Hydrogen Powered Bike

[fastdruid]

Unfortunately while an IC engine will quite happily burn hydrogen you need a larger fuel tank than for petrol and seeing that it's already a struggle to fit enough of a tank on a bike you're really going to struggle to fit a pressure tank on a bike. I can't remember the exact figures but I once worked it out once and IIRC figured you'd get about a 50mile range if you managed to fit a 20l tank. That would also weigh far more than a petrol bike.

Unless there is some kind of break through in hydrogen storage a hydrogen powered IC bike just isn't feasable for any kind of range.

Druid

[yorkie_chris]

So unless the fuel cell is orders of magnitude more efficient than an IC engine, then you're still going to have the shocking tank range?

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

So unless the fuel cell is orders of magnitude more efficient than an IC engine, then you're still going to have the shocking tank range?

Yerp. There has been alot of work into zeolites and other sorts of sponge-type materials with high internal volumes. Thing is, if you put it all in, can you get it all out?

I dont think hydrogen is a viable fuel alternative, personally

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

Indeed, this is why these and electric bikes are a waste of time if we can't make masses of truly 'clean' electricity, that is the problem the that needs to be solved!

I have a theory that you still need to convert the vehicles (if you want to go down the route of being 'green'). Reason being it is a lot harder to convert lots of little things, that people own, instead of one large thing that the government owns...?

So if the opportunity is there to convert the 'lots of little things' to 'lots of little things using a clean form of energy', even though at the moment the source of the energy is not clean, it should be taken? I.e. refactoring the 'dirty' part of the cycle so you have one point at which to change it.

[fastdruid]

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

So unless the fuel cell is orders of magnitude more efficient than an IC engine, then you're still going to have the shocking tank range?

A fuel cell is far more efficient and if that was all you needed then everything would be simple. Unfortunately you then need an electric motor to drive the bike and that's where things get tricky as a 100 hp (~75kw) motor is big and heavy. Then you might still need a gearbox, plus some way of regulating and controlling something in the region of 90amps and before you know it you've run out of space again.

There is a good reason the petrol IC engine is still used, very hard to get the same performance/size.

Personally I'd love an electric bike that would do ~100mph (and get there in ~10sec) with a nominal 100mile range. Perfect for my commute.

Druid

PB had an article about a dayatona 675 running on fuel from crushed apples - not sure of the exact details was a while back - and its not as green as a fuel cell as far as i'm aware but a viable alternative as it ran of almost the standard engine (i believe) and gave a very slight performance increase.

[fastdruid]

Originally Posted by EssexDave

PB had an article about a dayatona 675 running on fuel from crushed apples - not sure of the exact details was a while back - and its not as green as a fuel cell as far as i'm aware but a viable alternative as it ran of almost the standard engine (i believe) and gave a very slight performance increase.

It was running on ethanol[1], you get more power but you need more of it.

Druid

[1] As noted produced from Apples, a lot of apples.

I think they used c.10,000 apples? Maybe more. To be honest not viable as a source of fuel and you also have the morale impact (not that a lot of people would care) that you are using food to power your bike(car whatever) when people are starving and how is that fair.