Is there a good application for hydrogen?

[Forrest747]

Oh i agree Gus, thanks for teh info. THat is why all the pre shuttle launches had ice falling off the rocket as it launched. Also think Hindenberg. As Scotty use to say "I cant change the laws of physics" Although his physics and our are two totally different things. As i always say keep it simple dont jump into something too quick but embrace change. reading an article about how Reno Nv bought all these wind turbines promised so much energy then come to find out they put them in places where there is no wind. Also another great thing about wind is that in Texas its blows at night and produces most energy at night but the most energy used is during the day.

[Tumbleweed_Tex]

You are absolutely correct in everything you say about hydrogen, when used (conventionally) as a stand alone fuel.

But in the case of the generator, the steam powers the engine, not the hydrogen combustion.

Um…internal combustion steam engine?

And if you generate the hydrogen at the point of use, and only as it is needed, most of the hazards and difficulties of storing the stuff are mitigated.

[mikeschn]

Hmmm... I sense that this thread is winding down. Not enough energy eh?

Mike...

[SteveW]

Ah well, looks like back to the idea of using solar to recharge a marine battery, and toting a small propane tank for cooking. Fun to play with the idea though. I definitely would like to be off the grid when we go on our extended stays.

[mikeschn]

Solar panel, batteries and a little propane is my plan as well Steve!

Mike...

[Martinup]

Thank you Tumbleweed for the common sense perception I was and have been looking for to interact with everyone here upon this topic in the first place. . . . Before I was perceived as a spammer, scammer, a tree hugger etc? I really love the Troll thing that was the best one yet.

Let’s just call it water under the bridge where the troll lives. But he is moving up in the real world and into a Tear Drop Trailer . . . The one I build for him will be a Hybrid. This is my genuine interest and I am not soap boxing.

Thanks to Mike and moderators we are just getting started here. There is in fact plenty of energy and people researching this topic worldwide. Pardon the pun.

After reading up on the Foamy section and more build journals than I can remember I knew this site is the right place to bring this topic to. Everyone here takes pride in perfecting and building a better trailer and helping each other. I respond to the Absolute Snow Birder’s point about a “Hydrogen fan”, coming over to bother the nice Tear Drop People about Hydrogen. The answer is quite clear to me. A tear drop trailer's Energy needs, Plumbing heating and cooking are all on board and much smaller than that of say 3000 square foot house. What better place to perfect Hydrogen use in any number of ways and successfully combine it with an existing piece of equipment. I also appreciate the humor on the whole conspiracy theory. The whole thing with a good conspiracy theory is that it can never be proven. I simply prefer to apply my energy into contributing, ( more to figure out), to putting hydrogen to work economically with success.

I must say few words and blow some smoke up everyone’s Wazzu. This is a great bunch of people who are very intelligent and when you interact together on some aspect of a TD or Camper construction everyone can learn and benefit . . . The world can be little bit warmer . . . Fuzzier and more fun place to be because of it.

Back to Hydrogen:

I for one will study more and tinker on a genset because from all my study of Stan Meyers work is the closest to working on board, (on demand and produced at source). From one of Stan Meyer’s videos, He calculated after running his Dune buggy for 4 years that it would take him only 22 Gallons of water to travel from La to New York. Please note he uses quite a few different system modifications on his Dune Buggy than the Genset that I posted from Australia.

To Gus and Forrest 747 and all those who are on about the laws of thermodynamics. I will present your point and more. See the first somewhat old, ( 2009) but very informative on a government study. All I ask is that you note three things:
A) See the low pressure on demand supplementary electrolysis set up. Only 9% HHO and the rest Natural Gas. As an Aside: in residential and commercial Natural gas lines are piped in at 2 or 4 Lbs pressure. Correct me if I am wrong on this statement comparative explain it in the pressures that Gus was referring to which store Hydrogen?
B) Forrest You had technical question. Not exactly what you asked, but a lot of detailed technical info is here.
C) I am curious what the results of such good and rigorous testing would look like if the control house used only hydrogen much like this next link will show you:

http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/obj/irc/doc/p ... c51346.pdf

Here is, “A Home Standalone Heating Unit”, which will heat 1500 square feet and apparently operates on 300 watts:

http://www.hhohhu.com/m20.htm

In my humble opinion the use of Hydrogen in general is a technical and trick pickle to tickle. But as others have stated in the Laws of Thermodynamics, “you can never give up.” All pickles are worth tickling.

With everyone’s good graces I would share some links on Hydrogen Stoves later.


Thanks,
Martin

[eamarquardt]

Back to Hydrogen:

I for one will study more and tinker on a genset because from all my study of Stan Meyers work is the closest to working on board, (on demand and produced at source). From one of Stan Meyer’s videos, He calculated after running his Dune buggy for 4 years that it would take him only 22 Gallons of water to travel from La to New York. Please note he uses quite a few different system modifications on his Dune Buggy than the Genset that I posted from Australia. He's not telling the whole truth.

To Gus and Forrest 747 and all those who are on about the laws of thermodynamics. I will present your point and more. I'm not entirely convinced that the folks on the hydrogen forums will listen. See the first somewhat old, ( 2009) but very informative on a government study.
All I ask is that you note three things:
A) See the low pressure on demand supplementary electrolysis set up. Only 9% HHO and the rest Natural Gas. As an Aside: in residential and commercial Natural gas lines are piped in at 2 or 4 Lbs pressure. Correct me if I am wrong on this statement comparative explain it in the pressures that Gus was referring to which store Hydrogen? Yup, yer right! The gas going into the intake manifold (or whatever) is at 2-4 psi. I imagine that engines running LNG or CNG are also near that pressure at the manifold. However, the storage tanks are at much higher pressures. Propane 100-200 psi because propane liquefies at a reasonably high temperature and fairly low pressure. CNG at pressures of 2900-3600 psi. Hydrogen gas is (according to the Wikipedia article on Hydrogen Economy) typically stored (for vehicular use) at 700 bar/10,000 psi. That's high enough to knock your socks off for sure! Even if you get the hydrogen to a liquid state, very difficult for the backyard hydrogen generator, your gonna have to carry about 4 gallons of hydrogen to get the same energy you'd get out of a gallon of gasoline. The hydrogen tank will be even bigger because it will have to be super insulated.
B) Forrest You had technical question. Not exactly what you asked, but a lot of detailed technical info is here. But it contains lots of conjecture and no real world working examples that are both cost effective and practical.
C) I am curious what the results of such good and rigorous testing would look like if the control house used only hydrogen much like this next link will show you: If you do see these test results they will say that generating hydrogen and using it for power is only practical under certain limited circumstances (mostly fuel cell systems that use methane to make hydrogen and use the hydrogen in the fuel cell to produce electricity and heat that is used to heat buildings which contributes to the cost effectiveness.

http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/obj/irc/doc/p ... c51346.pdf If you read the study they ran a heater on a blend of natural gas and hydrogen. The hydrogen was generated with "store bought" electricity with an electorlyzer. Their conclusion: They spent more money on electricity than they saved on natural gas. In short: A loser.

Here is, “A Home Standalone Heating Unit”, which will heat 1500 square feet and apparently operates on 300 watts:

http://www.hhohhu.com/m20.htm This is a $2,499 plus S&H scam, period. Sure, it may be able to heat a 1,500 square foot house in the summertime when the outside temperature is close to what you'd like it to be inside but is isn't gonna work if there is a real temperature difference.

In my humble opinion the use of Hydrogen in general is a technical and trick pickle to tickle. But as others have stated in the Laws of Thermodynamics, “you can never give up.” All pickles are worth tickling. Nowhere in the "Laws of thermodynamics" do they say "you can never give up".

With everyone’s good graces I would share some links on Hydrogen Stoves later.


Thanks,
Martin

You seem like a sincere person bent on pushing the envelope and saving some money. I'm not sure what you have studied but there are some well educated folks here that are trying to tell you "it ain't gonna happen". Many of them have several years of college chemistry, physics, math at calculus and beyond, and degrees in science or engineering. The advocates you are reading about and from are wrong, have no repeatable experiments that show you get "something for nothing", and, most likely, have little formal education. They talk about HHO. There is no such thing. When you convert water into oxygen and hydrogen you get molecules of each gas and each gas molecule has two atoms. H2 and O2 (properly written the 2s are written slightly below the letter characters). What exists is a mixture of H2 and O2 that is very flammable, hence dangerous.

If you read the papers you cite there are claims of an "oil company conspiracy" keeping high mileage carburetors off the market. Please. Ask the folks that make these claims why diesel engines don't get the high mileage of a car with one of these alleged carburetors when a diesel has no carburetor at all. One fellow claims that his car went from getting 17 to 56 mpg by installing a "wing" on it. Please, again. Ask him why he hasn't patented it and licensed it to the car makers. I'm sure that the car makers would "kill" (figuratively speaking) to more than triple the mileage of their cars.

If you are bent on pursuing your dream, do so in an orderly manner.

1st- Decide where your going to get your hydrogen and how much it will cost
2nd-Figure out how much hydrogen your going to need and how you plan on storing it
3rd-Decide how are you going to get the hydrogen you acquire into your storage vessel and determine how big will your storage vessel need to be to run whatever it is that you're going to run for however long you're going to run it.
5th-Decide how are you going to get your hydrogen from your storage vessel to your "energy user" (generator, vehicle, boat, airplane, etc).

Then gather all of the materials to get this accomplished, build the setup, and test it to confirm that it works and that it produces hydrogen at a price you can afford.

Then, and only then, should you consider modifying an engine to run on hydrogen.

If you just want to tinker and spend your money on a project for fun, have at it. There are few places that sell hydrogen so you don't have to make your own just yet.

My Nucynta has kicked , I think I can get to sleep, so it's good night for now. Thank you for the distraction from what ails me.

Cheers,

Gus

[eamarquardt]

Solar panel, batteries and a little propane is my plan as well Steve!

Mike...

In some locals they use "dung" for cooking. Readily available (depending upon where you are, TumbleweedTex ought to be able to find a lot ). Cheap, just gather it up and I'm sure the land owners will be glad to see it gone. When properly "seasoned' (dried) burns nicely with a distinctive odor. Best of all, it's "carbon neutral"!!

Go for it!!

Cheers,

Gus

[Tumbleweed_Tex]

Oh dear…no matter how hard I try, I simply CANNOT keep myself from doing this, and I hope everyone realizes that it’s all in fun:

1st Decide where your going to get your dung and how much it will cost.

Adult cow - $1500
Room and board for said cow for one year - $400
Dung produced – 1720 lbs (cows are terribly inefficient at producing dung…they tend to use the available energy from their food to grow bones, hair, hamburger, and pink slime components.
Total cost of dung - $1.10 per pound (wet) $5.22 per pound (dry, it don’t burn real good while it’s fresh)

2nd Figure out how much dung your going to need and how you plan on storing it

Hmmm…I should be able to cook a medium sized steak (talk about recycling) with about 4 pounds of dung, so I plan on simply storing it in a bag.

3rd Decide how are you going to get the dung you acquire into your storage vessel and determine how big will your storage vessel need to be to run whatever it is that you're going to run for however long you're going to run it.

I’ll probably just pick it up off the ground, open the bag, and drop it in…hadn’t really thought about THAT. And I think one of those plastic Warmart bags will do the trick…shouldn’t require too much room to haul it around.

5th Decide how are you going to get your hydrogen from your storage vessel to your "energy user" (campfire, stove, etc.).

As for 4th…no wait…there is no 4th step.

NO WONDER THE HYDROGEN IDEA WON’T WORK…

Did you know you can feed a horse a box full of apples, and the resulting steak cooked over the dung will taste…oh never mind.

I hope everyone has a great Easter weekend.

T-Tex

[eamarquardt]

As for 4th…no wait…there is no 4th step.
T-Tex

There was a 4th step. That is getting the warm fuzzyer feeling as the Nucynta "kicks"!

As it wasn't germane to the discussion I didn't mention it. Perhaps I should have to avoid questions.

Also it was 0200 in the morning. Sometimes I'm more fuzzier than at other times. As I am still breathing, I am always warm. Sometimes I'm just "warm". Sometimes I'm "warm and fuzzy", and sometimes I'm "warm and fuzzier"

Cheers,

Gus

[jstrubberg]

Why would a person use electroalysis to produce hydrogen that results in less ergs to do work with than the electricity you used to get the hydrogen in the first place?

If there were a naturally available souce, I can see it. Since it has to be refined, it's useless from a conservation perspective.

[GuitarPhotog]

Why would a person use electroalysis to produce hydrogen that results in less ergs to do work with than the electricity you used to get the hydrogen in the first place?

If there were a naturally available souce, I can see it. Since it has to be refined, it's useless from a conservation perspective.

That's what we've been saying all along. Right after he posted the video showing them using $900 worth of hydrogen to make $400 worth of electricity.

The OP doesn't seem to understand that it's just plain impossible to break even on that deal, much less get ahead.

<Chas>

[ATXKJ]

Hey Tumbleweed - I'm in Austin - we don't even need cows - we have politicians - endless supply of Hot Air and BS

[eamarquardt]

Hey Tumbleweed - I'm in Austin - we don't even need cows - we have politicians - endless supply of Hot Air and BS

Politicians are bought by the highest bidders. Politicians that are "bought and paid for are crooks".

AT&T buys politicians of both "flavors", http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary ... D000000076, to ensure "all bases are covered".

Perhaps you could send your politicians to Dallas to be with their owners. Perhaps the air in Austin would smell a bit better.

In AT&T's defense, this isn't a new practice. "I never bought a man who wasn't for sale." William A. Clark

I digress. You now will return to your regular scheduled programming.

Gus

[Ratkity]

Hey Tumbleweed - I'm in Austin - we don't even need cows - we have politicians - endless supply of Hot Air and BS

Got you beat! I'm 20 min away from Washington, DC. Can't throw a shoe without hitting one or two.

Hugs,
Ratkity