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Hydrogen powered Ranger


Dirtman

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What would make hydrogen better is a self contained hydro generator then just need water for fuel... They were made along time ago but buried by big oil.
Producing hydrogen from water requires electricity, and the electricity used is greater than the amount of energy the hydrogen produced can create. So yea, you can make a car run on water if you have a massive battery system to power the hydrogen generator. Right now the best systems use around 50KWH of electricity to produce 40KWH of energy in hydrogen. Those batteries powering the generator need to be charged from something so in the end the whole system is less efficient than just using those batteries to power an electric motor. The hydrogen is just a useless middle man in the process. Hydrogen from water sounds neat and clean, but it's simply not. You're using a ton of power to make something with less power than you had in the first place.
 


97RangerXLT

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Producing hydrogen from water requires electricity, and the electricity used is greater than the amount of energy the hydrogen produced can create. So yea, you can make a car run on water if you have a massive battery system to power the hydrogen generator. Right now the best systems use around 50KWH of electricity to produce 40KWH of energy in hydrogen. Those batteries powering the generator need to be charged from something so in the end the whole system is less efficient than just using those batteries to power an electric motor. The hydrogen is just a useless middle man in the process. Hydrogen from water sounds neat and clean, but it's simply not. You're using a ton of power to make something with less power than you had in the first place.
Science.

AJ
 

Dirtman

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Yup, big oil didn't kill the HHO generator concept the laws of conservation of energy and thermodynamics did...

ActualColossalIchidna-size_restricted.gif
 

RonD

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Science and physics really SUCKS when its not on your side

There are better ways to produce Hydrogen, unfortunately they use Fossil Fuels as the base, so same carbon issue, and energy input is high vs Hydrogen output IF you only consider the Hydrogen produced

And Hydrogen is light, so heads straight UP if left on its own, right out into space, which is why its estimated to be the most plentiful element in the universe(we don't know about "dark matter")
But it "loves" oxygen, bonds with it quick and easy and doesn't like to let go, which is why we have so much WATER around, lol
 

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Newton would be very proud.👩‍🎓

The economical production of hydrogen as a fuel is pretty much stuck in the same rut as cold fusion. Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that, not judging, that’s just the present state of the science.
 

Dirtman

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This guy is hilarious and does a decent job explaining why hydrogen cars don't work. He's mainly talking about those goofy scam HHO things you can buy on eBay in the first video but the principles he discusses are valid for any vehicle using hydrogen whether as a fuel itself in internal combustion, a fuel cell, or by creating it on board with an HHO generator. The second video he explains why hydrogen just sucks in general but mainly why its a horrible fuel in an internal combustion engine.


 
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89Twincharge

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I agree it's definitely not perfect... Electric cars are also not perfect. That is why Chevy just recalled all those e-cars. They also require large battery banks to work and also lots of fossil fuels to produce... Most plastic is made from fossil fuels, electric is made from f.f., the vehicles that transport material runs on f.f., the employees that drive to factories use f.f. so unless we can move to renewable resources as fuels it doesn't matter either way electric, hho, gas, diesel.
 

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No.

We're not talking about 'it's not perfect' in regard to HHO.

It's a flat out scam. Never has worked, and never can - the minimum energy required is more than the energy you get out of the process. Doesn't have a thing to do with 'big oil' or any conspiracy whatsoever.
 

97RangerXLT

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Yeah, the hho or "brown water" is a gimmic. Proven over and over that it is not feasible.

I do think that fuel cells and hydrogen power have a future, but right now gasoline and fossil fuels are the best bang for your buck. But as those fossil fuels start depleting, the cost of generating hydrogen on a large scale will become more economical. I read an article on Motor Trend over 10 years ago when Honds did a fuel cell car and at that time hydrogen was only about 5 bucks more a gallon than an equivalent amount of gasoline. That price will go down as the infrastructure is put in place to generate it. The real issues are safety and not going kaboom in a serious accident.

I also see cars going to electric but using a gas/diesel/fuel cell to run the electric drive train motors, much like modern freight trains. The emissions could be lowered in a fossil fuel situation by not having to reve the engine as much for a quick power boost to pass someone or to pull into an intersection. A regular marine style battery can handle on demand power spikes without needing an electric car or hybrid style battery.

AJ
 

19Walt93

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One of my old customers was a self described tinkerer. He had a camper on an F550 chassis powered by a V10 that he'd use to go South in the winter. It got about 5 mpg and, being a Yankee, paying for all that gas caused him physical pain. He built a little hydrogen generator and stuck it in the side compartment, ran a hose up and tapped into the air intake before the throttle body, and mounted a switch on the dash to turn it on once he was driving. The hydrogen would flow into the intake and the PCM would see richer O2s and lean out the injectors. He claimed 1 or 2 more mpg, which doesn't sound like much until you figure it was 20%-40%.
 

19Walt93

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The propane company across the street from our shop used to buy gas powered trucks and convert them to propane. The oil looked like new at 10,000 miles and spark plugs seemed to last forever. Then they'd peel off the propane conversion and trade them in with 5 year old rancid gas in the fuel system, barely running. The local company, Suburban Natural Gas, was sold to the national company, Suburban Propane when they owners retired, they run diesel trucks.
 

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I think the key to future is spreading demand across all forms of energy and creating hybridized vehicles that run on more than 1 fuel source

This is new prototype offroading vehicle. https://www.motor1.com/news/533398/fering-pioneer-range-extended-truck/


65743


The truck has a max range of almost 4000 miles with a full gas tank and fully charged battery
It has electric motor in each axle and only a small ~50 miles battery pack
The electric battery is recharged by a 800cc 3 cylinder engine that runs on Biodiesel
 

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Bring back the Stanley Steamer! Just wondering, how much fossil fuel does it take to create the electricity to charge electric vehicles? The whole concept of electric cars doesn't make sense to me. Just a thought. I do burn outs for earth day! Give me gasoline or give me death!
 

fastpakr

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Bring back the Stanley Steamer! Just wondering, how much fossil fuel does it take to create the electricity to charge electric vehicles? The whole concept of electric cars doesn't make sense to me. Just a thought. I do burn outs for earth day! Give me gasoline or give me death!
Most electricity isn't generated from coal or fossil fuel at this point. And there's a significant difference in efficiency between generating it at large plants rather than tens of thousands of small ICE's.
 

Dirtman

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I poop in the furnace.
Bring back the Stanley Steamer! Just wondering, how much fossil fuel does it take to create the electricity to charge electric vehicles? The whole concept of electric cars doesn't make sense to me. Just a thought. I do burn outs for earth day! Give me gasoline or give me death!
While its true if you charge your EV in an area that uses coal, your car is essentially coal powered. But, we are discussing energy conservation, i.e how much energy does it take overall to get the wheels of your vehicle spinning. You never ever ever get more energy out of a system than you put into it, it's always less because energy is wasted. On a gasoline engine about 80% of the energy from the fuel is wasted creating heat, only about 20% actually goes into turning the wheels on a good day. Hydrogen is something like 95+% wasted and the production process uses WAY more energy than refining gasoline. With an EV a higher percentage of that potential energy stored in the batteries can be directly converted into turning the wheels so EV's are more efficient overall. Total energy losses in an EV from start to finish is less than gasoline even factoring in the power plant that's charging the batteries. EV technology is only now becoming a true viable option though because we had no idea how to store enough electricity. Battery technology sucked until the past couple decades, now that we are starting to see batteries that can store more energy we are seeing EV that can travel 400 miles and charge in 30 minutes instead of 20 years ago where you could travel 60 miles and charge in 12 hours...
 

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