techSunday, December 04, 2005
Hydrogen, because it does not occur naturally in large quantities, is not really an energy source, but simply an energy carrier. It takes energy to produce hydrogen; the energy drawn from the hydrogen, because of inefficiencies is less than that required to produce it. So the source of the energy used to produce the hydrogen is very significant. If the source involves the burning of hydrocarbons, it is no more environmentally friendly than conventional gasoline burning cars - except that the release of dangerous substances may be better controlled and the design of hydrogen burning cars may be simplified (no catalytic converter for example). Only when produced by nuclear power, solar power, or another environmentally friendly alternative can the use of hydrogen as an automotive fuel be more environmentally friendly.
This article proposes the use of Boron as an energy carrier. It's a very large article, but here are a few key points.
-Boron is not combustible under normal conditions, so it is much safer than hydrocarbons or hydrogen which can ignite in an accident or from a leak.
-Boron carries a rather large amount of energy by weight.
-The byproducts of boron combustion are solids which can be collected and transformed back into boron.
Read the article.
This article proposes the use of Boron as an energy carrier. It's a very large article, but here are a few key points.
-Boron is not combustible under normal conditions, so it is much safer than hydrocarbons or hydrogen which can ignite in an accident or from a leak.
-Boron carries a rather large amount of energy by weight.
-The byproducts of boron combustion are solids which can be collected and transformed back into boron.
Read the article.
Comments:
<< Home
Hey dude is there a link to these articles? Also another problem with these cars is the lobbying power of the oil industry that will prevent this car from coming to market. Do you think Exxon is willing to give up its ten billion dollars profit it made last quarter unlikely. I'm sure they will buy the patents on this technology and prevent it from becoming available. Also do they say the cars will be the same as combustions cars (in the sense of a heater, battery, alternator etc.) or not because if they don't say it then it might be wrong to assume they will run the same and therefore some of your problems might be dealt with differently?
Yessir, they say that the metal-steam combustor car will use an engine similar to a conventional gasoline engine to burn the hydrogen, so I assume that it will have an alternator, battery, spark-plugs, starter, radiator, etc - because those things would still be necessary with such an engine - it just burns hydrogen instead of gasoline.
And yes, the fossil fuel industry is always a problem with such technology.
The Titles are the links - that's why they're blue
And yes, the fossil fuel industry is always a problem with such technology.
The Titles are the links - that's why they're blue
Hey, this page was last updated Dec. 31, 2001. Do you know if there is any ongoing research. This sounds promising.
A web search on "boron fuel" only returned this article (at the same site and a few others) and places that link to it. Let me know id you do better.
no, I don't know. I don't even know how I found that one in the first place. I hadn't noticed the date though. It doesn't sound too good for the boron fuel advocates. Or "advocate" if that guy's the only one
Post a Comment
<< Home