Solar Cooker
Thought this was interesting.

http://www.wpbf.com/video/16173091/index.html

And here's a wind turbine that looks simple to build.
Motorwind micro turbines can work in wind speeds of only 2m/second. Their light weight, small size, and flexible configuration allows them to be installed in both urban and rural environments, for individual or corporate use. Motorwind turbines give users a new option for efficient renewable energy and therefore reducing their impact on the environment.
$240

http://www.motorwavegroup.com/new/motorwind/index.html

Device promises to save 60% at the pump.
Check out this video
http://www.wptv.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=74b15465-2ebb-49e0-acb1-939c4bb13a28

http://www.hydro4000.com/


Device promises to save 60% at the pump
Reported by: Jamie Holmes


* Hydro-4000

Click on video player to the right to watch Jamie Holmes' full report

There is no more pinch at the pump, instead it's become a full fledge punch, but what if there was a device out there which could save you up to sixty percent on your gas bill?

The Hydro-4000 installs to any vehicle, and runs on water, it costs about $1200. But the creators say given the amount of money you already spend on gas, it wouldn't take long before you made that money back.

"We estimate the average person would see savings in one year. With fuel prices going the way they are, today's oil market is $112 a barrel, prices are going to continue to go up, we have to find solutions to our big problem in the U.S.," says David Havanich. But does it work?

NewsChannel 5 put the Hydro-4000 to the test, by installing it on one of our own news vehicles that was checked out and given a complete tune-up by our company's mechanic.

Before we show you the results though, let's explain how the Hydro-4000 is supposed to work.

In any engine, when you push down on the accelerator, a mixture of air and gasoline is sent into your cylinder. When the gas and air hit your spark plugs, it triggers a mini explosion pushing your car forward. But in any engine, roughly 15% of the gas isn't burned; instead its pushed out through your exhaust pipe.

The Hydro-4000 creators say their device sends hydrogen into your engine, creating a cleaner burning environment.

They claim their product allows you to burn all of the gas that you're putting into your tank, instead of wasting it through your exhaust pipe, "what we've done is brought oxygen, similar to what race car drivers do, to hydrogen, which is a higher burning has to also make sure you're burning every bit of fuel you're paying for at the pump," says Havanich.

So back to our test.

First, we needed to know how many miles to the gallon we were getting in our vehicle. So we put it on something called a dynamometer, think of it as a giant treadmill where we ran the truck for twenty minutes at 55-miles an hour on a full tank of gas.

Once done, we found that even with an oil change, clean air filter and proper tire pressure, we were averaging roughly 9.4 miles to the gallon.

We then ran our truck on the street for close to a month with the Hydro-4000 running. The owners said this would give the device time to clean out the engine. We then put our vehicle back on the dynamometer, and did the same test all over again.

And guess what? With the device on, we were now averaging 23.2 miles to the gallon. That's 61% better than the gas mileage we were previously getting.

We also road tested the device. There we averaged 16-point-one miles to the gallon, which is 58% better than before.

Another device, the Hydro-5000, is also available for 18-wheelers.

Um, from 9.4 miles per gallon to 23.2 miles per gallon is a 61% increase?!? What kind of advanced math is that? My calculations show that it is more like a 147% increase.

A 61% increase to 9.4 miles per gallon is 15.1 miles per gallon, not 23.2 miles per gallon.

Now those look interesting.

Anyone here ever use them ?

The only problem I foresee with hydrogen fuel cells is that to "fill up" you just put in water, correct? Well then what is going to happen when we all fill up with water, we already have a fresh water shortage, and then were going to be interrupting the water cycle on a huge scale, and we will never be able to get that water back naturally, because once you separate the hydrogen from the oxygen then the molecules never get back together because you have used up the hydrogen molecules and transformed them into energy. Now I don't know about you, but I'd rather have fresh water then get the car going, just get a bike...

Come on guys, we have the smartest scientists in the world working on this and no one has thought of this, I'm in 8th grade and I figured this out.

That's an interesting point climberslacker.

Though remember, matter cannot be created nor destroyed so you're not destroying the hydrogen in the fuel cell.

The by-product of hydrogen fuel cells is water (from what I understand -- chemists/engineers correct me if I am wrong)

There is also a difference between potable (drinkable) water and water for industrial use. I have to admit that I don't know what the requirements for water to be used for fuel cells are but I suspect that a car isn't going to be competing for drinking water with humans.

The solar cooker looks to be the most promising. Simple but elegant, but as the inventor indicated, most useful in places with few fuel options (which could be an increasing...)

The windmills are neat looking, but expensive. At about $5/watt (10 m/s), the payoff time (compared to grid electricity) would probably be greater than their useful life of the turbines. They also look to me like they'd be noisy. Still, in some situations, they'd be handy to have.


The Hydro thing is interesting. As I understand it, it utilizes waste power from the engine (of which there is plenty) to perform electrolysis on water. The hydrogen can be burned, so this is essentially an efficiency improvement applied to a hugely wasteful engine. It's also clever in that it leverages the existing systems (electrical and combustion) with little modification.

I'm naturally skeptical of the claims, but it looks like it could still work. The net energy from the device itself is negative, but since it's using waste energy, the overall efficiency of the larger system could still be greater than without it. Having said that, I'd guess that it's WAY overpriced. Electrolysis is simple to do, and I'm sure that one could cook up their own for a fraction of the cost.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water

The Prius, btw, also uses waste power (via the alternator), but utilizes electrical rather than chemical means. But, it also uses regenerative braking, so there is more synergy of having the hybrid components in the drive train.

I am not a scientist nor an engineer but see one big flaw in the * Hydro-4000
that falcon5000 brought to our attention.

All current (new production) internal combustion engines use a pre-mapped fuel distribution program. This is controlled by data from all the sensors on the vehicle like: air intake, exhaust (that may or may not include multiband analisis of combusted gases as the sensor that reads only carbon dioxide is chaper to put in the vehicle), load (bases off either transmission spead/ or wheel speed, gear you are in and throtle position), etc.

All you are doing is adding hydrogen and a bit more oxygen to the air as it gets sucked into the engine by piston movement.

The problem is you are still putting the same ammout of gasoline or desil (spelling?) into the engine everytime the spark plug fires.

The claim on the web site is 15% uncombusted fuel or something close to that. Except the CPU that controlls the system is always trying to reach optimum effciency so the 15% is wrong.

If however you changed the mapping of the ammount of fuel injected and replaced some of it with the hydrogen oxygen combination, than you would see deffinite results.

Any increase in power would not decrease the fule consumption.

You could get the same results form mixing aviation fuel with pump gas for a higher octaine rating.

Just my thoughts....

If I am wrong on some of this please correct me.

And I wish it were true what the website claims.