Honda Clarity: Mechanical Opinions

Gases are almost always more flammable/explosive than the same substance in liquid form. Any vehicle storing hydrogen would have a tank that is designed to fail in a specific way so to divert the escaping hydrogen away from the vehicle in the safest possible way. I saw a demonstration of this design vs. a fire in a gasoline powered vehicle. The escaping flaming hydrogen was directed vertically out of the vehicle (through the trunk?) sort of like a venting geyser. The car avoided any other damage due to a hydrogen explosion. While the gasoline powered car incinerated pretty quickly. That wasn't on Top Gear was it? I'd go find it on youtube but my work blocks it.

While I'm aware the internal combustion engine produces water vapor, how does the amount compare to that produced by a fuel cell?
 
I think its a brilliant idea....for commuter cars. I want my sports cars to be loud and melodic, and pollute, but that's just me.

I really think fusion power is the way of the future though. An aircraft carrier will run for TWELVE years without having to refuel, and that's using less efficient fission reactors. Fusion is about 10-15% more efficient, and it is also zero emissions. Not to mention the immense power.
 
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starfox07 said:
I think its a brilliant idea....for commuter cars. I want my sports cars to be loud and melodic, and pollute, but that's just me.
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That.
 
How about air power?

[youtube]Dq8aZVLpf-c[/youtube]
 
starfox07 said:
I think its a brilliant idea....for commuter cars. I want my sports cars to be loud and melodic, and pollute, but that's just me.

I really think fusion power is the way of the future though. An aircraft carrier will run for TWELVE years without having to refuel, and that's using less efficient fission reactors. Fusion is about 10-15% more efficient, and it is also zero emissions. Not to mention the immense power.
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Fusion is the powersource of the future, it's just getting it to work that's a problem.
It's completely clean, efficient, and harmless if something goes wrong, unlike fission which just blows up.
But as far as i know, we're pretty off from getting it to work. So it's not a viable alternative in the near future.
 
The focused fusion devices seem to be working. Well enough for the US Navy to start investigating them as warship powerplants, anyway.

It is not *entirely* harmless if you lose containment, though. You melt most everything in the immediate area of the breach (2-10 meters or more, depending on the size of the breach and the reactor) if you lose containment on a Tokamak, for example, but that's a temporary thing and not radioactive.

Also, current fission reactor designs can't "blow up" at all. It's not possible. See the Westinghouse AP1000 for an example.
 
starfox07 said:
I think its a brilliant idea....for commuter cars. I want my sports cars to be loud and melodic, and pollute, but that's just me.

I really think fusion power is the way of the future though. An aircraft carrier will run for TWELVE years without having to refuel, and that's using less efficient fission reactors. Fusion is about 10-15% more efficient, and it is also zero emissions. Not to mention the immense power.
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I agree about the noise, but why would you want pollution? I could see someone saying that the engine mattered more to them than the environment- (though I wouldn't completely agree)- but not actually wanting pollution without any visible benefits.
But that's just me.
 
starfox07 said:
I think its a brilliant idea....for commuter cars. I want my sports cars to be loud and melodic, and pollute, but that's just me.

I really think fusion power is the way of the future though. An aircraft carrier will run for TWELVE years without having to refuel, and that's using less efficient fission reactors. Fusion is about 10-15% more efficient, and it is also zero emissions. Not to mention the immense power.
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Is that true? I always thought the emission was helium...does it use it in some way to convert it back to tritium or deuterium somehow?
 
freeferrarisdonotexist said:
I agree about the noise, but why would you want pollution? I could see someone saying that the engine mattered more to them than the environment- (though I wouldn't completely agree)- but not actually wanting pollution without any visible benefits.
But that's just me.
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He wants pollution to be permitted so nobody will ban his rotary engine for pitching bits of apex seals out the tailpipe. :D
 
Hydrogen is just another container for energy, just like petrol. But managing hydrogen is a pain in the behind. It's one of the reasons that LPG has never caught on, even though it burns cleaner than petrol. The minute you require pressurization, you have made it more complex.

To top it off, the efficiency differences between an onboard generator and hydrogen fuel cells isn't large.

We are better off using incentives to drive people to cars like the new Ford Fusion Hybrid and Honda Insight (that is, cars approaching 50mpg). That will start a large impact now and going forward. And we know it will be successful because it doesn't require people to change their behaviour.

Steve
 
Spectre said:
He wants pollution to be permitted so nobody will ban his rotary engine for pitching bits of apex seals out the tailpipe. :D
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:lol:

I know it's not what he meant, but it sounds like even if he could continue to drive his car, but run it on a fuel that didn't pollute but had the same sound and performance, he wouldn't be interested... does not compute.

While I get goosebumps over a great ICE sound (Damn, that Bowler in the most recent 5th Gear sounded great...) a powerful electric motor can sound great, too. Different, but great. You still also get all of the same wind and tire noise along with it, which is a surprising amount of the audio equation.
 
Steve Levin said:
Hydrogen is just another container for energy, just like petrol. But managing hydrogen is a pain in the behind. It's one of the reasons that LPG has never caught on, even though it burns cleaner than petrol. The minute you require pressurization, you have made it more complex.

To top it off, the efficiency differences between an onboard generator and hydrogen fuel cells isn't large.

We are better off using incentives to drive people to cars like the new Ford Fusion Hybrid and Honda Insight (that is, cars approaching 50mpg). That will start a large impact now and going forward. And we know it will be successful because it doesn't require people to change their behaviour.

Steve
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Perhaps getting people to change their behavior is what we need. As it is now people just expect their cars to work at any time under any condition (and some people think the only maintenance a car needs done is to add gas), if they fail, then the car is gotten rid of for a new one.

I spend plenty of time fiddling with my cars; with the mustang in particular, keeping it clean, not to mention the extra cost involved with parts for the thing if something does go wrong. Extra maintenance on a hydrogen car would be no problem for me, but for many people it would be since they just can't be bothered at all.

That said, I think what we need is to actually start building a hydrogen infrastructure. As things are now, we all just keep saying we don't have it and that it will be a thing of the future. Not at this pace- we need to get off our butts and start making the technology of the future a part of today.

Now if only I were in a position to actually get people to do things.
 
airmenair said:
While I'm aware the internal combustion engine produces water vapor, how does the amount compare to that produced by a fuel cell?
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There you go.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) emit approximately the same amount of water per mile as vehicles using gasoline-powered internal combustion engines (ICEs).
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Spectre said:
He wants pollution to be permitted so nobody will ban his rotary engine for pitching bits of apex seals out the tailpipe. :D
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:lol::+1:
 
NecroJoe said:
:lol:

I know it's not what he meant, but it sounds like even if he could continue to drive his car, but run it on a fuel that didn't pollute but had the same sound and performance, he wouldn't be interested... does not compute.

While I get goosebumps over a great ICE sound (Damn, that Bowler in the most recent 5th Gear sounded great...) a powerful electric motor can sound great, too. Different, but great. You still also get all of the same wind and tire noise along with it, which is a surprising amount of the audio equation.
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Its just the warm feeling I get inside every time I shift and thick black cloud of unburned fuel and oil, occasionally accompanied by a small fireball shoots out of the exhaust, that somebody in a Prius gets angry. As I generally hate people in general, especially ecomentalists, this makes me happy.

The pathetic amount of energy we have managed to yield from our various fuel sources is quite obvious when you look at how much there really is to be had. A bowling ball has enough energy contained in it to blow up, probably, the southern half of the united states if it was reacted at 100% efficiency. But that's only possible through an anti-matter reaction...which is barely even attainable by man (and we're talking micrograms of matter at that) at the moment.
 
starfox07 said:
I think its a brilliant idea....for commuter cars. I want my sports cars to be loud and melodic, and pollute, but that's just me.
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That's the key. Once this technology goes main stream, gas prices will drop due to lack of demand and the enthusiast will be able to use this to their advantage.

Totally off topic but... flying cars... what will happen to all the freeways, the government will implement a yearly road tax, take down the speed limits and it will all be one giant race track (in my own little world :mrgreen:)
 
starfox07 said:
The pathetic amount of energy we have managed to yield from our various fuel sources is quite obvious when you look at how much there really is to be had.
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A gallon of sea watter has as much potential energy as burning 30 gallons of gasoline. Just read that in Popular Mechanics.
 
JipJopJones said:
Totally off topic but... flying cars... what will happen to all the freeways, the government will implement a yearly road tax, take down the speed limits and it will all be one giant race track (in my own little world :mrgreen:)
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They'll either sell the real estate, or put in high-speed trains.
 
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