Posted on 07/31/2008 11:54:15 AM PDT by Red Badger
The hydrogen gas systems being used by several mid-valley drivers cannot deliver any kind of efficiency, says Bob Paasch, the Boeing professor of mechanical design at Oregon State University.
“The process is a scam,” he said. “It’s wishful thinking. If it were true, every power company and auto company in the world would be using it.”
Paasch said the systems — which use water and baking soda to create hydrogen via an electrical charge from the battery and alternator — violate the second law of thermodynamics and can’t work.
“People who buy into this are wasting their money,” he said.
Paasch has conducted tests on a similar device in the past and found it did not live up to any of the claims made by the inventor, who said it would deliver 50 percent more horsepower and double the gas mileage.
The systems being used are electrolysis, according to Paasch. Hydrogen and water can be burned through this process but more energy is required to drive the cell than can be extracted from it.
Ray Warren of Millersburg and Elden Huntling of Lebanon have the systems installed in their respective gas- and diesel-powered trucks and say they have seen a significant increase in gas mileage.
“These types of systems have been proven to be frauds,” Paasch said. “It’s impossible for the process to produce more energy than it consumes.”
Nonetheless, Huntling and Warren stand by their mileage claims. Warren admitted his mileage dropped significantly after several fill-ups but says he expected it and that a simple adjustment to his computer will correct the problem.
“I stand by the system,” he said.
Huntling has seen no decreases. “All I can say is that I’ve increased the mileage on my diesel truck by 64 percent,” he said. “It runs off excess power from the alternator.”
Paasch says this can’t be.
“The alternator doesn’t produce excess power. The alternator requires more mechanical energy than the hydrogen process can produce.”
Paasch also says the system is potentially unsafe.
“You have a highly flammable gas and the possibility of electric sparks in an enclosed space,” he said. “It’s a very dangerous situation.”
OSU says it’s a scam ping!..........
PT Barnum would be very proud of the guy who sold those those units...
Oh well...
How much of the savings was just from adjusting the computer so the engine is running lean?
An easy way of testing this is to dump the whole electrolysis set up and just use a hydrogen tank to inject it directly into the engine. That would set a maximum on the performance of any hydrogen system, which would be reduced once the engine's power has to be used to produce it.
There are a whole lot of things in this world today, that were deemed impossible at one point.
Physicists disagree amongst themselves on issues.
Physicists spent twenty years thinking string theory was the be all end all of existence trashing a man who thought there were 11 dimensions instead of 10.
And now the 90% of the physicists who spent the last twenty years trashing one proponent of the 11 dimension theory now agree with him, and his theory that the string theory was not as sound as the M theory.
Never ever state that something is entirely impossible before you study every possible aspect of what is taking place with the actual device in question.
You will be right more often than not, but the idea you might pass up the discovery of a lifetime or generation, is too great a risk to take.
This professor is only relying on the you cannot get a free lunch theory, and is on very solid ground. Even wall street is having to come to terms with that one.
Oil will be replaced about as soon as we get our flying cars Popular Science Mag. promised us by 1999, back in the 60's.
Not for hundreds of years if ever will a better energy storehouse than a gallon of gas be produced.
Now, efficient us of same, that's the story.
he hasn’t tried it! he just stated it couldn’t work ...he doesn’t know he believes it won’t work!
A couple of things here...
“The alternator doesn’t produce excess power. The alternator requires more mechanical energy than the hydrogen process can produce.”
This isn’t exactly true. In fact the alternator DOES produce “excess power”. It produces MORE energy that is used in MOST vehicles to 1) power lights, radios and so forth and 2) keep the battery charged completely. (Not all cars have high duty alternators).
Point here is there IS excess energy being produced from the alternator. Now, whether that equates to the amount of energy used to mechcanically drive the engine from internal combustion, I’m not sure - BUT, a car can produce a LOT of electricity for charging several batteries at once.
I think what the designer of this system is trying to say is just that... he’s getting extra power from the alternator that isn’t being used for ANYTHING ELSE (so he is calling it ‘excess’.
The other thing that bugged me about the article was where the professor called it “dangerous”.
Ummm.. gasoline has, pound for pound MUCH MORE explosive energy than hydrogen.
Guess he had to turn around and go back UP the hill.
Ok,... Now...., if High Pressure Fuel Injection had been adopted soon after it was perfected 60 years ago, we would have been able to double our fleet ave. MPG and have clean air to boot (i.e. never needed cat. convertors).
Oh, yeah, another thing we would have never needed, . . foriegn oil.
Think about that, and 'round up the culprits while your at it, I'll get the rope.
Apparently all of those voltage regulators in our vehicles are there for nothing?
True. That's why a voltage regulator is required.
Several guys at work have bought into this crap. I’ve been skeptical from the beginning. This is just another version of those magnets that atomize fuel. Hopefully Consumer Reports will test some of these devices and put a stake in their hearts.
Another Green Potemkin energy scam.
Well there's your problem right there! You're supposed to brush your teeth with water and baking soda, not power a car with it! For a car, you're supposed to use either
- water and baking powder, or
- vinegar and baking soda
Either way, you're going to need a really big balloon...
Hydrogen is not a fuel but an energy storage medium. It has to be generated from base sources. Unless we can crap out a dozen new nuke plants a week for the next couple of years, it is nothing but an exercise in “look at the monkey!!”.
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