough control of various interests to sway opinion towards using the internal combustion engine. The lead battery cartel didn't help either...much like the oil cartels rip off everyone, so they tried to do the same.

It shows you what happens when a tiny minority try to gain control of everything to their own benefit...for money and power.

[Bassnut]

Oh Guys, the conspirsey theorys run wild. If electric (in any form) was more profitable, theyd do it, in a flash. The problem is petrol is cheap to get and wildly efficient to transport, store and deliver, nothing comes within a bulls roar of the energy density of petrol. Internal combustion engines are much less efficient than any form of electric power, but the energy delivery system efficiency (batterys, hydrogen, water, whatever) is absolutely buried by petrol. Hybrid is by far the best so far, but still not the ideal. And so long as all the alternative energy scourses create more green house gass than petrol (with coal fired power stations, although once we have thermal, neuclear etc, it all changes), its all a dream.

[gman]

Very interesting.
Looked for more and found this
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb9urNUFzAM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb9urNUFzAM)

[renormalised]

It's not conspiracy theories, Fred. It's on public record that Ford and Edison wanted to make electric cars, the lead battery makers did run a cartel that was all for profits and bugger the little bloke, and Standard Oil did "convince" many politicians of the efficacy of internal combustion engines run on petrol when those engines were initially very inefficient and sometimes very dangerous (they had a habit of catching on fire). Some of the politicians who weren't convinced by Standard Oil's practices (who formed a lobby with the battery companies and others), had Standard Oil broken up into 40 or so smaller companies. Those companies are, to name a few, Exxon-Mobile, Chevron, Caltex, part of BP etc. Henry Ford ended up using petrol engines for his cars, the electrics were priced out of business, and the rest, they say, was history. You'd be surprised what the car and oil companies have gotten upto, in order to keep their little business running.

I agree with your summation of electric powered vehicles, however it's not for want of a lack of real funding for research for the last 100 years or so. Why?? As you said, petrol is cheap and there's megabucks to be made out of it's use, or misuse as the case may be.

[Bassnut]

Grant, that has to be the most flipent bull**** story Ive ever seen, "all you need is water", bah, no mention WHATSOEVER on the energy scource used to get the oxygen out of the water. Tornado had it it one sentance, its just puffery.

Carl, regardless of there efforts to get electric up, it was doomed to failure, lead acid would have been a total disapointment, very quickely, I bet a few smart bods even back then would have realised that.

[renormalised]

Oh, I agree, it takes more than just water added to an engine to get it to run. You need to design an engine that can run on water in the first place. That takes a lot of money and expertise in many fields, least of which is engineering. However, it can be done. What I'm crooked on is that it's been around for so long and the people who'd actually benefit from it the most (apart from the public) have hid it behind closed doors because it's easier and more profitable for them to exploit oil to the hilt.

I also agree with you on electrical powered vehicles. Lead acid batteries were never going to be the bees knees as far as a power source goes. But they've had, no squandered, the best part of 100 years of possible research into finding an alternative. The oil companies exploited that, and now we have what we have. With little time in order to try and remedy the situation.

[Zuts]

Ford Motor Corp would have been history if good ol Henry tried to sell a model T with 400 kg odd of lead acid batteries in the boot.

Where is your proof of all these things you are saying. Basically you are making the wildest unsubstantiated claims possible and expecting us to swallow this crock.

Conspirancy theories, hidden patents, and oh yes a big old truck that gets 200 km on a cup of petrol becuase of some fancy carburettor. Show us the patent for this?

I suppose your conspiracy now includes the US patent office, because if it's not patented and if the patent is not visible then anyone could make it.

[bones]

We've all heard the reports over the years that every time someone gets a new design for an alternative vehicle that runs on something other than petrol / diesel ie reliant on the oil industry, that that the big companies buy them out and the design is thown in the cabinet whilst the designer gets the big $$$$$$ to for get all about it and get on with their new lifestyle. But at the same time there's still some companys out there actually looking at some pretty amazing designs. Check this one out - ZAP and lotus have teamed up to produce the ZAP X crossover electric car - top speed 155mph, 350mile range, 10min recharge time. If the recharge came off alternative fuel source eg solar you would imagine this would get close to zero emission? The only problems I see is firstly cost of the car (wouldn't be surprised if it was in the $60,000+ range if and when mass produced, and of course how will the government get there share from missing out on the revenue of fuel excise.

http://jalopnik.com/cars/alternative-energy/zap-lotus-team-up-on-electric-crossover-suv-232415.php

[Bassnut]

Carl, its the Physics, "water powered" cars run on Hydrogen, yes thats been around for yonks, thats not the problem, its the energy required to extract it from water.

Yes Zuts, its all bull. There were a few test electric cars around a few years ago that were only for lease, you couldnt buy them, and then a huge conspiricy theory why they were all suddenly withdrawn and stopped production. It was explained in detail, that to have a few weird cars around that needed a huge infrastructure in spares and support within a reasonable reach of users, was just financially impossible, with the almost zero interest in meaningfull volume sales in the near future. The media skimmed over that little detail.

Bones, its not the car, its not the car, its the inefficient, green house gas producing power to charge the batteries in the 1st place. And yes, when alternative power generation hits the straps, then its all good. They need to just forget alternative cars for a while and concentrate just on producing the juice in the 1st place, thats where the action is.

[renormalised]

You want proof, do you??

Why not Google about Standard Oil, Ford Motor Co, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Anderson Electric Car Co, and so forth. You'll get plenty of info there. Go and buy yourself "Internal Combustion" by Edwin Black. Plus go and have a look through these:

Fayola, Toyin and Genova, "The Politics of the Global Oil Industry:An Introduction", Praeger 2005
"Electric Vehicles: Likely Consequences of US and Other Nations' Programs and Policies. Report to the Chairman, Committee on Science, Space and Technology, House of Representatives, Washington DC". General Accounting Office, 1994.
Flink, James,J;"America Adopts the Automobile, 1895-1910". Cambridge, MA. MIT Press, 1970.
Giddens, Paul,H."Birth of the Oil Industry". MacMillan, 1938.
Journal of Transport History
Journal of the Patent Office Society
IEEE Monitor
Automobile and Motor Review
Saturday Evening Post (March 28, 1914), an advert.
New York Times Historical Digital Archive
Wall Street Journal...esp' the Historical Digital Archive
Energy Independence Now... www.energyindependencenow.org
"General Motors: The First 75 Years of Transportation Products": Automobile Quarterly, 1983....and any one of a number of other journals, quarterlies, books and such I could care to mention. Ones I've picked up from different books that I've decided to look up for myself.

Might cure your myopathy.

Plus, as far as my father's friend goes, neither my father nor Arthur are alive now to defend themselves and I don't have access to the patents. Neither does anyone else, except for BP...whom I said bought the patents and put them away. Having a go at someone's statements about something they remember as a young child, that their deceased elders once did, is a little low. Considering I have no way of obtaining any patents pertaining to the articles I mentioned (and neither would yourself), plus the people concerned can't defend their reputations as they're deceased. You can believe me or not....I don't really give a hoot either way. It happened, and that's the long and short of it. Whatever you say makes no difference.

You can be as dismissive as you like too. You dismiss what others say without backing yourself up at all, then expect us to come up with all the relevant proof. The only crock I see being bandied around here is your insistence on having everything your own way without no substantive evidence to contrary of what we've written here. Proof runs both ways.

[Bassnut]

On reflection, its easy to bag those that try to produce alternative methods of motive power, all research is good, for the survival of the planet, but efforts are wasted by public pressure aimed at magic solutions.

I think the 1st probelm is the use of cars to start with, ppl will eventually live closer to work, plan trips more and use public transport much more, theyll have too. Commercial pressure is the biggest driver in inovation, it always works.

The initial power scorce is the biggest problem, once a (some) green house gass free solution becomes viable (electric power station), everything will change, be it neuclear, geo thermal (my favourite) or some other BASE load scource, solar and wind will always be fringe, they cant provide 24/7 base power. And carbon sequestration is a joke, Carl Krusinofski explained in 1 min why it just wont happen.

Then the cars, Hydrogen fuel cell IMO just wont work, its just too hard, and way too inefficient, and ethanol creates huge problems in production, already we see countries short of food cause of more arable land being used for fuel over food crops, its a dead end.

What we need is a revolution in battery technology, the electric drive technology is efficient, mature and ready to go. Electric delivery infrastructure is already there, all it needs is friendly generation.

[renormalised]

I agree with you there, if you use electrolysis to produce the hydrogen for the cars. Uses up far too much energy for little return. However, there has been a few ideas about burning water (with a catalyst or without) as a fuel. Might come as a surprise but water will burn, at a high enough temperature. That's also a problem....the engineering of a suitable engine. Especially in so far as materials engineering....making manifolds and such that can take the temperature.

All cars cost a lot of money to design and initially get out into full scale production and use. Costs in order of a billion dollars to do so. That's why cars are as dear as they are, and why they tool up to produce so many. To recoup costs. Electric cars would be much the same, in some cases even dearer, given present technologies.

And so, you swap one greenhouse producing enterprise for another. Forget the batteries and alternative cars, let's just stick to producing petrol powered vehicles and make things even worse than they've already become. However, I agree that they'll have to find a better way of recharging them than using coal fired power stations to produce electricity.

[renormalised]

There'll be no magic solutions....this is going to take a lot of money and effort. Plus some pain to implement, unfortunately.

[renormalised]

I agree with what you said there entirely.

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

No, it does not, not at any temperature at which it is still a molecule.

Burning is defined as a chemical reaction releasing heat on combination with oxygen. Water does not do this, which is why firemen use it ;-]]

Water is a stable compound which requires an input of energy to split it into anything which will "burn". The usual misunderstanding is between water, which will not under any circumstances "burn", and hydrogen, which will.

This scam reappear at regular intervals whenever the crude oil price spikes.

Cheers

Geoff

[renormalised]

You right in what you've said....at anything like normal temps, or even those in a normal internal combustion engine. You've either got to add a catalyst to split the water molecules, or ionize the water through very high heat/energy. You are essentially burning hydrogen and oxygen and converting them back into water. That's why I wrote what I wrote....it needs a catalyst or a lot of energy, hence the difficulties in engineering materials to take the temperature.

Funny thing, it's the same for petrol as well. You have to atomise petrol (or is that "mistify"...:P:P) to get it to burn, otherwise it just won't light up.

[Bassnut]

Carl, If developing a water-burning car was in the slightest bit viable, everyone would be doing it. The biggest single deterant in really way out expensive development not happening is us, only us, all of us plebs.

Consider. We all have a super fund, we like to see a return on investment, be it directly or thru management. In OZ anyway, the biggest investors in public companys are super funds. A public car company decides to invest in wayout multi-year research and the returns and share price stagnates for a few years. You (or your fund manager) says, oops, thats "underperforming", ill sell and move my money, the car company board gets a kick (they are on bonuses based on share price and profits) and can the project.

Meanwhile, you also complain that not enough reshearch is done and wonder why. Or should then the goverment fund it?.

If a letter was sent to you by the company or super fund asking you to sacrifice some of your retirement total for the sake of research, and keep the shares, would you?, hell no.

If the goverment sent a letter asking you if you would like to pay more taxes for research would you?, hell no :)

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

OK that's a lot clearer. :thumbsup:

However for petrol I did not need to atomise it the time I nearly set Bundeena on fire :eyepop: I tried to get the BBQ going with a dash of petrol. The flame came straight up the petrol stream and into the can I was holding and set my fingers on fire :doh: I dropped it quickly.

Talk about burning the sausages:mad2:

Cheers

[Bassnut]

LOL, I set a whole tree on fire with a dash of petrol on a BBQ :D.

Regardless of the methode of conversion of water to energy used (and that is hugely significant), the difference in energy density of water and petrol is so vast its just a joke.

[renormalised]

That's in Oz...unfortunately it's our money which drives research because the companies themselves don't invest enough in research. Most aren't big enough to spend all that much money, anyway. Needs a change in both business and social culture, but that'll be a long time coming, I think.

[renormalised]

Glad I could clear it up for you:D

It would've been the fumes around the petrol stream that were burning, and, you nearly set fire to my old stomping ground!!!!!:eyepop::P:eyepop:

You're lucky my Dad wasn't still a state fire warden...it'd been more than the sausages that were "burning":P:D

[Stephen65]

It's a shame we can't make cars run on gullibility, I think I could get to Perth and back just on the conspiracy theories in this thread alone.

[MrB]

Yeah I know some of you are gonna want to pick the following to s***, don't bother, it's just a hack - the numbers are pretty much ramdom(mostly from wikipedia :rolleyes:)

Whats the efficiency of a petrol engine 5%? (I honestly don't know!)
Ok so a BLDC (Brushless DC) motor for an electric vehicle can be had at around 95% efficiency, but we need a hydrogen fuel cell to generate the electricity, so whats the efficiency of a fuel cell? I saw somewhere it's around 40%
So our 95% is now down to 38% (0.95 x 0.4) not bad.
The power needed to split the water to hydrogen(and oxygen) had to come from somewhere though, lets say its from a dirty old coal fired power station with steam turbines and wotnot... I just read they're around 30% efficient, so we're now at about 11%, not looking so good now.
I also read that the best diesels are now around 20% efficient, seems kinda high but ok we'll use it.

Theres no silver bullet, the Hydrogen fuel cell system(TOTAL, including coal fired power) seems to be around(roughly!) twice as efficient as a petrol engine, and definitely less pollution(they scrub furnace exhausts.... apparently) but uses rare metals and there's the hydrogen storage issues, so gonna be pricey until a better system is invented. Lithium cells are looking good(A123 style, as used in the Tesla sportscar) and probably around 80% efficient, but their life cycle is kinda short(2000 cycles?) and they're still just a tad expensive.
Looks like Diesel is the immediate future, for a little while anyway, something better will come eventually. We're on the brink, gonna be an interesting couple of decades ahead.

[Bassnut]

MrB, from an article in Scientific American (cant remember which, damb it, that could kill me, but id trust them over most other media), the total energy cost including Hydrogen manufacture, transport, storage, and conversion to road pushing power, is half as efficient as petrol and internal combustion. I have also seen different figures as you have, so it can get to who you believe.

[GTB_an_Owl]

just to add a couple to the mix

any one remember the rotary motor developed in WA ?
patent was bought out by the yanks i think

anyone remember the valiant slant six motors ?
i believe they were canned because they were too efficient - never broke down - no spare parts sales

and a third one - i remember as a kid, a friends father had an old vanguard.
apparently you could run a "water drip" into the carby to improve milage and efficiency

geoff

[rally]

If the primary energy source for whatever conversion process is used for water was a solar array on the roof of your house, the only real issue is the capital cost and spacial area required to generate the power,

It simply doesn't matter if its efficient or not, because the actual source of energy (sunlight) is free (at least at this moment).
And "green".

Unfortunately you still need an awful lot of energy from the sun to power your basic family sedan for say 75kms per day, but it should be technically doable providing you don't live in a block of multistory flats !

Here are some real rough figures - someone else can refine them more accurately - please !

Diesel fuel has approx 40megajoules per litre
So if you consume say 50 litres per week (I wish) then that is 2000 megajoules per week or 100,000 mega joules per annum

A 1m2 area in Oz on average collects solar energy at about 4,000 megajoules per annum
A solar panel is less than 30% efficient (from memory)

So lets say there is a 10% efficiency overall converting sunlight to electricity and water to some form of usable fuel energy.
Then we need approx 3m2 of solar panels and a "water reactor"

Is this assumption valid ?
Please accept this is a very rough, first draft and I may well be wrong, but I have quickly checked and I think its all good.

That makes it potentially viable - providing you are prepared to pay the capital cost in the first instance.

So it isn't a question of how efficient or inefficient the process is under this scenario, just how much you can afford up front.
Of course you wouldnt stop there !

Hope someone can contibute to this as I would be curious to see if it is really the case.

BTW if we all put a cheap coated mylar solar reflector on our roof and reflected a proportion of incident solar energy back out into space - would that help global warming ?
The suburb might look horrible and we might blind the Quantas pilots ! but maybe we could lower global temperatures and become global warming neutral !!

Food for thought

Cheers
Rally

[schrodingersCat]

so what happens when they introduce water restrictions? if you cant water your plants with a watering can, then how can you fill your tank? dink lots and pee in it?
nice idea but it has a ton of its own problems.

[leinad]

Touche.

[Gargoyle_Steve]

Very interesting doc on Discovery / Discovery Science channel on Austar tonight just as I was getting ready for work. A guy in the states has a LOT of solar panels on his roof, they provide ad-hoc supply of energy for electrical devices in his house PLUS run his own conversion unit which produces hydrogen from tap water.

He runs the water through a multi stage purifying / reverse osmosis filter process, then runs this through a fairly flash electrolysis unit, separates the hydrogen out which is stored in 10 large tanks on his property, total capacity approx 19,000 litres.

He says this runs his entire property - heating, electricity generation when sun not available, and fuels his self modified hydrogen powered car - for an entire year. Total setup cost around $500,000 US. He now also makes hydrogen cars for others as a part time business.

So it possible and viable to implement this as a total system powered purely from solar energy (depending on your bank balance - there's plenty of people now who own home/land packages worth way more than $500k) . Obviously the cost is still damn high, but to see an entire years supply of fuel for everything sitting parked in 10 gas cylinders was pretty amazing!

[Suzy_A]

I haven't read through the three pages of BS on this post, but a few comments:

In 1974 (? I think it was..) Prof. Yule Brown drove his Holden Kingswood from Perth to ... Sydney (I think) ON A GALLON OF WATER!!!

He electrolysed (split) the water into hydrogen and oxygen and ran the car on that! He collected and condensed the exhaust (steam) for reprocessing!

Of course, to help him along, he was towing a trainer with a 200 kVA diesel generator to run the electrolyser and several drums of diesel to run the generator.

Hydrogen is an energy carrier (at least in the form of a chemical fuel) and not an energy source, and anyone with any common sense and a knowledge of basic physics (Yes! Even classical physics!) or chemistry will realise that.

The Perth H2 buses that someone mentioned were the most expensive and the most polluting vehicles in Australia. The H2 came from the steam reformation of natural gas and as such emitted (at the refinery) about 160% more emissions (CO2 etc) than the Perth buses that run on straight natural gas. Incidently, the CNG buses emit about 40% more GHG than the diesel buses, so that makes the H2 buses about 225% worse for GHG emissions than the diesel buses.

I was recently asked to go to Japan to have a look and write a report on another perpetual motion machine. I would have quite liked a 1st class fight to Tokyo and to stay in the Tokyo Hilton for a week, but unfortunatly we convinced the investor that it was complete BS and so they decided not to part with their $2.5M deposit and so I didn't have a nice holiday.

Either the 'news' story that was pointed out in the original post is typical BS journalism which completly misrepresents the actual idea, or the original idea is bogus and the journo is too much of a SS to realise.

[renormalised]

Water vapour itself is a GHG.....the best one you can get, actually. So that's not surprising.

[renormalised]

Susan!!!!....silly, silly, silly!!!!:eyepop::eyepop:

The first rule of advice....ALWAYS check out whatever you're advising someone about, even if it is a load of BS. That way, you get any fringe benefits that may come from proffering that advice:D

Just think of that holiday on Japan you missed out on....and it was literally for free, on your part!!!:D

2nd Rule.....Never open your mouth and change another's PoV when it involves rule #1, especially when it's before you've seen what you're talking about:D

[Suzy_A]

As a scientist, I believe that I have an ethical duty to tell the 'client' the truth - after all, the whole point of science (or at least a large part of it) is to determine the truth. If I can do that by simply reading through the 10 pages of BS that is presented to me and without the need of the client spending $2.5M, then that's what I'll do.

Of course after doing that, if they still INSIST that I go to Japan for a holiday to tell them what I already know, well, that's a different matter.

On the other hand, most bankers, used car salesman, polititians or lawyers would probably happily go without the slightest concern without bothering to do any background research beforehand - see my post the other day on this topic...

[renormalised]

You've subverted your ethics immediately in your statement. You say it's your ethical duty to provide your 'clients" the truth and yet you proffer to them only an opinion (as an example here) of what you believe is BS, based on what you currently understand to be the case.

That's all you've offered...an opinion.

A true scientist is bound by their ethical duty to provide the facts...truth has nothing to do with it. Truth is as subjective as the person telling it. Regardless of one's opinions, it's your duty as a scientist to find out whether something is BS or not, from actual observation and experimentation (if need be). Reading a paper about something and then deducing from that (or having the preconceived notion that) it's BS, is not science. It's dogma...opinion. You probably did save that client $2.5 million, and that was a relatively good judgment call on your part, but what if you had been wrong. What if this had have been the case, in this instance (not necessarily about PM, but with any claim about whatever). By not making it your duty to going to see what it was all about may have cost your client a lot of money. Money that someone else may have made a profit from. Something that you may have even benefited from. You have to cover all your bases, otherwise you can be caught out all too easily.

Granted, given what we know, the device you gave your advice about most likely was just a piece of BS. Perpetual motion is a little hard to swallow, however it's not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility that they may have come up with something else that's interesting which might have netted your client a good investment. Maybe not in that particular machine, but in something that machine may have shown. A particular method of doing something or whatever. Who knows. Only after exhausting all possibilities can you come out and say that this or that won't work. Opinions really don't suffice. They can only be taken at face value, as a guide. Not as a definitive answer.

[renormalised]

Mind you...many bankers, any salesman and especially lawyers, would offer any sort of opinion, go check it out and then falsify their observations just to gain some monetary recompense. Or, even worse, not do anything at all then lie through their teeth (false:P:P:D) to get what they wanted.

[Suzy_A]

You're a geologist?

What if someone seriously wanted you to spend $2.5M to investigate a site in some remote and expensive place to get to as someone sent them an email claiming that there is a vast underground deposit of green cheese that was laid down eons ago by dinosaurs and were offered the rights to the site for $500M?

I take it that you would take their money and tell them to spend the $2.5M on an exhaustive series of geophysical surveys and chemical analysis and then inform them that there is no green cheese there?

I think that would be unethical. As a geologist, you KNOW there is no green cheese deposit there. It is not your opinion that there may or may not be. It is a fact that there is no such thing as a geological green cheese deposit.

Of course if you think there may be a green cheese deposit there then you are a deluded fool. If on the other hand you know there is no green cheese deposit there and take the money and tell them that you will investigate it, then you are immoral and a thief. Or maybe a lawyer.

So you were saying.... which one are you?

[renormalised]

I would offer them my opinion, as you did, that there was nothing to it and that it wouldn't be prudent for them to spend their money. Then it would be upto them as to what to do. However, I would still go and investigate it for them, because I wouldn't necessarily need to do much to tell if something was there. Maybe some exploratory drilling of a few holes would suffice. That's why they call it exploration...you don't know, for sure, what's there, but there's a chance that given the geology of the area in question, there could be something worthwhile. In many cases, you find out there's not, so you pack you stuff up and go onto the next prospect. Like anything else, it's a risk you have to be prepared to take, in order to possibly make something out of it. All geological exploration work is a risk....in many cases riskier than looking for that dinosaur green cheese. Even positively good geological indications sometimes show little or no results. Other times, relatively weak indications might turn up a surprise.

Just off topic here for a bit.....I just heard a big car (??) crash somewhere close outside. There's ambulance and police sirens going off near here. It's close by...wonder where??

[mojo]

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/picture/funandgames.png

Just a friendly reminder that if anyone has the urge to post a reply in the heat of the moment that would reasonably be considered a personal attack, please don't do it. Take a deep breath. If you have a problem with a post and feel you can't ignore it, press the http://www.iceinspace.com.au/vbiis/images/buttons/report.gif instead.

Cheers.

[snas]

I enjoy physics, but am certainly no expert. But I do know one rule: You don't get nothin for nothin!
This car seems to claim that it does. It is breaking the first law of thermodynamics: The increase in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of energy added by heating the system, minus the amount lost as a result of the work done by the system on its surroundings.

[skwinty]

I thought that scientists were only interested in what explained their observations and that the truth did not count for anything. Truth according to scientists is best left to philosophers.;)

[Suzy_A]

Isn't a 'car' that runs on water called a 'boat'?

[renormalised]

No...because if it's got wheels, it's called a duck:P:D

[AndyZ]

all opinions and apparently unquestionable laws of physics on 'water splitters' aside, history has shown technology like this wont get far unless governments, fuel distribution companies and car manufacturers work in unison to control the supply chain at all levels, hence the hydrogen fuel cell will win over any hydrogen-on-demand technology using readily and freely available dirty water any day.
It's no conspiracy theory, but facts based on empirical evidence, that the above organisations have a rediculously huge amount of money to lose if fuel is free.
of course there's nothing ( yet ) stopping you researching the technology yourself ( with an open mind ) and checking it out :)

[GrahamL]

Anyone up for a pretzel ?

[Davros]

Maybe this thread should be re titled Lazarus !!! bring out your dead........bring out your dead.

[TrevorW]

That's why oil is called liquid gold

2009 Opec says the G7 group of industrialized nations collected more money from levying taxes on oil products than Opec members received from selling crude oil in 2004-08-a period which saw oil prices soar to a peak of $147 last summer.

Opec calculates that the G7 nations received $3.418 trillion in taxes during that period while Opec nations' combined revenues from oil sales came to $3.346 trillion.

DO YOU HONESTLY THINK THEY WILL ALLOW ANYTHING ELSE UNLESS THEY HAVE TOO

:question:

[marki]

Crikey folks, dam work won't let me view the site during the day and I missed all this :P. I don't believe there is a material made that can split water without some form of energy input. Chemical bonds need to be broken therefore energy is needed.... This car is most likely a fraud.

We have a small model used to demonstrate fuel cell technology to students. It utilises a 3V solar panel which supplies the energy to the fuel cell where the water is split. The hydrogen and oxygen gas is then collected in seperate containers at the rear of the car which are submerged in water. The solar cell supplies enough energy to drive the motor and fuel cell in full light. When clouds prevent enough light from reaching the solar cell and the voltage drops below about 1.5V the process is reversed. The gas flows back through the cell and the stored energy is used to drive the motor with the gases reforming into water. Methane is also another good option for this purpose as it is easily obtainable (biodegradable materials) and does not get used up (is recycled) or combusted (no green gas pollution). With the possibility of new solar technology being able to ustilise a much larger proportion of the EMS this could definately be a future option. I would hate to have to pay for a full size version though :).

Mark

[rider]

I have three questions,

First, - if it’s raining, does the tank overflow?
Second – In the video it says that it will run on tea – does it prefer earl gray or Darjeeling?
Third – why is it being driven by an imperial storm trooper?