better than biofuel

[Negru Valea]

Hi all


http://peswiki.com/index.php/PowerPedia:United_Nuclear_Hydrogen_Fuel_System_Kit

I can see a very promising take up of this system!!!!!
This makes so much sence since we do not have to buy new cars!!!!!!

[Rob Beckers]

The concept is certainly interesting, and I can see that a reqular gasoline engine can quite easily be converted to run on H2. After all, I have a forklift sitting outside that runs on both gasoline and propane. It'll take a lot of H2 though to get anywhere, since it's a very energy-poor storage medium.

Let's take a step back and look at the claim that he has a system that uses a few solar panels to produce enough hydrogen in 3 days to run a car on for 450 miles. So how many Watts in solar panels would that require?

Say we have a medium efficient car, that gets 23 miles to the gallon (a Honda Accord will do that), so those 450 miles would require 19.6 gallons of gasoline. A gallon of gas contains on average 114,000 BTU of energy, so that makes a total of 19.6 * 114,000 = 2,234,400 BTU.

The car will have to get that same amount of energy out of H2, and one will have to put at least that much energy into the process of making H2. In fact, it'll take more energy to produce the H2, but for now we'll assume it's perfectly efficient. 2,234,400 BTU is equivalent to 655 kWh, so that is what is needed from the solar panels in 3 sunny days.

Let's assume this is in a very sunny place, the Nevada dessert for example, where the summer solar resource is just about 7 sun-hours per day. So in 3 * 7 = 21 hours we need 655 kWh, that makes 655 / 21 = 31 kW in solar panels.

That's a lot of solar panels! In fact, getting that installed is going to run a tab of around $280,000. Not exactly cheap gas...

-RoB-

[Negru Valea]

Hi rob here is a kit i found for H2 production. In terms of storage there are materials call Hydrides that absorb Hydrogen like a sponge absorbs water. Typically, the tanks are filled with granulated Hydrides, and Hydrogen is pressurized into the material. Hydrides have many advantages over liquid & gas. One is that the density of the Hydrogen stored in the Hydride can be GREATER than that of liquid Hydrogen.

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/h2homesystem.pdf

Also if water is the issue then http://www.konia.com.au/water_generators/

:p

[Joe Blake]

I don't see why water should be an issue. I've had a water condenser similar to the one shown on the link for over a year now, and even the smallest one (which I have) consumes 450 watts. I intend to eventually run it off solar power, but at present, even under good conditions, just taking into account electricity (from the grid) it costs somewhere between $.02 and $.05 per litre to produce, which, whilst far cheaper than buying the "spring" water in the shops (sometimes $2 per litre) it seems to be just double handling, and certainly a significant extra cost to making H2.

I would have thought a "double edged" solution would be to take water which is otherwise useless through toxicity or salinity or whatever, and use that. Since the exhaust from a H2 powered engine is mostly water, why not collect that and then use it in the garden?

Apparently it isn't difficult to convert a petrol engine to run on H2, but as Rob points out, there's a fairly high overhead cost in producing the H2.

http://www.gizmag.com/honda-fuel-cell-fcx/8394/

http://www.gizmag.com/go/8236/

A couple of links with some discussion of the pro's and con's of H2 as a fuel and also electric versus internal combustion engines.

My electric trike needs approximately $200 worth of solar panels to keep it charged enough for me to ride it every couple of days. If I wished to use it more often I'd probably be looking at buying another set of batteries that would be charging up whilst I was riding, rather than buying more PV cells, since whilst I'm riding, I can't recharge the batteries effectively.

I assembled the whole system myself for zero cost (just my time) and there is very little danger, since we're talking 24 volts and 24 A/H of battery power.

Making a home-brew H2 system has many pitfalls, monetary, safety etc, but no doubt there is more than approach to using H2 so I'll keep my eyes on the screen.

Joe

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Negru,

What I was trying to point out is that it is not so easy to produce the amount of hydrogen required to run a car. In particular, the author of first link you posted has a line in there about cost being 'virtually zero' when renewable energy sources are used, and something about supplying wind and solar energy sources with the kit for making hydrogen. My post showed just how much renewable energy it would take in the form of PV panels (and it takes at least that many, I was assuming 100% efficiency in converting water to hydrogen and an unrealistically sunny location).

I have no issue with the availability of water or storage of hydrogen. In fact, I'm glad to see that hydrides may offer a way to store enough H2 to make it useful. That solves one large problem. It is just that when an author makes casual remarks about how easy it is to produce your own hydrogen, when a little engineering shows that to be a gross misrepresentation of fact, one may wonder about the accuracy of the rest of what this author has to say...

-RoB-

[Sean Skirvin]

I think the most important thing that Rob pointed out is how much energy is wasted with an internal combustion engine, and steel construction. If we are to trust the Aptera website, their 2 seat, 3 wheel, composite "car" gets 120 miles on a 10KWH charge. If you math it out, even per seat the Aptera uses 7.5 times less energy than the Accord, and how often do you have 5 people in an Accord? Which I think is a testament to a good aerodynamic design, the low weight of an all composite construction, and the terrible losses involved with the modern internal combustion engine.

p.s. I do not work for, nor am I in any way connected to the Aptera company, etc. etc. etc.

[Joe Blake]

I think the most important thing that Rob pointed out is how much energy is wasted with an internal combustion engine...

Harvesting "waste" heat from the ICE.

http://www.gizmag.com/go/4936/


Joe

[Sean Skirvin]

Harvesting "waste" heat from the ICE.


You can leave out the "air quotes", aside from what is used for heating the car, it is waste.

Good link though.

[Negru Valea]

Harvesting "waste" heat from the ICE.

http://www.gizmag.com/go/4936/


Joe

Again hello everyone,
Joe thanks for this great link, this is exactly what i would prefer to see in the short term, easy set up and ingenious idea that could be aplied to all ice vehicles. I understand that H2 production is challenging but nothing great is easy.....:)

[Joe Blake]

You can leave out the "air quotes", aside from what is used for heating the car, it is waste.


Yup. Perhaps I should have put WASTE heat.

;)

Joe

[Negru Valea]

The concept is certainly interesting, and I can see that a reqular gasoline engine can quite easily be converted to run on H2. After all, I have a forklift sitting outside that runs on both gasoline and propane. It'll take a lot of H2 though to get anywhere, since it's a very energy-poor storage medium.

Let's take a step back and look at the claim that he has a system that uses a few solar panels to produce enough hydrogen in 3 days to run a car on for 450 miles. So how many Watts in solar panels would that require?

Say we have a medium efficient car, that gets 23 miles to the gallon (a Honda Accord will do that), so those 450 miles would require 19.6 gallons of gasoline. A gallon of gas contains on average 114,000 BTU of energy, so that makes a total of 19.6 * 114,000 = 2,234,400 BTU.

The car will have to get that same amount of energy out of H2, and one will have to put at least that much energy into the process of making H2. In fact, it'll take more energy to produce the H2, but for now we'll assume it's perfectly efficient. 2,234,400 BTU is equivalent to 655 kWh, so that is what is needed from the solar panels in 3 sunny days.

Let's assume this is in a very sunny place, the Nevada dessert for example, where the summer solar resource is just about 7 sun-hours per day. So in 3 * 7 = 21 hours we need 655 kWh, that makes 655 / 21 = 31 kW in solar panels.

That's a lot of solar panels! In fact, getting that installed is going to run a tab of around $280,000. Not exactly cheap gas...

-RoB-

i believe that electrolysis is more dependand on voltage rather than current (watts)

http://www.heliocentris.com/uploads/tx_ttproducts/datasheet/20070409_Datasheet_HG30.pdf
;)

[Joe Blake]

i believe that electrolysis is more dependand on voltage rather than current (watts)

http://www.heliocentris.com/uploads/tx_ttproducts/datasheet/20070409_Datasheet_HG30.pdf
;)

Hi Negru,

Current is measured in amps, and what Rob was indicating was that the total power (watts - or in his example, Kilowatts) is the important figure. Power is obtained by multiplying volts x amps, which results in watts or VA (Volt-Amps). So a power supply delivering 12 volts at 5 amps will be producing 60 watts, and a power supply delivering 6 volts at 10 amps will also be delivering 60 watts, the same amount of power.

Your brochure you've linked to indicates that the HG30 can be used at either 120 Volts AC or 240 Volts AC but consumes 260 V-A, regardless of which voltage it works off. (The 50/60 Hz is fairly meaningless in this context).

From reading the brochure, I've got no doubt that the machine will deliver hydrogen, but the amount of power this would create would be fairly minimal. As indicated previously, my tricycle has a 200 watt motor, so in theory 260 V-A would power my tricycle with a tiny amount of power left over.

In terms of kilowatt hours, if the H2 genny was run for 1 hour, it would consume a 260 watt-hours (the usual measure for charging for power off the grid). This means that if I had 200 watt-hours of power available, I could run my tricycle (200 watts) for 1 hour, or I could run a 20 watt motor for 10 hours.

Figures are watt it's all about (sorry about the pun).

Joe