Artificial petrol $0.40c per litre.

[YellowDog]

All our problems have been solved !

WoooHoooooo..............

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ting-cars.html

[Winston001]

Interesting, good find.

Using micro-beads to store the hydrogen as if it were a liquid is clever.

One regrettable flaw though in these types of stories - they never explain where the hydrogen comes from. You can't just scoop it out of the air and stick it in the beads.

Hydrogen does not exist as a free unbonded gas. It's necessary to split water into H and O through using lots of electricity. Lots and Lots.

And where does all of this electricity come from? Power stations. Coal, oil, nuclear, hydro, solar take your pick. So we'll need lots of them.

Also, the amount of energy you get from burning H is less than the energy used at the start to make H.

Compare that with petrol which gives 14 times the energy required to make it.

[Jantar]

...Hydrogen does not exist as a free unbonded gas. It's necessary to split water into H and O through using lots of electricity. Lots and Lots.
....

Electrolysis of water is only one way to obtain hydrogen, and could be a way to stabalise and steady our demand. Ie make hydrogen over night or when the wind is blowing when there is little demand for electricity. But the other way is to strip hydrogen from natural gas to produce hydrogen and CO2. Hydrogen for fuel and CO2 for fire extinguishers and the soft drink industry. CNG on its own has not been a good motor fuel but Hydrogen may be.

[Buyasta]

Interesting, good find.

Using micro-beads to store the hydrogen as if it were a liquid is clever.

One regrettable flaw though in these types of stories - they never explain where the hydrogen comes from. You can't just scoop it out of the air and stick it in the beads.

Hydrogen does not exist as a free unbonded gas. It's necessary to split water into H and O through using lots of electricity. Lots and Lots.

And where does all of this electricity come from? Power stations. Coal, oil, nuclear, hydro, solar take your pick. So we'll need lots of them.

Also, the amount of energy you get from burning H is less than the energy used at the start to make H.

Compare that with petrol which gives 14 times the energy required to make it.

Yup, this is also one of the three big hurdles for Hydrogen fuel-cell based electrics, along with the safe storage of the Hydrogen, and the current cost of manufacturing the fuel cells.

It's only experimental, but Caltech have developed a reactor that converts CO2 and H2O to CO and H2, using solar power to drive the reaction. At this point they're only getting 1% efficiency, and I imagine it'd require a setup akin to molten salt solar plants, with a huge array of mirrors focusing sunlight on a small point, but it seems like it could potentially be promising with further development.

Here's the press release, and here's the scientific paper.

[Winston001]

What I do like about the Cellar Energy proposal is capturing H in microbeads so that it is safe and acts like a liquid. Storage and transport of H is a big problem if it is to be used as a new transport fuel.

I do wonder about the temperatures in the combustion chamber of a standard engine.

Nevertheless, if you consider the millions of litres of fuel used every minute around the world, we are going to need a humongous number of H conversion plants simply to supply demand.

Still - new technologies like this are fascinating and always interesting to learn about.

[cbfb]

All our problems have been solved !

WoooHoooooo..............

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ting-cars.html

If it's in the Daily Mail I would take it with a pinch of salt... Although this is a story that doesn't involve Princess Diana, asylum seekers or Nazis so maybe they're breaking the mould...

[davebullet]

It's quite possible to do cost effectively if they use a cold fusion process.

[Milts]

I saw this on Gizmag and was extremely excited about the prospect of this fuel.

Then I had a look at the creators website and sure enough, it's been blown completely out of proportion. See the comments at the bottom of the Gizmag page or check the company's website:
http://www.cellaenergy.com/index.php?page=technology

Essentially they've just found a way of storing hydrogen in a more stable manner, but at lower engergy densities. They also require some hydrocarbons (oils) to produce the proposed fuel, and even seem to suggest that rather than burn the whole amount the 'spent' fuel would be pumped out and recharged?

Interesting development nevertheless. If it could be perfected then it is indeed a complete game changer. The fact that it was done in complete secret for four years implies to me they think there is some serious commercial potential, which is promising.

[SMOKEU]

If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. I wouldn't count on this new fuel being anywhere near as cheap or good as what the manufacturers claim. Once the government puts their tax on it you'll be lucky to be making any real savings over traditional petrol for the foreseeable future anyway.

[Pixie]

Metal fuel sounds a better option:

Researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee (USA), have come up with a plan to transform the way we fuel engines. Chunks of metal such as iron, aluminium or boron are the thing, they believe can be used as fuels by turnning them into powder with grains just nanometres across and the stuff becomes highly reactive. On ignitition it will release copious quantities of energy. With a modified engine and a tankful of metal, they predict that an average saloon car could travel three times as far as the equivalent petrol-powered vehicle. Better still, because of the way that this metal nano-fuel burns, it is almost completely non-polluting. That means no carbon dioxide, no dust, no soot and no nitrogen oxides. What's more, this fuel is fully rechargeable as spent nanoparticles can be treated with a little hydrogen or something else and the stuff can be burnt again and again. It could spell the start of a new fuel age. All kinds of engines, from domestic heating units to the turbines in power stations, could be adapted to burn metal.

http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=1307.php

[Milts]

Metal fuel sounds a better option:

Researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee (USA), have come up with a plan to transform the way we fuel engines. Chunks of metal such as iron, aluminium or boron are the thing, they believe can be used as fuels by turnning them into powder with grains just nanometres across and the stuff becomes highly reactive. On ignitition it will release copious quantities of energy. With a modified engine and a tankful of metal, they predict that an average saloon car could travel three times as far as the equivalent petrol-powered vehicle. Better still, because of the way that this metal nano-fuel burns, it is almost completely non-polluting. That means no carbon dioxide, no dust, no soot and no nitrogen oxides. What's more, this fuel is fully rechargeable as spent nanoparticles can be treated with a little hydrogen or something else and the stuff can be burnt again and again. It could spell the start of a new fuel age. All kinds of engines, from domestic heating units to the turbines in power stations, could be adapted to burn metal.

http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=1307.php

Interesting. I assume it would take a huge amount of energy to 'recharge' spent fuel, but still... interesting.

It's pretty cool to see the range of emerging technologies already being researched to replace current petrol. We're looking at the future...