wheat alcohol? yeah, but it still will destroy the seals in the fuel system. and alkeeehaul needs to run a little richer, like 9:1

 

Mmm... methanol...

 

How about this.....

If you could make a car that ran completely on hydrogen and oxygen, you could find a way to convert the water from the exhaust back into separated hydrogen and oxygen. A fairly primitive way to do this would be to have two wires running into the liquid H2O from the exhaust, and have the wires connected to a fairly powerful electrical current (one positive and one negative). This separates the Hydrogen and Oxygen, and you could then collect the gasses produced and reuse them for combustion. This would create extremely good economy, even though the only byproduct is water. But you would hardly ever have to refill your gas (literally) tanks.


I know, I know. I think way too much.

 

I've actually speculated on that too... I guess we both think too much. The only problem I found was cranking out the kind of current you would need to seperate water back into gaseous hydrogen and oxygen. According to the first law of thermodynamics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so a whole lot of kinetic energy would have to be going into creating that kind of power. Needless to say, that kind of generator would end up hurting performance a whole lot. Just a thought...

 

Energy can't be created nor destroyed, BUT with every conversion the amount of USEFUL energy is decreased.

 

You could use an alternator connected straight to the engine for the power supply. Of course, it would be stealing power from the engine (not that someone running a hydrogen powered car is really concerned about power). Most likely it wouldn't be enough power to get all of the water converted back into hydrogen and oxygen, but you would probably get a pretty good amount. Another idea would be to use solar energy. I don't know anything about solar energy, so for all I know, running two D batteries could be better then solar power.

 

yeah, the frictional losses would keep the alternator from making more power than it takes to run the motor. and solar has a chance, but its really inefficient. it takes a lot of panels to make enough energy to move a car. it will take a long time to make one that is feasible for production. probably not in our lifetimes.

 

Well, there are actually already prototypes out that are powered by hydrogen fuel cells, and then when you're done driving, you can go park your car and plug your apartment into it for electricity!

 

i think hydrogen will be overtaken by something else before it goes mainstream. its just going to take too long to make it safe enough.

 

I think you're right