Urine Powered Generator Invented By Four African Girls

[free_me]

Just a dribble.

That, and this thread getting derailed in ONE post. Gotta be a record.

[Jericho941]

That's not necessarily a bad thing. You always need water, which can wind up in short supply. You're pretty much guaranteed to have a certain constant production of pee, which you don't need for anything. Except maybe fertilizer, but there are usually better alternatives available.

[mekender]

I dont believe it... The story does not add up science wise...

[Yogimus]

It just strikes me that 1 liter of pee running a generator for 6hrs would solve the energy crisis.

[Old Grafton]

It strikes me that one liter of pee running a generator for six hours indicates the energy density of their urine is about seven times that of gasoline. They should skip the generator and bottle the stuff as a fuel additive. The major auto manufacturers will soon be building catheters into the dashboards.

[Erik]

link:

You would generate more electricity by pissing into an impeller and generating electricity like a waterwheel.

[Greg]

I dont believe it... The story does not add up science wise...

Sure it does. IT's catalytic water separation to produce hydrogen.

Nothing interesting there frankly; just sensationalism over 4 african girls and some wee.

Better get used to it boys, because that's what our cars are going to look like in a few years. For our houses we may have the luxury of 12v batteries. Note that the hydrogen creation requires electricity as an input- that's your Green Energy right there. So when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing (as in, not often enough to otherwise be useful) you can de-hydrogenate some urine.

[Greg]

It just strikes me that 1 liter of pee running a generator for 6hrs would solve the energy crisis.

The pee isn't running the generator. The hydrogen is merely an energy reservoir to let you time-shift/store energy that was available when you didn't really need it. Getting the hydrogen from the pee needed electricity- this is not energy creation it's energy transformation.

[Erik]

Note that the hydrogen creation requires electricity as an input- that's your Green Energy right there. So when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing (as in, not often enough to otherwise be useful) you can de-hydrogenate some urine.

This is OT, but I haven't been able to find a good source, and I'm a bit shaky on the physics.

As I understand it, when you use hydrogen as fuel, you are basically using it as a storage medium for energy, sort of like a "refillable battery". It's also easy to find, you can get it from water or any kind of liquid that contains hydrogen. And there's no problems in using hydrogen as a fuel, it can be used to power cars and other things.

So the problem with it, as I understand it, is in generating hydrogen cheaply and easily enough to make it worthwhile. This means that you have to find a way to use less energy to create it than you can get out of it, or that you need to generate it using "renewable sources", like solar, wind or something else. (Yeah, you can use fossil fuel, coal or nuclear power as well, but that kind of defeats the idea)

So what I'm interested in is roughly how much energy does it take to generate a fixed amount of hydrogen?
I'm fairly sure you wont get a net gain of energy, so it would be interesting to know roughly how much it would cost to use hydrogen as fuel. For instance if you had a wind farm or solar farm running and using it to create hydrogen as fast as it could, and then use the hydrogen as fuel when needed.

[Denis]

there's no problems in using hydrogen as a fuel, it can be used to power cars and other things.

So what I'm interested in is roughly how much energy does it take to generate a fixed amount of hydrogen?

The trouble with H2 is that it really, really wants to get out (plus it's invisible, odourless and it burns practically-inextinguishably hot and invisibly). You have to keep it under high pressure or at low temperature or both to be able to get any kind of usable energy density from it, but those are not really portable options.

I don't have the numbers, but I'm pretty certain you put more energy into electrolysis to get hydrogen than you can get back by burning the hydrogen, especially if you consider the losses that originally went into making the electricity for the electrolysis. (Hydrogen is usually produced commercially not by electrolysis, but by cracking petroleum products).

If you have electricity "to burn" as it were, batteries are probably a better idea for storing and transporting it than hydrogen generation, as is synthesis of hydrocarbon fuels.