Hydrogen Engines

[andytk]

Following on form the very informative Turbo Vs Supercharging thread I though I'd post this link.

If ,like me, you have a passing interest in hydrogen as a fuel then this will interest you

www.ott.doe.gov/otu/field_ops/pdfs/fcm03r0.pdf

I personally believe that hydrogen could go a long way as a fuel. More sophisticated storage systems are coming into being every day.
At the moment Metal Hydrides can store up to 2% their own weight in hydrogen. There is also research being done into nano tubes and so on.
At the moment fuel cells aren't up to much and even if they are there are no gains in mass producing them due to most of the cost being material costs (platinum etc).
I reckon the transition will be done using IC engines (if only cos the public know and love them)
Just hope that it happens in my lifetime (and I'll still get to play with the last generation of the big petrol burning V8s before they are consigned to the history books forever)

So anyway what are peoples thoughts on hydrogen buring engines.

Andy

[andytk]

Yup, you are, as always correct GreenV8S.

The truth is though as soon as oil runs out we're all buggered cos there is no alternative.

I don't think that nuclear power could power everything from house heating to domestic consumption AND provide power to produce all the hydrogen we'd need for current car consumption.

The only real solution is a really multi pronged attack on resources. Massive efforts into recyling and using every single bio resource to produce different fuels. From ethanol, bio oils, and renewables everything will have to be done to continue our current energy consumption.
To be honest I'm not sure it can be done.
If you look at the consumption per head of capita in western countries it would take a massive effort to get the energy from anything other than fossil fuels.

It really depends if it will manifest itself as a problem in my lifetime.
We will see.

Andy

[andytk]

incorrigible said: Alcohol is the way forward, we can still have huge V8s that way

Alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all lifes problems

Yup I also think that this is the way forward if oil supplies are cut off in the medium term.

Problem is that I don't think its possible to produce enought biomass to ferment/distill into fuel grade ethanol for the whole of the worlds current fuel consumption.
So in the long term when oil runs out or becomes too expensive/rare to burn in a car then alcohol will be in short supply.

By the way does anyone know if you can purchase fuel grade ethanol in this country and if so how much?

Andy

[andytk]

lx993 said: Fermenting biomass to get ethanol is one way of doing it, but I'm pretty sure you could use genetically modified bacteria to produce either ethanol or methanol.

Don't some south american countries use alcohol as the main fuel for cars? Thought I read it somewhere.

Yup Brazil did this for a long time. The idea was to ensure that the country wasn't in the grip of international oil prices and to provide mass employment in farming areas. Millions of vehicles were built to run on ethanol and for a long time it worked.
However the producers of ethanol got a bit stroppy and started to up the price and at the same time oil prices started to drop and the program dissapeared up its own arse in a short period of time.
There is still ethanol vehicles in Brazil but not as many as there were.
Also the whole program was running under heavy subsidy to keep the ethanol competitive with petrol. Bearing in mind that petrol is really cheap in Brazil compared with the UK.
I reckon that ethanol could be sold here profitably due to the high pump price of petrol.

And by the way fermenting IS a bacterial process carried out on biomass. The only thing genetically modified bacteria could do is slightly increase the yield.
A more interesting approach is to use forms of acid to break down cellulose (otherwise known as recyled paper) to produce feedstocks for fermenting processes.
This means you could feasably recycle paper into car fuel.

I don't know enough about 'ultracapacitors' - I will do some research right now - but surely this must show hydrogen IC engines as a dead end??

This all depends on the ultracapacitors. I don't see them being any better than batteries cos at the end of the day they store electrical energy as chemical energy. Batteries/capacitors are big, heavy, expensive and need replacing (ergo cause toxic waste) every three years or so. Plus batteries aren't all that efficient. Although capacitors may be a lot better, I don't know.

And at the end of the day no leccy motor is every going to sound as good as a big ol V8.

Andy

[andytk]

haha

Like most pistonhead threads this ones managed to mutate into a totally different debate. This time about anti matter Vs fusion

However neither is likely in the near term so its back to hydrogen (maybe?) and possibly renewable carbon based fuels (ethanol, bio methane) for the time being.

Although I have no stance on the whole fusion/anti matter debate all I can say that fission is almost guarantee to become reality before anti matter collection from space.
At the moment NASA has enough problems simply getting shuttles back from space let alone anti matter.

Besides didn't someone somewhere develop cold fusion or am I just imagining things now.

Andy