Automakers working on next generation of engines

50 percent of my vehicle powerplant research budget. 5 percent would go to alternative fuels (CNG, Propane, alcohol), and 45 percent would go into hybrid and full electric.

In five years, 55 percent would go into hybrid (with the push-developed high-efficiency combustion engines) and 45 percent into advanced combustion engine research.

Why isn't there any mention of using turbines in pure hybrid drive systems? (by pure I mean a system that has electric drive only, no transmission, and the engine is only used to drive a generator). Ships and airplanes use turbines not piston engines. I was under the impression that if you don't need a wide power curve a turbine was a more effecient engine. In a pure hybrid the engine can be optimized to run in a very narrow speed band because it's used solely for charging the batteries.

Emissions.

And cost. The initial price of even a small turbine is more than the entire cost of most new cars.

Matt

The auto industry needs to move towards liquid hydrogen. Hydrogen - the most abundant element in our universe. When burned it produces water vapor - no toxic emissions.

BTW - this is in use today - rocket fuel! When a rocket is launched those huge, billowing clouds are not smoke - water vapor.

The major drawback with liquid hydrogen is the fuel oil companies would take a terrible beating and millions of people would be out of work. Sure some would go to work in the new industry but if liquid hydrogen be came a common use fuel - automobiles, home heating, etc... it wouldn't be all that difficult to build a molecule splitter.

Water - H2O - would be broken back down into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. The hydrogen and the oxygen could then become fuel sources. Igniting in the cylinder and exhausting as water once again. Close to a perpetual fuel source. Water to gases and back to water again and so on and so on and...........

We will now return you to your regularly scheduled program. GIANT. :-)

Jim

I doubt that, since if hydrogen were profitable, those same energy companies would have a nice business and they wouldn't need expensive refineries and imports either.

That's great, but breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules requires a lot of energy. In other words, before you can utilize the kinetic energy of burning H2 +O2 you first need to have them in the first place. Where do you get that energy from, burning oil? I suppose that perhaps hydroelectric (which we can't build for environmental reasons) or nuclear (which we can't build for political and waste reasons) or wind power (which we can't build for environmental reasons and it kills the birds) could be used to power this process, but hydrogen doesn't appear for free.

Even if hydrogen was free to obtain, storing it in an economically viable, compact, and safe vessel for a car presents a challenge as well.

Both quite wrong. When burned, Hydrogen produces NOX in addition to water vapor. Liquid hydrogen also requires heavily insulated tanks due to it's low boiling point.

Yah, sure. And so where exactly would the fuel-hydrogen companies come from to replace them?

If hydrogen ever became viable the fuel oil companies would easily switch to making hydrogen.

And run it how? By plugging it in?

Ah, I get it. Your now going to use 4 times the amount of electricity in your home as before you got your molecule splitter. That means now the power companies are going to be 4 times bigger when everyone else starts using their mocule splitters. Who's going to work at them?

And where does the energy come from to break down the hydrogen?

Oh, I get it. We run our molecule splitters off the electricity produced from burning the hydrogen that the mocule splitters consume. Hmmm.. I wonder if the power companies know this? Hey, maybe they could shut down that coal burning plant. All they have to do is build a power plant and put a huge water storage tank in it with a mocule splitter. They burn the hydrogen and make electricity to run the molecule splitter that makes the hydrogen and then plug the rest of the city in. Limtless free electricity forever!!!

Can I patent this perpetul motion machine now?

Ted

And where does all of this energy to split the water come from?

Matt

Temperature is not an issue. You need to make it cold to liquify it, but once it's stored in a vessel at high pressure in liquid form, it's not going to suddenly become vapor (there's no space for the vapor to form). The high pressure storage is one of the major problems, which is why you see a lot of research on microporous matertials, such as carbon nanotubes, for the storage of hydrogen.

There are other tactics, such as filling your tank with gasoline, which is fed to a reformer (in the vehicle) to make hydrogen as needed. This is a much safer alternative to storing a big tank of hydrogen. Again, the problem is you are going to lose some of the energy of the gasoline when you convert it to H2.

In the long run the real problem isn't going to be emissions from vehicles, but running out of energy. Hydrogen powered vehicles do not solve that problem.

"Matt Whiting" wrote

There's a lot of technical development yet to be done, but in theory one can break down water in the presence of catalysts using sunlight. Another possible source of energy would be floating platforms in tropical oceans using the temperature difference between surface and deep water, which is in fact another completely renewable form of solar energy. There are a few experimental plants working in places like Hawaii, land-based and making electricity for general use.

All this is a bit OT for an auto brand newsgroup, but there are many interesting discussions on energy newsgroups and various websites.

"Greg Houston" wrote

A major portion of my R&D budget, but in concert with other companies to share the costs and benefits.

We are so used to the conventional piston engine that we lose sight of the fact that there are many other ways to convert chemical energy to physical power.

No. Manufacture, transport and storage.

DAS

That would be taking over from the Almighty.

Hydrogen + oxygen = water (which is, of course, hydrogen plus oxygen) + nitrogen/nitrogen oxides. That's good. How do you patent that?

DAS

Yes, there is LOTS of development to be done. And getting enough energy from solar to power all of the vehicles in the world with hydrogen is far from trivial. I'm not saying we shouldn't be working on this approach, but people who think this will happen within the next 30 years are deceiving themselves.

Matt

"Matt Whiting" wrote

The whole thing depends on the cost of oil. The technology to convert solar-heated tropical ocean water to useful energy is neither exotic nor untried. The technology to economically convert energy to hydrogen is at the experimental phase but there are no known scientific laws to prevent it. So given expensive oil, you may be surprised what can be done in 30 years. Anyway, let's stick around and find out. Hey, I'll only be 91 ;

Liquid hydrogen is no warmer then about 20 K. (-253 C). It takes an enormous amount of energy to cool the hydrogen to that point, about 30-40 percent of the energy in the amount of hydrogen that is being cooled. Because nothing is perfectly insulated, the hydrogen will eventually constantly be boiling off at some rate in a container. This vapor must be vented after a maximum of about

3-4 days to avoid a large pressure rise and container failure. Lawrence Livermore labs has been spending a lot of effort on this problem. BMW is also studying liquid hydrogen.

Gaseous hydrogen can also be stored a higher density at very cold temperatures, such as 80 K.

Turbines operate at fairly high speeds and require more exotic materials to withstand the temperatures and rotational speeds inside these engines. They also require much more precise machining & tolerances then piston engines. For these and other reasons, such as size, turbines would be far more expensive then many or most cars today. Even in airplanes, turbines are not seen that much in aircraft that cost less than 1 million dollars new. Turbines ARE extremely reliable though, and well suited for airplanes and high end generators.

Most vehicle hydrogen schemes I've seen take atmosphere in and burn it with stored hydrogen. Rockets don't because there isn't air in space, you have to carry the oxydizer. Believe me in a vehicle, a pure oxygen spill during a collision would be even worse than a hydrogen leak.

With a hydrogen leak, it rapidly disperses and so you might get a flame at the escape point, but that's about it.

With an oxygen leak, EVERYTHING in the vicinity that is even the slighest bit burnable, ie: the vinyl or cloth seats, the carpet, the plastic, the asphalt, the rubber tires, etc. will in the presense of 100% pure oxygen, immediately burst into extremely hot flame with the slightest bit of ignition.

You do NOT want to be carrying pure oxygen in a vehicle!!!

When you burn a mix of Nitrogen, Hydrogen and Oxygen (atmosphere is about 80% Nitrogen, and 20% Oxygen) some of the energy will bond some of the nitrogen atoms to some of the oxygen atoms and you get NOX. You do not get perfect combustion unless you use just Oxygen and Hydrogen in the vehicle. Note of course that other than some of it getting tied up into NOX, the rest of the nitrogen does nothing for the combustion process.

Ted

I hate to break it to you but if the cost of vehicle fuel (whether hydrogen or oil) rises too high, and there is no cheap substitute, it will make it uneconomical for private automobiles to be used in this country and we will all be riding mass transit.

What I don't think most people really understand about this debate is that the only reason that the average Joe can afford to own and operate a personal car is because EVERYBODY has one, (or nearly everyone) thus the economies of scale allow mass production of automobiles to even occur at all. And the only reason that everybody has one is because fuel is still affordable.

If fuel costs quadrupled to the point that hydrogen or other alternative fuels would be economically competitive against gasoline for vehicle fuel, then you would probably lose a quarter to a half of all vehicle owners in the country, simply because they couldn't afford to drive. Once that happens then demand for vehicles drops which is going to put a lot of automakers out of business - for a while there will be an oversupply of vehicles and prices on them will nosedive - but once the extra manufacturing capability has been cleared away due to bankruptcies, etc. the economies of scale will not be as good as they were before, and vehicles will become even more expensive than they are now.

The other thing is why generate the electricity to break down hydrogen just for vehicle fuel when you can just take the generated electricity and use it in a battery in the vehicle? Much less losses due to conversion of energy from 1 form to another.

It is most likely the 'car o the future' will be an electric car that you charge up at night in your garage, and is only usable for short trips in the city, and for commuting to and from work.

Ted