The Car That Makes Its Own Fuel...and it's Zero Emission...Cool!

[masmdu]

http://www.physorg.com/news7499.html

"A unique system that can produce Hydrogen inside a car using common metals such as Magnesium and Aluminum was developed by an Israeli company. The system solves all of the obstacles associated with the manufacturing, transporting and storing of hydrogen to be used in cars. "

And it's no more expensive than current cars to buy or operate...I want one!

[Teaser]

1. It uses Zero point energy?

just kidding.

[Squatch]

2. Perpetual machine?

Can't "make its own fuel".

[masmdu]

4. yes it can

[Squatch]

6. Oh, really? How?

[masmdu]

8. follow the link and read...that's why I included it in the post :)

[Squatch]

9. Nevermind...just look up the First law of Thermodynamics...

If you don't mind.

[masmdu]

11. Just read the article ... "if you don't mind"...nothing about P.M. in it

That was -your- assumption

[stop the bleeding]

3. Very cool! n/t

[wuushew]

5. Breaking aluminum oxides is extremely energy intensive

On the order of 6-8 kilowatts per pound of aluminum.

Multiply every car in Israel by 220 pounds fuel x the frequency of fill ups and you are talking major additional electricity requirements.

[EVDebs]

7. Why not just produce Zinc Air Fuel Cells and skip the hydrogen part

altogether. ZAFCs, along with the entire metal air fuel cell idea, shifts world energy from solely fossil-fuels/MiddleEast and potentially shifts "power" geo-politically toward the Pacific Rim countries of the US, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Australia, and China, where most of the world's zinc resources are.

The Israelis sure do make life difficult for those oil-dependent Muslim states, don't they ?

LLNL explored ZAFCs but has allowed the 'free market' to take over. The firm mentioned in Think Zinc

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2001/0611/144.html

Metallic Power of Carlsbad CA has gone out of business and the media ignores most Zinc power related stories. I remember during the 2000 Olympics in Australia ZAFCs were to be popularized see LLNL article at

http://www.llnl.gov/str/News1297.html

This ZAFC commercialization was sandbagged in favor of more platinum-dependent hydrogen research (relying on platinum catalyst fuel cells).

The media and our schools and universities need to examine ZAFCs more intensively.

[the_spectator]

10. I doubt this would work, but even if it could,

... what on earth does this have to do with Plamegate?!?!

[ComerPerro]

12. LOL

[BeFree]

13. Back to the Future

Remember when the professor threw the aluminum can into the car of the future, and we all went: WTF?

The energy is in the almuminum and the magnesium, just waiting to be released, eh?

[EVDebs]

14. KICK !

[MadHound]

15. Sorry, but this seems too good to be true.

And upon further review, it is. First off, the waste product from this would be two fairly toxic substances, magnesium oxide and aluminum oxide. Both produce cancers, aluminum oxide is suspect in alzheimers disease, magnesium oxide causes reproductive problems, among the worst of the effects.

Then there is the safety concern, namely that you're carrying around a high pressure steam plant everywhere you go, including in that wreck you're heading for. Remember when old fashioned steam trains wrecked, the tremendous boiler explosions? Well, with this technology, each and every car so equipped will have that exact same potential. Yeah, I hear you, we do the same with all the gas we now carry around. But with gas, you need a spark. With steam all you would need is a small punture, or even just a severe stress weakening of the steam system to cause it to blow. Not good

And while the price for these metals is cheap now, when and if this becomes popular, don't you think that the price will go up, way up? I mean really now, the price for the raw metal(forming the metal into the right shape will add even more costs) is running 60 cents a pound for aluminum and $1.20 for magnesium. Now then, factor in the costs of shaping this metal into the proper form, and also factor in the price hike that such a large demand will bring about, and pretty soon you're hitting the same costs to the consumer that we have now.

Then there is the hidden costs and pollution generated by producing not just the fuel for the car, but also for cleanup. More costs passed on to the consumer.

And one more thing, once again we will be basing our economy on a non-renewable resource. Haven't we learned anything from our oil stupidity? C'mon folks, we have got to start going with renewables now. Gee, take a hybrid, add an extra battery pack that you can plug into the grid, have the grid generated by renewables, make the fuel part of the hybrid to run off of biodiesel. Yes, it isn't a quick fix, but then again, most things worthwhile aren't.

Sorry, but I think that this is dead end tech, and will wind up costing us more than it is worth.

[wuushew]

16. The electricity requirements alone would probably = $70 a fill up

assuming ultra cheap/ultra dirty coal derived electricity at 4 cents a kilowatt hour.

Add in distribution, transportation and markup costs and it could easily reach $100 per roll of aluminum/magnesium.