Josh the Aspie’s Blog

While I was out and about posting to forums at work I found the following video. I actually do this as a part of my job, I wasn’t shirking my duties.

I think anyone who watches it will find it interesting. However, I doubt they’re telling you everything. Click on “Read More” for my analysis of the technology.

Combining hydrogen with oxygen in a combustion engine works just fine, even if hydrogen fuel cells are a little dangerous.

The problem with his method is that to get hydrogen and oxygen out of water, you need to put in enough energy to break the stable water bond, and force a conversion to hydrogen and oxygen. Electrolysis does this by converting electrical energy into chemical energy (2 x H20 + energy -> 2 x H2 + 02).

The hydrogen and oxygen are then re-combined in a chemical reaction called fire. This combustion is used to fuel a combustion engine.

I’d personally imagine that this actually results in a decrease in efficiency over simply going with an electric motor, however this would be one way to move the nation towards electric cars, as existing combustion engines could be used. All you would need to do to convert to it being an electric car is a few charging stations, the electrolysis add-on, and a bigger battery… maybe a few other parts I’m not aware of.

The biggest boost would be that you could run purely on electricity charges and water when making local trips, like to work and back, but just clean out your engine, switch a nob, and you can still run on gas for the cross country camping trip, or the trip to take the kids to see Grandma.

There might even be a way to set the car up so that you could run on gas, water, or in the rare places where the infrastructure is in place (such as near the airport in Rockford Illinois).

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 8:42 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.