I start off on this tangential discussion from one of the articles that came into my mailbox frm Google Alerts – I highly recommend using them to make a daily search of the web for any topic of interest. I am seeing lots from the various alternative energy keywords I have entered.

This is a reaction to a letter published at www.shetland-news.co.uk –

“Hydrogen inefficient and dangerous” – Sarah McBurnie

http://www.shetland-news.co.uk/letters_09_2007/Hydrogen%20inefficient%20and%20dangerous.htm

I love this article, not because it expresses ideas that I want to hear, but because it got me looking around at alternatives to alternative fuels. I must admit I have experimented with the production of the gas that Ms. McBurnie mentions, Brown’s gas. In the heady days when I first wanted to take my city house off the grid really fast, and I saw no reason why it couldn’t be done by just anyone on a whim, my first electrolyser produced what I believe was Brown’s Gas.

Splitting water by electrolysis and then transporting and burning the result as a fuel is a wonderful idea. I worked really hard to try to get a reasonable electrode set that was far enough apart to passively split the two outputs (oxygen and hydrogen) to separate areas and then burn the hydrogen, but it was very difficult and obviously my design was not optimal. Unfortunately, there are no commercially available small electrolysers for home use with solar panels yet, so experimentation and individual experimentation is the norm. More about that in a later article I have in mind, but let me continue this train of thought. If there is anyone out there who knows of a small production model electrolyser for solar panels please let me know.

As the price of gas climbed, I also found a product called the Hydro-Gen sold by:

http://www.savefuel.ca

At least this is a production model on the market and available – not a promise that never seems to come available. I ended up buying two of them early on, they are a short round PVC pipe unit that takes its power from the battery output and uses it to break water down to its base components – it then sends the resulting gas through a clear plastic tube into the air intake.

I ran one of the units in the car for the better part of two summers. Right now I think my car is sitting dead in the garage as a result of the draw on the alternator it made while it was running, but there is the possibility that a wire was eaten away by the catalytic agent and that is the reason. When economics permit, I will be seeing a mechanic to see what is really wrong.

The idea is great, use an electrolyte (potassium hydroxide – also known as caustic potash) in a concentration set to draw output of the alternator of 20 Amps. This will split water and the resulting mild pressure will send the resulting mix of gasses into the carburetor through the air intake. It is up to you to define that correct concentration, the only informal unit gauge is a plastic tube on the side to show how much liquid is left in the “tank”.

By circumstance, I added a more serious problem for the unit, the car I installed it on is stored during the Canadian winter in my garage. Even though we have global warming, making the winters warmer than in the past, it stills seems to freeze the glue cementing the pipes which allows the units to leak at all their joints. I always left one in the sports car stored unused in the freezing temperatures of Montreal winters. I changed the first out after the first winter and used the second one. So, I have never been sure if the unit worked correctly and sent gas to the engine for increased mileage – it never ran continuously long enough to do any serious testing, but it sure felt better to be running it. Subjectively, I had more power for the car.

The pilot light also blew out twice, so I was never sure if the Hydro-Gen was actually running or not because the lamp was not lit. It may have been actually working, but without a light and the gauge not showing any amperage draw, I had to assume a problem with the unit. The high water refill rate was either due to the Turbo on the 300 ZX drawing the solution through the engine, or it simply leaked out through the lower joints of PVC pipe and cap. Right now the car is in my garage, dead, with a required alternator replacement still required to get the car started. So I can’t go forward with that at all.

In all fairness to www.savefuel.ca and John Bolle, the owner of the site, there are now a numberof other models, some of them metal enclosures that will not leak, so he has addressed the problem. the units are larger and for larger output, so I can’t use one….the car I have just barely allows the original into it. The name has also changed to Oxy-Hydrogen as far as I can tell.

So I have used and worked with Browns Gas, and for what it is worth, I see it as a viable fuel, all things considered. The only problem is that it is a mix of hydrogen and oxygen. I see it as a wet, temporary gas that will not store the same way pure hydrogen will. And, creating home pressure systems to use the gas as suggested in both the article and the various supplemental reading seems as dangerous as handling pressurized hydrogen.

 

But the article does list a great many of Brown’s gas advantages for the home: safety and ease of use being the main ones. Intrigued by the claims, I went and dug a little bit deeper – just like all fuels, it has its admirers and its detractors. Both sides are vehement in their opinions.

 

I did a little more exploring – the main person I have since found as a proponent was Dr. Yull Brown – he is now dead, according to the sales comments to promote purchase of the video interviews for sale at:

 

http://www.nottaughtinschools.com/index.html

 

But there are a lot of videos on various aspects of Browns gas – some I would guess are unauthorized uploads of the product they want to sell above to You Tube.

Back to the article that started this train of thought. The links associated with the article by Ms. McBurnie show the problem with Alternative energy as a whole. Little if any solid evidence is forthcoming, and everyone is automatically a fraud.

 

The first link from the article starts with an apology from a company who makes machines – stated as poor quality at the outset. The link then moves to an article totally critical of both Yull Brown and the gas he proposes – which according to the other links, he basically stole….but then, everything I have seen in this area is an old idea made new again anyway, so I would prefer to ignore the flame throwers and look at the actual fuel.

The unicorn of a water powered car is also used as a link. I saw these articles quite a while ago, and I sure wish they would move forward and get practical, but so far, everything is very nebulous and still not even close to proven or viable.

 

Read from the article’s set of 11 points, Browns gas is a great solution for an alternative fuel. But, from a practical ongoing product state, nothing is there as a solution. I do like the idea for instant energy, being produced by solar and wind power directly and then used to power either a Stirling engine, steam turbine or more exotic form of electrical generation for a single home application. The problem, as I see it, is that it won’t store very well. Being able to generate hydrogen and pressurize it into a storage tank as a longer term battery storage would be important for 24/7 power requirements after the sun sets or the wind takes some time off. I don’t discount her points listed in the article here, just do not see this as the perfect solution for total grid elimination. But – it could very well be a part of the final machinery.

 

As I said at the outset, I love this article, it is wonderfully enthusiastic and ebullient, but if you simply follow the links just a little, it becomes high time to come back to earth and realize if this is going to be in the solution at all, it will be as a part, it can’t solve it all. I am not looking to use it to weld or cure cement, we need a way to power a generator for reliable power supplied for an individual home – that is the aim of Energy with-out Oil