Hydrogen powered mechs?

[Shrykull]

Ok, so I guess the Mech's in Mech warrior are gas powered, I've only played the dark age miniatures game, and in that when you "push" a mech, give it an order or 2 consecutive turns it takes a click of heat and doesn't function as well (since the 2 turns are really a continous stream of time, it spent all last turn doing the order you gave it, and this turn doing whatever else you tell it to do) I was thinking what about a hydrogen powered one, would it still heat up or heat up less, and it would just blow out steam to vent.
And as far as hydrogen power goes what do you think about the vehicles, at our current rate of air pollution how long will it take to cause something really disasterous like destroy the entire ozone layer, etc? doesn't gas give you more energy as per E=mc2 because it is heavier would this mean that maybe you can't go as fast, have to refuel more often and burn fuel more quickly? what about using methane instead of pure hydrogen, I know it's not healthy either, but it's more abundent, and could be gotten by distilling sewer water or manure etc.

[Pu-239]

And as far as hydrogen power goes what do you think about the vehicles, at our current rate of air pollution how long will it take to cause something really disasterous like destroy the entire ozone layer, etc? doesn't gas give you more energy as per E=mc2 because it is heavier would this mean that maybe you can't go as fast, have to refuel more often and burn fuel more quickly? what about using methane instead of pure hydrogen, I know it's not healthy either, but it's more abundent, and could be gotten by distilling sewer water or manure etc.

E=mc^2 has nothing to do with plain old chemical reactions.

[Vympel]

Why would you bother with a mech at all?

[Sea Skimmer]

Destroy the Ozone layer? You mean the thing that’s rapidly regenerating? What you use for power doesn’t matter with mecha. There still going to suck shit and require more power then tracks or wheels. Just fit the hydrogen system to something utilizing one of those systems.

[Pu-239]

Destroy the Ozone layer? You mean the thing that’s rapidly regenerating? What you use for power doesn’t matter with mecha. There still going to suck shit and require more power then tracks or wheels. Just fit the hydrogen system to something utilizing one of those systems.

Also, Hydrogen takes up too much space for the same amount of energy. Piss poor for military ground vehicles. However, it does have a good energy/weight ratio.

[Sir Sirius]

I though the that the Mech's in Mech Warrior were fusion powered?

[Hotfoot]

I though the that the Mech's in Mech Warrior were fusion powered?

Wizkids Mechwarrior: Dark Age apparently has smokestacks coming out of some mechs, usually the civilian ones.

[Sindai]

E=mc^2 has nothing to do with plain old chemical reactions.

Actually, it does. In chemical reactions where energy is released/absorbed the total mass of the chemicals involved changes accordingly. Of course, it has to, or conservation of energy would be violated.

(Of course, e = mc^2 doesn't apply in the way that Shrykull thinks, but the above is worth knowing all the same.)

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Why Hydrogen when we have Methanol Fuel Cells?

Why Mechs when we have Good Effective TANKS?

[Tom_Aurum]

My gods. I have never seen such a rampant blithering mass of stupidity.

First of all E=mc squared has <nothing> to do with your basic chemical <not fission or fusion> reaction. Energy is stored in the Chemical bonds (or, in the case of hydrogen combustion, the energy is kept in the fact that the hydrogen is <not> bonded.) Any energy that goes into the chemical bonds can also come out of the chemical bonds. No matter being turned into energy, or vice versa. Period. Elementary chemistry.

That being said, in the BattleTech universe there is the option for an internal combustion engine in a mech, but it's kind of rare. Most mechs are powered by a deuterium fusion core. At any rate, you still can run into the same overheating problems, just not as often. Hydrogen combustion engines most likely would be just the same as any other internal combustion engine. Stats could be played around with to make them more or less power, efficient, et cetera, given what has been proven with modern vehicles. (I forget what the exact stats on hydrogen combustion engines are. All I know is the sweet fact that the only by-product is a little substance known as WATER. Yay.)

[NapoleonGH]

Tom: one point hydrogen is bonded, it is rare to find just an H atom alone, it is most often found as a diatomic molecule H2

[Darth Wong]

It should be pointed out that the energy of a chemical bond is typically in the form of electromagnetic potential energy, as opposed to matter annihilating into energy. Just to clarify.

[Tom_Aurum]

You're right. But anyways, the process of bonds being broken or created is how energy is transferred.