Talk:Hydrogen car

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Template:Energy development

Hydrogen as an energy source

Caution : we should not make the mistake that consists in taking hydrogen for a source of energy. Hydrogen is more a way to accumulate power than energy.

Energy is needed: - to get hydrogen by water electrolysis, - to get back electricity and water by oxydation, and the efficiency of the second operation, of course,is not 100%.

--- Wrong. Hydrogen is a fuel, a source of energy too, not just a carrier.

Hydrogen is a carrier, not a source. You can't mine hydrogen out of the ground. You have to produce it, which takes more energy than you get back out. It's like a battery. You charge it (split water into hydrogen and oxygen or extract hydrogen from methane) at the power plant (which runs on a power source such as solar, wind, nuclear, oil, etc.) and then discharge it at the load (car). Overall you spend more energy making the hydrogen than you get when you burn it. - Omegatron 23:04, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

I added a section to clearly state (hopefully) what hydrogen fuel is, in more general terms. The phrasing does sound a bit convoluted (but so is every encyclopedia I've read). I tried to make the paragraph neutral, as hydrogen as a fuel is somewhat controversial. When we run out of fossil fuels, we will actually have a hard time polluting the air with CO2 and CO, unless we take it out first, so any future fuel source is likely to be clean in that respect. We could feasably make gasoline using CO2 from the air and water, and it would be just as clean as hydrogen in a closed loop, so any element that will react would work, to carry the power from the solar cells to your car. If you want a mind blowing experience, see Boron powered cars (http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html) Splarka 00:52, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hydrogen crackers

And the following section has been removed for being ridiculous :-) (see perpetual motion). (a real hydrogen cracker appears to be a device for splitting hydrogen molecules H₂ into atomic hydrogen H.):

Hydrogen Cracker

The Hydrogen Cracker solves the problems of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell. Instead of a bulky hydrogen tanks, or methane, gasoline, and ethanol fuel, it runs on ordinary water directly. The gas tank is filled with water from a garden hose. The water is boiled by an electric heater. The resulting hot water vapor passes into an electrolysis chamber. There, the vapor (H2O) is split or 'cracked' into hydrogen (H) gas and oxygen (O2) gas. The gases are seperated when they are attracted to the two opposite poles of the electromagnetic electrolysis chamber. The H and O2 gases go into two seperate chambers. By themeslves, they are just as flammable as gasoline. The hydrogen gas passes into the 4 cylinders, where it is ignited by the spark plugs. The oxygen gas is ignited in to the remaining 2 cylinders. The small explosions caused by the two gases drive the pistons, just like a gasoline powered engine.

The hydrogen cracker is simpler, more dependable, sturdier, and cheaper than the hydrogen fuel cell. It's a much older and more obvious technology. The hydrogen flame is high purity - a clear or invisible flame. Compare this to a blue gas flame. The blue color is the impurities being burned up. JPL Labs tested and developed the hydrogen cracker. The hydrogen cracker has water vapor emissions - no pollution. It can run on sea water and rain water too.

An additional benefit of the hydrogen cracker is that the customer doesn't have to buy a new car. The hydrogen cracker device is fitted into the customer's gas car between the tank and engine. The cylinders are disconnected and reconnected to the hydrogen cracker. The gas tank is drained of gasoline and the gas is relplaced with water. These minor adjustments take only minutes. This is much cheaper and more practical than buying a new car. The customer saves money every year in gas he no longer has to pay for.

And I bet the electrolysis comes from the engine, right? - Omegatron 23:04, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Quite right. I managed to generate more energy laughing at this section below than would ever be produced by this device.

Hydrogen has advantages over <other means of storing energy> (eg batteries) in that conventional IC engines can use it with little adjustment. It is less dense than oil so needs a lot of storage - so that instead of a huge battery you would need an enormous fuel tank.

Is it worth mentioning that in WW2 coal-gas powered vehicles operated in the UK? Coal gas is mostly hydrogen (AFAIK). The gas was stored in large bags.

Of course strictly speaking Hydrogen is a fuel - after all gasoline doesn't occur AS GASOLINE in the ground but is still a fuel - but unlike gasoline does require more energy to produce it than is contained in it.

Exile 14:16, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

sure. it's a fuel, but not a source. - Omegatron 14:45, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

The electrolysis comes from the added chamber on the device, not the engine. A gas cracker can split any gas molecule into atoms. A pot of boiling water is a gas cracker. It splits H2O into H and O. A hydrogen cracker, or hydrocracker, cracks H2 into H. But a water cracker splits H2O into H and O. The 'hydrogen cracker' was also the name for the water fueled car engine invented in the 70's or 80's. Actually, it was a water cracker, but the inventor named it a hydrogen cracker. Hydrogen is a fuel. The space shuttle fuel tanks are full of hydrogen fuel. It's not just a carrier. Not all fuels are mined out of the ground.

And where did they get that hydrogen from? (They produced it using lots of energy. More than it takes to shoot the space shuttle into space. They use it because it is a compact, convenient way to carry energy.) - Omegatron 02:48, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

My source for the Hydrogen Cracker article is my father, who was a technical writer for Aerospace. He also said that this was front page news in the 1980s. He said they kept showing the invisible flame on TV 4 or 5 times, and that the inventor appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to demonstrate the Hydrogen Cracker. He demonstrated it many times to scientists and it was held universally as a working inventions. Headlines read something to the effect of: 'Water Car Invented - Gas Cars Days Numbered'. It was big news. Unfortunately, my father can't remember the inventor's name. he did remember that the U.S. government froze his stock so he couldn't sell it. The government seized the invention and gave it to JPL to further experiment with and develop it. The inventor was killed tragically in a car explosion. Some say it was a murder and others say it was a hydrogen explosion from a glitch in the car's hydrogen cracker. An episode of "The Lone Gunman' is based on the Hydrogen Cracker.

If the idea is out, and it works, then we would be running cars based on water. Who cares if the government covered it up? You know enough about it to reproduce it, many others know about it if it was front page news. So if it works, they would be everywhere, regardless of whether the almighty evil government kills everyone they find out has attempted it. Read the perpetual motion article. There was a huge thread somewhere where some guy got the bright idea to use a magnetron in an internal combustion engine. It would heat up the water in the chamber to steam, which would push the piston, which would provide power to the magnetron.  :-) - Omegatron 02:48, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

Here it is:

http://www.eskimo.com/~bilb/freenrgl/magnet.txt

hehehehe. *stocks up on water* - Omegatron 02:52, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

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Thanks for the great thread, Omegatron. That episode of 'The Lone Gunman' (a spin-off of the X-Files TV series) featured the inventor of the water fueled car, named Stan Miser, if I remember right. The thread you gave me started with the real life inventor of the water fuel cell and car that is fueled by water, named Stanley Meyer. So the episode was based on him. Stanley Meyer died about 1999 of food poisoning, some say, not a car explosion. Stanley Meyer has a video called It runs on Water showing the working demonstration of his invention. There are a few websites on the net about murdered scientists, listing them and the year they died suddenly, with the theory that they are all killed by organized crime with investments in oil. In the book The Free-Energy Device Handbook, I believe it talks about murdered inventors too. 62 inventors have been murdered in the U.S. alone. They all invented working alternatives to oil. My father confirms the inventor hits. He says they are intimidated, sued, bought out, or extorted first. If those methods don't work, murder is next. Hitman exist - not only in the movies...

Why aren't we all driving around in water-fueled cars? Because the inventors who own the patents keep getting killed. And the oil companies or car manufacturers buy the patents from the grieving family often, for pennies of what the patents are worth. The financially struggling families are more likely to sell out than the inventor father with a vision of a water-fueled world. If we were all driving water-fueled cars, the oil companies would lose billions. It's economicly efficient to pay a street hitman $1,000 to kill an inventor, rather than lose $ billions. Or pay off the government in a million $ of donations per year to side with the oil companies against the inventor. This is a good example of why campaign contributions are so bad to the country. The oil companies bought out the controlling car manufacturer companies' stock. So the oil companies ordered the car manufacturers not to build cars that run on water, ethanol, steam, or anything else but oil. Anything that burns can be used as fuel. Hydrogen is a gas that burns.

When Americans buy gas at the pump, 15 cents of each dollar the customer pays for gas is used by oil shieks to build terrorist schools & buy weapons in the Middle East. if you really wanted to fight an effective war against terror, you would stop buying oil from nations that finacially sponsor terrorist schools and weapons. The U.S. would boycott oil from Saudi Arabia (most of the 9/11 terrorists on the planes were Saudis) and buy more oil from canada, and other countries, that now supply more oil collectively to the USA than the Middle East. Saddam was an oil shiek, and so is Osama Bin Laden's family. There is organized crime in the USA too, related to oil. ExxonMobil has human rights violations over the years (see anti-Exxon sites). Murder changes history. Only a handful of scientists invented everything: Ben Franklin, Edison, Nikola Tesla, (light & electricity), etc. If they were killed before they spread their inventions to the public, we would be reading by candle light now, instead of on a computer. what if Jesus, Buddha, Mohammhed, Hitler, Karl Marx were killed before the fruition of their creations? None of the major world religions would exist. paganism exisited for 1,000s of years with little to no change. Change only happens when an individual wakes up one morning and turns an idea to reality. And there are very few people like that in the world. if they are killed, civilization is paralyzed for the next 20, 50, 100, or 1,000 years until the next one comes along. Invention is not group-inspired. It is self-inspired.

The steam car on the thread link did work, just not very well. That can be expected for a first try. He only has to refine it now. It workes perfectly on his modified steam powered lawn mower, but not so well on his car, because of multiple steam pressure leaks. The fact that it ran on water at all, is a miracle of science!

1. I don't like the way the oil companies do business either, and I wouldn't be surprised if they turn a blind eye to human rights violations that further their business. However, just the fact that a man who makes extraordinary claims died under suspicious circumstances doesn't mean that his claims are suddenly validated.
2. "Only a handful of scientists invented everything: Ben Franklin, Edison, Nikola Tesla" - That's not true at all. Many many people contributed to every invention we use today. They all built on inventions and discoveries by others before them. Just because a few high-profile inventors took the credit for something doesn't mean they came up with it all by themselves. Read the Thomas Edison article; he ran a laboratory that employed many inventors, and filed the patents under his own name, only sometimes sharing the credit. How many people contributed to the design of the computer you are using to write this?
3. The only point that is really relevant: You seem to describe a device that, when a quantity of water (at STP?) is input, outputs the same amount of water (at STP) plus a net release of energy. If such a device really exists, it breaks the theories of thermodynamics and conservation of energy that have been shown to be true over and over again. Every scientific theory is falsifiable, and if this example falsifies it, fine. But such an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence. Perhaps these devices that seem to work are tapping into some unknown source of energy that would revolutionize our existence and drastically alter the theories of physics, in which case the information is already out there (just check the web!) and someone somewhere would be able to create a simple demonstration based on the same principles without being caught by the evil evil conspirators. More likely, there is another source of energy that is simply being overlooked. (Perhaps the input water is physically above the output water, and we're just seeing an elaborate conversion of gravitational potential energy.) If you want to contribute something about it to the Wikipedia, that's fine, but if it hasn't been shown by a large consensus of people to be a working, thoroughly tested device, then it has to be presented as such.

Hero worship, martyrdom, and elaborate conspiracy theories have no place in science. Skepticism is paramount. My opinion is that the best approach is to try to genuinely convince yourself that the exact opposite of what you currently believe is the truth. There's no reason not to: If what you currently believe is sound, it will stand up to any (fair) test. If it is not, a test will only bring the sum of your knowledge one step closer to the truth. - Omegatron 15:19, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

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This has to be the longest talk page on Wikipedia! A handful of inventors provide the initial idea or spark, while a legion of engineers develop that spark, inspired by it. If Ben Franklin didn't fly that kite during the storm, dicovering electricity, the other inventors after him would not be aware that electrical inventions are possible. Inventions happen in spurts. For 1,000s of years, no one invented much, in comparison to the last 100 years. It's not hero worship. It's the sudden realization of one brain. Anyone can invent, but few do, because they simply didn't think of it, nor did the right experiment.

Over-unity is when more energy comes out than goes in. I'm not saying the water fuel cell can do that. Even if it works, it can't break the laws of physics. The inventors of these devices aren't saying that either. They've been misinterpreted by others who get too excited. The explanation is much more mundane. The inventor says his device creates free ($0) electricity or fuel or both. This means you can make your own electricity or fuel, or get it from nature, so you can skip paying your electric bills or buying gasloine. You can buy solar panels now and turn solar radiation into electricity to power your home. Is a solar panel and over-unity device? No. A water-fueled car and other such suppressed inventions are like the solar panel: they just haven't reached the market due to politics as usual. It's the old 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine' thing that makes 'politician' a dirty word to many. The govenment's not evil, just stuck in old political traditions that go back to the politics of ancient Rome. Jefferson and Washington didn't want political parties when they helped to found America, because they knew that the old politics, money, power struggles, and quarrels between parties would inevitabley follow. If you really think politics are honest now, you are not taking into account human nature's weaknesses. These weaknesses (esp. greed) are part of what it is to be human. We haven't evolved at all physically scince ancient times. Just because you can control your greed, doesn't mean other can, nor want to. Most college boys don't know this because they've never had to survive on the streets. The view of ugly human nature is best viewed when you are at the bottom of civilization's social ladder. The view is best at the bottom.

Gathering energy from the sun for less money than the initial investment is certainly "free energy", and scientifically sound. Gathering energy from a conversion of water into water is dubious. You can present something that is dubious on wikipedia (you are encouraged to, in fact), but it has to be labeled as such, and will of course attract criticisms. - Omegatron

All substances contain trapped electrons. Heating, evaporating, or digesting a substance frees these electrons into the air. Water is a substance. Electricity is made of electrons.

Removing electrons from a substance would require an input of energy. Also, it would make whatever you were removing electrons from highly charged. Are you saying the water going into the engine has a different number of electrons than the water coming out? - Omegatron

The confusuion comes when people think $0 cost energy means free energy means over-unity means perpetual motion. Free energy in physics is not the same as free energy $0 financially. You can get free electricity from the sun through solar panels. When you drink water from a mountain spring, you are getting free water, without paying a water bill. Many say 'Why pay for water, when over 75% of the world is covered with water?' The mountain spring is not breaking the laws of physics. With a $150 R/O Water Processor, anyone can turn ocean water into fresh water. You don't have to pay a monthly service charge for radio or non-cable TV. They are free ($0) too. If they are invented now, in the era of giant corporations and mergers, you would have to pay a monthly fee for radio and regular TV.

Television and radio are paid for by the products you buy after viewing advertisements.  :-) - Omegatron

So is cable TV and internet, but we still have to pay a monthly fee on top of that.

Heh. Good point. I don't even have a TV, and I pay for it through products, too, so I guess I get it the worst.  :-) - Omegatron

Electrons are floating around in the air, and in objects, and in everything we eat & drink. They are available and free to any who can figure out how to tap into them. Many say, 'Why pay for electricity and gas, when energy is all around us for free?' The free energy devices simply tap into and concentrate those free electrons, just as hydroelectric plants and other energy 'creating' generators do. A hydroelectric power plant doesn't actually 'create' energy. It gathers energy from the surrounding environment and focuses it. That's all power plants do. Energy can't be created nor destroyed.

Electrons are not energy. (Well, ignoring E=MC² and everything. But shh...) Energy of one form or another can be used to push electrons, which can be used to do work somewhere else, transferring energy from one place (and/or form) to another. - Omegatron

Electricity is made of electrons. Electricity is energy. Igniting hydrogen gas in the car's engine causes the hydrogen gas to explode. The shockwave of the explosion pushes the pistons, like in a traditional gasoline engine. This is how BMW's internal combustion engine works.

Here is a good site explaining the many different uses of the word "electricity": http://www.amasci.com/miscon/elect.html as well as a specific article about energy and electricity here: http://www.amasci.com/miscon/eleca.html#exist

The universe and physics itself don't care about money. How much money creates supernova? $0. Everything in nature runs for free. Our sun runs on hydrogen gas for free. Nature is blind to money. It can't be hired nor bribed by campaign contributions. Energy can't be created, so it's not pysically free, or in other words new. Free ($0) energy devices obey the laws of physics of the free ($0) universe, better than do gas engines and nuclear power plants. Gas will eventually be used up (finite resource). That's a physical law. Nuclear enegy creates deadly waste: Another fact people ignore. These can be replaced with energy generation that is free ($0), safe, and infinite. But oil and electric companies would lose all their profits. The laws of physics (nature-made) are ignored for profits (money is man-made), just as surely as deforrestation is for profits.

Anything that burns or can be digested, can be used as fuel. The H2O breaks up into H and O in your stomach, as your body digests food & water. The human body is a complex machine and the stomach and digestive tract is the fuel tank and engine. Your stomach is a gas cracker. The energy (electrons) released by the split of food and water molecules, is what powers the body's nerve signal electricity. If a person is starving, he/she loses energy and slows down like a toy with a weak battery.

I don't know the details, but I'm sure that any breaking of water into hydrogen and oxygen in the human body requires a large input of energy, as it would elsewhere. I believe energy for nerve cells comes from ATP, just like everything else, but I could be wrong about this; I'm not an expert. - Omegatron 13:15, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

The ATP molecule multiplies food's energy x16, like a living transformer. Stomach acid and beneficial bacteria living in the stomach dissolve food and water, causing the electron bridges to collapse, releasing some H and O gas. Bacterial activity gives off gases and heat this way.

How does it "multiply" energy? Wouldn't this create something out of nothing? - Omegatron 19:17, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Removed section

I removed the following paragraph:

"In the future, oil wells will be completely depleted, leaving no conventional source of gasoline on this planet. Hydrogen, ethanol, shale, refined tar, and other fuel alternatives (see Renewable energy) will take the place of gasoline in cars. Today, rising gas prices show that the shortage is beginning. When the rising price of gas gets high enough, the hydrogen car will become more attractive and marketable."

This is problematic for a number of reasons. First of all, Wikipedia is not in the business of predicting the future: while it is almost certain that oil deposits (not "wells", which are used to tap the deposits) will be depleted at some point in the future, and that gas prices will rise, we cannot say whether this will make hydrogen fuel more marketable, or whether some other form of alternate fuel, or even alternate transportation, will have come along by that time. Second, rising gas prices do not show that the oil shortage is beginning; the pump price of gasoline depends on any number of factors besides the availability of oil. Third, the paragraph was under the heading "Hydrogen internal combustion," despite the fact that it deals with the desirability of hydrogen fuel in general without any specific relevance to the internal combustion engine.--Cholling 20:59, 17 May 2005 (UTC)