Question by bonshui: What would happen to the water cycle if hydrogen-powered vehicles became ‘normal’?
Hydrogen powered vehicles might be fuelled by hydrogen derived from water (H20). The remaining oxygen would be a clean’ exhaust fume.
However, there is only a finite amount of water in the world – it is never created or lost, but exists in varying amounts of liquid, vapour and ice. If we started fuelling our vehicles with water, what would happen in the long term?
Best answer:
Answer by Robert D
Nothing. The amount of water that all the gas tanks in the world could hold is minute compared to the amount of water in the world.
Oh, and as much water is produced as is consumed in such a system.
Give your answer to this question below!
4 Responses
Most hydrogen we use at the moment comes from reforming methane ..
Hydrogen can produced be from water through electrolysis.
A fuel cell is basically like electrolysis but in reverse oxygen and hydrogen are combined and you get water and electricity…
The electricity drives the motor and water vapour comes out of the tail pipe of the vehicle
Combustion already releases H2O.
5 billion cars holding the equivalent of 200 litres of water each would be about 1bn tons of water in tanks at any one time.
This is tiny compared with the amount of water in the world; Greenland is losing over 200 times that much ice every year.
Nothing at all. The “exhaust” from hydrogen powered vehicles is water. There are some neat ways to inexpensively run a regular car on part hydrogen, and save a lot on gas, and reduce pollution. You might find this site an interesting read. http://bit.ly/a0iMth
Well you have answered your own question then as water is going to be part of a cycle and within the engine process what is turned to hydrogen and oxygen will be turned back again to water. Which has to lead you to an understanding that the actual energy is not coming from hydrogen but from the source for the conversion.
In practice hydrogen 95% of our current hydrogen supply is from fossil fuels and petrochemicals (Coal oil and gas.) This is likely to continue unless there is a technological breakthrough in electrolyzing water. And may continue beyond this if Chevron buys out the patents.