I found out about a SmartyPig video contest just before the entry deadline. I got together with a buddy who is good with a camera and we spent a Saturday and created our video entry. Check it out, and if you have a Youtube account – rating it would help us out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy4PHAfso4M
People have been asking for more detail about our car project. I haven’t written about it in a while since the car is now long gone, but you can read some of the past history if you want…
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m sorry to give you a hard time but why would you send $50 to some guys for plans to build something that increases MPG. If something that easy to make gave you better MPG car companies would be using it. Plus, think about it! Your engine is powered by gas, the engine uses some of that gas to make electricity by turning your alternator. You are using part of that electricity to make H from H2O. Then you are putting that H into your engine and think you are going to get more power burning it than the power it took to make it? Anytime you convert one form of energy to another you loose! That is what makes oil so great. It has already been converted into something very energy dense.
I think it is funny how people say the car companies could make an engine to runs on compressed air and that they don’t do it because the oil companies would go after them. Think people! How do you compress air? You use a gas powered compressor or an electric compressor. Both of them use more power to compress the air than you will get out when you use the compress air to move the car. Sure, the car companies could build a car that would run on compressed air, but it would be really a huge waste of energy.
You have to spend energy to make H. You hae to spend energy to make compressed air. The energy you get from H or compressed air is NEVER more than what it took to make it! It is a net loss. That is why we use gas or other natural resources. We didn’t use any energy to make it. It is a net gain!
The only time you get more power out of something than you put in is nuclear fusion (what happens in the sun) and fission (reactor). Fission makes lots of waste and we haven’t mastered a sustainable fusion reactor yet. Once we do, we will have clean cheap energy and everything can be electric. Until then we have to make due with what we have……..carbon.
Austin
Austin,
but thinking like that is what hinders growth and technological advancement. If you look at just about every major technological breakthrough, it at one point was considered foolishness because it was “impossible”. I am not saying that I have it figured out or that I will, but I am digging in and looking for better ways of doing a few things in this world…
I appreciate your cynicism
Bob,
It isn’t my way of “thinking”, it is just physical facts. Scam artists have been fooling people with energy for nothing plans for more than 100 years. The energy has to come from somewhere. There is a certain amount of energy in gas. You are using part of that energy to make H. You aren’t going to get more energy out of that H than you used to make it. That is a fact! Now, are there ways to make a gas engine more effecient? SURE! But most of those methods either decrease the life of the engine or are so costly that it doesn’t make financial sense. We finally have the battery technology to have electric cars. They are just around the corner. Pretty soon everything will be electric powered and we will have tons of tons of nasty batteries everywhere. We will have to find a way to “cleanly” deal with those. Also, we will have to deal with where our electricity come from. Right now most of it comes from burning coal! So even with an electric car, you are basically running the car on coal! Until we produce our electricity from the motion of the tides, wind, solar, and geothermal, we aren’t really helping anyone with electric cars. It just basically moves the polution from being made in the car’s engine to being made in the electrical plant. Basically what I’m saying is, ask an engineer (me) before spending the cash on a something for nothing scam. I’m all for free thinking but get down to the science of it first. We have free energy all around us that we don’t take advantage of because it is too costly. Figure out a way to use that free energy and that will help. Dams use “free” energy of water flowing down hill. Wind energy is free too. The sun heats certain areas of the earth more than others and we get wind! The moon moving around the earth makes free energy with the tides moving back and forth. The heat from inside the earth is free too. Come up with ways to use this free energy and you have done something. Become a biochemist and work on finding a way to grow a bug that will eat organics and poop ethanol on a large scale.
I’m sorry but I just can’t stand it when I read about people thinking if they ad something to gas they will get more power or mpg from their engine. There are ways to get more MPG from internal combustion engines, but using the alt to make H from water to put back in the engine to get better MPG is silly and goes against the laws of physics. I’m not a cynic, in fact, I’m a dreamer, but ideas have to be based in science, not hope.
Austin
Thanks for the concern Austin, I do appreciate it. You will be the first one I tell if we ever get it working
If you get it working, drive it here to Houston, I will throw you a huge party and we will take it to my boss’ at NASA. You will be a very rich man for sure.
Really though, I’m sure you will learn a ton working on it and you might stumble upon something new.