Electric Cars Will Kill The Planet

Kristofff said:
One problem with compressed hydrogen might be that it will evaporate out after a week or two, if it acts anything like the liquid oxygen used for medical gas. Another thing to keep in mind with the fuel conversion is that it can be relatively expensive to put a dual fuel kit onto an existing vehicle because I believe you have to change things like the intake manifold, or carburetor if its an older one, to accommodate it. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.
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The hydrogen can be stored as a metal hydride, chemically bonded to another element- at this point it can be released applying heat. As for the conversion process i am not too sure on that one, all i know is that they managed to get a 94 vette to run using hydrogen or gasoline, getting about 350 miles on the hydrogen tanks they installed.
 
Fusion is an excellent source of usable energy, but it's been very difficult to achieve locally. To achieve even basic fusion you need contain a lot of atomic forces. All those little protons act like magnets, very strong ones that push hard to get away from each other.

Stars achieve this via mass, but we can do it with magnetism or velocity, both of those however require a lot of energy themselves to build in sufficient quantities.

To be honest, this really isn't my field, though most of the 'experts' believe this will be viable in another 50-75 year
 
chaos68 said:
The hydrogen can be stored as a metal hydride, chemically bonded to another element- at this point it can be released applying heat. As for the conversion process i am not too sure on that one, all i know is that they managed to get a 94 vette to run using hydrogen or gasoline, getting about 350 miles on the hydrogen tanks they installed.
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The issue with the H- fuel tank is still volume. While not as big as a 1ATM h2 tank, the H- tank is still much larger than a standard gas tank, if I remember correctly we're talking 50-60gallons vs 15 gallons for a typical gasoline tank.

But you're right, using hydride is perfectly acceptable and viable, and has been a part of the 'hydrogen' economy for years, it just hasn't made it to the car yet, and that's only because of volume and transportation. A nice advantage of hydrogen is you can use a smaller and lighter engine, but it just hasn't been made small enough to offset the tank volume.

If you can't tell, I'm a big proponent of hydrogen. I just don't trust batteries yet,I've yet to own a notebook that doesn't slowly loose charge capacity over time. I just think it will take a change in mindset, aka giving up a trunk or backseat.
 
CraftyChicken said:
Fusion is an excellent source of usable energy, but it's been very difficult to achieve locally. To achieve even basic fusion you need contain a lot of atomic forces. All those little protons act like magnets, very strong ones that push hard to get away from each other.

Stars achieve this via mass, but we can do it with magnetism or velocity, both of those however require a lot of energy themselves to build in sufficient quantities.

To be honest, this really isn't my field, though most of the 'experts' believe this will be viable in another 50-75 year
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Star fusion is proton-proton, deuterium-tritium would be much easier- would still require a magnetic field to contain it though.
 
LuminaryJanitor said:
The theoretical maximum, according to the laws of thermodynamics, is in the region of 35-45% (dependant on certain parameters). In reality, 30-35% is typical. Some may be in the region of 40%, but state-of-the-art facilities are few and far between.
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Nuclear power plants are only 30% efficient, 35% max. Coal power plants are closer to 40-45%
 
osrk said:
Nuclear power plants are only 30% efficient, 35% max. Coal power plants are closer to 40-45%
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And then you realize a piece of uranium the size of a #2 pencil eraser puts out as much energy as a few train car loads of coal.
 
CraftyChicken said:
If you can't tell, I'm a big proponent of hydrogen. I just don't trust batteries yet,I've yet to own a notebook that doesn't slowly loose charge capacity over time. I just think it will take a change in mindset, aka giving up a trunk or backseat.
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Interestingly enough, the people currently selling us our gasoline feel the exact same way. Wonder why?
 
w1retap said:
And then you realize a piece of uranium the size of a #2 pencil eraser puts out as much energy as a few train car loads of coal.
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I already realize that. I'm not defending or criticizing coal or nuclear power plants just stating how it is.

Personally coal is just to dirty. People may be afraid of nuclear waste because it's so concentrated and compact but if they learned what was in coal and what's released to the environment....
 
The coal plants operating in the US today, the large majority are not in the 40% efficiency range. More in the low 30's. And if you saw how much downtime coal plants had, you'd wonder why we even use them. Talk about tube leaks... my father gets called into work every week with the plan shut down trying to find/fix tube leaks in the boiler. Coal (and "clean coal") is a complete joke.
 
Adamseye said:
Everyday the power provided from the sun hitting the earth is astonishing. So we could use some awesome ([H]ard) solar panels with say 60-80% conversion, and be done with powering our lives. But I am sure that even removing the heat energy from the surface of the earth will have bad side effects.
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But you really aren't "removing" any heat energy, you are more moving the energy. Most of it will still end up as waste heat.
 
Wow. There's at least a dozen flames hitting Steve. Give the guy a break. Unless no-one reads the full thread - and missed the other 10 guys replying to him before you?

I don't care how you power it, I only want to know one thing.


"It's the year 2000. But where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars! I don't see any flying cars! Why? Why? Why?"
 
This is a great thread, and I'm glad that nearly all of you immediately realized that using current electrical infrastructure, with the manufacturing methods for these electrical vehicles will essentially leave our carbon foot print relatively unchanged. Not to mention the huge economic costs. But the idea has some emotional merit.

Although, don't you think that if we had an alternative, that could provide cheap, clean and nearly limitless energy we should pursue it? Why do we throw 2 billion dollars at fusion research world wide annually... but nearly a trillion dollars to bail out aig? Or 8 billion dollars in loans to Chrysler?

I just wish are large scale policies were made by scientists and engineers not politicians.


great debate guys :)
 
avddreamr said:
This is a great thread, and I'm glad that nearly all of you immediately realized that using current electrical infrastructure, with the manufacturing methods for these electrical vehicles will essentially leave our carbon foot print relatively unchanged. Not to mention the huge economic costs. But the idea has some emotional merit.

Although, don't you think that if we had an alternative, that could provide cheap, clean and nearly limitless energy we should pursue it? Why do we throw 2 billion dollars at fusion research world wide annually... but nearly a trillion dollars to bail out aig? Or 8 billion dollars in loans to Chrysler?

I just wish are large scale policies were made by scientists and engineers not politicians.

great debate guys :)
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Thanks for the reality check (I mean that, Billion with a B vs Trillion with a T, sometimes we lose perspective).

I read an article in popular science about some local guys ("General Fusion") who had working proof-of-concept (return was 1 on 10,000?) "shock-wave" fusion. Using pneumatic rams to smash a small metal crucible containing lithium and at the center, in a fundamental resonance, you'd have fusion. It was a great read, and all totally over my head. This guy was saying that the reason he liked his project better than the tokamak was that you could build his in miniature, and obtain real energy output without these hundred million dollar machines. Using this compression method and some additional funding --$20 million maximum-- he could achieve 1:1 applied energy to output energy.

Yet, Change would rather push trillions of dollars to failed businessmen, failed economic models and hundred year old engineering concepts.
 
avddreamr said:
This is a great thread, and I'm glad that nearly all of you immediately realized that using current electrical infrastructure, with the manufacturing methods for these electrical vehicles will essentially leave our carbon foot print relatively unchanged. Not to mention the huge economic costs. But the idea has some emotional merit.
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Even if the carbon foot print remained relatively unchanged (of which I am highly doubtful), there are still other factors. For example, lets say in 15 years we figure out how to pull off fusion. Massive amounts of relatively clean energy are now at our fingertips. If we have moved to electric vehicles, as the electric power sources migrate to fusion everyone instantly gets the benefits. It is far easier to upgrade power plants than the millions of cars that are driving around. Gas vehicles will at best continue to produce the same amount of pollution throughout their life (although more likely it'll get worse). Electric vehicles stand a very good chance of causing less pollution as time goes on.

And, of course, we can greatly reduce foreign dependence on oil. ;)
 
Electric cars being a real alternative to gasoline engine based vehicles is a pipe dream at this point. Your trading on problem for another just to make some ignorant hippies happy. Nickel mining is extremely bad for the enviroment. Disposal of the batteries is bad for the enviroment. The smug jackasses who drive hybrids and would jump on the electric car bandwagon are also bad for the enviroment. (Well maybe not directly, but they do make the enviroment less pleasant to be in.) Most of the air borne pollutants don't even come from cars but rather the coal and fuel burning electric plants.

Nuclear power FTMFW!
 
Kristofff said:
Reality check, drilling for oil right now will not result in oil infusion and oil dependence in any significant way for at least 10 years. But hey, keep spewing your ignorant talking points.
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China is currently studying ocean floor oil/gas fields right now about a 100 miles off the coast of Florida. There have already been surveyed fields in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of California, Oregon, & Washington. Alaska still has huge reserves to be tapped yet. Yeah, it would take time to build the rigs and deploy them, but not a 10 year development cycle from ground to tank. I think the ignorance here is coming from your end of the keyboard, simply because you don't have a clue about how the oil/gas business works. Speaking of talking points, this has been one that has been floating around from your ignorant side of the aisle with respect to ANWAR. I'm sure you feel all thrusty and busty at doing a mass reply that is one giant negative zone of fail, but you certainly won't get away with it from people who know what they are talking about. You simply don't.

If a lease release mandate via executive order was lifted today, you would see development of these fields in 2 to 3 years with further exploration to come. The oil business has changed drastically in the last 20 years. With better materials, engineering, technology, and digging and refining processes, you can effectively extract domestic oil and gas reserves with little impact. Put your money wear your mouth is. Either you hate the oil industry altogether or you would rather see domestic processing of the until billions of cubic yards we have now. No more foreign oil, but much more domestic stock and that is what is at issue. Until you can come up with a viable energy solution that comes close to matching the pound-for-pound energy output and diverse product manufacture of oil and it's many derivatives, I'd say that you are on the short end of the argument.
 
LuminaryJanitor said:
It's unavoidable. The one thing you absolutely cannot do without in a transportation fuel is energy density. We're on our way to exhausting the only suitable naturally occurring instance of such a material; any substitute will have to be synthesised, implying a conversion of energy.
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I was referring specifically to "converting" electricity to hydrogen and back to electricity, as opposed to more efficiently storing the electricity in a battery.

Methadras said:
China is currently studying ocean floor oil/gas fields right now about a 100 miles off the coast of Florida. There have already been surveyed fields in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of California, Oregon, & Washington. Alaska still has huge reserves to be tapped yet. Yeah, it would take time to build the rigs and deploy them, but not a 10 year development cycle from ground to tank. I think the ignorance here is coming from your end of the keyboard, simply because you don't have a clue about how the oil/gas business works. Speaking of talking points, this has been one that has been floating around from your ignorant side of the aisle with respect to ANWAR. I'm sure you feel all thrusty and busty at doing a mass reply that is one giant negative zone of fail, but you certainly won't get away with it from people who know what they are talking about. You simply don't.

If a lease release mandate via executive order was lifted today, you would see development of these fields in 2 to 3 years with further exploration to come. The oil business has changed drastically in the last 20 years. With better materials, engineering, technology, and digging and refining processes, you can effectively extract domestic oil and gas reserves with little impact. Put your money wear your mouth is. Either you hate the oil industry altogether or you would rather see domestic processing of the until billions of cubic yards we have now. No more foreign oil, but much more domestic stock and that is what is at issue. Until you can come up with a viable energy solution that comes close to matching the pound-for-pound energy output and diverse product manufacture of oil and it's many derivatives, I'd say that you are on the short end of the argument.
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One of the main reasons for pushing alternative energies now is not only the reduction of fossil fuels used, but reduced dependence on foreign oil. Let's say the government folds to your corporate pressure and lifts all no-drill zone regulations that are currently in place because you think they are stupid and useless. In your expert opinion, how much of the current oil usage would actually be replaced by the oil we drill locally as opposed to simply refined in addition to current foreign oil? Of course, this is assuming the best case scenario that you actually know exactly where the oil is in those areas that are currently forbidden from being drilled.

Now, lets say we actually support the developement of alternative energies with just some of federal money that goes to things like bailouts, oil industry tax breaks and subsidies, corn-based fuel subsidies, etc... How far along, in our already advanced stages of development, would those technologies have progressed in the years it took you to finally start pumping any signifigantly impactful (to the oil ratios of foriegn/domestic, not oil industry profits margins) amount of oil out?

(yes I said "you" a lot and I know you aren't an oil company)
 
Conker said:
Just watch these videos on hydrogen. Hydrogen is the future ;).

Stan Meyer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UooJ7OvsU58&fmt=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unU4DE9P7Fs&fmt=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ3juM6vHwg&fmt=18

Actual running car on hydrogen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j7d-FJ7TQk&fmt=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9ONP-kOMXU&fmt=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKM4pb9Oxrg&fmt=18

Water is the future :D
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Are you trolling this thread?

How many times does it have to be said that it is NOT POSSIBLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE to convert water into hydrogen without a net loss of energy.

I don't care how many youtube videos you throw at this thread but none of these backyard inventors and crackpot scam artists have ever or will ever be able to break fundamental laws of physics The claims being made by proponents of any kind of water to hydrogen on the fly system (water4gas etc) are 100% fantasy. It's an inescapable fact that any such system requires more energy to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms via electrolysis than can ever be gained by burning whatever hydrogen is produced.
 
Hamish Campbell said:
Are you trolling this thread?

How many times does it have to be said that it is NOT POSSIBLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE to convert water into hydrogen without a net loss of energy.

I don't care how many youtube videos you throw at this thread but none of these backyard inventors and crackpot scam artists have ever or will ever be able to break fundamental laws of physics The claims being made by proponents of any kind of water to hydrogen on the fly system (water4gas etc) are 100% fantasy. It's an inescapable fact that any such system requires more energy to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms via electrolysis than can ever be gained by burning whatever hydrogen is produced.
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I think the idea is that adding the hydrogren - oxygen (namely the oxygen) gases to an engine will allow the fuel to burn better and more completely and therefore act as a catalyst which result in an overall net gain when you include the external fuel that is gasoline. Whether or not that is actually true, I have no idea. But, of course, splittng water and burning the hydrogen-oxygen gas all by itself isn't going to get you any net gain.
 
Kristofff said:
I think the idea is that adding the hydrogren - oxygen (namely the oxygen) gases to an engine will allow the fuel to burn better and more completely and therefore act as a catalyst which result in an overall net gain when you include the external fuel that is gasoline. Whether or not that is actually true, I have no idea. But, of course, splittng water and burning the hydrogen-oxygen gas all by itself isn't going to get you any net gain.
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The only problem with that is that hydrogen has this tendency to bond with oxygen and create water. Water tends to not combust very well ;)
 
Kristofff said:
I was referring specifically to "converting" electricity to hydrogen and back to electricity, as opposed to more efficiently storing the electricity in a battery.
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Generating hydrogen fuel and charging a battery is exactly the same thing. Electric potential -> chemical potential.
 
LuminaryJanitor said:
Generating hydrogen fuel and charging a battery is exactly the same thing. Electric potential -> chemical potential.
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Sure its both a conversion, but which is more efficient by the time the wheels start pushing you down the road? That is my point.
 
kllrnohj said:
The only problem with that is that hydrogen has this tendency to bond with oxygen and create water. Water tends to not combust very well ;)
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Ever seen that torch that uses the gases of electrolyisis which burn and then turn into water? I'm assuming this would work the same way, in that you'd need the combustion before it would ahve enough energy to bond back into water. Then again, I seem to remember either hydrogen or oxygen (or both) being one of those things that loves to easily bond to stuff.
 
Kristofff said:
I think the idea is that adding the hydrogren - oxygen (namely the oxygen) gases to an engine will allow the fuel to burn better and more completely and therefore act as a catalyst which result in an overall net gain when you include the external fuel that is gasoline. Whether or not that is actually true, I have no idea. But, of course, splittng water and burning the hydrogen-oxygen gas all by itself isn't going to get you any net gain.
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No, that isn't true. Doing what you've described would only add more inefficient energy conversions to the engine. Whatever actions it took to split those water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, then transfer those elements in some ratio to the fuel/air mixture will always consume more energy than you'd ever be able to get back out of the engine.

Using them as a catalyst or not doesn't matter. Since you've used the engines own power to convert and then transport that energy it can NEVER give you more than 100% of the original potential energy in that closed system because again, ALL energy conversions are inefficient. You lose energy in the form of heat at every step in the process.

Its almost comical because electrolysis of water is a hugely inefficient process. At best, the potential energy of the gases formed is 50% to 70% of the energy required to separate them. Keep in mind this is energy which is stored in the gas tank to begin with and which would be put to much better use if burned as normal.
 
avddreamr said:
This is a great thread, and I'm glad that nearly all of you immediately realized that using current electrical infrastructure, with the manufacturing methods for these electrical vehicles will essentially leave our carbon foot print relatively unchanged. Not to mention the huge economic costs. But the idea has some emotional merit.

Although, don't you think that if we had an alternative, that could provide cheap, clean and nearly limitless energy we should pursue it? Why do we throw 2 billion dollars at fusion research world wide annually... but nearly a trillion dollars to bail out aig? Or 8 billion dollars in loans to Chrysler?

I just wish are large scale policies were made by scientists and engineers not politicians.


great debate guys :)
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This isnt really true. I remember the marketing propaganda that GM paid for that said "The Prius is less environmental than a hummer because of the nickel used in the battery, and nickel mining is dirty business".

The truth is that the steel frame of a Hummer alone uses 5x the nickel of a Prius. Once again, your assertion that 'batteries will just cause a shift of our carbon footprint' is nothing but old marketing hoo-ey that car companies put out there to retard alternative development (or to justify cutting the EV1 in favor of the Hummer years ago). Studies by independent research groups and universities looked at those claims, and found they were very false. There is alot of fiction mixed in with the pseudo-science that gets thrown around in this market.

Many batteries are made of material that is 100% recyclable (into other batteries often). Also keep in mind the vast difference in technology we are talking about here... one of the main reasons that companies like GM kept away from electric power. With an electric vehicle, you have about 1-10 actual moving parts in the whole engine. These parts require no oil, no radiator fluid, no catalytic converters, no computer systems to monitor efficiency and emissions, no alternator, no spark plugs, no fuel and water pumps, no injectors... etc. The replacement cost (and 'footprint' of waste this generates) is where many auto companies make their money. All those oil changes and mandatory upkeeps are where many companies make their profits. VW for instance, is known to be one of the lesser reliable companies out there, yet they are one of the most profitable. Their parts division is one of the most profitable of any auto maker, boasting record profits year after year... not exactly something they like to brag about though, if you know what I mean. Electric cars represent an elimination of this all together. Upkeep on a Tesla, for instance, is just every 25,000 miles (to check the fuel cells), and this can be done over the internet. Top off the wiper fluid, and you are good to go. 'Parts' for electric cars will be pretty much down to just tires and brakes. Many DC electric motors could easily propel a car over 1,000,000 miles without a hickup or failure. They are also much simpler to design/make... so car makers dont like this plan much for long term profits.

But keep in mind that this is a very new (or rather reborn, those who read autobloggreen know what I mean) technology, and once moore's law has its chance to apply, Im sure we will see advances that will satisfy all those who poo-poo the idea of an electric/fuel cell car. The technology is out there, we just have to use it.
 
Hamish Campbell said:
No, that isn't true. Doing what you've described would only add more inefficient energy conversions to the engine. Whatever actions it took to split those water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, then transfer those elements in some ratio to the fuel/air mixture will always consume more energy than you'd ever be able to get back out of the engine.

Using them as a catalyst or not doesn't matter. Since you've used the engines own power to convert and then transport that energy it can NEVER give you more than 100% of the original potential energy in that closed system because again, ALL energy conversions are inefficient. You lose energy in the form of heat at every step in the process.

Its almost comical because electrolysis of water is a hugely inefficient process. At best, the potential energy of the gases formed is 50% to 70% of the energy required to separate them. Keep in mind this is energy which is stored in the gas tank to begin with and which would be put to much better use if burned as normal.
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Okay, these sort of replies are sorta silly for a few reasons...

1. If splitting water is such a bad idea, why is it something that over 90% of the organisms on earth do every day (photosynthesis).

2. Like with plants, who cares what the efficiency is if its from a limitless supply like wind or solar. Current solar panels only capture about 10% of the light that hits them (mostly red spectrum). This is up from just 5% not so many years ago, and there are ones on the way that are 15-20% efficient. Now, who cares if I waste 85% of the sunlight or wind power that is available when the source is infinite?

3. Also, keep in mind that even with all these 'steps', hydro and batteries are still waaaay more efficient than a gasoline combustion engine. An ICE engine is only about 10-15% efficient at best... most of the energy in gas is never harvested. If you were to instead take that gas and burn it at a power plant which is many times more efficient, converting it to electricity, and then run your car on it, you would see about a 10x increase in efficiency, and an electric motor is more like 90% efficient. So economic or environmental, if you could use $5 in gas to go 60 miles or 300 miles, which would you pick?
 
kllrnohj said:
The only problem with that is that hydrogen has this tendency to bond with oxygen and create water. Water tends to not combust very well ;)
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This is the whole point of a fuel cell... to contain the hydrogen in an inert state that can easily be harvested... to avoid degradation of the hydro into water, or combustion.
 
undertheradar said:
Upkeep on a Tesla, for instance, is just every 25,000 miles (to check the fuel cells), and this can be done over the internet. Top off the wiper fluid, and you are good to go. 'Parts' for electric cars will be pretty much down to just tires and brakes. Many DC electric motors could easily propel a car over 1,000,000 miles without a hickup or failure. They are also much simpler to design/make... so car makers dont like this plan much for long term profits.
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Are we thinking of the same tesla? because im thinking of the tesla roadster and i wouldnt exactly call 7000 li-ion batteries a fuel cell. That and if you read the site they tell you that after 50k miles or 5 years the batteries will have about 70% of their starting performance. So that nice long distance you can go will get shorter and shorter. Also, dont forget that even their new vehicle requires 45 minutes for a quick charge- and that's the real problem, you have to spend time charging it. putting gas in your tank takes 5 minutes, a "quick charge" is 45, not exactly on the same scale there and you'll also need to take your charging equipment with you everywhere. Also do check the tesla charging merchandise, the high power charger for the roadster is 3 grand and takes 3.5 hours for a full charge, and the mobile charger is 1500.
 
Hamish Campbell said:
Are you trolling this thread?

How many times does it have to be said that it is NOT POSSIBLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE to convert water into hydrogen without a net loss of energy.

I don't care how many youtube videos you throw at this thread but none of these backyard inventors and crackpot scam artists have ever or will ever be able to break fundamental laws of physics The claims being made by proponents of any kind of water to hydrogen on the fly system (water4gas etc) are 100% fantasy. It's an inescapable fact that any such system requires more energy to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen atoms via electrolysis than can ever be gained by burning whatever hydrogen is produced.
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Whether or not it produces a net loss of energy isn't the point that we have an unlimited supply of water?
 
Conker said:
Just watch these videos on hydrogen. Hydrogen is the future ;).

Water is the future :D
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*Sigh*
Epic fail. :rolleyes:
If you send me $1, I'll send you a $20. That's right, it's magic!

Killing2Live said:
Whether or not it produces a net loss of energy isn't the point that we have an unlimited supply of water?
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No, the point is that regardless of how much water is available you still have to have an underlying energy infrastructure to convert the water to hydrogen. Right now, that infrastructure is fossil fuel via coal-burning power plants. Adding the extra step of converting energy to hydrogen before you use it is just adding another energy conversion and thus more energy loss.

Water has essentially 0 energy. In order for it to be useful as a power source, you have to put energy into it. The process of putting energy into it generates a high-energy element (hydrogen). But you still have to put the energy into it, which comes from somewhere. Until we convert to a more efficient, cleaner power grid (wind, water, solar), that "somewhere" is burning coal.

So you can take 30 gallons of gas and immediately combust it in your car as a fuel at 20% efficiency, or you can take the gas and combust it at an electrolysis plant to convert some amount of water to hydrogen, which can then be converted a second time in your fuel cell car to kinetic energy. Either way, you're blowing up coal.

What you can't do is wave a magic wand over a glass of water and magically generate free, high-energy hydrogen. Not with our current power grid, anyway. :rolleyes:
 
chaos68 said:
Are we thinking of the same tesla? because im thinking of the tesla roadster and i wouldnt exactly call 7000 li-ion batteries a fuel cell. That and if you read the site they tell you that after 50k miles or 5 years the batteries will have about 70% of their starting performance. So that nice long distance you can go will get shorter and shorter. Also, dont forget that even their new vehicle requires 45 minutes for a quick charge- and that's the real problem, you have to spend time charging it. putting gas in your tank takes 5 minutes, a "quick charge" is 45, not exactly on the same scale there and you'll also need to take your charging equipment with you everywhere. Also do check the tesla charging merchandise, the high power charger for the roadster is 3 grand and takes 3.5 hours for a full charge, and the mobile charger is 1500.
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Yes, the same Tesla. You are mentioning several other things... and yes, I would call Li-Ions 'fuel cells'. They may not be hydrogen, but all batteries are chemical energy storage devices, and so all can be considered fuel cells. Having 70% of your starting performance after 5 years isnt bad. Care to take a wild guess how much your ICE loses in that span of time? That gas engine is going to see efficiency and power decreases in that time as well in very similar amounts... at least with a battery, the efficiency stays about the same, only the performance and capacity diminish. Not to mention, the whole idea behind the checkup periods is so individual cells that start to weaken can be swapped out. I dont disagree with you that its not perfect, I never said it was. My argument would be that for a 'first crack' at it, it is doing very well. Im sure as every auto company gets in on the action, supercapacitors and nano-cell batteries and the technologies that spawn from all the work will take care of the problems. Already, the nano-safe cells are said to be charged in 10 minutes.

Me personally, I would dig a 'volt-ish' car... as in, series hybrid or PHEV. 80% of all daily commutes are less than 40 miles, and 90% are less than 50, so if you have a car that can charge just for that, and then switch to regular fuel, you have a winning combo (for now). And that is technology that exists now (a battery pack to go 40-50 miles is only 2-300 pounds). A 'range extender' generator can then be tweaked for maximum efficiency to charge the batteries, which power the motor, etc... so overall, its a win-win. Those that dont think this makes sense... well... look at a diesel electric train. Thats how they run, and they are one of the most efficient engines in the world. Me personally, I want a 100-200hp turboshaft generator built into a series hybrid setup with about a 50-60 mile battery range. Chances are that my generator would only come on once or twice a year, and turbines run about 3x more efficient than piston engines because they are a constant linear combustion. One turbine can also run on any variety of fuels... from corn oil to bio-d, from ethanol to gas... you name it. And a high pitched whine as you go down the street is sooo coool.
 
Coal burning power plants are the source of the majority of the "nasty" pollutants. Nuclear is the only way to go.

Unfortunately, fearmongering and general ignorance about nuclear will keep us trying to find cleaner ways to power vehicles, which, will have such a miniscule effect.

It's like we are all back to the acid rain movement, all over again. :(
 
Lots of chemist and physicists in this thread. Makes for an interesting read on a slow work day.

How about magnet power cars? Replace all roads with Maglev tracks like they use in China ;-)
 
crackbone said:
Unfortunately, fearmongering and general ignorance about nuclear will keep us trying to find cleaner ways to power vehicles, which, will have such a miniscule effect.
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A uranium hydride battery in a electric car would be fucking epic. :D Hey guys, I don't have to recharge my car for 5 years, LOL.
 
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