The Electric Car Thread- Merged

[CougarKing]

And the new question one should ask is why they did not invent a car that runs on sake?  ;D

http://uk.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=84367&refresh=true

Water-fuel car unveiled in Japan
Jun. 13 - Japanese company Genepax presents its eco-friendly car that runs on nothing but water.

The car has an energy generator that extracts hydrogen from water that is poured into the car's tank. The generator then releases electrons that produce electric power to run the car. Genepax, the company that invented the technology, aims to collaborate with Japanese manufacturers to mass produce it.

 

[c_canuk]

snake oil salesmen have been pushing this idea for decades.

the problem is the amount of electricity that you can generate from the hydrogen/oxygen by feeding it into a fuel cell is about half of what you need to break down (electrolysis) the water in the first place.

Burning it is even worse.

The only way a hydrogen vehicle makes sense is if you have the electrolysis gear stashed in your garage running off house power that you fill up with at night. Unfortunatly the energy density of gasseous hydrogen is not that great and you'd need to have massive storage tanks to get the range we have with gasoline.

I don't think much will happen with this "new" idea

 

[geo]

Hydro Quebec is talking about variable hour pricing - lower rates at night.... when you'd be recharging your car's battery.
This might actualy make sense.  To date, the only problem with it is the range an electric car can travel.

Anyone remember the propane cars and carryalls the CF used to have ?
A propane carryall leaving from St Hubert & headed towards Bagottville would have to call ahead & arrange to be met by someone - else he'd be walking the rest of the way.  Talk about a royal pain !

 

[RickDevlieger]

I just saw an article on the news about a company in Vancouver that is making a killing converting cars and small trucks to electric. Apparently lithium battery technology is making the electric car a viable option for in town use. The proprietor did make it clear that it is ideal for commuting less than 100ks but is still not really an option for any kind of extended travel. But if you think about how many people use a vehicle only for commuting, it makes sense. It may be the only thing that will keep suburbs viable in the next couple of decades.

 

[geo]

Yeah.... but electric cars being recharged by coal powered generations is like robbing peter to pay paul.... you're doing just as much good as you are doing bad.... xcept that with lower powered electric cars, people will be driving slower.

 

[Jorkapp]

Yeah.... but electric cars being recharged by coal powered generations is like robbing peter to pay paul.... you're doing just as much good as you are doing bad.... xcept that with lower powered electric cars, people will be driving slower.

Only 19% of electricity generated in Canada comes from Coal. 70% of electricity comes from eiter Hydroelectric (58%) or Nuclear (12%).

Plus, given that a coal fired plant can generate a kilowatt of energy a lot more efficiently and cleaner than a small combustion engine, I would take the kilowatt from coal any day of the week.

 

[X-mo-1979]

Yeah.... but electric cars being recharged by coal powered generations is like robbing peter to pay paul.... you're doing just as much good as you are doing bad.... xcept that with lower powered electric cars, people will be driving slower.

who cares about Peter robbing Paul, it's all about Esso,Irving robbing me!

I welcome anything that will not cost me 1.42 a liter.

 

[Sigger]

snake oil salesmen have been pushing this idea for decades.

the problem is the amount of electricity that you can generate from the hydrogen/oxygen by feeding it into a fuel cell is about half of what you need to break down (electrolysis) the water in the first place.

Burning it is even worse.

The only way a hydrogen vehicle makes sense is if you have the electrolysis gear stashed in your garage running off house power that you fill up with at night. Unfortunatly the energy density of gasseous hydrogen is not that great and you'd need to have massive storage tanks to get the range we have with gasoline.

I don't think much will happen with this "new" idea

I do think that the "new" part of this is describing a new and more eficient version of this technology.

Has anyone seen that Doc. called 'who killed the electric car'?

 

[c_canuk]

I do think that the "new" part of this is describing a new and more eficient version of this technology.

like I said decades, each new snake oil pusher has a new more efficient way to make energy which is impossible.

2H2 + 02 = 1 Unit of energy Plus 2H20

due to efficency losses of everything we do (energy escaping as heat/noise/light) it is impossible to make this equation work

2H20 + 1 unit of energy = 2H2 + O2

therefore to make hydrogen from water you need one unit of energy + system losses. When it comes to Electroysis which is the only way to make hydrogen from just water you are looking at a 25% effeciency so you need 5 units of energy to make 1 unit's worth of power.

there are "working" models out there that pull energy off the alternator to make hydrogen that the engine burns, but they can only idle and will only idle for a while... the reason is that the energy deficit is made up by the battery which has a finite life.

If you don't understand the problem it's easy to see a magic loophole in the 3rd law of thermodynamics that doesn't exist. I suspect half of them believe they found a loop hole and just can't quite figure out the bugs in their design.

 

[retiredgrunt45]

This seems to be a promising technology. Leave it to the Japenese to take an old concept and make it work.

 

[Welshy]

I looked into this yesterday, because the chemistry did not make sense. Essentially what the company is doing is powering their car on HHO (two hydrogen and oxygen). It will burn hydrogen much like other combustion engines but oxygen is mixed in with the fuel providing more power. This is very dangerous to have in a tank because now there is the necessary oxygen to combust inside the pressure vessel. Not to mention you are now using up space storing oxygen when its in the atmosphere.

Combustion of hydrogen is not nearly as efficient as fuel cells, but it isn't to expensive to convert your vehicle to burn hydrogen.  It may provide the bridge for gas stations to offer hydrogen. Otherwise its the chicken before the egg scenario with fuel cells.

 

[c_canuk]

indeed. I've been saying that if we want to get serious about getting off fossil fuels we should be building nuke plants up north around the uranium mines, and use the off peak hours to make hydrogen and pipe it like natural gas and look into carbon nanotube storage for vehicles.

that aside though, there is no way a vehicle can be filled up with water and derive energy from it without some other source of energy, if there is another source of energy it would be many times more efficient to just drive the vehicle with that source than convert water to hydrogen gas

water is not fuel, it is the waste from burning fuel.

 

[Sigger]

And we know that how?

Now, I am as sceptical as the next, but unless you know this for fact, I will watch and shoot. It does seem viable IMO.

I am still waiting for the Tesla rod car to be figured out.

 

[c_canuk]

when science calls something a law, that means unless a good portion of science is overturned and ruled faulty it's not possible to break it.

it is not possible to get more energy out of a closed system than you put in. the amount of energy stays the same.

Even with nuclear reactions this is true because the new energy is directly accountable for from missing mass (E=MC2)

Electrolysis is the chemical reaction of hydrogen oxidizing (burning) reversed. it is not possible to get more energy out than you put in.

to break water into it's elements so that you can get 1 unit of energy's worth of fuel will require at 100% efficiency 1 unit of energy, since these systems have reported efficiencies of 50-70% that means you need to put in 1.5 to 2 units of energy to get 1 unit's worth of fuel and the remaining .5-1 unit of energy will be mainly heat.

then when you run the hydrogen/oxygen through a fuel cell which is electrolysis backwards (the cell membrane allows the hydrogen and oxygen to chemically bond without burning, and converting most of the energy to electricity at roughly 50% - 70% efficency

so now you need 3-4 units of energy going into electrolysis to make 1 unit of energy out of your fuel cell.

if you plan on burning it in a traditional internal combustion engine look at max efficiency of 25% so now you need 6-8 units of energy going into electrolysis to make 1 unit of mechanical energy at the crank, you loose another 20% at the alternator feeding the electrolysis system so you're looking at 7-9 units of energy

compare that to an electric motor at 80%+ efficency and you could be using 1.5 or less units of energy for 1 unit of mechanical energy compared to 7-9 for internal combustion or 3-4 for a fuel cell.

The LAW of thermodynamics cannot be broken.

 

[Sigger]

..but still

 

[retiredgrunt45]

Now, I am as sceptical as the next, but unless you know this for fact, I will watch and shoot. It does seem viable IMO.

I am still waiting for the Tesla rod car to be figured out.

I agree. Without seeing the prototype or the work that went into this, how can anyone label this as vialble or not.  All of a sudden we're all scientists and seem to know more than the real scientists who are doing the work and research. :

The facts will come out as to whether or not this is real or not, until then i'll keep an open mind.

It's like a taxi driver trying to teach a pilot how to fly a 747.

 

[geo]

did he stay at a Holliday inn express last night ???

 

[c_canuk]

no I did not stay at a holiday inn express last night, however I've taken 2 years of engineering and this is highschool science basics.

you can take my word for it, or you can assume I don't know what I'm talking about even though I've proven it's impossible and showed my work.

There is no "but still!" it won't work anymore than any other perpetual motion machine, there needs to be an additional source of energy and even if they've vastly improved the efficiency of electrolysis, Fuel Cells, and hydrogen storage, which is highly unlikely as these are 3 different things full on scientific think tanks have been working on for decades, it would still be more efficient to simply use that source of energy to directly drive an electric motor.


since you've irked me a little bit I did a google search for "water powered cars debunked" to see if I could get a history of these things to show you... low and behold I found this in the first link.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/genepax-water-powered-car-japan-debunking.php

more links

http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=print_topic;f=56;t=002848

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1769/68

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?p=646988

the consensus among those with knowledge of science, not the "bee a free spirit, laws of thermodynamics might not apply man *gurgling of bong*" types, is that the Japanese car is not actually powered by water but metal hydride compounds. Same as the heater packs for the US MREs.

Exposing these compounds to water generates heat and breaks releases hydrogen gas as the oxygen is bonded to the metal hydride compound. You will note those don't last very long.

If that is the case the car is not water powered, it's metal hydride powered which is more expensive than and rarer than oil.

2H2O + 8 Units Electricity = 2H2 + 02 + 4 units heat energy

2H2+Os = 2H2O + 4 units of energy (if the = is burning in an engine, 1 unit mechanical energy,3 units heat energy, if through a fuel cell, 3 units electricity, 1 unit heat energy)

8 > 4

Therefore this will not work PERIOD


EDITED: To correct Energy Efficiency of Electrolysis I said 16 in when it should have been 8 for 50% rather than 25%

 

[c_canuk]

Without seeing the prototype or the work that went into this, how can anyone label this as vialble or not.  All of a sudden we're all scientists and seem to know more than the real scientists who are doing the work and research.

I don't need to see it, they claim it will run forever on only water, using Fuel Cell Technology. They are claiming to get more energy out of water than they are putting in. Water is not fuel it is ash, it is what you get after you burn the fuel.

They are not real scientists, if they were they would be providing a whole hell of a lot more information about how they managed to find a loophole or break the laws of thermodynamics and overturn half of established accepted physics, and get the noble prize that comes with a butt load of cash.

 

[Sigger]

... which is highly unlikely as these are 3 different things full on scientific think tanks have been working on for decades...

And mark.

Exactly my point. These "full on scientific think tanks" may have "vastly improved the efficiency of electrolysis, Fuel Cells, and hydrogen storage".
I really doubt that this company would bother with the expense of this for just another hoax... but you never know.

I am in no way debating your engineering and scientific knowledge. But.... still.