Running a car on water..

[neon_spork]

If someone can explain how you obtain more energy from burning the Hydrogen & Oxygen than it takes to break the bonds in the first place, then you've got youself a Nobel prize

Given that energy cannot be created or destroyed, the start point is the same as the end point, water, and no process can be more than 100% efficient, where does the energy to run an engine come from?

I'm not denying you can run a car on water, just that you would require more energy input than you would get out, so you may as well just have a electric car to start with. At least that would be more efficient.

Exacly, the first law of thermodynamics says that energy cannot be created or destroyed thus it will take just as much energy to make the hydrogen and O2 as you will get from burning it.

The second law covers the fact that no process can be 100% efficient and thus it will always take more energy to split the H2O in to it's constituants than you will get from combusting them.

[pc]

You forgot the 3rd law, A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Couldn't resist

[barryogen]

There are a heap of unused oil fields, a lot of them were left alone as they were deemed to be too expensive to extract the oil, some of those field are being used now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands

Oil sands may represent as much as 2/3 of the world's total petroleum resource, with at least 1.7 trillion barrels (270 km³) in the Canadian Athabasca Oil Sands and perhaps 235 billion barrels of extra heavy crude in the Venezuelan Orinoco tar sands [2], compared to 1.75 trillion barrels (278 km³) of conventional oil worldwide, most of it in Saudi Arabia and other Middle-Eastern countries.

thats a lot of oil by any standards.

[stalker]

Canada have been processing it for a few years now...they just kept it quiet so that the Americans dont start a war with them to take it over

[Lloyd]

yes H bomb is a bit different, however hydrogen exploding is much like the hindenburg. catastrophic.

The hindenburg didn't explode from the hydrogen, it was the skin that covered it all that caught fire cause its really flammable

Yes and no. The static cause the hydrogen that was leaking to catch fire which melted the skins which in turn released more gas that caught fire etc

They made a replica of this on Myth Busters last night, and it definitly looked like a combination of the two(gas and skin).

As for what ignited it, they never went into it, but they had previous ships struck by lightning that didn't blow up, so static seems unlikely. There was a gun with an empty shell found in the wreckage though.


Incidentally, the Thermite covered hindenburg burned like a mother-fcuker

Was when they came down and actually linked the beast to the ground that the static built up on the ship became an issue as I remember from the doco on it

[frost]

Canada have been processing it for a few years now...they just kept it quiet so that the Americans dont start a war with them to take it over

just you wait, im sure the bush family can arrange something.

the way i see it is, the only "free" energy is solar,
china has plans to build a few solar reflective plants in the goby desert,
the dutch plan to harness wave energy.
the English are building wind farms
U.S is invading more countries
NZ is building new coal burning power plants, NZ green my ass.

neon_spork has it on the nail, you cant get more out of what you put in, you get less, hydrogen= unsustainable because its only good untill power/fuel prices get to the point that its not cost effective to split the H2o.

and lets face it people, the only way out of this "globe worming" is nuclear!! or everyone in the world holding mirrors to reflect sun light for 5 hours a day.

[sergei]

There is plenty of free energy around: wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, hydro, etc.
The electrolysis process of water could be used as energy storage (hydrogen itself being energy carrier), but the process is very in-efficient (25-40%, we are far better to stick to batteries at this stage).
Obviously you cannot "burn" water.

[sergei]

"globe worming"

WORMS!!! is the globe full of WORMS???

[RomanV]

lol, I remember doing the 'split water into hydrogen and oxygen' thing back in 4th or 5th form at school.

[Lloyd]

I miss that cartoon

[Mr Revhead]

yeah isnt it funny

the greens are always harping on about not useing oil/coal/nuke etc

but they are the ones that are always against building greener options like hydo/wind/nuke.

[Dragger_Dan]

Don't forget, at the end of the day, it's not about science, it's about money and politics. 'Who Killed The Electric Car?' raises some interesting points. I'd recommend it to anybody here.

Here's my thoughts on the situation. Big oil companies don't care about the environment... it's not that they hate nature, it's just treated with indifference because to them the most important thing is making money for the shareholders.

Lots of 'crazy conspiracy nuts' claim that the oil companies are supressing technology to protect their profits. I tend to agree with this, but we must consider another possibility .... that the oil companies want to protect their profits into the forseeable future. I don't think they are supressing the technology, I think they are simply developing it further behind closed doors, with one thing in mind: when oil runs out, how will they protect their profits? Easy. Buy out any good ideas now to protect profits in the short term, sell these ideas when the oil runs out and protect profits in the long term.

This scares me a little ... I have a feeling that with the smart cookies we have in advertising and media these days that post oil dry-up we'll see headlines and ads like "BP develops miracle new technology that saves the world and gives us cheap reliable transport." Ok, so some of you may have trouble thinking that people will beleve this, but we are already seeing it... Governer Arnie and the BP sponsored hydrogen hummer. And don't forget how many people in the world probably think that Apple invented the MP3 player.

(On a side note to this, I had to laugh at an article on the news the other day. There was a manufaturers demonstration somewhere in Europe, telling people not to buy 'knock off' products because the profits fund terrorism, and manufacturing each product requires slave labour. This comes from manufactures such as Nike, who pay Tiger Woods more for his image than they pay their entire manufacturing staff, or Apple, who despite selling the iPod with Bono's humanitarian image, have horrible manufacturing plants crammed with low paid workers)

Anywho... my feeling on the situation is that yes, there will be an oil crisis, but no, there will not be a transport crisis. These people know what we want, they know how much we are willing to pay for it, and they can afford to make advertisments that will stay in people's heads far longer than Al Gore's powerpoint. Serial.

Sorry about the rant. It might seem a little far fetched to some but watch that movie and read around a bit... it's a very complicated topic when you look for other sources outside the newspapers and TV.

[RomanV]

I dont think the oil companies are worried about going out of buisness.

They're in the buisness of controlling energy resources, and still will be, what ever the future energy resource(s) will be.

For example if by some miracle hydrogen became viable... Who's gonna build hydrogen stations everywhere? The oil companies with billions of dollars to spend (and to lose) or some backyard mechanic?

[frost]

"globe worming"

WORMS!!! is the globe full of WORMS???

LOL
but that could be true too, there everywhere!!!

[barryogen]

incase anyone ever comes across this and thinks it works...
Heres a good little video with results of someone who installed one on Campbell Live. Their sudo science said it would work, I guess they were wrong.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/CampbellLive/tabid/367/articleID/64717/cat/84/Default.aspx