Another Cool Invention

That’s right. 97% reduction in emissions, 40% increase in gas mileage. Pretty damn cool, huh?

From the article:
“The H2N-Gen recently went through third-party verification – known as “proof of concept” - at Wardrop Engineering Inc. of Toronto, specialists in product testing and development. The company built its own prototype according to Williams’s design and tested it against Williams’s claims. It passed with flying colours.”

Fuck the hybrid car concept. Keep your gas-guzzling minivans and humvees.

wow…I’d buy one.

So when do you think this guy will be “whacked”?

This is good news. I really hope this pans out and production models actually make it to the general public.

V

Read the article… the original inventor died six months after telling the current guy about his invention.

I wish they would have provided a little more detail about how!

I am skeptical of the numbers he claims.

A $ 7,500 outlay is pretty pricey.

I would be interested in seeing true third party verification, not from some company that is his partner.

I am glad people are chasing this type of technolgy and not everyone is falling into the electric car trap.

Like it or not petroleum fuels are going to be with us a while. Things that let us use them more efficiently should be encouraged.

Did you see the picture of the inventor?

Looks like he died of old age.

Or maybe that is what Exxon Mobil wants us to think.

Am I doing my math wrong?:

“The Gazette drove a 2000 six-cylinder Jeep Grand Cherokee equipped with an H2N-Gen prototype from Montreal to Cornwall and back. We set the cruise control at 102 kilometres per hour. The trip computer indicated that on the highway the car averaged about nine litres per 100 kilometres, which is more than 10 per cent below the manufacturer’s mileage rating of 10.5. The combined city/highway mileage was slightly more than 11; the car is rated at 12.9.”

100 km/9l = 26 mpg?!?!
What kind of improvement is that? Especially, with ZERO enviro data.

And what’s with the whacking? There’s too much whacking going on around here. We’re a civilized, letigious society. You don’t whack someone, you offer them an outrageous amount of money (all you can afford, otherwise, you won’t be in business) for their invention, if they accept, you bury the technology. If they decline, you buy or generate the intellectual property as close as possible to theirs and sue 'em. All of which is perfectly legal and “I’m acting in the best interest of my shareholders.” is a lot better excuse to sue someone than whack them.

[quote]lucasa wrote:
Am I doing my math wrong?:

“The Gazette drove a 2000 six-cylinder Jeep Grand Cherokee equipped with an H2N-Gen prototype from Montreal to Cornwall and back. We set the cruise control at 102 kilometres per hour. The trip computer indicated that on the highway the car averaged about nine litres per 100 kilometres, which is more than 10 per cent below the manufacturer’s mileage rating of 10.5. The combined city/highway mileage was slightly more than 11; the car is rated at 12.9.”

100 km/9l = 26 mpg?!?!
What kind of improvement is that? Especially, with ZERO enviro data.

And what’s with the whacking? There’s too much whacking going on around here. We’re a civilized, letigious society. You don’t whack someone, you offer them an outrageous amount of money (all you can afford, otherwise, you won’t be in business) for their invention, if they accept, you bury the technology. If they decline, you buy or generate the intellectual property as close as possible to theirs and sue 'em. All of which is perfectly legal and “I’m acting in the best interest of my shareholders.” is a lot better excuse to sue someone than whack them.[/quote]

They must have been switching back and forth between litres, gallons, miles and kms. It would be 26 litres/100 km or 3.86 litres per km.
In gallons and miles it would be 62.14 miles / 6.8684 gallons or 9 mpg.

One day we’ll all have the same measurement systems…one day!

[quote]tharren wrote:
They must have been switching back and forth between litres, gallons, miles and kms. It would be 26 litres/100 km or 3.86 litres per km.
In gallons and miles it would be 62.14 miles / 6.8684 gallons or 9 mpg.

One day we’ll all have the same measurement systems…one day![/quote]
I assume that’s satire, the 2000 Grand Cherokee gets/got 16-19 mpg off the lot. I just asked, because I don’t know l/100km for my car or any comparable vehicle off the top of my head like I do mpg.

Also, it’s interesting that they chose a fairly large, inefficient SUV and decided to make it moderately more efficient. Maybe the system only works well on larger more robust engines and a smaller, more efficient I4 or I6 can’t handle the pressure.

This smells like bulls…Hey. I got a carb that runs on water…GM bought the patent and buried it…right…

[quote]lucasa wrote:
Am I doing my math wrong?:

“The Gazette drove a 2000 six-cylinder Jeep Grand Cherokee equipped with an H2N-Gen prototype from Montreal to Cornwall and back. We set the cruise control at 102 kilometres per hour. The trip computer indicated that on the highway the car averaged about nine litres per 100 kilometres, which is more than 10 per cent below the manufacturer’s mileage rating of 10.5. The combined city/highway mileage was slightly more than 11; the car is rated at 12.9.”
[/quote]

No, your math is correct. But they chose ideal conditions and the best speed for fuel economy from that vehicle. With conditions like that, it’s not hard for any vehicle to perform better than the manufacturer’s rating for highway.

The whole article has a feel of perpetual motion machine. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. I’d be incredibly surprised that the additional power you gain from the system offsets the cost of splitting the water in its hydrogen and oxygen components. Electrolysis requires power, which comes from the battery or the alternator. Either way, you’ll get an additional drain on the car’s engine and it’ll have to work harder.

http://www.privatepower.ca/101/privatepower/index.htm

Some more details, photos, etc. about the unit. The $7500 unit, I believe, is just for huge trucks and the like. I am a bit skeptical too, but the science and concept is sound.

Think about it: just burn the gas we already have more completely. That’s all the little bit of hydrogen does when it gets suxxored into the air intake of your engine. This isn’t magic, folks, it’s just squeezing more energy out of the gas we are using in our combustion engines instead of spilling it out onto the ground, or coughing it into the air.

Sounds pretty basic to me.

[quote]pookie wrote:
No, your math is correct. But they chose ideal conditions and the best speed for fuel economy from that vehicle. With conditions like that, it’s not hard for any vehicle to perform better than the manufacturer’s rating for highway.

The whole article has a feel of perpetual motion machine. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. I’d be incredibly surprised that the additional power you gain from the system offsets the cost of splitting the water in its hydrogen and oxygen components. Electrolysis requires power, which comes from the battery or the alternator. Either way, you’ll get an additional drain on the car’s engine and it’ll have to work harder.[/quote]

I think the idea is that you make up the energy by burning the fuel more completely/efficiently (Much like nitro only you generate the hydrogen on the fly). But more my point was that they take a 4 yr. old V8 engine and get a modest improvement using a $7500 post market add on part. The 2006 Lexus 400h claims greater than 27mpg with a 90% reduction in emmissions and it’s not supposed to be $7500 more than the regular model. This isn’t anything fantastic and new achievement-wise. The other hybrids have similar numbers and some of the posters on this forum have said they would give up hybrids for this technology that’s much more towards the “pipe dream” phase.

[quote]magyar wrote:
This smells like bulls…Hey. I got a carb that runs on water…GM bought the patent and buried it…right…[/quote]
Smells more like bull than having someone whacked?

How about a less simplistic scenario than the one you implied, such as, I have a carburetor that no one knows about that runs on water, the big advantage to my carb, same gas milelage, ZERO emissions. If I built the car independently they would I would profit $5000 each but they would be $10000 more each than the average GM vehicle. GM could build them for $5000 less than me, but in order to compete with their current product line (and Ford’s) profit-wise, the vehicle would have to sell for $5000 more than the car they’re selling now and that’s to break even. Also, the cost to switch every GM vehicle platform and production facility is on the is a paltry sum of $10M and that’s IF someone were producing the carbs at a rate that GM would consume them. If I’m GM, the way I see it, I can offer you $10M plus whatever amount I thought I’d lose until it became PROFITABLE to sell your vehicle (if ever). Just sign this non-disclosure agreement and this power-of-attourney on the dotted line.

Or

You start your company on venture capital (assuming you aren’t already independently wealthy). Those capitalists are gambling on a payoff from your company (and usually several others). GM waltzes in and says to them, we’ll buy the company IP and all for $10M. Unless your VCs see your technology being worth more than that and don’t have any other outstanding financial obligations, congratulations, you just sold your company to GM for whatever share of $10M you were entitled.

Also, getting “whacked” for inventing something is such an easy thing to both avoid and circumvent. If whacking someone were that easy, Ford would be whacking GM inventors (and vice versa) left, right, and center. There’d be dead inventors all over the place. People like Shuji Nakamura* would get several ounces of lead instead of 800M yen. It’d be like a badge of honor, you know you’re a good inventor when you get a bounty on your head. Also, just about any lawyer and/or bank will hold onto a letter “in case of my demise”. That kind of short circuits whacking someone especially if it’s a dozen letters to a dozen news outlets.

BTW-Don’t be naive, patents cost money to generate, defend, and enforce (that’s why trade secrets, which are much less “secure” but much more profitable, exist). $10M to take a patent off your hands is, in a great number of cases, a blessing.

*http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/news/nn01-2005/nn20050112a1.htm

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
Think about it: just burn the gas we already have more completely. That’s all the little bit of hydrogen does when it gets suxxored into the air intake of your engine. This isn’t magic, folks, it’s just squeezing more energy out of the gas we are using in our combustion engines instead of spilling it out onto the ground, or coughing it into the air.[/quote]

Well, as far as I know, the gas is pretty well burned in modern engines. With computer controlled injection, you’re getting the optimal air/gas mixture pretty constantly.

The 35% efficiency is not derived from burning only 35% of the gas; it’s because after detonation, only 35% of the power does useful work. The rest is mostly wasted in the form of heat. The gas itself is probably burned to about 99% efficiency. Would adding hydrogen produce more usable power with less heat?

I just bought my wife a Jetta Turbo Diesel. It has plenty of power and gets 48 mpg highway. The emissions are better then gas. Why don’t more people use the technology already in place?

[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
http://www.privatepower.ca/101/privatepower/index.htm

Some more details, photos, etc. about the unit. The $7500 unit, I believe, is just for huge trucks and the like. I am a bit skeptical too, but the science and concept is sound.

Think about it: just burn the gas we already have more completely. That’s all the little bit of hydrogen does when it gets suxxored into the air intake of your engine. This isn’t
magic, folks, it’s just squeezing more energy out of the gas we are using in our combustion engines instead of spilling it out onto the ground, or coughing it into the air.

Sounds pretty basic to me.[/quote]

I agree plus to answer the gentleman who commented on power required to power the unit it’s no more than people who spend an inordinate amount of money to power there ridiculously loud sound system by putting an extra battery

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
I am skeptical of the numbers he claims.

A $ 7,500 outlay is pretty pricey.

I would be interested in seeing true third party verification, not from some company that is his partner.
[/quote]

Note the usage of the english (the word “want” in particular)

In fact, Wardrop liked the invention so much the company wants to become an equity partner in Williams’s company

[quote]Jagrazor wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
I am skeptical of the numbers he claims.

A $ 7,500 outlay is pretty pricey.

I would be interested in seeing true third party verification, not from some company that is his partner.

Note the usage of the english (the word “want” in particular)

In fact, Wardrop liked the invention so much the company wants to become an equity partner in Williams’s company[/quote]

Did I read it wrong? Are they not his partner yet?

B.S. maybe… but at least he is not bringing it straight to market before third-party verification.

He’s done that through Wardrop and currently “Further tests are now being performed by the Canadian Environmental Technology Verification (ETV), a non-profit Toronto company licensed by the federal government to verify environmental technology. Williams doesn’t have to have ETV approval for his unit. But he said that he is not going to market without it.” (NOTE: quote from article)
http://www.oceta.on.ca/etvcanada.htm

It would be interesting to see the results from ETV.