the sinclair c5 - 20 years ahead of its time ?

freddykruggar

ha ha ha, your sooooo funny

mech_2

Cardew wrote: »

The point is that Hydrogen in its natural state(the universe's commonest and lightest element) does not contain energy like gas, oil, coal etc.

Either you are expressing yourself badly or you are just confused. If "gas, oil, coal" "contain" energy, then so does hydrogen. They all burn in oxygen. If hydrogen doesn't contain any energy, then neither does gas, oil or coal. Maybe you mean to say that water contains no energy (ignoring nuclear).

Hydrogen isn't considered an energy source because there isn't a source of free hydrogen on Earth. There's plenty in deep space, but if we somehow collected it and burnt it on Earth, we'd eventually run out of oxygen.

To be difficult, I would suggest that actually it's oxygen that is the energy carrier. Free oxygen is an anomaly of Earth's biosphere. Oxygen's natural state is CO2, water, and other oxides.

freddykruggar

yep, thats what I was saying

geordie_joe

I'm not an expert, but I think Cardew is saying is hydrogen, if used to drive a car wouldn't have enough energy todrive the pistons.

Take the Hindenburg, which someone mentioned. It burned, but that's all it did. If it had been filled with, say, natural gas then it would not have burned. It would have exploded, and it would have been a hug explosion.

This is because the natural gas has a lot more energy stored in it. Where as the hydrogen has a small amount so only manages to burn for a short while.

If you just used just hydrogen (and a little oxygen) in a car all you would get is a small fire in the cylinders instead of an explosion.

So, as there is little energy in hydrogen there would be little energy released to drive the pistons.

I think "adding some energy to hydrogen" means adding something that will make it explode when ignited and not burn (relatively) slowly.

I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track, but I'm sure Cardew will will put me straight if I'm not.

Cardew

Post #18 said:

Hydrogen power is fast coming, the next big commodity will no longer be oil it will be water.

My reply was in the context of that statement - e.g. water replacing oil as a fuel.

Now you don't need much imagination to know that in a Hydrogen car it is the Hydrogen that powering the car. It is how that energy is obtained to be stored in the hydrogen(i.e. produced by electricty) that is the issue.

The wikipedia extract above explains the rest.

freddykruggar

yea GI Joey your wrong again, ha

B.E.N

I think "Cardew" is trying to emphasise this point:

- Hydrogen cars are commonly believed to be "green", because they produce no Carbon Dioxide, or any other nasty pollutants that come out of conventional car engines.

- Hydrogen cars are seen as a promising development - Hydrogen can be derived from water, via the chemical process of "Electrolysis". We have lots of water on earth, therefore no problems here.

The problem, arises, however, when you realise that Hydrogen cars are anything *but* green - they run on Hydrogen (a 'clean' fuel), yet to get this fuel, large amounts of electricity have to be used in the electrolysis process.

This electricity has to come from somewhere - yes, it could come from 'renewables' (Solar, Wind, etc), but there aren't enough wind turbines, and as such, if it ever has a chance of working on a large scale, the electricity will invariably have to come from: coal, gas, or nuclear power. None of which are very 'green'!

tonyE1

I think hydrogen vehicles for most people WILL be the way forward. For most people typical vehicle journies are relatively short. If people had their own way to generate their own hydrogen then it could save significant amounts of oil. So if people had wind/solar generators hooked up to a personal hydrogen generator which they then transferred the hydrogen to their vehicle, if this was on a mass scale it could work very well.
The only problem is that water is relatively cheap, the hydrogen generation is free, so how would governments and oil companies make any money - that is flaw. No one with sufficient resources is going to invest in the R&D. Nice to dream though.

ZootHornRollo

don't you think there is the danger that if water becomes the next major fuel, shortly after water will become the next unaffordable liquid - much like petrol is now.

geordie_joe

ZootHornRollo wrote: »

don't you think there is the danger that if water becomes the next major fuel, shortly after water will become the next unaffordable liquid - much like petrol is now.

No because the stuff falls from the sky for free. Petrol, or oil, is expensive because some countries have it and many countries want to buy it.

If water did become the next fuel then they would find a way of making sea water into fuel. Then there would be enough for everyone and the price would go down. The companies would make money from the volume they sell, and the reduced cost of getting the water. I'm sure it would cost a lot less to pump water out of the sea than it does to pump oil from beneath it.