Why not use hydrogen.....?

Why cant we use engines that burn hydrogen for cars, turbines, etc? Instead of fuel that would pollute the enviroment? Engines have been created like that burn hydrogen. We could separate it from water in order to use it.

[edit on 24-6-2004 by AD5673]

It's right around the corner, stay tuned and keep researching you will find that it's being worked on now. Hybrid cars are the first step in that direction and they are already on the market. I heard about a month or two ago about some gas stations are getting some market test upgrades to handle hydrogen fuel. If I run across the link I'll post it in the thread.

Here's a few links:

news.nationalgeographic.com...

www.cnn.com...

4hydrogen.com...

-Muzz

cars since they were invented have used various forms of fuels....steam power, electricity (both of these go way back to the beginning of cars actually, electric cars are far from a new concept) but gas powered engines seemed to give people the most reliability and the most bang for their buck.

so gasoline powered cars were "it" for cars. since gas powered engines were widely accepted as the primary engine of choice entire industries and economies revolved about oil based products and gasoline. hydrogen technology when gas powered engines took root was pretty much more or less considered an art than a science. we now know lots of benefits to hydrogen as well as being able to produce it.

the fact of the matter is gas was used as a matter of convenience and reliability. hydrogen is still not produced in large quanities as gas still is and while it is gaining popularity its going to be awhile before the auto makers make the switch.

BTW a regular internal combustion engine can run on hydrogen with slight tweaking. that tweaking of course isnt cheap but it is fairly easy to do. cost being another factor in all of this. so its not like engines need a great deal of reworking and retooling in order to make the switch.

as for turbines...i cant comment on, i only went to school to learn about cars and gas powered engines, not turbines. i dont think ASE has a category for turbines yet even though they DO have certifications for natural and compressed gas based engines. (doesnt include hydrogen at the moment)

Well shouldnt government try to invest money to start hydrogen powered cars, and have scientists work on making everything that runs on fuel to switch to hydrogen. Hydrogen burns better, and produces more force that fuel.

Originally posted by AD5673
Well shouldnt government try to invest money to start hydrogen powered cars, and have scientists work on making everything that runs on fuel to switch to hydrogen. Hydrogen burns better, and produces more force that fuel.

the government shouldnt have any role in this. should it encourage this? sure but the government takes enough of our money already and auto makers as well as oil companies are putting money into researching this. i think we should encourage less governmental involvement, it seems whatever they dip their hand in turns to crap. think of it as the opposite of the midas touch.

we shouldnt run to the government everytime there's a problem or a perceived problem. government isnt always the answer AD

Originally posted by AD5673
Why cant we use engines that burn hydrogen for cars, turbines, etc? Instead of fuel that would pollute the enviroment? Engines have been created like that burn hydrogen.

We could, and there are initiatives in place to make this a reality.

One problem is that it takes more energy to creat elemental hydrogen and distrubute it than you can utilize from it's combustion. Therefore - in order to have a truly clean "hydrogen economy" you must have a similarly clean (ie nuclear) way to produce the energy needed to creat the hydrogen in the first place (the easiest way is to seperate it from water or hydrocarbons).

Originally posted by AD5673
Why cant we use engines that burn hydrogen for cars, turbines, etc? Instead of fuel that would pollute the enviroment? Engines have been created like that burn hydrogen.

I'll let you in on the big secret why.

It takes thousands of times more energy to create the Hydrogen for the purposes you ask than it does to pump oil out of the ground.

Rough from memory combustion of gasoline releases about 43kJ of energy.

The breaking of the hydrogen bonds in water releases about 283kJ of energy.

That is a fact of almost 4.

Now throw in the fact that pumping oil is a natural process, all you need is to drill a little, and the disparity between the energy consumption grows significantly.

Why does the energy matter?

Well you have to create the hydrogen and then you have to recombine it with Oxygen to form water which in turn releases energy.

In short, Hydrogen is a better fuel source than Oil.

But neither Hydrogen nor Oil are fuel sources.

Do you understand so far?

Now roughly, take the energy our economy (The United States) produces right now, and times that by four.

Do you see now how the pollution begins to go up?

Until we develope cold fusion, Hydrogen as a fuel is impossible. We will have to put significantly more energy into creating it than we would regain in burning it or using it in a fuel cell.

Everyone else in this thread is just wrong and should take science classes before playing scientists.

Taking a Public Policy class can't hurt either, it helps you to understand how to find "unintended effects".

For instance, your effect is to reduce car pollution from emissions.

The unintended consequence is more pollution created by power-plants to produce the new fuel source.

Sorry to burst your bubbles.

Oh except starwars don't think I forgot about you...he's told you the problem, but didn't explain it enough.

The problem is actually such that we can't solve it UNTIL we invent fusion power plants. Nuclear Power doesn't produce enough energy for how much fuel would be consumed in a Hydrogen economy.

Remember about 75% of all our energy goes to producing alluminum so if you REALLY want to start moving away from oil, you have to start recycling...not start with an alternate fuel source.

Well there is always biodielsel(which is just hitting the Toronto market as we speak), and scientist are always looking for new sources of hydrogen and one was just discovered just in the 90s. It's ...... GM Algea that emits hydrogen when it photosynthsizes.
Pondscum Power

If we really had incentive to reduce our dependance on Oil all we would need to do is develope Tidal, Wind, Solar and Geothermal. All of which combined is more than enough energy for our needs for potentially 100s of years. Unfortunately there is little political will to make this happen

On the fusion side there is some new hope. That hope is Sonofusion, or Tabletop Fusion whatever you wanna call it(And ITER is a political football right now so no real reasearch is gonna be done on that front for a while). And there are all these supposed ZPE/Coldfusion/PM devices floating around the net(some of which do produce power goto JLN Labs he has been doing alot of work trying to replicate all sorts of devices that physics say are impossible. One of which is
Bingofuel check it out)

PrankMonkey, although I respect your desire to not have your gov't spend more of your tax dollars, if it were spent in a Manhattan like project where they spend tens of billions of dollars just for the sole purpose of making the Hydrogen Economy a reality, it would be much better spent by the Gov't that way then the way it currently is. And BTW industry is only spending on research because the HAVE to. It's in their best interests now. If we would have made the commitment to switch back in the 80s we would be well into the early stages of the hydrogen economy right now IMHO.

Yeah - guys, we don't 'burn' Hydrogen for energy. That's.. just not smart.

As FreeMason said, it is Hydrogen atoms joining with Oxygen that do it, and when that pure energy is released we grab it - it isn't like we're taking motion and harnessing it, we're taking pure energy and directing it.

There's also a way to perform electrolysis where you put in a basic non-ferride, aluminum was used, water, and some other chemical - the reaction and electrolysis completes immediately with no energetic input - I wish I could remember this better. It was discovered by a Canadian in Nova Scotia, who dropped out of his high school science class and never learned why what he was doing shouldn't work, he thought it should, tried it, and found that it did. He now has a number of patents regarding the process, and is talking to major companies. This would allow for storage of water tanks instead of hydrogen, making hydrogen power far safer, as well as more viable.

I know it shouldn't work - I have yet to learn why it does. It was in the newspaper a year or so ago and I never heard much more.. Pity.

Originally posted by Viendin
Yeah - guys, we don't 'burn' Hydrogen for energy. That's.. just not smart.

As FreeMason said, it is Hydrogen atoms joining with Oxygen that do it, and when that pure energy is released we grab it - it isn't like we're taking motion and harnessing it, we're taking pure energy and directing it.

There's also a way to perform electrolysis where you put in a basic non-ferride, aluminum was used, water, and some other chemical - the reaction and electrolysis completes immediately with no energetic input - I wish I could remember this better. It was discovered by a Canadian in Nova Scotia, who dropped out of his high school science class and never learned why what he was doing shouldn't work, he thought it should, tried it, and found that it did. He now has a number of patents regarding the process, and is talking to major companies. This would allow for storage of water tanks instead of hydrogen, making hydrogen power far safer, as well as more viable.

I know it shouldn't work - I have yet to learn why it does. It was in the newspaper a year or so ago and I never heard much more.. Pity.

By definition "Hydrogen atoms joining with Oxygen that do it, and when that pure energy is released we grab it " is combustion. So yes, "burning" hyrdrogen is an accurate statement. Even (hydrogen) fuel cells technicall combust hydrogen, although they do it in a different system than a conventional combustion based engine..

Consider also "Vested Interest." Oil companies and car manufacturers are not going to choose to be environmentalist, it costs them a lot of cash and R&D. There are tons of opportunities to create alternate fuels and clean of the environment, but it all costs too much for the people holding all the cards. The only way to change them is to force them to change.

The American SUV craze shows me well enough that the average citizen does not care about the environment more than they care about their personal convenience. It is currently very profitable and convenient to destroy the environment, so people will continue to do so.

--J1m

Originally posted by FreeMason
The breaking of the hydrogen bonds in water releases about 283kJ of energy.

No, hydrogen "stores" that much energy when bond is breaken and when hydrogen is burned it releases that same amount of energy which was required to break that bond.


And if there isn't any public pressure to develop cleaner energy sources, then it won't happen because oil industry has lot of money and power (who sponsored Bush's campaing?) and alternate energy sources would take away those.

It's just wishful thinking I hate to say. This article gives a good reason as to why:

www.fromthewilderness.com...

Sorry for my stupidness!! But I meant separating hydrogen from water, not creating it.

[edit on 24-6-2004 by AD5673]

Wrong Starwars50, I don't know what it is called off the top of my head when Hydrogen bonds with oxygen in a Fuel Cell, but it is not combustion.

Combustion requires oxygen, fuel and heat to form water and carbon-dioxide.

So like CH4 + 2O2 ---(heat)---> CO2 + 2H2O

That is combustion (right? I'm no longer a chemist for a good reason )

But anyways, I did mis-state the reaction.

2H2 + O2 ---> 2H2O releases 283kJ or about that...it is exothermic. Hence getting energy from a fuel cell.

The breaking down of 2waters to form 2H2 for fuel is endothermic requiring electrolysis taking the exact ideal amount that you would get from the endothermic reaction.

Because no reaction is ideal however, it might take some more energy to pull it off.

And because no reaction is ideal, it will give less energy for use than it takes to recombine.

That is, it may release 283kJ or abouts that, but you might only use some 200kJ or more realistically, 100kJ.

So you are losing a great deal of efficiency no matter what, which means MASSIVE power plants to create this fuel source.

That is why Hydrogen until fusion power is a boon-doggle, and why no one is really buying into it.

What is going on now, is Oil companies are researching the technology so when Oil runs out, or when fusion becomes available, they can SWIFTLY make a switch and thus begin profiting from it.

If they invested in it now it would take a lot more time effort and money, and remember all things follow the path of least resistance.

I am kind of surprised that noone has even mentioned the possiblity of breaking deutrium into Hydrogen ions which should in turn rebond into stable Hydrogen. Making (to K.I.S.S.) hydrogen has never been an issue.
Creating a light weight engine that could do just that and produce enough excess power/torque to drive a mass produced vehicle is the challenge.
Just a thunk, could electrolysis of oxygenated water(2-H�O / O�) produce stable hydrogen(H�) and ozone(O3)(sorry no superscript for 3...) as a by-product? It's been awhile since I have worked with electrochemistry, but it seems reasonable that it would work.

Aren't we missing the point hydrogen is almost free energy,it will never be allowed in pure form only hybrids, there is the law of supply and demand
"the united states goverment demands money,and cuts off the head of anyone or thing that may inhibit the supply of that to them.The us has to much invested in fossil fuels both politically and monetarily.

Originally posted by Orangemonkey
and cuts off the head of anyone or thing that may inhibit the supply of that to them.

This is a very intresting way to language this inlight of what has happen overseas.

I agree, we are tring to take all the oil now, why would your goverment let something else come in after working so hard and spending so much money and lives?


[edit on 24-6-2004 by SpittinCobra]