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.”
You can't return the depressurized oil which has been used to drive the wheels to the pressurized tank without some mechanical pumping and therefore an outside energy source. Think of blowing up a balloon and using the pressurized air to do some work. The air you've used can't just return to the inside of the balloon because all of the air inside would push it back out. You could use the energy from braking to pressurize some of the oil and put it back into the tank, but you still have some permanent losses from friction and air resistance.
If you had a destination pressurized resevoir after each or all the wheels, the main resevoir could work until the secondaries reached the same pressure as the primary when you hit an equilibrium with no more power transfer - think of one ballon blowing up a second one while you took some of the energy from the transfer.
A wonderful little swash-plate rotor pump worked it up to almost 3000psi with reservoirs & auto valves, etc.
Aspects of this design are yet to be fully utilized our half a century later.
i.e. that little pump would be great as a fuel pump.
Run your injectors at 3000 psi instead of the 60~70 psi dribble.
The air conditioner is more dramatic, but most of the additional load is the compressor, which is purely a mechanical load.
bump to send to handyman...he just got suckered!
Bingo!
Automotive alternators in general are about 40% effecient.
The big generator heads your see on standby gen-set are approx 92 - 94% efficient.
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The alternator on your car makes AC power ,, same as your standby genset ,, however in the car one half of the “AC waveform” is discarded to create DC current ,, therefore the most efficient a car alternator can be is 50% efficient if it was “perfect” ... now if you could tap into the current before the diode in the voltage regulator discards half your electricity and you use the wasted electricity then you have recaptured energy.
The part of my post above the asterisks was a recap of what was said by Rick.Donaldson , I do not endorse his evaluation.
The Car Talk guys on NPR had an explanation for the success of gas saving gizmos. The buyer wants to believe that his investment will actually improve his gas mileage so he drives with an extremely soft foot on the accelerator and begins to drive very carefully. He may even fudge the data slightly or be selective in his choice of data.
I have noticed what I call the Prius effect. The Prius has a display which shows long term and instaneous MPG. When the little MPG bar spikes, the driver gets a frission of delight at (generally) her part in saving the planet. The conditioned Palovian response is to drive in a manner that maximizes MPG in addition to what you already get by driving a hybrid. (Hybrids are the real deal by the way if you want high mileage. They aren’t really cost effective until gas hits $6.00/Gal.)
In scientifically controlled tests, almost all of these commercially available gizmos actually produce worse MPG, some even have undesirable side effects. You can certainly improve MPG by ripping out pollution control equipment, or making other ill-advised modifications (these are generally not commercially available) that comprise engine life or safety.
BFD. Every FR thread on this subject has included that same information: It Don’t Work!
That’s called a hydraulic drive system, and yes, for specialized equipment (exotic tractors and such) they do exist today. However, one must have a pump to pump the fluid to the hydraulic motors at the wheels.
The mechanical advantage of hydraulics is that there is very little efficiency loss, between the pump and the hydraulic motors, like there is with a traditional engine. I believe the hydraulic tractors that I’ve seen use a traditional diesel engine to drive the hydraulic pump. Much more of that horsepower will go to the wheels than is normally possible.
I think high speed operations are difficult for hydraulic drive vehicals though, and, they simply aren’t practical for a modern automobile.
Personally, I think the high efficiency diesels coming out of Germany, Sweden and Japan are the way to go. I rented one in Germany in ‘06, and that VW Golf performed as well or better than a gasoline powered version. They don’t stink, soot or accelerate slow like the old diesel cars we all remember from the ‘70s and ‘80s—apparently due primarily to advanced electronic controls.
I guess if you never try anything you’ll never know...
Save yourself some money and just send me $49.95 plus postage for a pair of cow Magnets and strap them to you fool line...
Liquid Hydrogen. However, it has a couple of problems such as it is cyrogenic, expensive, causes hydrogen embrittlement of iron, and is always looking for a place to catch on fire. However I will opt for diesel as it is more efficient and has a higher energy content than gasoline.
bmflr
“however in the car one half of the “AC waveform” is discarded to create DC current ,, therefore the most efficient a car alternator can be is 50% efficient if it was “perfect””
Your ignorance of science is astounding. please stop posting BS like this, your making my brain hurt.
It's one thing to be open minded, but there really is such a thing as healthy skepticism. If you insist on personally trying everything, you gonna consume a lot more snake oil than elixir. imho.
It is said that one of the hallmarks of a crackpot is that he invariably compares himself to Galileo. I suppose the Wright brothers could be added to the list. Of course, the Wrights, unlike Galileo, were more modest in their claims than their achievements justified.
when You burn the HHO you get better combustion and it is cleaner. the engine runs better. the exhaust smells different. I don’t think you get more power as you imply
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