Heard about the car that runs on water and air?

[photon555]

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/fu...ater-1C6555749

British researchers produce petrol from water and air! Now if they can just shrink the reactor down so it fits in my trunk.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Heard about the car that runs on water and air?

I remember reading about cars that can run on water and/or air.

3 or 4 times in fact in the mass media.

During the 73/74 energy crisis(granted I was too young to read but saw some stuff in dated magazines)

I think it was 79 during the 2nd gas crunch I recall some weird stories on TV about a special carberator

I think it was during the Iran/Iraq War "tanker war" when gas prices climbed a bit and I think that time it was a special water fuel injection device that could fit every car.

The last time was 4 or so years ago when energy prices spiked to $146 a barrel......the same rubbish on TV....a device to run a car on tap water.

Personally, I'm waiting for the Mueller Flying Car we have been waiting for nearly 40 years to change tack and focus on producing an H20 based fuel injection system for cars.....ready for production in parallel with the flying car sometime next year....or maybe the year after...invest now.

Personally, I'm quite thankful we don't have the ability to turn tap water into energy...because if we did it would probably be weaponized by lunchtime and detonated by sun down.

Sorry...can't help feeling a bit dark and sarcastic at the moment!

[llanlad2]

Re: Heard about the car that runs on water and air?

I remember reading about cars that can run on water and/or air.

3 or 4 times in fact in the mass media.

During the 73/74 energy crisis(granted I was too young to read but saw some stuff in dated magazines)

I think it was 79 during the 2nd gas crunch I recall some weird stories on TV about a special carberator

I think it was during the Iran/Iraq War "tanker war" when gas prices climbed a bit and I think that time it was a special water fuel injection device that could fit every car.

The last time was 4 or so years ago when energy prices spiked to $146 a barrel......the same rubbish on TV....a device to run a car on tap water.

Personally, I'm waiting for the Mueller Flying Car we have been waiting for nearly 40 years to change tack and focus on producing an H20 based fuel injection system for cars.....ready for production in parallel with the flying car sometime next year....or maybe the year after...invest now.

Personally, I'm quite thankful we don't have the ability to turn tap water into energy...because if we did it would probably be weaponized by lunchtime and detonated by sun down.

Sorry...can't help feeling a bit dark and sarcastic at the moment!

I think the process is perfectly feasible. What they don't tell you is that the energy required to synthesise it is so huge as to be pointless.

[mooncliff]

Re: Heard about the car that runs on water and air?

These stories come out every time there is an energy crisis/high prices. One clue as to whether it is right or wrong: If they could do this with water in a car, wouldnt they also do it in generators and everything else?

Why do people try to scam other people like this? I guess because they cant do anything useful that people would pay them for willingly.

[don]

Re: Heard about the car that runs on water and air?

These 'ideas' are as old as gasoline.

[Olduvai]

Re: Heard about the car that runs on water and air?

I've seen it done with Stanley Meyer technology.
Every material has a frequency which breaks it down into it's parts.
This technology can be applied to water as well.
Result is Hydrogen and Oxygen.
Damn corrosive so special steel is needed to bring the water into "swing"
The amount of energy needed to break the water apart is quite low compared to electrolyses.
Resulting hydrogen can be mixed with petrol in the carburator.
As the hydrogen can be produced on demand it doesn't need to be stored so no explosives aboard.
The technology is there but bad for your health if you're thinking of applying it big time (as Stanley Meyer found out).

[bpwoods]

Re: Heard about the car that runs on water and air?

A little time spent with some physical and organic chem textbooks leads one to the unfortunate conclusion that this is a load of 'bollocks'. Its not that it could not be achieved - in theory. Its the practice that might prove a tad tricky.

"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."

Yogi Berra ??

[dcarrigg]

Re: Heard about the car that runs on water and air?

A little time spent with some physical and organic chem textbooks leads one to the unfortunate conclusion that this is a load of 'bollocks'. Its not that it could not be achieved - in theory. Its the practice that might prove a tad tricky.

"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."

Yogi Berra ??

Free energy is not real. The universe doesn't work that way. Perpetual motion doesn't work. You can never get something for nothing. Entropy is real. The laws of thermodynamics are real. The arrow of time points one way. Everything dies. That's it. That's the way it is. No fountain of youth. No free energy. Just the universe we're given.

[photon555]

Re: Heard about the car that runs on water and air?

The article reports that British researchers have been able to produce petrol from water and air; only about five liters so far, but there are plans to build a pilot plant that will produce a significant amount in the next two years. The fuel will be expensive so it will be specially formulated for niche markets like racing. Since it is synthetic it can be very pure and designed to meet demanding needs. The hope is that eventually economic production of regular gasoline can be sustained by cheap, renewable energy sources. Sort of like coal to gas without the nasty, dirty coal.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Heard about the car that runs on water and air?

The article reports that British researchers have been able to produce petrol from water and air; only about five liters so far, but there are plans to build a pilot plant that will produce a significant amount in the next two years. The fuel will be expensive so it will be specially formulated for niche markets like racing. Since it is synthetic it can be very pure and designed to meet demanding needs. The hope is that eventually economic production of regular gasoline can be sustained by cheap, renewable energy sources. Sort of like coal to gas without the nasty, dirty coal.

I just don't buy the business model. $1.6M for 5 liters of fuel. What will it cost to make 1,200? Is it really carbon neutral, even if the CO2 extraction, splitting water, and reactor work are powered by renewable energy?

Don't get me wrong. Doing research in these areas is not a bad thing. It's cool that it can be done. It's cool that we can make liquid fuels from coal too. But it's a dark, desperate day that it makes economic sense to do that. And trying to commercialize it now seems like folly.

But that's not what I was on about before anyhow. One can debate the externality cost of adding atmospheric carbon and decide that alternative energy is indeed economic that way. Plenty of folks do that. I was just pointing out that it will always cost more energy to transform H2O into hydrogen for fuel than one will get out of the process. There's always a net loss there. There has to be. You can never get more energy out of the system than you put in.

That's all I was on about.

[LorenS]

Re: Heard about the car that runs on water and air?

One big problem with water electrolysis is that Hydrogen is so hard to store. If it is possible to add come atmospheric carbon and make a liquid fuel that's a fairly significant step forward, provided we can do it with small enough cost.

If I put 10kW of PV panels on my house I've got extra electrical capacity. If I sell it back to the utility I get a whopping 10c/ kWh. If I use it to make a liquid fuel I can burn in my car even if the energy ratio is 1/2 energy in it still may be worth it. Even better would be if this same fuel can be used in fuel cells to make electricity after dark, now this fuel has two potential uses.

If this doesn't pan out we'll just have to keep looking. It's been pretty clear for a while that Hydrogen is not a good way to store energy and it's not terribly useful a transport fuel either.

Alt energy has a number of problems that would be addressed by the ability to store energy in liquid form.