Another perpetual motion device?

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Tom Dressel
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Another perpetual motion device?

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Carl Willis
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Carl Willis »

Hi Tom!

Long time, no see. I hope you're doing well.

Your link there has got to be one of the more laughable and braindead quack schemes for improving fuel efficiency.

In principle, regenerating some of the engine's idle power or braking power is a good idea. But the present "invention" is loading the engine continuously to produce hydrogen and oxygen, in the process wasting a relatively considerable amount of energy heating the electrolyte, the alternator, the engine coolant, etc. Unless you ONLY load the alternator with the hydrogen generator when the car is braking or idling, I don't see how it could, even theoretically, help at all. In fact, it's probably a net energy loss!

Of course, there are some safety / reliability concerns here also. What happens when the electrolyte runs low and a spark occurs in that jar? (Might your intake manifold explode?) Just how capable is the fuel-injection system at dealing with an oxy-hydrogen admixture?

The dunces among us think they've stuck gold when they learn that oxygen and hydrogen can be made from water and that they burn together. Fellas, you need more than an elementary-school diploma to solve the energy crisis...

Thanks for the moment of levity.

-Carl
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Jon Rosenstiel
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Jon Rosenstiel »

Tom,

Yeah, I'll second what Carl said...long time, no see. Good to hear from you.

Shades of the 200 mpg carburetor that big oil has kept off the market for the past 60 (or more) years. But the Faux news video is what convinced me……. Convinced me the whole schmear is a big load of hooey!

Jon R
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Nanos »

Problem is, how is the general public to know the difference between scams and the real thing.

I was reading comments on a youtube video where someone demos a fusor, and only about 10% knew the science behind it, the majority thought it was a fake/scam!

Its another thing I try and keep an eye on, the only thing I know about cars and water is that they go better when its foggy by old dad told me.


Perhaps if they gave the information away for free and asked people to donate half the money saved, they might convince me it worked..
Chris Trent
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Chris Trent »

On cars and water:
Fog is just an accidental way of getting a fine mist of water into the cylinder. Actual water injection can increase mileage and or power to a small extent and is particularly noticeable on turbocharged vehicles. It can both facilitate a more dense charge in the cylinder and can potentially reduce the temperature of the compressed gasses in the cylinder prior to ignition. This means both more fuel enters the cylinder and less power lost on the compression stroke therefore better overall power both ways.


On the public concept of fusors as a scam:
The general public views fusors as a scam because other branches of fusion have been promising them the moon and have been delivering cheese pizza at best. Most don't understand that we don't in fact claim to be able to produce usable energy with our devices. They just assume that since everyone else is promising break even, and a pristine free energy future to boot, that we are to.



We as a whole are not touting fusors as the energy source of the future. We are encouraging it as a hobby and research tool. This "Burn water" scam in it's various forms and iterations actually claims to be able to help with an energy crisis. This has before and will again be proven to b totally false.

I have no issue if they want to sell hydrogen generators as a novelty. I've made a few myself, but to claim it can half your fuel use is purely ludicrous. Moreso, to only offer the downloadable guide, and on top of that to suggest resale of it using what appears to be a poorly backed multi-level marketing model is downright laughable in my little world.
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Steven Sesselmann
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Steven Sesselmann »

If I am not mistaken, I think John H. actually tried this crazy scheme, which apparently works .

http://keelynet.com/energy/cornish.htm

John might care to comment

Steven
http://www.gammaspectacular.com - Gamma Spectrometry Systems
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Sesselmann - Various papers and patents on RG
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Chris Bradley »

I would be more wary at scoffing so. Like you I do not think it will work as posted myself, but there are some reasons why it may work.

Firstly, as Chris T says, getting water into a combustion process is well known for improving efficiency for a variety of reasons.

Secondly, using up some energy to then try to gain greater efficiency is a well-established practice that works under certain circumstances, e.g. a supercharger 'meddles around' with the reactants pressure/volume/content/combustion temperature (and in doing so generates its own heat and losses) yet can give an engine better overall economy and/or power. This *may* be no different here, so the consumption of input power with apparently the same output constituents is not, per se, proof of non-viability. Supercharging demonstrates this.

Thirdly, the re-combustion of the h-o will push up the temperature in the cylinder, adding to that combustion temperature of the main fuels. This would improve efficiency.

Finally (on my list of thoughts - maybe there are more), carbon is more reactive than hydrogen, so having more free oxygen kicking about will encourage the more rapid breakdown and combustion of the carbon in the fuel (again, much like supercharging), with the hydrogen burning up quick and hotter after those first carbon-oxygen reactions. More heat is always going to bump you up the Carnot cycle efficiency curve.


The REAL question here is; how much evidence would you need to satisfy yourself that it doesn't work? If there is no amount of evidence that can 'prove' it works to your satisfaction, and no-one is prepared to do the experiment to prove it doesn't work but instead just presumes this, then it is not the purveyors of this contraption that are working against the scientific method, but those that that chastise them are.

To claim that you can run a car entirely on electrolysed water gasses and burn them back into water can be discounted by rational scientific argument. But to claim that such a process improves efficiency, as is the case here, is a quantitative thing which would require much more investigation to prove erroneous, particularly when considering the aspects above that I've mentioned as plausibilities.
Nanos
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Nanos »

FX [ nodes in agreement with Bradley ]

This is one of the reasons why when I have built my new home I want really big lab space so I can build some of these things and see for myself.


It reminds me of what it must have been like for the person building the first fusor, trying to convince others of their work.
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Nanos »

Science is very little understood by the general public, so in most cases I doubt they even get as far as reading the word fusion, all these see is some machinery, noise, a flashing light or two and thats enough to get them thinking scam!

It reminds me of when my dad used to tune cars, he spent $k's on a machine with a screen and lights, and a loud generator to power it, so that the customer would be happy that he was using the latest technology to make their car run better.

When in fact, most of the time he just twiddled with the bits he knew how to twiddle ever since he'd tuned cars since the 1920's, but they wouldn't have believed he could do so if he had just turned up with a small tool box!

I remember the competition once who got themselves a fancy machine better than ours, had their 2 weeks training course and then wondered why after making a mess of everyones car the customer came to us!
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by John Futter »

This reminds me of the Di hydrogen monoxide that some pransters almost got the USA senate to ban as a dangerous chemical a few years ago because it kills people (for those not up on chemistry and state senators,--- this is water).

Yes water injection works ie humid days etc I have used it many years ago and it works net 30% improvement on gas milage, but it had its drawbacks of killing the engine if you put too much in (drying plugs on the side of the highway makes one look a bit silly)
this is because water to steam expands more than petrol air does and you use the petrol air burn to vapourise the water to steam..

do the math for electrolysis and the energy required is immence, slightly more than the recombination energy, power from the engine (because of the electrolysis losses {energy conservation etc}) to electrolise will be more than the energy extracted.

of course there are those that argue that the energy gain is from the heavy water portion, but that is another fairytale

my view is that violently electrolysing water will carry finely divided water droplets into the engine and an efficiency increase will result

not as good as pure water injection

and not likely to work well with computer controlled engines that expect a certain knock level and a certain oxygen level that is tuned to fossil fuel(engine computer mapping relies on certain constants ie fuel / airie certain hydrocarbon chains burnt with air at a certain rate. HHO burns fast so the engine managment will retard tocompensate (not good for efficienct)).


Richard
a purge when you have time would be in order
there are plenty of other forums that will discuss this to the Nth degree
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Chris Bradley »

Are you suggesting a purge because of the actual topic, or that it would not raise an appropriate technical discussion within this forum?

The former may well be appropriate, but I would caution against the latter.

To close down and reject an idea merely because it looks highly questionable rather than dig into its scientific basis, or otherwise lack of it, may have a bearing on the credibility of an open forum that, itself, is focussed on a subject that is highly questionable in the eyes of people not appropriately educated in it. There are legitimate objective critiques of it that can be simply made. I don't believe the idea has any value either but I've volunteered a few supportive comments to be countered, if only to offer a balance with subjective critisisms. It's not pitched as a perpetual motion machine, but an aid to efficiency. One way or the other it will affect the efficiency!
Nanos
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Nanos »

I'm never keen on purges myself, I rather like to keep data/information/etc. for future reference.

I come from forums which have archived every message for 20+ years!

And now with this new fangled internet thing, I find I can try and go back to a site less than a year old and what was written there is gone now and its now selling Viagra
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Carl Willis
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Carl Willis »

Posts don't get purged unless they're advertisements or have flagrantly trollsome content.

Of course, John's right that this hydrogen-burning nonsense is not topical. I believe it was brought up for the purposes of casual ridicule. A good belly-laugh is appropriate from time to time.

Those who think this idea has a snowball's-chance-in-hell of working (at least as "intended") need only consider the energy balance, that is, the energy inputs and outputs in the system.

E[out] = E[in]

The first thing to note is that energy is conserved, which means that the chemical energy (CE) in the "HHO" can only be used to regenerate the "HHO":

CE[hho] = CE[hho].

In reality, generating and burning the HHO are lossy processes, making heat (Q) as well as HHO and thus requiring another source of input energy.

CE[hho] + Q[hho] = CE[hho] + E[other]

E[other] is the combustion of gasoline in this case, and the equation is not yet balanced because E[other] also provides the car's shaft energy (SP) and some heat losses associated with that, Q[other].

SP + CE[hho] + Q[hho] + Q[other] = CE[hho] + E[other]

Since CE[hho] shows up on both sides, i.e. is internal to the system, it's irrelevant.

SP + Q[hho] + Q[other] = E[other]

Efficiency (N) is SP / E[other]:

N = 1 - (Q[hho] + Q[other]) / E[other]

The HHO energy is completely internal to the system, and furthermore, adds the loss of Q[hho] to the output, unequivocally lowering the efficiency while the car is cruising, coasting or accelerating. It does not matter how efficient HHO is at burning in the engine, how hot it burns, how clean it burns, etc. It is still made by burning "other" in the engine, which is a loss.

The technique only redeems itself, if ever so slightly, on courses where the car must brake. Here, the electrolysis cell loads the shaft and decreases the amount of non-conserved frictional loss the driver must incur by using the brake. Thus, the HHO can be used to recoup braking losses. But if the inventor here realized that, he'd have simply put a relay in the electrolysis circuit that came on with the brake light. Every moment that cell is bubbling and the car is NOT braking, it is wasting energy.

Finally, there's this, from Chris:

>The REAL question here is; how much evidence would you need to satisfy yourself that it doesn't work?

Answer is "none." Being such an implausible idea according to established scientific principles, the burden of proof that it does work falls upon the originator. All the originator provides in the way of evidence are some informal anecdotes and a YouTube clip from the dreaded Faux News.

-Carl
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Starfire
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Starfire »

For what it is worth, I built a version of cornish design and run my car [Audi 100 ] for a few miles on the Hydrogen, successfully. The Audi had been converted to run on Propane and had been running on Propane for several months and the change to hydrogen easy - but - it backfired a lot and as live in N. Ireland, this was not good.

I am not into debate on this - any one can build the design if they want to - but the Hydrogen release, works as described. I keep intending to set up a unit at home - will get round to it someday soon.

Gas station of the future will dispense Aluminum not petrol.

Hi Thomas - glad to see you back - I still use the Hornyak's
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Chris Bradley »

This is a little worrying because you've said;

>Being such an implausible idea according to established scientific principles, the burden of proof that it does work falls upon the originator.

which I read as a bit of a debunker's mantra. There's nothing explicitly wrong with the sentiment, but it seems anti-science to me. This is because the other person who has built this thing has, supposedly, already considered that they have provided enough evidence. it's just that you don't. The next step is for you to say what you would expect to see before acceptance. For example "I would need to see independently taken lab based rolling road data, then I would accept it."

The question would be then is, would you *really* accept it after getting such data? Sounds like you wouldn't? So how are these folks going to be able to second-guess what your *real* expectation of valid proof is, because I can't (yet I don't even believe it will work either)??

So the anti-science bit here is because the burden of proof on originator is quite fine, but to progress a scientific debate/development it is also for the doubter to specify what hoops need to be jumped through before a thing is validated.

Let's say you run Carl Sr and extrapolation shows that you could break even at some higher operating voltage. To do so would mean releasing fatal quantities of neutrons, so you're clearly not going to want to do that. So you write into the DoE, or wherever, and say 'hey, here are my figures, I reckon it could break even. How about giving me a suitable lab environment so I can show you.'

And their reply would be..."The burden of proof falls on you, so go prove to us it can break even first".

Stalemate!

Further to your calculations, you appear to have disregarded any possibility that the Q[HHO] is not independent of the E[other], and thus Q[other]. Unless I have misunderstood the intent of your calculations, you appear to have disproved supercharging can work aswell!
Dan Ullfig
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Dan Ullfig »

Hi everyone:

It should take exactly the same amount of energy to split the water molecule, as what you get from recombining it, which is what you do when you burn H2 + O. Assuming zero losses (impossible), you would get a net zero gain of energy. In other words, the energy you get by burning H2 + O is completely used up in the process of splitting water into H2 and O. No extra energy left over to power the car.

Dan
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Richard Hull
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Richard Hull »

As Carl might note and as I have stated many times.....

There are no free lunches. The energy comes from somewhere and you WILL pay for it, no matter what. You will buy it at a service station, or hunter gather it yourself.

This is not to say you can't save money, you can, with new technology or clever use of what you have...........It is rather to say that there is no free energy. It is all a matter of hunter gathering nature's little cocked energy guns and squeezing the triggers in clever ways.

Science just tells us whether there is or is not energy in the molecular system we are eyeballing as fuel.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: Another perpetual motion device?

Post by Starfire »

Daniel,

The energy comes from burning Aluminum and there is a loss, but you get enought residual energy from burning the Hydrogen with air to run the car. This is not claimed to be perpetual nor is it a free-be - the guy at the Aluminum smelter puts in a lot more energy than the car uses.

- Why don't you build one and measure - simple physics, or is it all theory?

This is an energy accumulator process same as hydrocarbon fuel and has losses, but so does petrol - it is just that you don't see the energy input extracting oil and at the oil refinary which is used to distill and process the oil to make your petrol. This is not claimed to be an energy efficient system but it works.

The big advantage of Aluminum, is that this process it is polutant free and recycleable [ the Aluminum oxide is returned to the smelter for re-smelting and you can drink the water byproduct from the exhaust ] and it lends itself to transfering fusion power to automotive use. - we just have to get the fusion working.
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