sailsmen
07-29-2008, 06:00 PM
just explained to another smart friend why the guy with the car that runs on water--you've probably seen the video in endless e-mail circulation, where he first uses a torch and then shows a car running on the same gas (hydrogen and oxygen) from electrolysis of water--is not the magic solution to oil at $135 per barrel.
The video, a vapid bit of local TV "journalism," is ignorant junk. The reporter never asks how much electricity is needed to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen. More energy goes in than you get out--simple physics. The economic question is, how much more?
Whenever we move energy from one form to another, there's a loss. We do it to get a more portable or useful form--coal in the ground or water behind a dam becomes electricity, charges a battery, but 100 percent efficiency is an unrealizable ideal. There's lots of waste between the oil fields and the moment a gasoline-powered car's wheels turn. So that alone isn't an argument against hydrogen in cars (or else the fuel-cell notion would be just smoke and mirrors, too).
We need comparisons. It takes math. Generating electricity requires fuel and money. A cheap electrolysis machine is about $7,000, but don't expect to drive very far on its output; water has costs (another environmental issue), and so on. Someday, gasoline may be pricey enough and hydrogen production cheap enough to change things. That day is closer now than it was five years ago, but it's not close yet.
I'm no wizard; I flunked out of engineering school. To get in, though, I had to study math and science. That so many people believe these "magic" solutions are being suppressed by the car companies or big oil tells us that our educational system is faulty. In Michigan, for instance, there's a move on to soften recently stiffened high-school graduation requirements for math and science if kids take vocational training. Bad idea.
You don't need math and science to get a job as, say, a TV reporter. But a 21st-century citizen shouldn't stand slack-jawed like a 19th-century hayseed at a carnival when shown that water is made of hydrogen and oxygen and that those can be burned. Actually, 140 years ago, even a hayseed would have recognized that torch as the same thing as a limelight. We don't light stages with limelight anymore. Someone did the math.
AutoWeek | Updated: 07/02/08, 11:53 am et
Article URL: http://autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200807070430/FREE/496475965
The video, a vapid bit of local TV "journalism," is ignorant junk. The reporter never asks how much electricity is needed to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen. More energy goes in than you get out--simple physics. The economic question is, how much more?
Whenever we move energy from one form to another, there's a loss. We do it to get a more portable or useful form--coal in the ground or water behind a dam becomes electricity, charges a battery, but 100 percent efficiency is an unrealizable ideal. There's lots of waste between the oil fields and the moment a gasoline-powered car's wheels turn. So that alone isn't an argument against hydrogen in cars (or else the fuel-cell notion would be just smoke and mirrors, too).
We need comparisons. It takes math. Generating electricity requires fuel and money. A cheap electrolysis machine is about $7,000, but don't expect to drive very far on its output; water has costs (another environmental issue), and so on. Someday, gasoline may be pricey enough and hydrogen production cheap enough to change things. That day is closer now than it was five years ago, but it's not close yet.
I'm no wizard; I flunked out of engineering school. To get in, though, I had to study math and science. That so many people believe these "magic" solutions are being suppressed by the car companies or big oil tells us that our educational system is faulty. In Michigan, for instance, there's a move on to soften recently stiffened high-school graduation requirements for math and science if kids take vocational training. Bad idea.
You don't need math and science to get a job as, say, a TV reporter. But a 21st-century citizen shouldn't stand slack-jawed like a 19th-century hayseed at a carnival when shown that water is made of hydrogen and oxygen and that those can be burned. Actually, 140 years ago, even a hayseed would have recognized that torch as the same thing as a limelight. We don't light stages with limelight anymore. Someone did the math.
AutoWeek | Updated: 07/02/08, 11:53 am et
Article URL: http://autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200807070430/FREE/496475965