Ginger the scooter

[vvx]

Okay, I'm sure when we all first heard about Ginger and how she was gunna change the world so much we laughed our asses off, but now.. Reading the article on the front page, it's obvious that they're not talking about the scooter portion changing so much, rather the engine. Ofcourse, I still think it was way over exagerated, but what do you think?

[Sensei]

I think it IS going to change the world. Hydrogen power would be a massive positive for not only the environment, but to consumers because hydrogen is free and abundant :)

Lets hope the inventor doesn't get wacked by some hitmen. Probably hired by oil producers?

What about the military? They could have planes that fly nonstop almost. The possibilities are endless.

[vvx]

It just seems that getting pure hydrogen would be costly, sure you have a ton of water H20 stuff, but seperating it out and storing it and stuff.. I don't know what I'm talking about however, so I could be way off.

[bdg1983]

It can't be that hard to come by: the old dirgibles (sp? you know, those blimpy things) used to use hydrogen to float. Only problem is, hydrogen is flammable. Vis: Hindenburg

[flynnwallace]

the hydrogen engine has been around since the 80's. Popular Science magazine did a piece on one Hydrogen engine that was bought by a car company. I think it was Hynda(cant spell). The engine was sold for 80 million dollars. I did a middle school paper on it. Since the 1940's they(car, and auto manufactures ) have known how to build an engine that was more than 80% efficient and had good horsepower but didnt do it. I am just trying to figure what will happen to the world economy when/if hydrogen engines take hold. What happens to countries that depend on oil for mostly everything?

Flynn

[Beowulfs_Ghost]

The problem with hydrogen engines is the same problem you get when you compress any gas; bulky, heavy cylinders to hold it. For all the problems with gasoline, it does have the advantage of being easy to transport.

And burning hydrogen in an engine isn't as efficient as people think. Hydrogen just doesn't have the BTU's that gas does. You don't get the same bang for the buck. So don't expect any hydrogen power semi-rucks any time soon.

So a hydrogen powered scooter isn't that impressive. People build skateboards powered buy weed-wacker engines that get you around at a pretty good clip using only a pint of gas.

Hydrogen is easy to come by though. Any one can make it if they wanyt to. I've done it myself. It's called electrolysis of water.
Home made hydrogen;
Get a 5 gallon bucket
Take a DC power supply
connect 2 wires to each end of your power supply
Find a way to collect the gas, get some glasses, put them in the bucket, make sure there's no air in them, and hold them upside down
Put the wires in the water to that the end of the negative in in one glass, and the positive in the other
Turn on the current
Hydrogen will be produced by the cathode(negative), and oxygen on the anode(positve)
(Some things to muck with)
You can get better results using graphite instead of bear wire as you anode/cathode. Also, water doesn't like to conduct very well. The easiest way to fix this is to add salt, but some times you'll get some extra chemical gases using salt. Sulfuric acid works better.

Burning hydrogen does little more then make a "pop". No where near as impressive as gasoline. Keep in mind, the chief cause of death on the Hindenberg was the burning diesle fuel.

[Tyr-7BE]

Beowulf's Ghost is right...it's damn easy to make and extremely cheap and nearly infinite. However, may I add that Hydrogen makes up 2/3 of rocket fuel. Rockets are propelled by burning liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen. Sure, H2 combining with O2 gives a little pop (a BIG pop if you have enough of it) but liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen is a somewhat more impressive reaction.
What struck me most about Ginger was that the article I read said that it was very nearly a perpetual motion device. I cannot even begin to think of what the design must be like. And I agree that this does have HUGE implications.
I think that hydrogen fuel-cells are the way of the future. Liquid h2 and o2 are ridiculously volatile when mixed together...it's just a matter of designing a decent engine to run on them.