New Honda New car review 2008-2009

Gas prices have stabilized somewhat over the last few weeks and even dipped a bit. That’s great news for folks who have long commutes, or who operate vehicle fleets. Most of us seem to relax when gas prices go down ten cents or so, if only because that means that they are at least not rising. In doing so we lose sight of the fact that gas is still really expensive.The current national average price of gas is $3.94 a gallon and while that is somewhat better than the $4.07 a gallon a month ago, we quickly forget that a year ago gasoline was $2.89 at the pump. That’s a 27% increase in price. Can you imagine if other things in your life were to go up 27%? Most people exist with less than a 10% margin between their income and their bills. An increase of that size in too many things would drive most people irreparably into the red.

So what are we going to do about it?

Well, to start with, we know that it’s energy in general that is becoming more expensive. While there are certainly people standing to profit from this increase the main cause is that more nations are becoming industrialized and starting to drive cars. China and India represent 1/3 of the world’s population and their booming auto industry is creating unheard of demand for gasoline. On top of that most of the easily accessible hydrocarbon fuel deposits are gone and it costs more money to get at coal and other power and heating fuels. Since many power plants run on oil, this brings the price of all fuels up.

It’s the unfortunate downside to the global economy.

One of the fuels that is being heralded as a potential savior is hydrogen. It is the most common element in the universe and is available in abundant supply on earth. It’s one of the core components of water, H20. Through a process known as electrolysis, the hydrogen can be extracted from water and made available as a fuel. The byproduct of this process is oxygen, not a bad thing to have a refinery spit out at all.

Many car manufacturers have recognized Hydrogen as a promising fuel source and vehicles such as the BMW Hydrogen 7 and the Honda FCX Clarity have been produced. While they are currently only available in limited numbers and markets where there are hydrogen fuel stations, they are out there and it is a positive step for the economy and the world in general as their only exhaust is water vapor.

BMW’s Hydrogen 7 Car uses a fairly regular car engine.

The engines that our car’s use are called Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) and essentially they simply burn something inside of themselves. An example of an External Combustion Engine would be a steam engine where the fire is outside of the engine itself. While these engines have been refined to burn petroleum based fuels, they are capable of running on many other fuels, the only concern being that some fuels are more corrosive, or may be a solvent to some of the elements of the car’s engines.

Luckily hydrogen is not corrosive and none of a car’s components will dissolve in it. In fact with not a lot of alteration, most car engines could run 100% on hydrogen.

How would you store enough hydrogen to run your car on it entirely? Well, quite simply you wouldn’t. It’s not that you couldn’t, but the cost of getting a fuel tank for your car that could safely store that amount of hydrogen is somewhat prohibitive.

So is there an alternative that can help out?

Interestingly enough, there is. The engine in your car would be perfectly happy to get a mixture of Hydrogen and gasoline. In fact, the hydrogen and the extra oxygen that you get from electrolysis actually help the gasoline to burn better. Some people get as much as a 42% increase in their mileage by simply adding a moderate amount of hydrogen to their car’s engine.

That’s the same as paying $2.20 a gallon for gasoline.

So how is this done, you ask? The process is achieved by using a device that you can install under the hood of your car and using electric power from your car’s alternator to power an electrolyzer that produces hydrogen on the fly as it is needed. This means that there is no storage of hydrogen and no issues with having to find a gas station that sells hydrogen as there are less than 200 worldwide. The only thing you have to add to the device is water!