HyPower hydrogen powers a Volkswagen GTi
HyPower have fitted a Volkswagen GTi with their H2 Reactor (H2R) hydrogen system to show that it can power the vehicle using only water. Designed to use electrolysis on the fly to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, the system then uses the hydrogen/oxygen gas to power its original internal combustion engine.It would appear the system uses onboard batteries to run the H2R leaving the vehicle's motion to be powered entirely by hydrogen. In-car electrolysis has the advantage of doing away with the need to store highly compressed hydrogen in special storage tanks. Further, you would never need to head to your local gas station either as the only input beyond electricity for batteries would be water.
The H2R uses a highly efficient electrolysis process to produce 1 litre / 0.26 gallons of hydrogen per 1 watt hour. HyPower bills this as being around 2 to 2.5 times more efficient than the current performance of competing technologies. Live demonstrations will be held on February 28, 2007 to demonstrate the H2R in operation for independent experts to confirm the results. A web cast of the event will also take place via YouTube.
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[Source: Wired News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Fabulo 4:42PM (12/15/2006)
So where does the energy come from?
The batteries.
Wow.
So it goes like this: burn coal to boil water to spin turbines to make electricity to charge (in car) batteries to electrolyse water to make hydrogen to burn hydrogen in internal combustion engine.
Am I the only one to think this kind of "solution" brings nothing like a solution. In car electrolysis is the dumbest idea. Does anyone have any clue? Isn't it obvious hydrogen is not the energy *source* here?
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John Rowell 5:05PM (12/15/2006)
I just checked my calendar to make sure it's not April 1st.
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Brett 5:05PM (12/15/2006)
What do they do with the O2 made during the electrolysis? I would hope they add it to the intake, and I would expect the O2 concentration increase in the intake charge would have a larger effect on the engine performance than the H2. In this situation, the system could be acting more or less like an electrochemical turbocharger, and perhaps it is more efficient than the mechanical compressors which must compress air that is essentially 79% inert. Just a thought.
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Howard Lee Harkness 6:16PM (12/15/2006)
"HyPower have fitted a Volkswagen GTi with their H2 Reactor (H2R) hydrogen system to show that it can power the vehicle using only water."
1) This sentence is a perpetual motion claim. Perpetual motion machines don't work. If you don't understand why this is so, you don't need to be reporting this sort of "news". It takes more energy to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water than is possible to recover in ANY kind of reaction of the resulting hydrogen and oxygen. Period. No amount of wishful thinking will change that.
2) I can't help but notice the profound absence of any cost figures in pro-hydrogen discussions. Even if biological processes can produce hydrogen cheaply, there are other problems rooted deeply in the laws of chemistry and physics that will make hydrogen non-competitive with gasoline for the next 30 years or so, and non-competitive with biodiesel forever. There is also a safety problem, which will take the invention of entirely new technologies to adequately address.
3) Using hydrogen to power a car is insanely stupid.
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Chris 6:27PM (12/15/2006)
The Hydrogen "Economy" is a scam. Don't believe me? Take a gander at these statistics.
A compressed Hydrogen solution gets approximately 23 kWh per 100 kWh of electricity generated.
AC-DC conversion=95 % of 100 kWh = 95 kWh
Electrolysis=75 % of 95 kWh = 71 kWh
Compression=90% of 71 kWh = 64 kWh
Transport/Transfer=80% of 64 kWh = 51 kWh
Fuel Cell=50% of 51 kWh = 28 kWh
Fuel Cell Vehicle=90% of 28 kWh = A measly 23 kWh of usable energy per 100 kWh of generated electricity.
I got the stats here.
http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html
Compare that to a Pure Electric Vehicle which gets 69 kWh of usable current per 100 generated and the choice becomes academic.
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Peter 7:16PM (12/15/2006)
Run a car on water? Sounds nice, BUT how much will this proposed "dihydrogen monoxide economy" cost to build in infrastructure??
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Gary 8:19PM (12/15/2006)
Autoblog Editors:
Could you please take a better look at this and maybe screen stories like this? Either some details aren't being properly reported or this is a complete scam.
The way it reads, it sounds like a battery is being used to provide energy to split hydrogen to burn in an internal combustion engine to move a car.
This is, of course, idiotic since it would make much more sense to drive the wheels directly from the battery.
I would expect that an educated site like this would not report BS stories like this in the future, or, at least try to explain why it's not the complete BS it sounds like.
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CM 2:55AM (12/16/2006)
This is yet another version of the same scheme that keeps popping up to get money from the gullible. I can think of at least 6 other scams like this. They all rely on the limited scientific understanding of the general public as well as the ongoing hydrogen hoopla.
If it worked the way they claim, it would turn the IC engine into the worlds least efficient electric motor, approx. 7%, and drain the battery with extreme rapidity.
But of course, it doesn't produce nearly enough hydrogen to power the engine, the engine really runs on regular fuels. HyPower admits as much elsewhere on their website, saying it doesn't eliminate the need for fossil fuels. So they pretend it "improves milage and reduces pollution", claims a bit more difficult to disprove, though simple physics does indicate a decrease in efficiency would result.
In case a disgruntled customer doesn't get any improvement, they already have an excuse ready: they claim "Increased sophistication of engine computerization, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), and ever-changing diesel fuel formulations can override the positive effects of hydrogen injection." Of course, they are hard at work making a "interface control module" that supposedly corrects that problem, for an additional fee, of course. One wonders what excuse they'll have for the failure of their "ICM" to work - I'm certain they'll think of something, they are extremely creative with their bafflegab.
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Tim 9:43AM (12/16/2006)
Ohh, if it were but only true! There are stranger things in this world than in all your philosophies, Horatio. Those damn laws of thermodynamics. Could they be incorrect or incomplete? Many think so, many do not. It was an open mind and a great hunger that first gave us cooked food. Hope springe eternal. An open mind makes all things possible Peter Pan.
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Brett 11:47PM (12/16/2006)
So these guys have an efficient electrolyzer. Nice. Those can be useful. They just completely powered a car as a demonstration project, albeit a ridiculous one. In the past they've maintained that electrolyzing small amounts of water to add H2 and O2 into the combustion process changes the chemistry and increases burn efficiency and lowers emissions. This could very well be the case, so hold onto your thermodynamics.
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