Scotty, do you remember Stanley Myer and his water fueled car back in the 90s? You think that tech could be reintroduced today or would it put energy companies at such a loss they wouldn’t allow it to come to fruition?
If it's generating power by breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then burning the hydrogen, anything doing that is pretty much a publicity stunt. It takes more energy to break water molecules than you can recover when you recombine them. Burning hydrogen in air produces water vapor again. That's a perpetual motion machine, which is impossible. You'd need to store electricity from some other source to make it work, and you would be way better off directly hooking up said source to an electric motor than electrolyzing water. Internal combustion engines are extremely inefficient compared to electric motors.
Hydrogen fuel cells are a possibility in the future. Right now, they're really only used in spacecraft. I believe the Apollo program used them to provide power to the Command Module, and the resulting water was free for use by the astronauts.
there are buses running on fuel cells in my city right now
Oh cool, where is that? Dayton is known for its electric trolleybuses. The system was put up in the 1930s. We're actually the only town in the world with a trolleybus system and no subway, etc. Haha.
Stanley Meyer was a swindler trying to peddle perpetual motion and pseudoscience. He was sued for it.
His car failed to work during a required demonstration of the water-fueled car in a 1990 court case
His "water fuel cell" was examined by three expert witnesses in court who found that there "was nothing revolutionary about the cell at all and that it was simply using conventional electrolysis." The court found Meyer had committed "gross and egregious fraud" and ordered him to repay the two investors their $25,000.
Meyer's patents have expired. His inventions are now in the public domain, available for all to use without restriction or royalty payment. No engine or vehicle manufacturer has incorporated Meyer's work so far.
Everyone likes a story but I would caution you to be less gullible. There are something's to believe and others not to. Be careful not to get a backwards way of thinking from lack of research (being in a bubble) as that rabbithole goes really deep. Been there done that and I ended up looking like an idiot and getting scammed when I was younger.
Oh cool, where is that?
Ballard Power Systems (fuel cell developer and manufacturer) is headquartered here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballard_Power_Systems
They licensed the fuel cells to Coast Mountain Bus Company back in 1996:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhvZ-w-OvPg
They were put into service for some time. Until around 2010 I think.
Some were scrapped. The fuel cells were returned to Ballard. Some were converted to diesel.
It was a failed experiment. They are expensive, and just aren't practical.
hydrogen buses cost $1.34 per kilometre to maintain, versus 65 cents per kilometre for diesel-powered buses.
Since the hydrogen will be transported from Quebec because B.C. can't produce enough
Former BC Transit planner Stephen Rees said there are better ways to spend the money. "If you just wanted zero emission buses, the same money would buy you 40 trolley buses. Or if you wanted to increase transit use, 80 conventional buses,"
Vancouver is also famous for other idiotic spend-money projects like the lone wind turbine that never does anything.
and this decrepit eyesore wave energy platform (my photo) in front of our beach. The company went out of business.
The purpose of these projects was only to impress people during high profile events like Olympics, and secure taxpayer funded capital for doomed venture companies.
Ballard is also working on ships:
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/ballard-power-global-energy-ventures-c-h2-ship
