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.”
Your assuming that the injection of hydrogen into combustion chamber has no effect on the engines efficiency.
You may chose to not believe me but try this source?
http://www.ehs.ufl.edu/Lab/Cryogens/hydrogen.html
You appear to assume that the increase in combustion efficiency would exceed the energy requirements of the entire system necessary to produce hydrogen, including passing through the engine.
I have another energy aid for you. Mount a wind-powered generator on top of your car.
Running on empty eh.
What? How can you make something more than 100% efficient.
“Running on empty eh.”
When one side abandons the technical argument if favor of snide comments, it is apparent that he has conceded the issue.
Perpetual motion has always been our best hope ;o)
Now you are begining to understand why it cannot work this way.
Yes, I understand that you have. I have no problem with that either BTW.
I asked you if you had seen this product in person.
I asked you if you had studied this product in person.
Your response was to suggest I place a device on the top of my car.
Our cars do in fact have a device on them that utilizes wind flow.
D-1, a diesel engine already has hydrogen to burn from the diesel fuel. That hydrogen produces less than 2% of the energy that the engine produces. Adding more hydrogen will do nothing for the combustion; adding more carbon would do a lot, but the only way to do that is to put a bigger fuel pump, and bigger injectors on the engine. Unless you have a bigger load to move, the above would be useless.
There is no fairy godmother of fuel efficiency.
Used to generate power?
Engineering anyone? Hydrogen is the lowest energy fuel on the planet. Every other combustible produces more energy, even marshmelows.
And to use fuel to generate rotation to generate electricity to generate hydrogren applies all those inefficiencies to the process.
“Our cars do in fact have a device on them that utilizes wind flow.”
Interesting. Care to elaborate?
Because it isn't.
Gasoline produces far more energy than hydrogen, but it is not nearly as combustible as hydrogen. The hydrogen molecule is the very smallest, and thus it is the most explosive in a perfect mixture.
“Engineering anyone? Hydrogen is the lowest energy fuel on the planet. Every other combustible produces more energy, even marshmelows.”
Hydrogen has three times the btu/lbm of gasoline.
Few things on earth are as efficient as a high compression diesel engine. Nothing can work at 100% efficiency except a nuclear reaction.
“Nothing can work at 100% efficiency except a nuclear reaction.”
Then why do our nuclear reactors run at about 33% efficiency?
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