umm
According to my memories of chemistry (A-Level, uk 5years ago) the energy
required to break a chemical bond is always equal to the energy released
when the 2 combine.
Due to no process being 100% efficient it always therfor follows that the
energy required to break a bond is always more than is released when the
bond is reformed.
Therefor an engine which runs on water and produces water as a waste product
is always going to require more energy than it releases...
Hydrogen fuel cells are one of the densest forms of energy storage - the
bond between H2 and O2 is very strong - and so they have been researched as
a form of battery - many times more efficient than traditional
metal/chemical batterys - but also many orders more expensive.
Even so, the energy it takes to "charge" A Hydrogen fuel cell far exceeds
the energy produced, but (the theory is) that hopefully one day we'll be
getting most of our electrical power from renewable power sources, (wind
farms, tidal, hydro, solar etc) most of which would be fairly inpractical on
a vehicle. This would make electrical vehicles an (environmently) attractive
proposition
One of the main problems with current electrical vehicles is range, due to
the limited storage efficiency of tradditional batteries - replacing these
with fuel cells would increase range dramatically, and bring weight down.
Last time I looked at this, the costs involved with producing the fuel cells
was far too high to incorporate into a mass manufactured vehicle, and so
manufacturers were looking more into dual fuel vehicles.
I think hydrogen / oxygen burning vehicles have been produced, but the
transport and storage of hydrogen is far more complicated and dangerous than
the transport of petrol, and also has high costs associated.
Dan.
-----Original Message-----
From: Guy McDowell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 11 May 2001 13:51
To: CF-Community
Subject: RE: Fuel source (WAS Lightbulb changing, CA style)
Apparently there is an engineer in Vancouver or
Victoria BC that has developed a hydrogen engine for
motor vehicles and they ARE being used on city buses
out there., The engine breaks the bond in the H2O
molecule, burns the Hydrogen and the waste product
is....H2O. Too cool or what? But apparently the
downside is the engines cost about $100,000 CDN to
produce. However, once you put that into
mass-production, production costs drop massively.
This sounds like urban legend to me, but wouldn't it be
cool?
Guy
www.guymcdowell.com
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