Has anyone heard of this?? Run Your Car on Water!!

[JMD730]

http://www.runyourcarwithwater.com/?...FSgtagod4i5Eng

I was at work last night and this guy was telling me about how he did this. He said that it cost around $100 and that it actually works. I'm a little skeptical of the whole thing. The web site looks super cheesy.

Has anyone heard of this or tried it before or know someone who has? If it does work, I would definitely try it!

[eedre]

Hmm... so it basically takes A LOT of current to cause electrolysis - what they describe on the website.

[RWP]

He says his car can run exclusively on water but it is set up to run on gasoline and water. Why? I suspect this is a load of crap. Every time the price of gas goes up the loonies start crawling out of the wood work.

[SpectorBass308]

I'm not buying the car running on water thing... not until scientists come up with the missing catalyst to help conduct electrolysis with reasonable efficiency.

[RWP]

I just read an engineering blog about this guys contraption. He says he can fart more gas than it would produce.

[eedre]

Originally Posted by RWP

I just read an engineering blog about this guys contraption. He says he can fart more gas than it would produce.

I can imagine... pure hydrogen gas is produced using electrolysis and it's very expensive due to the massive amounts of power it takes to make it. A battery is not going to do much.

[Depth_Charge]

Originally Posted by RWP

I just read an engineering blog about this guys contraption. He says he can fart more gas than it would produce.

Fart powered cars? What an awesome concept! Imagine the conversation about low end grunt and rumbling exhausts! "Flamers" would get popular again coz everyone loves lighting their farts! Racing events would start with a baked bean eating contest. ROFLMAO!!!! I could go on. . .

[Ericman197]

Cars can't run on water and the whole thing (water and hydrogen) is a waste of time.

[bigfatbass]

Mythbusters easily disproved that nonsense last year, although they did say that with advances it is a reasonable course of research, but certainly nothing feasible in this space on the time line. Not by a long shot.

[JMD730]

Originally Posted by Ericman197

Cars can't run on water and the whole thing (water and hydrogen) is a waste of time.

You're just wrong. General Motors created a car that runs on ocean water. Watch the video. Top Gear did it and if I remember correctly, it should be in production in around 20 years.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NLKExuHlQMQ

[Aaiieeee]

That website is exactly like the "learn to play guitar without doing anything" website except it doesn't have the testimonials.

With the hype on 'Green' at the moment, and the cost of fuel, every single car driver would know about it 'cos it would be really popular.

[JMX]

Originally Posted by JMD730

You're just wrong. General Motors created a car that runs on ocean water. Watch the video. Top Gear did it and if I remember correctly, it should be in production in around 20 years.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NLKExuHlQMQ

It's a bit hidden in there, but that's still just a fuel cell car. You still need to generate the H2 elsewhere, and you can use any kind of H2O, even saltwater. Still need energy to get it, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hy-wire

[Ericman197]

Originally Posted by JMD730

You're just wrong. General Motors created a car that runs on ocean water. Watch the video. Top Gear did it and if I remember correctly, it should be in production in around 20 years.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NLKExuHlQMQ

No, cars cannot run on water - not now, not ever. This idea comes up on a regular basis on forums and unfortunately many people cannot be convinced that it won't work.

I'll explain:

The cars 'work' by the process of electrolysis - converting water to hydrogen and oxygen gas. The gases are then burned to produce energy and water. It sounds like a great idea, but it doesn't work in practice due to basic laws of physics/chemistry: Energy in is equal to energy out. That is to say that to convert water to hydrogen you need to put a certain amount of energy into it (electrolysis), and this energy is exactly equal to the energy you get by burning hydrogen and oxygen to form water.

Now, you might say that at least we're breaking even, so perhaps we should develop some catalyst. Breaking even is the best case scenario - in reality these mechanisms are much less efficient. Specifically burning hydrogen/oxygen is limited to around 30ish% efficiency. That's just the way an internal combustion engine works, and the same efficiency laws apply to solar panels, fuel cells, external combustion engines, turbine engines etc. although some designs are more or less efficient than others.

What's the problem you say? The energy to power electrolysis has to come from somewhere. If it came from a renewable and nonpolluting energy source then maybe it wouldn't be so bad. That is not the case. Here we're powering the electrolysis equipment with energy from the car. That means you need to burn the gas to turn the alternator to power the cell to produce the hydrogen/oxygen. Remember, burning gas is also going to be around 30% efficient. Ultimately we're looking at a total efficiency of well under 10%. You'd get much more energy from just burning the gas.

This is why hydrogen will never work out on a large scale. It's incredibly inefficient; electric cars would be a much better choice. Another bad aspect of hydrogen that I didn't even mention is that right now, it's damn near impossible to store it. One of the guys on another car forum got a chance to test the BMW 7 series hydrogen car. Once you fill it, you have about two weeks before the hydrogen has all evaporated. The gas molecules are so small and energetic that you can't store them without frequent venting (otherwise your tank would blow up). While this problem can be solved with futuristic fuel cells and other storage methods, it's a waste of time and money.

Burning hydrogen will never be as efficient as running an electric motor. The only way I could see it working is if we found a way to convert heat in the atmosphere to energy ie: converting water to hydrogen/oxygen without inputting any energy. Don't expect this to happen any time soon though, but if it did then it would revolutionize the world - free electricity!

[vene-nemesis]

Originally Posted by Ericman197

No, cars cannot run on water - not now, not ever. This idea comes up on a regular basis on forums and unfortunately many people cannot be convinced that it won't work.

I'll explain:

The cars 'work' by the process of electrolysis - converting water to hydrogen and oxygen gas. The gases are then burned to produce energy and water. It sounds like a great idea, but it doesn't work in practice due to basic laws of physics/chemistry: Energy in is equal to energy out. That is to say that to convert water to hydrogen you need to put a certain amount of energy into it (electrolysis), and this energy is exactly equal to the energy you get by burning hydrogen and oxygen to form water.

Now, you might say that at least we're breaking even, so perhaps we should develop some catalyst. Breaking even is the best case scenario - in reality these mechanisms are much less efficient. Specifically burning hydrogen/oxygen is limited to around 30ish% efficiency. That's just the way an internal combustion engine works, and the same efficiency laws apply to solar panels, fuel cells, external combustion engines, turbine engines etc. although some designs are more or less efficient than others.

What's the problem you say? The energy to power electrolysis has to come from somewhere. If it came from a renewable and nonpolluting energy source then maybe it wouldn't be so bad. That is not the case. Here we're powering the electrolysis equipment with energy from the car. That means you need to burn the gas to turn the alternator to power the cell to produce the hydrogen/oxygen. Remember, burning gas is also going to be around 30% efficient. Ultimately we're looking at a total efficiency of well under 10%. You'd get much more energy from just burning the gas.

This is why hydrogen will never work out on a large scale. It's incredibly inefficient; electric cars would be a much better choice. Another bad aspect of hydrogen that I didn't even mention is that right now, it's damn near impossible to store it. One of the guys on another car forum got a chance to test the BMW 7 series hydrogen car. Once you fill it, you have about two weeks before the hydrogen has all evaporated. The gas molecules are so small and energetic that you can't store them without frequent venting (otherwise your tank would blow up). While this problem can be solved with futuristic fuel cells and other storage methods, it's a waste of time and money.

Burning hydrogen will never be as efficient as running an electric motor. The only way I could see it working is if we found a way to convert heat in the atmosphere to energy ie: converting water to hydrogen/oxygen without inputting any energy. Don't expect this to happen any time soon though, but if it did then it would revolutionize the world - free electricity!

Free electricity! that would lead in one way or another to uber awsome free porn then noone will need cars !

[Tsal]

Yep, electric vehicles are far better alternative for low-scale personal use. I heard Nissan has made a large order for electric automobile batteries, so apparently they are coming out with some kind of a prototype within a couple of years.

[Rune Bivrin]

Running cars on water? No problem: All you need is really large tyres and propellers. But I suppose that turns it into a boat?

[peterbright]

Most cars don't float very well. I suggest not running them on water.

[dan.ablett]

Originally Posted by peterbright

Most cars don't float very well. I suggest not running them on water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqw8QRUREqI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB-w6sj3ajg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg4I-tohHxc

these guys tried......

[ehque]

Electrolysis is a well known phenomenon and it is common to achieve 80+% efficiency in a properly designed electrolysis cell.

Full cells are undergoing extensive research and should be able to hit 80+% as well.

Anything combusting hits the thermal bottleneck and will have problems exceeding 30+% efficiency without being run VERY VERY hot.

The only way you're going to run your car on water is you find a cheap source of energy that doesn't work in a car, and use it to make hydrogen gas. You can't use the car battery, because it'd run dry in an instant, or a conventional gas/oil/coal-fired powerplant, because you'd be better off burning that oil in you car in the first place, even though powerplants are more efficient than car engines.

only things i can think of are nuclear (fission or fusion) or renewable sources (solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal) which are impractical to install in cars. efficiency doesn't matter in this case then.

water doesn't burn.

[Marcus Johnson]

1910 Stanley Steamer. Jay Leno has at least one of these, he actually drove it to the Tonight Show gig once.. The cool part is, instead of a horn, you have a steam whistle that scares the crap outta people.