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ENGINE FUEL CONVERSION 700 1992

Does anyone have any information on converting a b230ft engine to run on propane or hydrogen instead of gasoline?

Does anyone have any information on using solar panels to generate electricity, then using that electricity to hydrolize water into hydrogen & o2, then harvesting & compressing the hydrogen to ues as fuel?

There are so many smart people here who know how to figue things out. Let's put our heads together to see if we can figure out a way out of not having to use our grocery money, rent money, retierment money or our kid's education money just to fill up the tank.

I'm up on all the basics. Tune up, tire infalation, alignment, brakes not draging. I just would like to cut the cord from these dam fossil fuels sold by the monopolized oil companies who are ripping us off bindly.

Manny thanks to Bush, Cheney, Haliburton, Moble, Exxon etc... NOT!

Mark- 1992 745t, 271K, somewhere west of Portland, Me.









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    Propane, yes! But solar to electrolyzing water into hydrogen -- impractical on an individual user's scale .... 700 1992

    re: "...anyone have any information on using solar panels to generate electricity, then using that electricity to hydrolize water into hydrogen..., then harvesting & compressing [that] to ues as fuel?..."

    I'm afraid that you ought to forget this pipedream regarding hydrogen.

    Propane, however, is a much more practical prospect. The technology for the conversion is already developed (search websites in Europe where this is commonplace), and there is a very modest infrastructure of stations (i.e., agri-business) where you could refill conveniently -- e.g., there's a place near me where campers and motorhomes are always stopping to refill their on-board propane tanks, and I'm sure that there are many of these places in Maine.

    But regarding hydrogen, anyone who has taken "science-major" versions of 1st year college chemistry and physics can tell you that the thermodynamics of the energy levels available are not suitable for a home-grown, individually owned operation. Working backwards from your end product:
    1) While hydrogen as a fuel has merit (clean engine internals, low emissions -- except for NOx, which comes from the nitrogen in the air), you would be working with a gas (rather than liquid) fuel, it's not conducive with current cars' fuel management systems (not even propane's, because of a different density). It would take a modest fortune to figure out the conversion.
    2) Hydrogen is a gas, and its low density means that you have to have a way of compressing it so you can carry enough, and safely (in some sort of tank), to make a round-trip (since there are no hydrogen fuel stations) on the road. The compression of the hydrogen, and a suitable tank (pressure resistant, and some sort of adsorptive material inside the tank), would make it excessively heavy. And consider the energy to compress a useable amount.
    By the way, don't compare hydrogen to propane: compressing and storing hydrogen is not the same as propane or CNG (compressed natural gas), as the ease of compressing any gas into a liquid (and thus a denser fuel for storage) is related to their gas-to-liquid phase temperature and pressure: propane and CNG liquify at far, far (!) higher temperatures than hydrogen, so hydrogen greatly resists liquification relatively speaking.
    3) Hydrolysis of water is a very inefficient (viz., energy) process, as most of the electrical power is wasted, rather than used to separate the gas components. And you'll only get a "trickle" of hydrogen gas (to drive a few feet per day) unless your operation is immense (see next).
    4) Considering all the energy you'll need to run the operation (viz., hydrolysis, compression, etc.), you'll need acres(?) of tracking photocell systems, operating in an optimum latitude and sunny climate (not Maine as I know it, with all those cloudy days), just to power the operation.
    5) And finally, do you know how much even a modest solar panel costs? Go price some to find out -- see, e.g., www.westmarine.com and search for solar panels.

    Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.








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