Mike in Manila - Technology Notes

Saturday, April 15, 2006

More on the mis-named watercar- H2car

Looking further into the issue of Mr. Dingels water car- the problem he seems to have had is not explaining the process -
A presentation of his vehicle a few years back at the DOST - he came- showed his car and didn't go into the scientific aspects of what his car runs on.
a review by a panel showed and explaimed it further.
"Daniel Dingel car uses the process of electrolysis. In electrolysis, electric current is passed through an electrolyte which splits the water into oxygen and hydrogen."

more detail:

"The important thing to note about this is that, it is not water, per see, that makes the vehicle run. It is the hydrogen, the lightest known element on earth that burns like a LPG and gasoline, that makes the car run. Hydrogen can be extracted from water. Hydrogen can be produce by splitting water (H20) into hydrogen and oxygen. That is, one water molecule can produce two hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom.

This is what supposedly happening inside the engine of Daniel Dingel's car and any water fueled vehicles, a water inside the tank is splitted into oxygen and hydrogen, then the hydrogen will be feed to the engine, just like a gasoline and the engine will burn the hydrogen to run the vehicle. The exhaust of the vehicle powered by hydrogen is purely water vapor, so it is clean."

The problem with the concept is the name- Water Car- it isn't- it runs on hydrogen - spliting water into two parts and leaving behind a trail of water vapor. A simple device can do this- problem is why has it not been done before?

Well it has... H2 cars abound in design and theory- the problem is what happens when people start using water instead of Oil.

The major Oil companies will collapse!!! Gas stations - would have to become water stations... a entire global economy built and maintained on the process of Oil extraction would fall aside into the way of say the horse and buggy industry.

So if indeed nothing more is needed than a small device to split water into Hydrogen and oxygen - and standard internal combustion engines are used - why isn't there a push from major car manufactures to do this? Why the need for furl cells rather than good old cyslnders piston power? to keep the infrastructure of fuel in place.

Perhaps somewhere --- sputtering along in a watercar - some inventor like Mr. Dingel is out there working on something like this.... Perhaps Ford or Chrysler or GM or Toyota or Mitsu can do the world a favor and save the global warming trend from getting worse by developing a safe and sure method for this technology.

Perhaps one city or town or province - can seriously look into this- if like below students could develop a pick-up truck in Arizona (see earlier post in full here - below)

skeptic's write after the DOST presentation - -
" It is important to note that in the process of splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen using electrolysis, the input energy required to split oxygen and hydrogen is exactly equal (assuming ideal reaction, usually it is greater than) to the energy given off in the reaction (burning of hydrogen) of combining hydrogen and oxygen to produce water, which is what is happening inside the engine when the hydrogen is burned to run the vehicle. In the case of Dingel's invention, he uses a DC battery for the electrolysis. So, in short, it is like the DC battery that runs the car, which is pretty much impossible because the energy stored in the DC battery is so small to run a car, like what Dingel showed. This is the point of discussion, how did Daniel Dingel do that? If he only uses the process of electrolysis to split the oxygen and hydrogen to run the vehicle,"

BUT - in the Arizona test... Hydrogen is produced from four Solar panels - and a combination solar power electrosis machine - the skeptics instead of looking at- new technology in light of possiblilites seem to be trapped in the box that see the process without looking at the overall impact of it. - perhaps more open minds can work more on developing and delivering a better message... Can you imagine the frustration this man is going through?

Oh well.... Science often ignores the innovators preferring the path already established... Computer technology improvements have shown this with new innovation every week.

Someday when a Chinese made watercar rolls past the DOST offices I wonder if anyone will remember that as far back as 1980.... a little red Toyota did it first... Driven by a man who perhaps may not have explained it properly. So sad...

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