Alternatives to Gas

[photon]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Serious? Is that because the temperature is so low?

That's a fantastic idea!

The amount of energy you could save on transmission losses would make this project completely economic. The hydrogen would be an insulator, and not consumed. AMAZING idea.

My mind is racing!

Yup, there's lots of materials that will superconduct at that low a temperature.

I seem to recall this kind of idea being floated before, a nationwide network of hydrogen pipelines with superconducting wires in them.

I didn't like it because I don't think the whole "hydrogen economy" idea is a good idea. Eventually we'll figure out a higher temperature superconductor as well as higher density batteries, and we can just continue to be an electricity economy.

[Moose]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Interesting study Moose.

I'm not sure the hydrogen would have enough residence time with the fuel to impact the cetane number of the fuel.

The hydrogen would likely combust before the main fuel. I'd be willing to bet that you'd get knocking and a bunch of unburned fuel if you actually ran your tests and watched the outputs.

I was sort of under the impression that higher hydrogen content improves the octane number, not the cetane number... and that the cetane number is what one has to key on when predicting autocombustion.

Any clarification would be excellent!

Our numerical simulations for hydrogen addition to natural gas of up to 10% were actually validated with experimental data. In our case the hydrogen gas was completely premixed with natural gas prior to injection. Our simulations were compared directly to experiments, which had a single injector inject the fuel mixture down the centreline of a shock tube. Since the hydrogen is fully mixed with the natural gas, it isn't expected to ignite seperately from the natural gas, but rather to increase the available hydrogen radicals as H2 gas will break down faster than natural gas (modelled as pure CH4). As was expected, the addition of hydrogen did not affect the autoignition delay time by a significant amount(which would be measured by the cetane number), which agrees with your statements. There was a slight drop in the time to ignition, but the drop noticed within the simulations was close to the experimental scatter for pure CH4.

Since the results were measured in a shock tube and not an actual engine, the ignition is based purely upon physical species mixing and chemical reaction mechanisms. The next step in complexity would be to examine something similar in an actual engine, but that would require a considerable amount of work. For the particular model I am working on I ran on 20 3.4 GHz processors on our cluster for 1 month to get my results for one simulation. I used a commercial CFD package to calculate the flow field, and implemented FORTRAN routines to implement a statistics-based combustion model. Adding the geometric complexities of an actual combustion chamber, with changing volume and pressure would be a nightmare. I'll leave that to the grad students that come after me.

[Tower]

This is fascinating! Thank you Moose for your input. I'm happy read this kind of information! It's much better then the perpetual problems that arise through pedantic posters.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

a liquid hydrogen pipeline would be ridiculously expensive, that's all I know. And even if it was built, I imagine there could be lots of other issues popping up. Liquid Hydrogen apparently leaks out of its containers a lot, so you'd be pumping hydrogen into the soil around the pipe.

When hydrogen meets oxygen, does it not become pure water?

So in this case, would not a leaky hydrogen pipeline simply be 'watering the plants'?

I failed high school chemisty btw and have little knowledge in this field.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

When hydrogen meets oxygen, does it not become pure water?

So in this case, would not a leaky hydrogen pipeline simply be 'watering the plants'?

I failed high school chemisty btw and have little knowledge in this field.

Well, it doesn't just mix to become water. It burns to become water. Hydrogen burns quite explosively.

Hydrogen gas isn't something you really want coming up out of the soil.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by Tower

Okay CP!

I have a car and I am willing to put it on the line.

I stumbled upon this website http://www.gas4free.com/

Who wants to do a test with me?

Look at the km/l before and after?

Even though this is a 100% complete scam, I know you won't believe anything anyone here tells you, so I 100% urge you to spend money on this.

[Tower]

Here is another interesting read.

http://www.alcoholinjectionsystems.c...icle_info.html

Water injection isn't new. It actually dates far back to the 1930’s where it was extensively used for the first time in WWII on supercharged and turbocharged fighter aircraft to increase power on take off and increasing the altitude for which a plane could climb.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by photon

This is the problem when one doesn't have any critical thinking skills; they get taken in by anything.

Here here! (or is it Hear hear!?)

That describes Tower quite well.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

When hydrogen meets oxygen, does it not become pure water?

So in this case, would not a leaky hydrogen pipeline simply be 'watering the plants'?

I failed high school chemisty btw and have little knowledge in this field.

That's what happens when you mix hydrogen and oxygen.

[getbak]

Oh, the humanity.

[photon]

Water injection allows higher compression among other things. Every engine is a set of trade-offs between many variables, horsepower, torque, efficiency, complexity, maintainability, wear, etc. Of course you can get more of one if you sacrifice another.

Hardly revolutionary or an alternative for gas.

The alternative for gas is solar/wind/nuclear IMO, everything else is just adding complexity and inefficiency. The only problem is energy storage density, but once that is improved then just go electrical cars.

[Tower]

Originally Posted by photon

Water injection allows higher compression among other things. Every engine is a set of trade-offs between many variables, horsepower, torque, efficiency, complexity, maintainability, wear, etc. Of course you can get more of one if you sacrifice another.

Hardly revolutionary or an alternative for gas.

The alternative for gas is solar/wind/nuclear IMO, everything else is just adding complexity and inefficiency. The only problem is energy storage density, but once that is improved then just go electrical cars.

It may not be revolutionary (as it was used 80 years ago), but it is great to know alternatives.

I agree. Electric would be most desirable.

[Bill Bumface]

A Buggati Veyron sucks in 37,000 Litres of air per second when under full acceleration.

Granted that car is stupid, but divide that by one hundred even, and you are going to need a lot of water.

[twotoner]

Sorry if this is a little off topic on the thread, but I have found a solution that requires zero gas, zero insurance, zero registration and it gets the best parking spots for free. Sweating is optional and it is pretty damn fun to boot

What am I using you ask? A regular mountain bike with an electric hub motor. I bought a 20 amp hour 48 volt battery from a guy in china, the hub motor, controller and throttle from an ebike store in Vancouver. Wired it all up to my existing mountain bike and have had a hoot riding it to work and back the last two years. All in, the motor battery and controller were about 2k.

It goes about 50km/hr or faster if I pedal when the speed govenor is turned off. With it on, it stays at the legal 32km/hr speed. Has a 90km range when it isn't too windy (about 70km when its nuking). Goes up hills pretty fast too. I've even lost a bit of weight because I like to pedal on the way home.

It goes fine in the rain. More than a foot of snow is too much though, I usually drive my car or take the bus then. (about ten days last winter).

Here are some links. Ask me any questions you want.

www.ebikes.ca
www.endless-sphere.com/forums
www.pingbattery.com

[BlackArcher101]

That's actually a hell of an idea.

[Tower]

Originally Posted by twotoner

Sorry if this is a little off topic on the thread, but I have found a solution that requires zero gas, zero insurance, zero registration and it gets the best parking spots for free. Sweating is optional and it is pretty damn fun to boot

What am I using you ask? A regular mountain bike with an electric hub motor. I bought a 20 amp hour 48 volt battery from a guy in china, the hub motor, controller and throttle from an ebike store in Vancouver. Wired it all up to my existing mountain bike and have had a hoot riding it to work and back the last two years. All in, the motor battery and controller were about 2k.

It goes about 50km/hr or faster if I pedal when the speed govenor is turned off. With it on, it stays at the legal 32km/hr speed. Has a 90km range when it isn't too windy (about 70km when its nuking). Goes up hills pretty fast too. I've even lost a bit of weight because I like to pedal on the way home.

It goes fine in the rain. More than a foot of snow is too much though, I usually drive my car or take the bus then. (about ten days last winter).

Here are some links. Ask me any questions you want.

www.ebikes.ca
www.endless-sphere.com/forums
www.pingbattery.com

Some of us are known for being a bit off topic...

Thanks for the links.

[Tower]

Found this via a friend

http://www.katu.com/news/25881274.html?video=YHI&t=a

http://www.wvec.com/video/index.html?nvid=273832

[fredr123]

Here's my favorite part of the Gas 4 Free site:

How to turn Gas4Free systems into your own profitable small business!

The simplest systems can be made for as little as $20. Many people are selling these completed devices for $300. That's a profit of $280 per installation. And these things sell like hotcakes, once your first customer realizes how much gas their saving they'll tell a friend, and another friend. As the word spreads like wild fire, you'll be installing as many systems as you want. Think of all the extra cash you'll make. Installing just 3 systems a week, you could make $3,360 per month, PART TIME.


Don't forget, when you buy the Gas4Free system, you own the right to build and resell the system within paying us a thing. We want everyone to enjoy these gas saving benefits.



Installation also takes less then an hour so imagine what would happen if you managed to turn this into a full time job.



Don’t think that making this type of income is not possible in your area. People are fed up with high gas prices. People will be throwing money at you to help them reduce their dependency on buying gas at the oil pumps.



Once you get the word out you will probably have more business than you can handle.



The information in this book is not available anywhere else. Grab it while you can.

[CaptainCrunch]

What would installing this device do to your car warranty?

[photon]

Oh look, someone on the news claims their gas mileage was doubled, it must be true! Just like how unlimited GSM is coming to Canada.

More likely it's a combination of exaggeration on his part combined with a placebo effect (if you put a fuel saving device on your car you drive with more awareness of how much fuel you are using).

It would be so easy to just put this on an engine on a dynamo and measure things to prove it worked, I wonder why that hasn't been done yet!

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

What would installing this device do to your car warranty?

Probably invalidate it, plus you could be violating all kinds of emissions standards as well, depending on what the change did to the ignition computer and how it changed the way it reacts.