In the news recently there was shown a small car that runs exclusively on WATER. The water is separated into HHO and then burned as fuel, the emission being only H20. What impact do you see in this on prices, stock market, oil, etc?

tomder55

my initial take is that pottable water will be a scarce resource in the near future with or without a car that drives on water .

my next question is ,what energy does it take to split the water to the hydrogen and oxygen ,and what energy source is used in the conversion ? My guess is that it takes more energy than it generates .


Finally ;what would us Northeasteners do in the middle of a freezing winter day ?

Galveston1

I think you are missing the something. When you burn the HHO, you get H2O as a by-product. You use nothing. Why couldn't cities use sea water? They would get energy and purifed water at the same time.
The water is separated by on-board generator, and apparently it is possible to get more energy out of the gas than it takes to separate the water.
Think about a generator at your house run on this technology. You could use all the electricity that you wanted to.
Don't expect the oil industry to endorse this!!

I am just wondering what dislocations could occur when this becomes widespread.

NeedKarma

Hmmmm...it takes energy to separate water into its elements. Do you have a link to the science behind this?

tomder55

NK is right . There is no such thing as free energy . My guess is that it takes more energy to seperate the (2)H from the O than is gained .

As for salt water ; how corrosive would that be ? I guess I don't understand the chemistry .

Galveston1

Do some research on the 'net, but you will most likely have to go to sites other than official, because most of what is being made public is by individuals. Things like this have historically been supressed. Not in the interest of big business, you know.
I CAN tell you that a dc current is being electronically altered into a dc pulse that builds in the electrodes to 1000 or more volts. This accelerates the production of the HHO gas. The trick here seems to be that since hydrogen will burn in concentrations from 4% to 75%, it is not necessary to burn it at the extraction rate of 2/1 or straight, but as a fuel gas mixed with air.

This is not the object of my question though. Assume that it is possible and tell me what changes you expect.

excon

Hello Gal:

You're talking about a fuel cell, and the process of electrolysis. That's the conversion of water to it's parts. The process of turning the water into fuel spends more energy than is produced.

The same thing is true with fusion reactors. More energy goes in than comes out. We are on the edge, however, of a breakthrough in BOTH technologies. THEN it'll be great. But, until then, it's only potentially great.

excon

NeedKarma

Ballard is a large Canadian company that specializes in fuel cells. That why it peaked my interest.

I imagine big oil continuously tries to quash its expansion into all markets to protect their interests. The development of this technology has been going on for many years, I wonder what the stumbling block is? Probably like excon said, the efficiencies aren't there yet.

Galveston1

Even at the present time many are adding HHO to their fuel mix to increase the mileage. For it to work you need to tweak the signal from the O2 sensor. That requires minimal electronics. We are indeed on the brink of something great. What kind of chaos would be caused if in 5 years this became readily available to everyone?

tomder55

My guess is that would depend on the cost of the plug in to fire up the electrolysis process. If it was competitive with hydrocarbon energy sources then it would shake up the energy world. I think just the development of flex fuel cars and investing in the infrastructure would have an impact.
You have peaked my interest ;but right now I can't help but think this sounds like a hoak or a pie in the sky dream ;much like Excon said when refering about fusion reactors .


BTW ;those evil big oil companies also invest in the reseach and exploration of alternative energies sources. Maybe they are not in the forefront but their investments are in the multi-millions.