Cars that run on water?

Ok...in the early 1900's trains ran on steam. Guess what cause the steam....fires burning COAL!!!! Steam just doesn't form from a puddle of water. You want cars driving around with a trunk load of coal? Democrates won't even entertain the idea of CLEAN COAL for electricity. The problem with people like yourself is you just expect it done. It doesn't even need to make sense. Your more worried about Exxon Mobil's bottom line than you are about the feasiblity of the nonsense you suggest. You think cause we can make sliced bread we should be able to make cars run on flower petals. Why don't you study mechanical engineering and do something about it if it pisses you off so bad? Then when you hold the patent on the Flower Power you can let everyone use that patent for free to save the earth and donate any money you make to the Government cause according to Biden paying taxes is patriotic.

>Cars that run on water< The ironic thing is that questions like this and those responders who then propagate the belief that big oil is the reason water powered cars are not plentiful, are the main reason this country is having problems. Folks, do you ever wonder why scientists or engineers don't all drive water powered cars? Certainly if this were a conspiracy, as you are suggesting, we would have the knowledge to be able to do this. The fact is, most of you are idiots. Try getting a real education in Science or Engineering and then you would not ask such stupid questions.

Dude you been watching too much of That '70s Show

If running your car on water was a reasonable option we would have them everywhere by now. And don't give me the usual left wing response of 'But the oil companies are blocking alternatives!' Why do you think that these oil companies won't switch to these 'alternative' fuels? Of course they would. The reason we don't have cars running on water is because it just doesn't work. Period. First of you can't burn water so you have to use some sort of electrolysis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. But here's the crunch. The maximum amount of energy obtainable from the combustion of hydrogen is EXACTLY the same as the amount of energy required to split the water using electrolysis. Because no transfer of energy can ever be 100% efficient, you will actually get less energy to run your car on than what you use for electolysis. The missing energy will be lost in the form of heat and sound among other forms. These two facts are in accordance with the Laws of Thermodynamics which in no way can you get around. If this sounds bad already, it gets worse. The rate of hydrogen production from electrolysis is mind numbingly slow. You would never be able to produce enough, fast enough to run much more than a small pinwheel. Therefore running your car on water is impossible. Next, your idea of a steam powered car. There are two things wrong with that. 1. Steam engines are enormous, you would have to drive something like a tank to carry the engine and have a vehicle strong enough to contain the pressure needed. 2. You still need something to heat the water into steam such as coal or wood which you would need to carry a lot of around with you to get any decent mileage before restocking. This would roughly double the size of your vehicle. So if you want to drive something that weighs 130 tons and can only fit on a four lane highway thats fine, just don't drive it anywhere near me.

Water can be split into oxygen and hydrogen (requiring electricity) and then recombined under combustion producing heat/expansion and water vapor. It will never produce more energy than you put into splitting it. Having said that, if all the old oil rigs and gas rigs were made into water cracking plants and the hydrogen pumped ashore along the old oil and gas lines, although we'd probably produce less than the old oil and gas production platforms. If this were done then hydrogen has potential to fuel some of the gas supply. I rather suspect that we're using more energy than we can hope to produce using natural methods. We need to reign in our energy debt somehow.

I don't think the problem is that we can't, the problem is the money that some people gain from the car/oil industry, causing them not wanting to create other alternatives and lobbying against the better alternatives.

This should put this matter to rest once and for all. http://s.mcstatic.com/Flash/vp/EmbedVideoPlayer_5.2.1.1.swf?itemID=1433442&mediaURL=http%3A%2F%2Fv.mccont.com%2FItemFiles%2F%255BFrom%2520www.metacafe.com%255D%25201433442.7294099.11.flv&normalizedTitle=&isViral=false&&&gdaKey=1222557415_d8ef87b4847676eb168649d222711734&isWatermarked=false&postrollContentURL=http://s.mcstatic.com/Flash/vp/EmbedMiniCatalog_1.0.0.4.swf&networkingAllowed=true&

Well, I have invented a car that runs on tears and broken dreams.

Steam trains burnt a fossil fuel to boil water (though it was usually wood at first and then replaced by coal or oil) and have since been replace by diesel trains (which are cheaper to run, cleaner, perform better and can you can have multiple locomotives at the front of the train with only one driver needed for the whole thing), steam engined cars have also been built but lost out to the petrol engine since they tended to take a bit long to start. The only to actually get energy from water (as opposed to merely using water as the working fluid in a thermodynamic cycle or dropping it from great heights and using the falling to generate electricity) is fusion which we can't do yet (and which would also release quite a bit of highly penetrating radiation). The reason that cars aren't running on water is because it can't be done while sending robots to other planets can be done.