by Torchwood » Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:43 pm
The Water Powered Car
That was a misleading headline bandied about recently. Actually it's probably weirder than that - it's aluminium powered.
Schoolboy experiment NOT TO BE TRIED AT HOME - put some aluminium powder in a bottle, top up with water and an accelerator (perchlorate toilet cleaner will do), shake well and run away -hydrogen will fizz like mad, as the aluminium is oxidised. It packs a lot of punch as aluminium is highly reactive, a tankful of water and some powdered aluminium would get your car a long way - and you might even fly a plane with it (more safely than today's kerosene bombs). You would need to return the spent oxide to an aluminium smelter for recycling. There is plenty of bauxite out there to produce the necessary stock of aluminium in the first place. It is a very compact way to transport energy. Put you Al smelter next to the solar power station.
Downsides: takes a lot of electricity to smelt aluminium (14Mwh/ton), and its not pollution free (uses nasty fluorides in the process).
Pessimism is the soft option.