Raze wrote: billy3esq, you sound like an engineer dude :) In fact all of your sentiments I agree with spot on, I swore I had written your responses on this thread, Cheers!
My undergraduate degree is in electrical engineering, and I worked as an engineer for several years to pay my way through law school. Or, as Dr. Hess, Jensenman, and others would say, before I turned to a life of crime. 
Yeah, billy3 went to the dark side. 
Instead of creating, he destroys. Or at least snarls things up real bad. 
My engineer buddy refused to consider that his H2 generator might use more power to generate H2 than it added to the engine's output. He got all wound up when I tried to ask about that. He just snapped 'It'll work, dammit!' Since I was at his house and he was supplying the beer and burgers, I STFU. Momma raised ugly kids, not dumb ones.
billy3esq wrote: Yep. It goes like this: Separation: 2H2O -> 2H2 + O2. Oxidation (Combustion): 2H2 + O2 -> 2H2O Some of the snake oil guys will claim that the boost in MPG doesn't come from combusting the H2, but rather from making the gasoline combustion "work better." I've never seen any of them explain how in any more detail than the first sentence of this paragraph. I can't think of a way that it would improve combustion in a properly running engine. That said, I'm not a chemist or a mechanical engineer.
That is semi-plausible, but the amount of hydrogen these things generate is so tiny (1 liter of hydrogen per minute = 5 grams per hour) that it would practically have to work by HHOmeopathy. One of our customers at work is a "true believer" in such systems and we may have to check on a dyno to see if there is in fact some sort of increase in efficiency. I sincerely doubt that there is, but it would be nice if I could give people who ask me about it a detailed answer since I field questions about these at work on a weekly basis.
You can't get more energy out than the energy you put in.
If all these people really refuse to accept that, I guess it's time for me to start marketing Placebix for all of their health needs.
billy3esq wrote:Varkwso wrote: For hydrogen fuel to really work out you need nuclear power to get the cracking done cost effectively. It will take a lot of electrical power.I agree, although wind generated electricity is also a reasonable technical approach, because you don't really care about the variability. You just make more when it's windy and less when it isn't. Assuming you've got sufficient storage capacity, the market never knows the difference. Although nuclear power is cheaper (probably around 1/3 the cost per kWh), the startup costs and regulatory hurdles are huge. Wind power would reduce the initial investment and let the infrastructure fund its own expansion. I don't have the raw data to estimate whether it's financially viable. My guess is that neither approach is cost-competitive with cracking the H2 off of natural gas. Of course that doesn't solve the greenhouse gas problem (depending on whether you believe that's a problem or not).
I like wind power - but it is also unpopular and requires permits.....
Quite a few new nuclear plants are coming here in the US - built with approved designs as sister plants of current reactors (no new siting requirements)....
A green field reactor will excite the NIMBY crowd I am sure - until they are sitting in the dark sweating.....
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