Whatever happened to the water-fueled engine?

It didn't go anywhere.



Cycloptichorn

Storage of hydrogen as a hydride seems to be a viable means . I dont know what research has been undertaken on this.

I remember seeing something about metal hydride storage for hydrogen quite a few years ago.

Hydrogen gas storage has some real obstacles. It's explosive as hell, has the widest flammability range of any material, the molecule is so small and light it can diffuse (effuse?) right through the wall of a steel tank, and is more or less a quantum gas (hard to condense) that makes cyrogenic storage questionable.

The hydride storage used alkaloid metals (presenting other problems) and the release of hydrogen was sightly endothermic. Interesting problems to solve for storage.

They'll be solved though, but not to generally burn hydrogen as a fuel in an engine. They'll be solved for fuel cells--hydrogen used for electricity. Once you got electricity a motor is the only way to go.

Rap

the metal hydride, lithium -air fuel set-up is , as I understand, the recent breakthrough for a true high ranging all electric car. Ive heard talk of a car motor capable of doing over 500 miles per charge and then

1a battery charge that takes an hour
2a hydride tank "swap out"
I guess the problems there are convenience,(UNless the homeowner can buy several hydride storage units and do the swaps themsepves(I have no idea what Im talking about here)

Swap out makes a good 'business plan'. Fuel companies create a brand specific tank--then users of that tank will have to search out that 'brand.'

No, no that's an Exxon station they won't work with our 'BP' tank.

Rap

500 miles per charge is a reasonable range--at about 20 hp (15 Kw) at 60 mph, 500 miles is about 125 Kw-hrs (1.07E5 kcal) which is equivalent to about 30 to 35 gallons of gas (18 to 15 mpg)--I could live with that.

Rap

the dirty secret of all these e-cars is that they dont include things like heaters AC or amp using appliances like MP3 or CD players. Then the mileage can be cut way down (say you live in Az and need AC just to survive).
I drive a Ford Escape Hybrid and my city mileage doesnt exist if Im running the AC. It goes immediately to the 4 cyl gas engine and my mileage goes to like 25 mpg.

Modern internal combustion engines with fuel injection and continuously adaptable electronic ignition have vastly improved thermodynamic efficiency compared to the Otto cycle engines we studied in school. What this means is that electric vehicles don't make either economic or environmental sense. Given today's sources of electricity, an electric vehicle is 52% powered by coal, 22% by nuclear, 18.5% by natural gas, 6% by hydroelectric & geothermal, and 1.5% by renewables.

(Incidently the U.S. is about tied with China as the leading producers of wind power in the world. The problem is it takes thousands of wind turbines to equal a modern nuclear or gas generation plant that occupies only a few acres of land ..... and the wind doesn't blow all the time. Indeed, based on data from the Department of energy website, the capital cost of a Kw of electricity actrually generated by wind power is 75% greater than that for new nuclear plants)

The fastest growing source of electrical power and, along with nuclear, our only feasible option for replacing the coal, that Obama's EPA is out to destrroy, is natural gas.

The efficiency of a standard automobile powered with compressed natural gas is significantly greater than the efficiency of a process involving (1)the generation of electricity in a compound cycle gas turbine plant, (2)electrical transmission to the home power outlet, and (3)battery storage & operation of the electric motor in the vehicle.

Such a vehicle would be a slight environmental improvement over conventional vehicles, only in that natural gas contains slightly less SOX & NOX inducing chemicals. The only real benefit would be that the natural gas will be produced domestically, not imported as with petroleum.

I have to disagree mightily. I am a fan of drilling for nat gas (as my "Drilling is Quietly Going ON" Thread. However, ever since the Congress shitcanned any requirements of the "Underground Injection " Rules to be applied to gaqs drilling (especially the fracking) AND, The Congress, in its collective wisdom (Dems and GOPs) have failed to provide legislation that requires the gas drillers to be vigilant against contamination and physical damage to the environment (eg "exploding water wells"), and certqin states have totally given the gas drillers Unregulated freedom to **** up the environment, we are now in a stage where the drilling companies are actually running the show.

My overall philosophy is that "unregulated industry will NEVER do whats right, they will ALWAYS try to skate by"

In PA, we have a legacy of 1/3 of our streams in the state are contaminated by acid mine and mine mineral drainage contamination. This is in the state with the second highest number of stream miles of all 50 states (Alaska is number 1). We have 84000 miles of streams.

Id hate to see that additional stream miles get screwed up by gas drilling due to a pussy CONGRESS. SO if you want to be on EPAs back, ya better have something in its place to assure that we dont have another 27000 miles of dead streams because you want industry to be "unregulated".

In PA, I just found out, the first wells are producing gas and its all EARMARKED FOR CHINA. (that was reported on the HQarrisburg News Station on QWed this week.
Here we are GIVING AWAY drilling options for fuckin free and the gas drillers are bullshitting me with
"We CAN MAKE US ENERGY INDEPENDENT"---
and they are selling the first gas to China

Our Governor is a GOP who is in the gas drillers pocket anyway. Hes a total joke and its only taken about 6 months to find out. I heard the word RECALL.

One of the reasons Im a liberal, I dont buy any of that deregulation crap. Itll only bring us to grief one way or the other, and the gas drilling boom in the US is just the present maask of the "New Gilded Age" where the rich became many times over more wealthy than the poor and the poor sank further into the well of poverty.

Tierra, Agua e Libertad!!

I don't argue with that. We do some work for the drillers in PA, but they are tough customers if they get in trouble with local water authorities - as often happens. The recent blanket restrictions imposed by NY state are relevant here. We are also seeing some drillers packing up and shifting their equipment to petroleum wells where, based on current prices, the return is much greater. I don't see the current pace of new gas wells increasing - where will they get the water - an increasingly scarce and already spoken for commodity?
In short I expect the industry to cool down a bit and adapt to increasing regulation.

However, I stand by my original statement about replacing the 52% of our electrical power generated from coal. Where will we find it? Wind & solar currently deliver about 1.5% of our electrical power and, there is no prospect of them replacing coal generation as fast as EPA is planning on shutting it down. Using DOE Energy Information Agency data, the capacity factor adjusted relative (to natural gas) capital costs per KW hr generated are as follows; natural gas 1.0 ; coal 3.4; nuclear; 4.4; wind 7.0; and solar 13.0. Though the wind is free the added connections and complex repair problem make the operating cost/Kw hr the same for wind as for nuclear.

It seems clear that the capital cost advantage and the relative ease of permitting will very strongly favor natural gas. Unfortunately, as you suggest, that will probably require new drilling at an environmentally damaging (and economically infeasible) pace. We could significantly alleviate both issues by building the six new nuclear plants (7.4 Gw total) nearing the completion of the permitting process, but in the current climate that doesn't seem likely.

In a curent world dominated by fanatics, zealots, and largely ignorant self-styled progressive reformers, we aren't doing very well and finding the least bad of the available solutions. Perhaps when our electrical bills increase by a factor of 2 or 3 people will wake up.

The program was primarily following Grpyh's journeys along 7 British rivers, the Scottish Laird (Lord) was in episode 1. I remember him being really pee'd off that he couldn't power his helicopter with free fuel.

I wonder if any TV stations would be interested in a program or indeed a whole series on alternative power sources and how they could benefit us in the future.

Here in the UK, we have all but used-up our gas reserves. We did however, have the foresight to tap into the methane gas produced by our landfill sites to run gas-powered generators to feed in to our grid. In fact, there is one less than 1.5 miles from my house It provides power for 3,000 homes..
Just across the road, a local farmer has installed his own 6,5Kw wind turbine.
As an island nation, we could very easily deploy a series of wave generators to provide low-cost energy and remove the need to rely on imports of compressed natural gas.

By removing our reliance on nuclear coal and natural gas power stations, we could make charging points for electric cars viable.

I'm not sure how much electricity costs in the US, but in the UK the average is 16p p/Kwh (about 11 USCents). People over here are being encouraged to fit solar PV panels with a system known as 'Feed In Tariff', where a home-owner is paid 43p p/Kwh for each unit of electricity they contribute to the national grid + an extra 4p p/Kwh for each unit they use. This scheme will be running until 2036, with the energy companies paying the FIT fees.

Even our local Borough Council is fitting 2000 of it's homes with the panels in order to cash-in on the scheme.

You may have a special case since you don't have much in the way of native natural gas. Still, almost anything makes economic sense when someone else is paying for it - so long as someone else doesn't run out of money.

1 liter of gasoline yields about 10 kw-hr thermally. An Otto engine is about 10% efficient after figuring thermodynamics so a liter of gas is about 1 kw-hr mechanical.

As electric motors are about 90% efficient and the balance of mechanics can be 90% efficient. So the overall electric car efficiency is 80% efficient---this means the electric equivalent of a liter of gas costs about 14 cents US.

Rap

We thought that we ran out of nat gas also, but all these new plays that we have in the US (roughly 24 known plays as of now) were all as the result of new drilling technology and fracturing along horizontal planes. I think, from AAPG reports , that UK has about 3 untapped "frackable fields" in your land mass. There is also a huge amount of CH4 locked up in "methyl CLathrates" which are basically "frozen" methane deposits that are at ocean depths where they "freeze up" due to the pressure on the gas escaping from the bottomoozes. methyl clathrates will be the next big thing (once we can safely "mine them"). They are very metastable and can turn into a gusher of gas that will blow at the ocean surface just like shaking a bottle of champagne with your thumb on the top . The bubbles will just cause an explosive gas release at the surface. There are several techniques being tested and there are some target sites for testing . These will be a huge(almost limitless) source of methane for the future.

We can make engines that are methane and propane fueled . thats not any problem. In fact, there are really only a few minor modifications to any gasoline fired engine that will be needed to make the engine run on nat gas, methane or propane.

Modern Otto cycle engines have a thermodymanic efficiency of about 28%, Even the relatively primitive engines of thirty years ago got betther than 16%. I don't know where you got your 10% number.

Memory and Qeff=(To-Yi)/To--my bad

OK, tripling Otto efficiency raises the electrical equivalence cost to about 42 cents (US) per liter of gasoline-($1.60/gal).

Rap

You are forgetting something rather basic here. There are no useful sources of continuous electrical energy to be found in nature. Instead it is produced by heat engines using coal, natural gas and nuclear energy as a source. The thermodynamic efficiency of these engines is only very slightly greater than that of a modern automobile engine. Additional losses occur in the transmission of the electrical power and in storing it & then discharging it from the battery - all before it gets to the electric motor which has more like 85% efficiency.

You're buying electricity @ a kw-hr price. That price includes the thermodynamic inefficiency of the generating heat engine (fuel charge).

Rap

True, however the typical price of a KwHr of electric energy is about $0.15, so your 10Kwhr liter equivalent costs $1.50 and that works out to about $6.40/gallon.

When the EPA gets through shutting donw our coal fired generating plants and replacing them (if they can) with renewables the price of electricity will more than double.