Thats cool.
"That's amazing!" as Huell Howser would say.
We should get him on this.
tern11.24.07 - 10:52 pm
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This is a scam and hoax. There has been claims of cars being powered by water 50 years ago. So where are they?
User111.25.07 - 4:57 pm
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wow man This is Amazing!
skano11.25.07 - 5:13 pm
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i thought he was shooting up water..LOL
skano11.25.07 - 5:14 pm
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Physics knowledge FTW.
At best, he's using the hydrogen as a temporary energy storage mechanism. He mentioned electolysis, which uses electricity to split the water molecules. I don't care how special his electrolysis, it can't beat the laws of thermodynamics.
Essentially it's an electric car using hydrogen as the energy transport medium. kthxbye.
ephemerae11.25.07 - 7:06 pm
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i believe i can fly..
skano11.25.07 - 7:27 pm
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user1 - could you imagine what would happen if bush said yes to a water powered car? It would go against all his beliefs.
I'm pretty sure that it's water powered because that is what you put into it. Hydrogen car is a hydrogen car because you put hydrogen into it, regardless that it breaks the water down.
Who knows. I want one though lol
richtotheie11.25.07 - 7:31 pm
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Richie,
This is a free market society and really doesn't matter what Bush would say about one car or another. You can build and drive a car you made on our roads. You don't see cars powered by coal, steam, air, hydrogen, or even electricity because it's not practical or efficient. Some designs will never be efficient.
This car, powered by water (as you say), will never be efficient. If you think for a minute, how was this energy created for this car? If it was by electricity, then why not use the electricity to power the car and use an electric motor? Why convert the electricity to hydrogen and then to an engine that is at best 25% efficient? Every time there's an energy conversion, there's an energy lost.
If the cars energy was created by fossil fuel, looks like he claimed his car is running on fossil fuel and hydrogen. Then why create the hydrogen from fossil fuel to power the car? Why not just power the car with the fossil fuel and avoid the energy loses associated with the energy conversions?
The markets that are hyping this hydrogen economy would have alot less people to con if the the people just read and understood the laws of thermodynamics as was pointed out above. The hydrogen economy will never happen because of the energy conversions involved, the complications involved, and the installation of a whole new infrastructure. The sooner people realize this, the sooner we can get on and find solutions. There is no magic bullet that is going to save the day. It's going to be we scale down drastically our energy consumption.
Sorry for the long rant, I got carried away and never planned to get this involved.
User111.25.07 - 8:29 pm
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@user1
From what I've read regarding the "Laws of Thermodynamics", they are a "magic bullet".
At getting people to shut the fuck up about amazing, new, power sources.
Haven't really been to school in awhile, so my rationality-account has been closed for some time now.
But, I've got plenty of "irrationality-funds" to burn!!!!
bentstrider11.25.07 - 9:05 pm
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Haha no that's ok!!! Keep it goin! It's good.
From what i understood about his car, it was a hybrid. Like the Prius where it uses Electricity and Gas except in this case, HHO and gasoline. I'm sure there is some sort of solution where whatever energy it takes to start the break down of the water could be stored by battery and charged by running. I've read about this guy somewhere else and saw that the Gov't is contracting him to design engines for their military vehicles.
I'll keep my fingers crossed on this one.
richtotheie11.25.07 - 9:11 pm
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energy in > energy out
Simple as that. So why do any energy conversions and just use the energy to the work instead?
This guy has not done something that isn't understood or known by scientist. It's funny how these stories pop up, but they always have one thing in common. It's always void of any facts or working model that can be given to engineers to verify. This is just another smoke and mirrors magic trick.
User111.25.07 - 9:24 pm
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Well, I'm not a physicist but I do have some experience with
math. Let's see if this makes sense. I think the relevant law of thermodynamics here is the fist law:
(from wikipedia)
The increase in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of energy added by heating the system, minus the amount lost as a result of the work done by the system on its surroundings.
Which is usually summarized as "energy is conserved." This guy adds liquid water to the tank, and then the result, presumably, is that he travels some distance and there is warm water vapor exhaust.
In other words he gets some energy in the form of the work done to travel and as well in the warmed up exhaust vapor. According to the first law that energy had to come from somewhere. However, the water is in the same chemical form and was actually WARMER at the end of the process. So the water cannot have supplied the energy, and therefore the energy must be coming from somewhere else.
In other words, the water was not fueling the car. Some other chemical process was fueling the car, whether it was stored electricity, purely the gasoline, or perhaps burning some other substance.
Alex Thompson11.25.07 - 10:18 pm
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In regards to The Laws of Thermodynamics, I kind of like this reference better,
The Laws of Thermodynamics,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics
User111.25.07 - 10:32 pm
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What's this BS about Laws of Thermodynamics? Yeah right. Sounds like "science" to me. Seeing is believing, and he was clearly putting WATER in that tank. I have no reason to believe that that video is a fake.
the reverend dak11.25.07 - 11:04 pm
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User1 - that quote is from the Wikipedia article on the first law. The explanation of the first law in the Laws of Thermodynamics article is crappier (that's a technical term) in my opinion. So, umm, what did you mean?
Alex Thompson11.25.07 - 11:10 pm
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There are "rules" and "laws" that have yet to be written (expounding on the current beliefs) and accepted by the scientific community, and then used by the common lay-person. Be very prepared for "bubbles" being burst.
eddieboyinla11.25.07 - 11:20 pm
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Alex, I was just showing there was more laws involved.
Not sure what the hell Eddy is smoking but these "laws" are what has been observed and reproduced by the scientific community with the same results over and over. Since all these test results show the same results, it's then agreed that it's the law. Until proven different, so far over a 100 years and no one has proven different.
The 1st law states that energy is neither created or destroyed.
The2nd law states that energy has a tendency to dissipate and become stable. In other words a hot pot will cool off, it doesn't stay hot.
The 3rd law is a temperature constant that is the absolute lowest the entropy of a system can approach. This one best to be read to try to understand completely.
User111.26.07 - 12:08 am
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User1 & Eddie, both of you guys are confusing me. Laws can't be broken, rules, by their very nature, are made to be broken.
I like to keep things simple and refer to my Pineal Gland when in doubt. And right now she informs me to not believe anything I read.
What I see, on the other hand, is everything.
the reverend dak11.26.07 - 12:23 am
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User1 - got it.
EddieboyinLA - well - maybe there are scientific principles out there which will run counter to, or will be exceptions to the laws of thermodynamics. Afterall, the laws of thermodynamics aren't proven, nor are they provable . . . but they've never disproved either, and repeatedly have held up in experiments. In a certain sense they are simply the most reliable trends ever observed in that nothing has ever deviated that we know of.
My thought is this - why look to new, fantastic technology to solve our energy and transportation issues when we already have a variety of solutions? Gambling on the appearance of tech we don't have any reason to believe exists is pretty dangerous.
We know how to make a sustainable, livable, humanistic city . . . we're just too gutless collectively to make the short term sacrifices to do so.
Knittens11.26.07 - 12:25 am
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It's time like these where
this really comes in handy.
What else do I need?
kyber11.26.07 - 12:35 am
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ay i just know this shit shit (opps!) is the bomb, and you'd be surprised what you can learn from a dummy. LOL!!!!
eddieboyinla11.26.07 - 1:00 am
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MILTON TOLD ME TO TELL YOU GUYS "FUCK YOU FUCKEN MIDNIGHTRIDAZZ"
eddieboyinla11.26.07 - 1:03 am
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65 MILES - BAD IDEA RIDE - AND YOU CALL YOUR SELF A "MR"???? GO GIVE THEM YOUR PROPS ON THERE THREAD.
eddieboyinla11.26.07 - 1:10 am
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knittens will always be knittens.
Yes oh yes.
SIWEE KITTEH
richtotheie11.26.07 - 11:22 am
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