Could this new fuel save our existing petrol engines?

Owen

Well, this company thinks so. Cella Energy has a new fuel, which is basically hydrogen microcells suspended in some sort of liquid, which can be poured into a normal petrol car's fuel tank, and burned in a normal petrol engine. Should be costing (Well, US prices anyway) - 1.50 a gallon!

So we get to keep interesting cars, with interesting engines, hopefully our exhaust/supercharger notes too, and be green. Nice.

Full story here :
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/28/cella-energy-says-its-hydrogen-microbeads-could-fuel-your-car-c/

Alanstrainor

Just read that too. Looks awesome, maybe i will have a 4.4 litre petrol V8 some day after all!

Absurdum

V8 aspirations upgraded to V12

quad_red

" Best news is that this concoction costs just $1.50 per gallon -- or will, eventually. Supposedly. Maybe?"

Will eventually? Sounds like a pipe dream.

Cookie_Monster

Story is a little light on details, where does the H come from at the end of the day?

robtri

yeah sounds like a pipe dream that will never be realised....

yeah 1.50 a gallon.. then when it comes over here we will add taxes and more taxes and green taxes and some more VAT and i am sure they will invent a hydrogen tax and it probably cost the same as petrol does.....

greendom

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Story is a little light on details, where does the H come from at the end of the day?

Bit more detail here

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/01/uk-cella-energy-develops-hydrogen-based.html

greendom

robtri wrote: »

yeah sounds like a pipe dream that will never be realised....

yeah 1.50 a gallon.. then when it comes over here we will add taxes and more taxes and green taxes and some more VAT and i am sure they will invent a hydrogen tax and it probably cost the same as petrol does.....

Still be fantastic in that it produces zero emissions and means we have a ready made replacement for the depleting reserves of oil.

Anan1

greendom wrote: »

Still be fantastic in that it produces zero emissions .

It'll still emit CO2 when burned, it's just that producing it hopefully won't. Remember too that the internal combustion engine is by nature inefficient compared to electric.

greendom

Anan1 wrote: »

It'll still emit CO2 when burned, it's just that producing it hopefully won't. Remember too that the internal combustion engine is by nature inefficient compared to electric.

From the article I posted

It is hydrogen based fuel and produces no carbon emissions when burned.

What makes you think it'll still emit CO2 when burned ?

Matt Simis

I posted some digging I did on this on Octane already:

On the company:
Ive scoured their site and its a little bit of a mess.
www.cellaenergy.com

They are in the awkward position of trying to run down the existing Hydrogen gas system (pressure tanks, super cooling etc) why also trying to promote their Hydrogen beading, wafer thing, leading to confusing images like this:

That image is meant to show their advantages over existing Hydrogen distribution yet looks like their system requires the high pressure tanks and hoses (which it doesnt).
Its worth nothing their vehicle proposal requires a modified or separate fuel storage (doesnt have to be a steel gas tank though), ie modified cars, not modified engines.

There are numerous instances on their site of uses of other brands (Kleenex, Ad-Blue, car logos etc) that suggest whoever put this site up did it without a legal eye on it. The site only was put up a few months ago too. There are no specific examples of their fuel being used in a conventional ICE, infact they seem to suggest it as an additive foremost and fuel second in these applications, which read like theory not fact.
IMO, this is all slightly suspicious and haphazard, though I do hope its legit.

On the man:
Stephen Voller (their CEO) was on Dragons Den in 2009 looking for £2.5m to start an electric car company:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/entrepreneurs/stephenvoller.shtml
Before that he had his own company, Voller Energy, now defunct that was trying to push the usage of Fuel Cells as Yacht Energy sources as well as military applications (much like Cella Energy)
Before that he was in Netscape.

robtri

greendom wrote: »

Still be fantastic in that it produces zero emissions and means we have a ready made replacement for the depleting reserves of oil.

no offence but to make the quantities of Hydrogen needed to keep the car industry satisfied .. will mean a lot of emmissions

oil is doing fine.. stocks not depleting, not yet...

Anan1

greendom wrote: »

From the article I posted

It is hydrogen based fuel and produces no carbon emissions when burned.

What makes you think it'll still emit CO2 when burned ?

Sorry, I got that arseways! It'll burn clean, but manufacturing it will produce CO2.

Eph1958

Not sure how much CO² the nuclear industry produces when making the massive quantities of electricity needed to extract the Hydrogen from water, however they are plagued with their own inherent problems. It's a fascinating idea, almost science-fiction.

RMD

No matter what people will do to keep their CO2 emissions down it will rise in other areas. It's like the Toyota Prius, sounds great in theory (if you don't bother doing research) but in the end it produces more CO2 than the average car will do in a 8 year in comparison taking in both production + use.

pajero12

robtri wrote: »

no offence but to make the quantities of Hydrogen needed to keep the car industry satisfied .. will mean a lot of emmissions

oil is doing fine.. stocks not depleting, not yet...

Well seeing as this breakthrough is probably a few years away its,probably better to perfect it before the oil stocks runs out,not after.