[Wildwell]

Just checked out the Smart car and it gets around 60 MPG combined, slightly better than my last car which was a Seat Leon TDI. Smart car looks pretty useless outside of town - I wouldn’t fancy taking one on a long journey, over the Scottish Highlands or something, did that in a Renault Clio once and that was bad enough.

Anyway, take all this stuff with a pinch of salt - you simply cannot get around the laws of physics. Electric motors fitted to cars, trains or whatever are 90% plus efficient or more, you just cannot get any more out of it, maybe a bit with regen, but after that you’re in the realms of a perpetual motion machine. The only thing you can do is reduce the weight, and, a vehicle for a small 13 year old is not practical. Modern vehicles are already being built with aluminium. Stick the average ladies’ handbag or a rugby player in that go-kart and the fuel consumption would drop no end. This isn’t any sort of breakthrough, it just a question of making a flimsy, ultra light go-kart of no practical use, that kids drive. Pretty useless in wind, rain and snow with a top speed of 30mph. Rockingham race track also not the same as the average urban street, where you would be stopping and starting all the time.

Is the energy calculations correct anyway? Don’t forget hydrogen has to be made….

[Raxozanne]

Are fuel cells still made with platinum?

[The_Virginian]

Smart Cars "Prudent"?


Ask a taxi driver. even the desiel "smart cars" (Mercedes "A" class) are shiesse, the older ones would need a new engine every 100,000 KILOMETERS (not miles, and thats the TDI).

Get a "SEAT" and run it off of Veggy Oil.

[Wildwell]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', 'A')re fuel cells still made with platinum?

[nocar]

Bicycles, what's the mpg?
I put a few drops of lubrication oil on the chain once or twice per year and bicycle about 2000 km/year, thats 1250 miles/year.

Then of course there is some extra food needed.

nocar

[BabyPeanut]

How much energy did BOC waste making the Ech2o car, a car so tiny that no one will mention its dimentions or weight for fear of being humiliated? It is also a car that tops out at 30mph.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/ ... 62,00.html
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')OC designed the hydrogen storage system for the Ech2o, OSCar Automotive designed the body, chassis and steering system, and the electric power train was developed by Oxford University.

[savethehumans]

It's probably cuz the "Willy Wonka" remake's coming out, but I can't shake the image of an Oompa Loompa being the perfect driver for that cute little car!

[NeoPeasant]

I think this car and those like it is just an exercise in minimizing wind resistance and rolling resistance. you go around a glass-smooth, perfectly level track on a windless day on quarter inch wide solid tire wheels with super-precision bearings. You run your dinky little engine for a couple of seconds and then coast for as long as you can. Then repeat.
If I were in space away from any strong gravitational forces, I could fart and travel for infinity.
It's a meaningless publicity stunt.

[I_Like_Plants]

Those are some CUTE goats!! (giant forum-destroying goat pic) but I gotta say, they sell that very same wagon locally, and I was considering using one for my post office runs, and that thing's a miserable pig to pull, there are better things. Find a way to put 20" bicycle wheels on that wagon and then, OK, you might have something.

[Graeme]

July 20, 2005
BURLINGTON, ONTARIO, CANADA -- Alternate Energy Corporation (AEC) (OTCBB: ARGY) yesterday announced that its first alpha-stage unit, the H2 1500-A1, was recently demonstrated before two separate multinational engine companies in the U.S.

This demonstration was set up to review AEC’s small scale, on-demand Hydrogen Production technology and discuss business opportunities. These Demonstration units will power an internal combustion engine and Astris Energi's model E8 2.4 kW Alkaline Fuel Cell for a number of potential commercial customers.

According to their website, “AEC owns a metallurgic formulation which separates hydrogen from water at low cost, requiring no electrical energy or external input, and without utilizing or producing any hazardous waste materials. AEC's process involves chemical reactions between a proprietary metal alloy mix and the liquid solution. These metals are plentiful, stable in cost and produce effective, highly purified hydrogen utilizing a catalytic process.”

Engineers who have reviewed the technology say that this system is capable of producing energy at a price competitive with the current fossil fuel kWh cost of energy.

These demonstration meetings are the beginning of a series of such meetings over the coming months, whereby AEC will be showcasing its hydrogen production technology to a long list of prospective commercial customers, potential licensees, select government and institutional contacts and other interested commercial parties.

An earlier prototype demonstration took place on May 8, 2005 with interested/involved parties at AEC’s contracted laboratory in Downsview, Ontario, Canada. Now, this H2 1500-A1, alpha stage unit is designed for portable, on-site demonstrations.

AEC says their company is on an accelerated product development timetable to take advantage of several opportunities with targeted organizations.

Alternate Energy Corporation (AEC) intends to provide a hydrogen fuel system that has mass-deployment economics and provides small-scale, on-demand distributed generation of electricity. Following these product demonstrations with key strategic partners in the first part of 2005, the company plans to then ship initial hydrogen production and electricity generation systems later in 2005.

http://pesn.com/2005/07/20/9600127_AEC_Demo_Unit_Ready/

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')EC owns a metallurgic formulation which separates hydrogen from water at low cost, requiring no electrical energy or external input, and without utilizing or producing any hazardous waste materials. AEC's process involves chemical reactions between a proprietary metal alloy mix and the liquid solution. These metals are plentiful, stable in cost and produce effective, highly purified hydrogen utilizing a catalytic process

[spot5050]

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-07-25-voa8.cfm

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VOA News', 'S')everal automakers have produced test models of hydrogen-powered vehicles, at a cost of about $1 million each. The director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's automotive research laboratory, John Haywood, says it could be decades before hydrogen fuel cells become cost-effective as a viable alternative to today's gasoline-powered engines.

"In ten, 15 years there will be trial fleets - prototypes of what these technologies could be," he said. "But the costs will still be substantially above what conventional vehicle costs are. Our own estimates are that to look at when hydrogen and fuel cells could have a noticeable impact on transportation energy consumption, we judge that to be at least 40, 50 years away."

[Raxozanne]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Thats 10 years too late buddy.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', 'H')AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Thats 10 years too late buddy.

[Wildwell]

*sigh* The royal commision in the UK told them the same thing.

I wouldn't be on this website if I had thought any different myself. We're not quite as clever as we like to think we are sometimes, Hydrogen is a fantasy.

[EnergySpin]

Does not rule Hydrogen for niche application i.e. small scale off-grid electricity storage. Makes sense in Island with all the geizers.
I hope there will be no more waste of time and grey matter in trying to save the doomed car culture

[Devil]

Even 40, 50 years may be optimistic. H2 is a pipedream for mainstream transportation and energy, as has been stated many times before. See http://www.cypenv.org/Files/hydrogen.htm

[abelardlindsay]

Wow! I can see it now. Acres of shallow pools of these things pumping out hydrogen... Hmm...

http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_produ ... html#water

Biological Water Splitting

Certain photosynthetic microbes produce hydrogen from water in their metabolic activities using light energy. Photobiological technology holds great promise, but because oxygen is produced along with the hydrogen, the technology must overcome the limitation of oxygen sensitivity of the hydrogen-evolving enzyme systems. Researchers are addressing this issue by screening for naturally occurring organisms that are more tolerant of oxygen, and by creating new genetic forms of the organisms that can sustain hydrogen production in the presence of oxygen. A new system is also being developed that uses a metabolic switch (sulfur deprivation) to cycle algal cells between a photosynthetic growth phase and a hydrogen production phase.

Recent presentations and papers:

* Algal Hydrogen Photoproduction, Maria Ghirardi and Michael Seibert (2003) (PDF 645 KB)
* Molecular Engineering of Algal Hydrogen Production, Michael Seibert et al. (2002) (PDF 741 KB)
* Cyclic Photobiological Algal Hydrogen Production, Maria Ghirardi et al. (2002) (PDF 303 KB)

[0mar]

err hydrogenic bacteria have been known for quite a while now (at least 20-30 years)

[The_Toecutter]

People even have them literally growing and multiplying up their asses as well. 1/3 of all people also have bacteria that help produce methane.