Hydrogen On Demand Facts or Ficton?

Implications: Facts can be difficult at best to come by in new fields such as Hydrogen on demand fuel cell production. There are many for profit companies (small and obscure), that promise you they will double your gas savings, IRS credits, zero emissions, and more... and then they only offer you a 7 day warranty on their products.  http://cgi.ebay.com/Hybrid-Conversion-Hydrogen-on-Demand-Gas-to-Water-Kit_W0QQitemZ170238642219QQihZ007QQcategoryZ1467QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ReturnPolicy You would really have to wonder after reading only that if this wasn't snake oil! I will do my best to attempt to point you in the real direction and to cover many of the issues associated with this rekindled phenomenon in my following analysis...

Analysis: It would not be fair to give you the inside story so let's start at the beginning. I have been raised in a family that has become used to inventors and also gas production for close to a century. My grandfather was in charge of the gas production facility that fueled the building of Grand Coulee Dam, then during WWII the gas production plant at Puget Sound Naval Ship Yard in Bremerton Washington, in 1950 Robert Baker invented one of the first practical Hydrogen powered engines and he went on to manage an air-gas facility in Seattle. Like I said, I have been around this stuff most of my life.

Last year, I was looking at the milage my 98 Dodge off road racing truck was getting, the performance and exhaust. I decided to build my first Hydrogen on Demand system to perhaps increase milage... What I did not know was the entire list of benefits I was about to uncover! I went from 9mpg to 15 with the addition of the first cell produced...

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=35389634

Ok, that wasn't too bad, next came over 17% increase in horse power. Pretty good, but the fact that I am running with out a catalytic converter and I am now putting out the same emissions as a brand new 2008 truck with one on it, well actually a bit better was amazing.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=35389157

I too fiddled around with these cells for awhile and made some major modifications. I began to read up on what it was that I was attempting to do and found out that more than 50% of the systems "for sale" are made of about $15 worth of junk and do not have the capacity in my best estimation to produce any formidable quantity of gas to do any significant good.

My friends and associates all wanted one of these "Gas Boosters" after they looked under my hood. When the came to understand the benefits and my 60%+ gas savings they reached for their check books and asked me how much? Let me point you to a place of research and study on this topic called HH2ondemand.com . They have been very busy doing research and finding out all of the complications of running a nonprofit.  They are now working with the California Air Resource Board asking for experimental permits for lower elevation testing as they have taken a place in line for actual testing and certification. HH2ondemand is also chasing CE certification, UL for electrical, and even a very different sort of document from the IRS. Form 8910 (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8910.pdf) allows the owner of a vehicle to apply for a tax credit only if the manufacturer gets proper documentation from the IRS certifying the status of a devise that may create what is now known as a "hybrid" out of any vehicle.

As far as I know they are the only non profit operating in this realm right now. It is amazing the amount of actual things you will face when testing this type of product. Plastic cells alone have to be tested for heat tolerances, vibration proofing, cracking etc. I can only imagine that it would feel like Thomas Edison sometimes looking for a light-bulb-filiment. When you tackle a project like this it is really amazing the folks that come out of the wood work and have something to tell you. I will say that the ARB in California is not entirely happy about what hh2ondemand is doing so let me tell you why. Most of their funds and grantable dollars are set up for actual fuel cell vehicles, (http://hydrogenhighway.ca.gov/sb76/sb76.htm), . What I mean is that vehicles have cells that carry around 10,000 to 20,000 lbs compression of hydrogen on board! Yes, portable bombs. They seem more interested in building an infrastructure of service stations to accommodate these types of vehicles which are by the way being produced by companies like BMW (http://www.bmwgroup.com/cleanenergy/) ,
Honda (http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/?ef_id=1097:3:s_5239a13bb270c6dafa1b3efbc18cd02d_1053084942:Mvlu-Eo-JyIAAF-5QlMAAAAK:20080712185516), etc. Don't get me wrong, the Hydrogen 7 project by BMW is pretty cool but not everybody is going to have fifty grand plus to jump into one of these bad boys when the finally hit the market.

How will true fuel cell cars help the average all American family? I do not know about your family but mine isn't going into debt a full years salary as the dollar continues to decline just to save a little bit more at the pumps when... Wait a minute... Where are these pumps? Ok, you get my point. What if everyone was tuned into reality for just a minute. That would be a novel idea in of itself. Gas isn't going to go down and as the dollar slips even further America needs a simple but real fix right now!

Let me digress a bit here and get back to the actual mechanics of how a hydrogen on demand fuel cell works. You have a container that can house plain old tap water,(HH2 actually juices up their designs  a bit and create an ion-rich plazma), a couple of plates or even coils that do not touch each other but are in proximity... One set is your ground, one cable attached to your cars frame, the other to the positive side of your ignition switch so that when you start your vehicle the system (no moving parts), is energized! What happens next? Simple, you get a reaction from this 7 or 8 amp draw that is called hydrolysis. Take a look at several videos of actual installations of these HH2 cells on this website: http://www.hh2ondemand.com/ The technology has been around over 100 years and my Grandfather used it to create welding gas for torches back in the 1930's. In this system they allow the hydrogen (75%) to freely mix with the oxygen (23%) and rare gasses such as freon, xenon, etc. (2%) and since it is under vacuum from your cars intake manifold, well as your making it your burning it. No storage required!

Don't go out and buy the first system you can find. Here are the problems associated... Certifications, insurances, and slippery salespersons. This is why I suggest the route of working with a nonprofit. I know that a single little cell that you can buy off of ebay for just $69.95 isn't going to do you a darn bit of good... perhaps a little. Did you know also that some of these fule cells when properly installed by certified technicians will also work on diesels? Yep, you heard right, your F350 turbo diesel can benefit from one too. So can trucking companies, fleets, and even the postal service, UPS, FedEx and this is just the tip of the iceberg. With a good system actually able to generate over a liter of hydrogen every minute mixing with your fuel you are reducing your carbon footprint, your vehicle will run cooler, farther, and with more power!

How soon will these systems be ready? I am not 100% sure due to all of the paperwork, (hoops), they have to go through... The really big ones for them is California's ARB and I almost forgot to tell you the real dirt with the IRS... They are looking for documentation certifications that could be around a one time $3300.00 tax credit on passenger vehicles and light trucks and around $50,000.00 on vehicles over 27000 lbs such as semi-trucks, busses and even class "A" motor homes! (still working on this portion). What I can say however is that they  are "beta testing" right now! I do not want this article to come across in the wrong light or try and turn it into a sales pitch so I think I will stop right there. I will put up the HH2 on demand nonprofit URL here so you can choose to take another step if you like and find out more about them. I do plan to come back more often and continue to make posts here about this technology, its' progress and the benefits of getting a quality tested system.
www.hh2ondemand.com