I only watched the first few seconds but I think that guy should not have dropped out of chemistry in high school.
He's using fossil fuel to separate water into oxygen and hydrogen and then burning the hydrogen. Unfortunately that would make less energy than merely burning the fossil fuel in the first place, without the hydrogen.
You could theoretically design a car to run on a tank of hydrogen (forget the electrolysis) but to get enough you'd probably have to cool it to liquid hydrogen temperatures. that would be very expensive and dangerous, and also it would evaporate very quickly.
It appears the guy is trying to put it all together. Let's hope he is successful.
kwg
He was killed in a recent mass shooting
Compressed hydrogen has a very wide flammable range that makes it more dangerous if there are any leaks. Hydrogen is a very small and would be difficult to contain with normal threaded connections and typical seals. These things and the cost of separating water using more energy than the hhdrogen will produce make it difficult to plan it as.a current alternative to hydrocarbon fuels.
How to do Hydrogen... right.
GR
Did someone find a source of Hydrogen other than electrolysis of water?
If not, it will take an unlimited supply of electricity to produce the Hydrogen required to fuel America's fleet of passenger and commercial vehicles. It might work out well when we have fusion energy plants dotting every coastline in the world.
But in reality, electricity is easier to transport than is Hydrogen gas. And it is a lot more efficient to use electricity for motive power than to use electricity to produce Hydrogen and convert that to motive power.
Should we even mention the Hindenburg?
Here's a novel thought. Build the Fusion plants (or other nukes) , produce lots of electricity, separate the Hydrogen out of water, them bond it to atmospheric carbon to produce methane, propane, butane, octane, etc and transport it with proven safe and effective methods.
Zero net vehicle emissions! And consumption only of Deuterium and Tritium.
To my understanding hydrogen fuel is quite doable. It's Greenland or Iceland one has lots of public transport buses and such that are ran from hydrogen.
Did someone find a source of Hydrogen other than electrolysis of water? None that I'm aware of.
If not, it will take an unlimited supply of electricity to produce the Hydrogen required to fuel America's fleet of passenger and commercial vehicles. It might work out well when we have fusion energy plants dotting every coastline in the world. There are many ways to generate electricity that do not consume fossil fuels, rely on rare earth metals, and are cheaper than nukes.
But in reality, electricity is easier to transport than is Hydrogen gas. And it is a lot more efficient to use electricity for motive power than to use electricity to produce Hydrogen and convert that to motive power. Electricity is not a viable fuel for high performance aircraft.
Here's a novel thought. Build the Fusion plants (or other nukes) , produce lots of electricity, separate the Hydrogen out of water, them bond it to atmospheric carbon to produce methane, propane, butane, octane, etc and transport it with proven safe and effective methods. Fusion power plants remain a pipe dream. At such time as the tech matures it might open a lot of doors.
Zero net vehicle emissions! And consumption only of Deuterium and Tritium. And lithium.
Thanks Dan. That led to some interesting rabbit holes.
Next research subject: where does all the Tritium for gun sights come from?
Thanks again. I had not come across that article yet.
A big issue with H2 is the necessary storage tanks. To store it as a pressurized gas, you need a tank that can handle as much as 10k psi, something like 50x more than propane. To store it as a liquid, you're talking super cold and a tank to keep it that way. It just isn't practical for general use.
Hydrogen powered vehicles have been commercially available for decades. During my college years (early 90’s), the campus buses were hydrogen powered. The UK made a big push in the 2000s to get people to convert to hydrogen, by discounting it significantly vs gasoline and diesel. A retrofit kit for a pickup truck costed about 3K.
Range is limited, due to the volume of hydrogen able to be stored.
It only makes sense if the ability to make hydrogen from water if the power source came from low cost no hydrocarbon based source (I.e. nuclear, hydro, etc.) or was a byproduct of another industrial process.
They like to call them zero emission. But that Hydrogen was produced with electricity which was most likely produced with hydrocarbon fueled generators.
Just like electric cars.
Just more smoke and mirrors.
My brother spent a couple of decades of his engineering career trying to make the fusion reactor work. He was one of a very few people worldwide who were experimenting with how to control the plasma shield that kept it from self-destructing. Finally the funding dried up, and he had to go into a different area of research. Now he does computer modeling for automotive manufacturers as a private consultant at a minimum rate of $1K a day. Yes. they're glad to pay his asking price!