This......

[Glenn70]

Great car! I like the acceleration and braking with the hands. Maybe this will once and for all force people to either ditch their cell phones while driving, or better yet...buy a hands free device!

 

[Slingblade61]

Sling,
What is that picture, a bitmap? Save as a jpg so it loads in this century!!

It's an embeded script, dorkface.
Get off dial up you cheap &#@!

 

[Slingblade61]

An interesting note about Hydrogen fueled vehicles - the greatest source of hydrogen in today's world is.....fossil fuels. Hmmm, does it count if we burn it before it goes to the cars? Food for thought.
Solar panels? Well, it takes approximately 250' long by 5' tall panel to produce enough hydrogen to fuel ONE car every two weeks. I guess we could cover the Atlantic Ocean with solar panels?
Anyway the car is very cool, and I don't mean to burst any bubbles, I just love useless facts (which in this case turned out not to be completely useless)!

The piece did not eleborate but they did say it ran on sea water. what that means, I have no idea.

I dig the lack of mechanical linkages.

 

[bames]

The piece did not eleborate but they did say it ran on sea water. what that means, I have no idea.

I dig the lack of mechanical linkages.

You are exactly right. It takes nuclear fusion (not fission) to effectively produce hydrogen (and consequently oxygen) from sea water. The reactors will be built on seas (ingenious since the one of the byproducts would be pure water) and it would cost approximately $30 billion to build one reactor. Which sounds expensive, but compared to the $7 trillion spent on fossil fuels it is a drop in the bucket.

Herin lies the problem. The "Oil boys" carry enough clout to have delayed said reactor for another 30-35 years. The first is said to built in France in 2040. I guess we will see, lets hope something can change sooner than that. We certainly appear to have more water than fossil fuels on this earth.

 

[Eracer]

You are exactly right. It takes nuclear fusion (not fission) to effectively produce hydrogen (and consequently oxygen) from sea water. The reactors will be built on seas (ingenious since the one of the byproducts would be pure water) and it would cost approximately $30 billion to build one reactor. Which sounds expensive, but compared to the $7 trillion spent on fossil fuels it is a drop in the bucket.

Herin lies the problem. The "Oil boys" carry enough clout to have delayed said reactor for another 30-35 years. The first is said to built in France in 2040. I guess we will see, lets hope something can change sooner than that. We certainly appear to have more water than fossil fuels on this earth.

Curious why you believe that it takes fusion to create hydrogen from water? The process is to apply a sufficiently powerful electric current to the water in a catalytic environment. Electricity + Platinum (the catalyst) + water = electrolysis (producing hydrogen and oxygen).

It doesn't matter whether the electricity comes from a fission, or fusion reactor. Or solar, or wind, or geothermal, etc. You just have to have enough electicity and catalytic material.

The car in Sling's clip uses a method called "Rothman's Technology" wherein they use water + salt (seawater), apply an electric current, and submerge an ionic metal like aluminum in the seawater. This produces hydrogen quite efficiently. Unfortunately, it also uses up vast amounts of aluminum, and thus limits its true "green" potential.

Electrolytic hydrogen produced by the electricity from fission reactors is our best bet. Fusion is coming, and has the potential for being far safer and "greener" than fission. We still have the problem of limited sources of catalysts like platinum. And there is currently no foreseeable way to replace it in the electrolytic method.

 

[bames]

Curious why you believe that it takes fusion to create hydrogen from water? The process is to apply a sufficiently powerful electric current to the water in a catalytic environment. Electricity + Platinum (the catalyst) + water = electrolysis (producing hydrogen and oxygen).

It doesn't matter whether the electricity comes from a fission, or fusion reactor. Or solar, or wind, or geothermal, etc. You just have to have enough electicity and catalytic material.

The car in Sling's clip uses a method called "Rothman's Technology" wherein they use water + salt (seawater), apply an electric current, and submerge an ionic metal like aluminum in the seawater. This produces hydrogen quite efficiently. Unfortunately, it also uses up vast amounts of aluminum, and thus limits its true "green" potential.

Electrolytic hydrogen produced by the electricity from fission reactors is our best bet. Fusion is coming, and has the potential for being far safer and "greener" than fission. We still have the problem of limited sources of catalysts like platinum. And there is currently no foreseeable way to replace it in the electrolytic method.

Eracer, you are right about fusion NOT being the only method, I just understood it to be the most practical (for today's knowledge - we also used to think asbestos was practical ) Thanks for the clarification on the "Rothman Method" I didn't really know what that was, but I agree that burning through aluminum doesn't seem like a "better" solution just yet. Pretty interesting, thanks again.