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Originally Posted by Lanny_MacDonald
Because I don't think they are as efficient as a hydrogen engine.
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Wow, I don't know where to start, but using an innefficeint source of power to produce fuel to be used in a more efficient engine is still less efficient than just using the electrical energy in the first place.
If you don't beleive me consider this.
assuming the energy cells are say 80% efficient and the engine you speak of is 90% efficient.
using just the energy cell and say 1000W of power from the sun you get
1000 * 0.8 = 800 W (pretty good)
now using your engine as well (and assuming the hydrogen production process is 100% efficeint wich we all know it is)
1000 * 0.8 * 0.9 = 720 W
720 < 800 Efficinecies are always less than 1 Lanny, and if I have to expalin to you what happens when you keep multiplying numbers less than 1 then this debate is pointless to begin with.
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Originally Posted by Lanny_Mcdonald
What of you could keep hydrogen in an inert state until it was needed? What of the seperation process provided fuel almost on demand? What if you filled up your tank with water and the seperator only did its thing when the car was running, storing just enough hydrogen to fill a small tank (about the size of softball) which allowed the combustion engine to start and run?
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Okay, fine and to produce this hydrogen you need an energy source in the car. So you're storing energy in the car in some fashion and we have another example of my point above.
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Originally Posted by Lanny_Mcdonald
This is all possible. I remember in high school (waaaaaaay back in the dark ages) when my chem teacher seperated hydrogen into a balloon during a lab. He extracted a fairly full party ballon in a couple of minutes. We took it outside and he put a match too it (both on the ends of a 6 foor poles). The explosion almost knocked the windows out of the school. That's the power we should be harnessing and its accessible in water. All its going to take is some money and engineering to make it happen. Oh, and the oil lobby to not stop it!
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And it is a FACT that the ammount of energy that went into making that hydrogen (from the electricity) was greater than the ammount of energy released when the hydrogen burned. For easy reference, see my first point.