Talk:Water powered car
[edit] Move to "Water-powered car"?
A link to Water-powered car has been sitting in RationalWiki:To do list for some time. I think that "water as fuel" claims are not limited to HHO, and the claims about "HHO gas"/"Brown's gas" (wp:Oxyhydrogen#Fringe science and fraud) are not limited to automobile fuel, they warrant a separate article.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:34, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
- Sounds good. ТyTalk. 19:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
- I think I did it under this title because I spotted a redlink to it, but if "Water Powered Car" is also sat on the To Do List, that's a fine move.
sshole 20:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
- I don't understand: "The popularity of this form of scam may be due to the misconception that hydrogen is some form of fuel, when in fact it's a form of energy storage." Fuel is matter that can be used to harness energy. Maybe hydrogen-powered cars don't exist except as prototypes, but it could be used as fuel. And what's a "form of energy storage" that's different than "fuel"? sterile guru 11:41, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
- It's energy storage because hydrogen isn't a naturally occurring substance in the same way that solar energy is or that oil/gas/coal are (although these are also energy storage, but naturally occurring and long term). Hydrogen is just a way of getting that energy into a car engine. You still need energy to produce it, which comes from a conventional fuel source - e.g., electricity from a coal-fired power station. When people think of hydrogen as a fuel, they seem to think that it's some piece of ultra-clean magic source of energy - it is emphatically not this as you have to generate it in the first place. Think of it the same way as a conventional electric car running on batteries, you either burn it burn it in an internal combustion engine or in a power station but you still burn it. Hydrogen is the same, but instead of storing energy in batteries, you store it in the form of reduced hydrogen, which can be oxidised to release energy with water as a by-product. The main barrier to the "hydrogen economy" is generating the electricity to produce it using renewable sources - hopeful by photocatalysis, if not electrolysis with power from renewable energy.
sshole 12:05, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
- I get that, although the researcher who investigate ways to make hydrogen directly through chemical processes in the sun do call hydrogen a "solar fuel." I guess I see it as hair-splitting. sterile guru 12:47, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
- I'd probably define a "fuel" as something we don't need to put chemical energy into to form. So coal, oil, gas, uranium and so on are fine because that's just an extraction cost and maybe a little bit of cleaning up. Hydrogen, and chemical batters do undergo chemical reactions to form.
sshole 12:53, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
- I'd probably define a "fuel" as something we don't need to put chemical energy into to form. So coal, oil, gas, uranium and so on are fine because that's just an extraction cost and maybe a little bit of cleaning up. Hydrogen, and chemical batters do undergo chemical reactions to form.
- I get that, although the researcher who investigate ways to make hydrogen directly through chemical processes in the sun do call hydrogen a "solar fuel." I guess I see it as hair-splitting. sterile guru 12:47, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
- It's energy storage because hydrogen isn't a naturally occurring substance in the same way that solar energy is or that oil/gas/coal are (although these are also energy storage, but naturally occurring and long term). Hydrogen is just a way of getting that energy into a car engine. You still need energy to produce it, which comes from a conventional fuel source - e.g., electricity from a coal-fired power station. When people think of hydrogen as a fuel, they seem to think that it's some piece of ultra-clean magic source of energy - it is emphatically not this as you have to generate it in the first place. Think of it the same way as a conventional electric car running on batteries, you either burn it burn it in an internal combustion engine or in a power station but you still burn it. Hydrogen is the same, but instead of storing energy in batteries, you store it in the form of reduced hydrogen, which can be oxidised to release energy with water as a by-product. The main barrier to the "hydrogen economy" is generating the electricity to produce it using renewable sources - hopeful by photocatalysis, if not electrolysis with power from renewable energy.
- I don't understand: "The popularity of this form of scam may be due to the misconception that hydrogen is some form of fuel, when in fact it's a form of energy storage." Fuel is matter that can be used to harness energy. Maybe hydrogen-powered cars don't exist except as prototypes, but it could be used as fuel. And what's a "form of energy storage" that's different than "fuel"? sterile guru 11:41, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
- I think I did it under this title because I spotted a redlink to it, but if "Water Powered Car" is also sat on the To Do List, that's a fine move.
[edit] HHO
this would be called hydrogen hydroxide, right? And it'd have to be a positive ion of hydrogen to bond? Just trying to remember high school chemistry.--"Shut up, Brx." 12:15, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
- It seems that it's a crank term for oxygen-hydrogen mixture produced by splitting water. There are other claims attached to it, so it needs an article, and this one needs to be fixed, but this involves reading crank websites. And I don't want to read crank websites at the moment.--ZooGuard (talk) 12:19, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
[edit] A reference to water-powered vehicles
This article could use some historical context. I don't have any specific references to that sort of thing except this, which I found quite by accident; if anyone thinks it's of value I can try adding it when I have time to rewrite it so it's not just a quote.
From 'Veteran and Vintage Motorcycles', by James Sheldon, published in 1961, p. 72: "In France there was... the Bouchet, running on acetylene gas. If it was generated by calcium carbide and water, as seems probable, it may have started the fable of the mysterious rider filling his tank at the village pump."
Interesting to think that this machine might have started the whole running-on-water story...— Unsigned, by: 74.12.200.132 / talk / contribs 01:45, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
- I find it unlikely, as the car in question is really obscure. And there is a difference between an urban legend about someone "filling their tank at the village pump" and the crank wannabe inventors who wish to turn the most familiar and cheap liquid into fuel.--ZooGuard (talk) 15:11, 7 March 2014 (UTC)