Wanting info on Hydrogen engine conversion

neon_spork · Post by **neon_spork** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:02 pm

Personally I think electic is the way to go also. The latest electric motors are really efficient. We just need energy storage technology to catch up. I was pricing up Lipo batteries to convert an MX5 to electric = atleast 10K of batteries for a 200Km range.

sergei · Post by **sergei** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:10 pm

neon_spork wrote:Personally I think electic is the way to go also. The latest electric motors are really efficient. We just need energy storage technology to catch up. I was pricing up Lipo batteries to convert an MX5 to electric = atleast 10K of batteries for a 200Km range.

That's because 1) it is not mass produced
2) the NiMH (which was mass produced) was made unavailable due to oil company holding the patent for the vehicle use.

neon_spork · Post by **neon_spork** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:10 pm

xsspeed wrote:the whole canadian oil sands thing keeps being thrown around, obviously an issue refining this, but I believe technology for it is there? was wondering what the quality of this oil is, and what can be refined/distilled (forgotten term) from it, as in short chain - long chain HC's

There are huge projects going on in the north of Canada as we speak by the likes of Shell. First phases will be largely complete with additional phases for the next six of so years atleast. They basically mine the oil sands, dilute the product with kero and pump it down long pipelines to refineries. Processed produces can be put on ships etc and distributed, maybe pipelined away.

The longer HC chains give a higher yield of the heavier products ie. more diesel than petrol and the residue(heavy waste products) can be cracked to produce even more jet/diesel. How ever if the refinery is set up for higher petrol production a cat cracker unit can increase the petrol yield from the residue.

neon_spork · Post by **neon_spork** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:12 pm

sergei wrote:
neon_spork wrote:Personally I think electic is the way to go also. The latest electric motors are really efficient. We just need energy storage technology to catch up. I was pricing up Lipo batteries to convert an MX5 to electric = atleast 10K of batteries for a 200Km range.

That's because 1) it is not mass produced
2) the NiMH (which was mass produced) was made unavailable due to oil company holding the patent for the vehicle use.

Lipo are used in laptops and phones now, hopefully we see the price come down.

fivebob · Post by **fivebob** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:21 pm

neon_spork wrote:How is reforming hydrocarbon A to hydrogen and then burning it better then burning hydrocarbon A in the first place?? I fail to see the benefit of a portable reformer.

The benefit is not one of efficiency it's one of usability. A liquid fuel has a greater energy density that a gasoeus one, and is also a lot easier to dispense/distribute

Aother downside which you have not considered, and probably quite a big one for those who are climate change adverse is that steam reforming produces two products... Hydrogen and CO2.

for example
CH4 + H20 > CO + 3H2
CH4H10+4H2O > 4CO + 9H2
CO + H2O > CO2 + H2

Yes, but that's no more CO2 than would be produced by burning the methane directly, so it's no worse off that we are currently, perhaps a little better off in terms of polution without the production of oxides of nitrogen form the infernal combustion engine.

neon_spork wrote:Right at this moment it's not so much that fossil fuels which are readily available are being held to ransom as that there is actually a world shortage of refining capacity. Specially for diesel and jetfuel.

How is the current oil price related to a restricted refining capacity, surely if you can't refine it then there is less demand for the crude oil in the first place and that should lower the price.

fivebob · Post by **fivebob** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:25 pm

neon_spork wrote:Lipo are used in laptops and phones now, hopefully we see the price come down.

Cost is not the only probelm, there are inherent safety issues with using LiPo cells, they tend to burst into flames if not charged correctly and currently have a much lower max charge and discharge rate the NiCd or NiMH cells. So you need more of them to get the same current draw and charging times are longer.

neon_spork · Post by **neon_spork** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:35 pm

Current crude oil price is high due to availabilty of spare crude production capicity but it is also driven by refining capicity. Also refining margins are extreemly high at the moment which doesn't help pump prices.

To explain how refining capicity effects crude prices i'm going to steal this extract from the bbc

"Low refinery capacity would at first suggest that oil prices should fall. After all, if there is no more space at refineries there will be surplus oil on the market waiting to be refined. So logically crude oil prices should fall.

But the oil market has no real mechanisms to make this happen.

It only has crude prices at one end and pump prices at the other to regulate demand.

As a result if refinery capacity is limited the price of crude will rise, as an incentive to reduce demand. The idea being that high pump prices kill demand for petrol, in turn lowering the price of crude."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4296812.stm

neon_spork · Post by **neon_spork** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:38 pm

fivebob wrote:
neon_spork wrote:Lipo are used in laptops and phones now, hopefully we see the price come down.

Cost is not the only probelm, there are inherent safety issues with using LiPo cells, they tend to burst into flames if not charged correctly and currently have a much lower max charge and discharge rate the NiCd or NiMH cells. So you need more of them to get the same current draw and charging times are longer.

haha yes they do, I have personally had one explode in front of me while it was charging. Fortunately I always leave them in a Pyrex bowel.

Dam thing started to smoke and while I was carrying the bowel outside thinking "This only happens in the movies right.." It started jetting out intense flames.

HZRDIZ · Post by **HZRDIZ** » Fri May 23, 2008 4:41 pm

Have any countries in the world actually run out of fuel or are on fuel rations so to speak?

They keep putting up the price because fuel is in high demand and it seems it's sold to the highest bidder which must mean someone misses out.

I may be completely missing the point here but broken down, thats really it isnt it? Someone correct my moron-ness if they have to...

sergei · Post by **sergei** » Fri May 23, 2008 4:54 pm

in my opinion fuel bubble will burst sooner or later, as there is no shortage of oil at all, and like diamonds the price on fuel is highly inflated unlike diamonds we can't live without oil. And unfortunately huge profits are not used to invest into newer technologies but instead used to build pointless cities in middle of desert, artificial island out of sand which need full time maintenance and pointless skyscrapers again in middle of $&#$% desert, also it is used to fuel wars and slaughter of million of innocent people (as well as put into starving and retarding the progress in places like Africa).

xsspeed · Post by **xsspeed** » Fri May 23, 2008 5:10 pm

sources tell me that the money being used to build said desert cities and islands is not from oil, as UAE doesnt have much of the oil. instead the city has been built such that it is a business and tourism hub and so non of the money made their is dependant upon oil, apart form actually getting people there of course.

now i dont know that the above is true, but the guy i work with that pisses me off all day is from Oman and also goes on about the greatness of UAE/dubai/abu dhabbi(sp)/saudi arabia (aka the kingdom wtf?) and how smart they are in dubai that the city is not built on the oil money etc etc.

i only know this cos he got in a heated discussion the other day about whether dubai would dry up when oil runs out. he is very outspoken and often factually incorrect but i am unsure in this case.

neon_spork · Post by **neon_spork** » Fri May 23, 2008 7:24 pm

sergei wrote:in my opinion fuel bubble will burst sooner or later, as there is no shortage of oil at all, and like diamonds the price on fuel is highly inflated unlike diamonds we can't live without oil. And unfortunately huge profits are not used to invest into newer technologies but instead used to build pointless cities in middle of desert, artificial island out of sand which need full time maintenance and pointless skyscrapers again in middle of $&#$% desert, also it is used to fuel wars and slaughter of million of innocent people (as well as put into starving and retarding the progress in places like Africa).

But there is a shortage of refining capacity. There are a lot of big refining projects going on around the world and as the additional capacity comes online there probably is the possibility that a bubble will burst.

sigma · Post by **sigma** » Fri May 23, 2008 9:31 pm

If you haven't seen the docco "Who killed the electric car?" I suggest you get it out. Electric cars are a very viable option.

molex · Post by **molex** » Sat May 24, 2008 2:05 am

Fivebob, you've obviously got a bit of knowledge in the area and some cool ideas. The point of my brain dump was to illustrate the ridiculous nature of adding additional inefficient steps to our existing fueling model and think it's going to replace petrol. I'm referring to the planned 'Hydrogen highway' in the states and the huge attention Hydrogen is getting as a fix all in the states. It's all bollocks. There is plenty of potential in the field but what is being proposed and lobbied for is bad science. Hell it doesn't even make sense compared to much simpler alternatives.

The solution has been staring us in the face for 100 years, the electric car. More specifically I'm talking about the plug in electric, not solar/fuel cell/petrol electric hybrids. Development has been incredibly slow (and frequently non existant) because those making money would like to continue to make money. A car that removes big oil from every step of the supply process isn't a very good business opportunity, they will (and already have) go to extraordinary lengths to ensure their survival by killing off development of ideas contrary to their products. It's basic business at a big scale.

A significant problem with Lithium is a shortage readily available sources. The vast majority of the worlds supply is extracted from brine pools, a relatively rare natural occurence. For the cost to come down significantly the supply chain would need to be beefed up big time.

Adamal · Post by **Adamal** » Sat May 24, 2008 9:48 am

Man, it looks like I've dropped an H-bomb in here!

Thanks RS13 for that document, that was an awesome read

And I think a lot of people on here have the wrong sort of mindset. Shouldn't be looking at the reasons that it won't work, people should be looking at ways to make it viable.
If at first, the idea doesn't seem impossible, then it will most likely fail

pc · Post by pc » Sat May 24, 2008 7:11 pm

molex wrote:The solution has been staring us in the face for 100 years, the electric car. More specifically I'm talking about the plug in electric, not solar/fuel cell/petrol electric hybrids. Development has been incredibly slow (and frequently non existant) because those making money would like to continue to make money. A car that removes big oil from every step of the supply process isn't a very good business opportunity, they will (and already have) go to extraordinary lengths to ensure their survival by killing off development of ideas contrary to their products. It's basic business at a big scale.

The electric car idea needs little/no work... but without a good method of transporting the power (a battery) then on a large scale, it doesn't work... it's best to think of hydrogen as a "battery" option not a "fuel".
Battery research has probably been stifiled to a degree by oil companies though.

levinguy · Post by **levinguy** » Sat May 24, 2008 9:43 pm

i'll beleive where running out of oil when they start ripping up antarctica for the oil underneath there. otherwise i still question the 4/5 biggest companys in the world being oil companies, posting their biggest ever profits, cmon?

molex · Post by **molex** » Sat May 24, 2008 11:09 pm

pc wrote:The electric car idea needs little/no work... but without a good method of transporting the power (a battery) then on a large scale, it doesn't work... it's best to think of hydrogen as a "battery" option not a "fuel".
Battery research has probably been stifiled to a degree by oil companies though.

Current battery technology is more than capable of providing enough power density to create an excellent commuting range. The only reason it's an issue in peoples minds is the misguided notion that they NEED a 500+ km range on a fill and that batteries take a long time to charge. The vast majority of people would virtually never drive more than 300 km's in a day.

However I absolutely agree on the battery technology being stifled comment, given the $$'s invested in automotive R&D every year I'm sure they could come up with something very quickly.

To get right back on topic, I reckon a better way to avoid petrol costs and do your bit for the environment would be to build your own plug in electric using a cheap car, cheap batteries and a conventional drive train + electric motor. It's been done before and there's more and more enthusiasts out there giving it a go...

I am seriously thinking about doing this, if I didn't already have one project car on the go and some more space I would probably have already started.

sergei · Post by **sergei** » Mon May 26, 2008 9:31 am

For people who need more than 300kms (which is possible to have right now with current battery tech.) there is an option of either battery swap station, or back up generator trailer and yes, it will have to run on something, but think about it it has to be about 20kW tops, and can run say on McDonald's oil or methanol/LPG whatever more efficiently then normal ICE as it runs only in narrow rpm range where it is most efficient, it can even be a small gas turbine (40-50% efficiency vs 20% for piston tech.) or a methanol/methane/hydrogen fuel cell, or another option "15 min" recharge station just like current petrol station with beefy 100A charger.

sergei · Post by **sergei** » Mon May 26, 2008 9:33 am

As for the electric car project, you will need budget of $20000 to do the one that is efficient and is AC powered with regen. braking and has range longer than 50kms.