Hydrogen fuel cell , anyone tried one

[poptop2]

But on the other hand , could you tell me why creating hydrogen from a glass of water using only spare generated electric from your generator won't work , i remember doing it in science classes 30 odd years ago and it seemed to work then .

Laws of Thermodynamics in a nutshell:

You can't get out (energy) more than you put in (energy again).

So you have to use horsepower (burning petrol) to turn the dynamo (generating electricity) to power the hydrowasgasthingamabob (making hydrogen) to then burn the hydrogen. Each of those reactions in the chain uses power.
In a perfect world, you'd end up back where you started.

In practice, each of those reactions is inefficient. For example, burning petrol to make the horsepower:
Engines are hot and noisy. That's why they need cooling and silencers. Except the heat and noise are the unwanted by-products of the combustion. If an engine was 100% efficient, it would run silently and at ambient temperature.
So in practice, running one of these should (laws of physics being dutifully applied) use more fuel, not less....

It works in the classroom because it's plugged into the mains.
What you can't see (and the teacher may not explain) is that it takes a lot more energy (in terms of electricity) being used to do the demonstration than is released as potential energy (hydrogen fuel) from the reaction.

I saw a very convincing solar powered hydrogen generator being displayed working , it was in California and someone had posted it up on youtube recently , apparently it creates and stores hydrogen , then uses the stored hydrogen to run a electric generator , it also fuelled the blokes car , as i say it was very convincing -- you do need sun though

 

[poptop2]

But on the other hand , could you tell me why creating hydrogen from a glass of water using only spare generated electric from your generator won't work , i remember doing it in science classes 30 odd years ago and it seemed to work then .

Laws of Thermodynamics in a nutshell:

You can't get out (energy) more than you put in (energy again).

So you have to use horsepower (burning petrol) to turn the dynamo (generating electricity) to power the hydrowasgasthingamabob (making hydrogen) to then burn the hydrogen. Each of those reactions in the chain uses power.
In a perfect world, you'd end up back where you started.

In practice, each of those reactions is inefficient. For example, burning petrol to make the horsepower:
Engines are hot and noisy. That's why they need cooling and silencers. Except the heat and noise are the unwanted by-products of the combustion. If an engine was 100% efficient, it would run silently and at ambient temperature.
So in practice, running one of these should (laws of physics being dutifully applied) use more fuel, not less....

It works in the classroom because it's plugged into the mains.
What you can't see (and the teacher may not explain) is that it takes a lot more energy (in terms of electricity) being used to do the demonstration than is released as potential energy (hydrogen fuel) from the reaction.

I saw a very convincing solar powered hydrogen generator being displayed working , it was in California and someone had posted it up on youtube recently , apparently it creates and stores hydrogen , then uses the stored hydrogen to run a electric generator , it also fuelled the blokes car , as i say it was very convincing -- you do need sun though