8/5/08

That, hopefully if I remember to take it and attach it to the e-mail, is a picture of Dolly. Ain’t she a cutie pie? I think so. Well, I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before but there is a guy here at the railroad on a serious Kool-Aid binge over the notion that by using “simple” plans purchased from the internot, you can convert your car to run on water. All of the “schemes” I have seen consist of a device which generates hydrogen and oxygen from water and then supplies that gas into the intake tract of an engine which still runs on gasoline. Of course the plans also tell you how to disable, er, I mean modify the signal from the oxygen sensor to make the engine run leaner as well. It seems to me that the combination of leaning out the system with the oxygen sensor, as well as the introduced air leak of the hydrogen generator, plus a person consciously trying for better mileage would make short term improvements in gas mileage. But the way, oh let’s call him Thersites after the fool in Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida” shall we? But the way Thersites makes it sound, Juan would dispense with gasoline entirely and run the car just on hydrogen. Ok, let’s look at this in simple terms, shall we? First off, if it takes X joules of energy to break water into hydrogen and oxygen, then the absolute maximum energy Juan can extract from burning the same amount of hydrogen is X joules. That’s simple physics, the law of conservation of energy. Now a heat engine is not very efficient at converting chemical energy into work. Sorry, but that’s another simple fact. There is significant loss of energy through heating up the engine, why do you think there is a big assed radiator up front? But let’s be generous and say that this hydrogen powered engine is only going to waste 50% of the chemical energy of the hydrogen through wasted heat. So now we’re already having to burn 2X joules worth of hydrogen to make the X joules required to split the water. But that just takes into account the heat loss if we’re only trying to make the thing run with a mythically perfect engine and generator. Take into account the losses and/or inefficiency of the engine and generator and now we have to burn even more. Let’s assume the engine only loses 10% through friction and mechanical losses and the generator only loses 10% of the input energy as it converts it to electricity. Now we have to burn 2.2X joules of hydrogen to produce the X joules required to split the water. We’ll need a spark at some point to ignite the hydrogen in the cylinders, right? If we assume we’re only going to need another 0.1X joules for that, we’re up to burning 2.3X joules of hydrogen to generate the X joules to split hydrogen and oxygen from water. But wait, we want to drive the car on this burning hydrogen as well! We’re already behind by 1.3X joules before we even attempt to turn the wheels of the car. You can see how it rapidly becomes a losing proposition. Yes, hydrogen does have more potential chemical energy than gasoline when burned, but it still takes more energy to make the hydrogen than can be extracted. If, and this is a very generous “if”, the thing could be made to self sustain and drive the car, eventually the battery is going to run down because there isn't any way the thing will be able to keep up with the energy demand. Basically, if this thing ever did work, it would be a very expensive and very complicated battery powered electric car. Well, I'm through bashing Thersites for today. I think I'll call it a rant and go home.