[drabhayshah76]

Hello friends,
Pls watch this link on youtube.

YouTube - ‪Maruti Eeco Average 24 KMPL with GIRIRAJ H2o Kit / hho car kit.wmv‬‏

Regards,
Dr.Abhay Shah.

[ac 427]

i have been raising this point on this forum since a while.

If noted that since the last 50 years there has been no major development in the basic way a car functions. It is a internal combustion engine...new technologies have come in..but just to make the car a bit more efficient. But there hasn't been any breakthrough technology.

Electric vehicles / alternate fuels / are either too impratical or too expensive. I find it surprising that at this day and age and at this juncture where we are almost about to run out of fuel on planet earth, we are still pushing for petrol and diesel.

I was going to buy a alto k10, but because of the way the petrol prices are going up, i HAVE to now settle for a LPG / CNG vehicle.

Alternate fules technology exists, but its just not accessible to us commoners.

Alternative Fuel Types

As Jet Fuel Prices Soar, a Green Option Nears the Runway

cheers,
ac

[RS_DEL]

Originally Posted by drabhayshah76

Hello friends,
Pls watch this link on Youtube.


Regards,
Dr.Abhay Shah.

If this contraption is about the Fuel from Water thingie, then it is about Brown's gas. Electrolysis is performed on board to separate the Hydrogen from water. Million dollar question is what about the energy expended in electrolysis. The engineers/scientists on the board can comment about it and state with scientific reasoning whether this is the manna from the heavens or a scam targeted at the gullible, over enthusiastic and ill informed.

Originally Posted by Gooney

I am happy you brought out this dimension of the EV equation. Here's some food for thought:

China has the biggest Li reserves in the world. They have total control over the entire value chain and so they aim to become the world leaders in electric powertrain.

Can you see the focus and the strategy?

Quite honestly I have neither the perceptiveness nor the educational/professional background to attempt to divine what the Chinese have in their mind. AFAIK it is Bolivia which is the next Saudi, if Li is the substitute for crude - I am open to correction here. Also as you may have read in the press, the minor minerals/metals needed to make the components in an EV are to a very large extent a monopoly conferred on the Chinese by mother nature. This whole thing is quite convoluted to say the least. Yes your observation about the Chinese focus on being tech leaders in the EV space is spot on.

[dot]

Who knows, going forward different geographies may have different fuel economies. CNG in North America, Russia, Middle East. EV in Europe, China. Ethanol in Brazil. Just like you have LHD and RHD in different parts of the world.

We do not need to assume that the next technology will be a monopoly like hydrocarbons.

[bzr77k]

Originally Posted by vebmetal

But my very very very layman guess is that electric cars would be a better choice than our present fossil fuel based vehicles because:

1. The cars themselves don't release pollutants - this makes at least the local area clean form air pollution.
2. Electric cars are relatively silent - let's not forget about noise pollution.
3. If all / the vast majority of the cars in the world are electric it makes the problems (and thereby the corresponding solutions) centralized and enables the scientific community to concentrate on R&D on improving energy sources for generating electricity and making electricity transmission more efficient.
4. Vehicles would be safer - no cars blowing up! (though this may make 15 Fast 15 furious a dull movie).
5. Vehicles would be easily upgradeable as far as batteries are concerned. So like improving your RAM in your computer, you may be able to upgrade your car's range etc.
6. Chances are that cost of operating an electric vehicles per km would be less than the petrol / diesel counterparts.

Absolutely relevant points...
In fact, the recent developments on 'Inductive energy' sounds more promising and aiding this development. I would in fact say, Inductive energy transfer combined with the above benefits of EVs is the most optimized set-up in the short to medium term (as in 2 - 10 years range). A longer term solution is more difficult to predict.

[Indraneel Bhat]

How does one make bio-diesel?

Is there any permission etc. required to manufacture bio-diesel? Do we need to have any licenses from orgs such as ONGC etc. to manufacture and bio-diesel for personal / commercial use? Also would anyone be able to tell me is manufacture of bio-diesel is costly? Where can one learn about it's manufacture?

[sgiitk]

I was told that the preferred raw material for Bio-diesel is Jathropa (called Ratanjot). It costs almost as much per kilo as a litre of diesel.

[Gooney]

Correct sgiitk. Even I was aware of the use of Jatropha plant to generate bio-diesel. However, I just did a search and found out that apart from Jatropha, there are many other sources for bio-diesel, canola, sunflower, algae, etc. Here is the source.

Is it because Jatropha is the most common source for bio-diesel generation for auto OEM that people recall it more than other sources?

[sgiitk]

Tough to call. I have a feeling that unless it is a by-product of something else bio-diesel may not be cost effective. My Chemical Engineering friends tell me that the Chemistry involved is not too tough.

[vina]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

Tough to call. I have a feeling that unless it is a by-product of something else bio-diesel may not be cost effective. My Chemical Engineering friends tell me that the Chemistry involved is not too tough.

Sir

what are the water and land requirements of bio-diesel things? AFAIK a part of the reason world food prices are shooting up is the US/EU subsidy on ethanol.

[dot]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

My Chemical Engineering friends tell me that the Chemistry involved is not too tough.

Thats true, chemistry is fairly simple and scale-able. It involves breaking the triglycerides (triple esters of long chain fatty acid) into single chain esters of methanol with glycerol (glycerin) as byproduct. Reaction condition for this type (transesterification) is pretty mild when compared to some of the petrochem processes. Methanol is one component which needed from petrochem sources.

Since different seed oil has different fatty acid composition, bio-diesel obtained from them will be slightly different in properties. This is why supply is pretty important. Non-edible seeds which grow in arid regions are best suited for supply. Depending on oil content in a particular variety of seed, the conversion and land required can be calculated. However socio-political issues act as barrier, specially in India where the market is fragmented and prices can be fixed.

Finally residue management is crucial as @sgiitk point out. Easiest solution is to burn the residue to generate energy or use it as farm resources. There are quite a few pilots in India as you may know.

[vaibzi]

I still remember Jeremy Clarkson's quote in one of the TG episodes. He said that the next billionaire on earth would be the one who can show the world how to store Hydrogen safely and also use it efficiently.
Speaking of this, does anyone know about the latest in Hydrogen fuel cell technology?

[ananth_iy]

A lot of interesting development is happening that may not look very interesting if looked at in isolation but a beautiful picture for the future may emerge if we look at it in concert.

Scientists at MIT have developed a low cost Solar Leaf that when immersed in water uses solar energy to generate hydrogen from water.
MIT Professor Develops Solar Leaf, Could Lead to Cheaper, Cleaner Energy | Get Solar.com

The DOE, US has declared an award up to $12M for applied RD in hydrogen storage technologies
DOE to award $12M for development of low-cost hydrogen storage tanks — Autoblog Green

Toyota announces that they will be producing low cost Hydrogen fuel cell cars by 2015
Toyota hopes to produce low cost Hydrogen fuel cell cars by 2015 | Rush Lane

Now connect the dots, we could have a small part of our garden housing a Solar tree that generates hydrogen that gets stored in the strong and safe fuel tanks promoted by the DOE. We will have a hydrogen powered car in our driveway that we will fuel up each morning from our own fuel storage tank. We do not spend a dime on fuel ongoing and all we produce as exhaust from driving our cars will be water – yes pure water is the exhaust of hydrogen fuel cell cars!!

[gshanky]

I wish the next major fuel technology would harvest one of the renewable energy sources. Be it bio fuel through agriculture or hydrogen fuel cells or light, wind, air, water, etc.

Otherwise we are looking for a temporary solution for a permanent energy problem.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by vaibzi

I still remember Jeremy Clarkson's quote in one of the TG episodes. He said that the next billionaire on earth would be the one who can show the world how to store Hydrogen safely and also use it efficiently.
Speaking of this, does anyone know about the latest in Hydrogen fuel cell technology?

Whatever little I know. One bugbear is the large fraction of cylinder volume occupied by Hydrogen (2/3). The solutions being tried are direct injection based. One of them is also experimenting with injecting super cold / Liquid into the cylinder!