A car that runs on water?

You mean a boat?

how about a car that runs on air.....i live in the southwest where water is in shortage so air could be a good idea
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4251491.html

Well...unless you're near the coast...using seawater might be a problem...I think fresh water is far too valuable to be used as a means of propulsion for a car...nice try guys. But I think it back to the drawing board for the lot o' ya!

"...but thats an awfully small car ...hyuk hyuk hyuk ..."
I'm so glad I dont have cable ....

How about a car that runs on bullshit. The Thugs could remain the richest creeps on the planet with all the crap they churn out...

Check this one out

HHO fuel

God help us all when Exxon is in the water business

Oh my! We ARE so easily duped...

http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/06/perpetual_motion_via_fuel_cell.php

What this essentially claims is that Genepax has invented a technology that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen consuming less energy than will be produced by re-uniting them.

What they're claiming is that you can do:

1. Energy1 + 2H2O ⇒ 2H2 + O2
2. Followed by: 2H2 + O2 ⇒ 2H2O + Energy2
3. where Energy2 > Energy1

Only, there's this thing called "thermodynamics". You can't do that. If you could, you could just generate all the worlds energy by splitting water and then recombining it. That would be great - free energy for all! But it doesn't work. You can't get more out than you put in.

the LAST thing we want is a bunch of corp ownership of water

Any time you hear about a car that "runs on water", that should instantly set of the scam alarm in your head. Ask yourself, why do the oceans never catch fire? Why do we use water to put out fires, rather than (say) gasoline? Answer: because water does not contain available energy. A water molecule is in a stable, low-energy state. If you add enough energy to water, you can separate it into hydrogen and oxygen, which are both fuels... and when you burn them, they collapse back into water, releasing that energy.

So unless the Japanese have discovered a revolutionary new law of physics, this car is a hoax.

-Jeremy

adding....

The reason that oil works so well as an energy source is that it's got large quantities of energy packed into its chemical form. It took a lot of energy to produce the oil - all of the sunlight that fed the plants that eventually turned into oil; all of the geological pressures over millions of years; that's all packed up in the chemical structure of the molecules that make up the oil. When we burn oil, what we're doing is rapidly releasing energy that was packed into those molecules over millions of years. We're not getting free energy: we're just rapidly releasing energy collected over a huge span of time in a brief burst.

But the Genepax cell doesn't try to do anything like that. It uses some novel process to split water into its components - which cannot be done without adding enough energy to break the molecular bonds that hold water together. Then it re-unites those bonds, releasing energy. But the only energy that's available is the same energy that was used to break the molecules: there's no other energy source.

This can't work without some other energy source.

ARGHHHHH! How can you be linking to this? You only need the most basic science education to work out THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! We have a little thing called conservation of energy.

Hundreds of years ago, humans used to propel themselves with devices that used up only about 6-8 CUPS of water per day plus about 2000 calories wourth of energy.

It was called The human body.

Folks, let's not jump on every scam idea that proposes 'free' energy. Water simply does nothave any latent energy that can be easily converted into motion or heat or electricity. It takes energy to separate those hydrogen and oxygen atoms, at least as much as one might get back from burning them. (Actually, you will undoubtedly lose energy in the process - there's no such thing as a free lunch.) Physics simply doesn't work this way.

From the article:

Once the water is poured into the tank at the back of the car, the a generator breaks it down and uses it to create electrical power

[sic]

What is this magical 'generator', and where does it get its energy? Certainly not the water itself; there simply isn't enough energy in water to separate itself into its components and then have any left over for moving a vehicle.

This sounds like cold fusion. Everyone wants it to work, but the laws of thermodynamics are a tough hurdle to overcome, no matter how one packages an idea. (The US Patent Office, long tired of testing and debunking perpetual motion machines, refuses outright to even consider applications making such a claim).

There are plenty of legitimate areas to look for alternate energy. Anything that claims to do it using mere water as a fuel, especially in a portable application like a vehicle, is almost certainly a scam. And it's been going on for centuries, not just when oil is at a peak price like it is now.

This is BS. I can't believe news researchers and journalists haven't got a clue about basic chemistry. Same goes for bloggers...
Water is no fuel. Undoing the chemical bounds between oxygen and hydrogen takes more energy than it gives away. Does "Entropy" ring a bell?
Go back to your highschool chemistry class.

Here's the wikipedia entry for this company:

The key quote is:

"A number of chemical compounds combine with water to release hydrogen, but in all cases the energy required to produce such compounds exceeds the energy obtained upon their combustion."

It doesnt actually run on water, folks. If the key compound is a hydride, then you have to produce the hydrides to run it. No free luch.

Rees Maxwell @ 7:

@Dallas .. you might have not read "any kind of water — rain, river or sea" ... that means it needen't be clean purified drinking water, which is the shortage you're speaking of. There is absolutely no shortage of water on our planet, just clean drinking water.

However, where the actual energy comes from remains to be seen. There is also an Air car that runs on compressed air ... however it takes energy to compress the air that is injected into the huge compressed air containers under the car ... and where is that energy coming from that compresses the air? Is it from solar source, coal, nuclear? Many times electric cars are great, but hide the ultimate source of the energy used in the vehicle.

We can burn oil to make the energy.

Now, because we'd have a 90% loss for hydrolysis, we'd probably get the equivalent of 3 mpg out of this process.

We should start investing now, so that we can wonder where the money went, that much sooner.

I've got a design for a car that runs on vacuum. For a few million dollars, I'll be willing to send you some of my notes on this concept.

Yeah, bullshit. Bull fucking shit. The electricity needed to crack the water in to hydrogen and oxygen and the electricity needed to compress the volatiles in to something that can be burned to expand the mix exceeds the productive kenetic energy which propells the vehicle -- as always. This bullshit fraud / scam / wishful thinking is nothing new. One gets superior performances and trade offs from utilizing the latest high density mercury ion batteries that are costly but available.

Runs on water, sounds like an open loop hydrogen car. Close the loop! cool the exhaust, to turn it back into water and you could fuel itself. Little input with a PV Panel

I like that H2 cars are silly, pie in the sky nonsense, but these water cars are a godsend! Was that news segment brought to you by Nestle? Poland Spring?

Exxon in the water business, don't they have an interest in Nestle?

The Exotic Chico Hussein Escuela @ 33:

Jeremy Friesner @ 20:

Any time you hear about a car that "runs on water", that should instantly set of the scam alarm in your head. Ask yourself, why do the oceans never catch fire? Why do we use water to put out fires, rather than (say) gasoline? Answer: because water does not contain available energy. A water molecule is in a stable, low-energy state. If you add enough energy to water, you can separate it into hydrogen and oxygen, which are both fuels... and when you burn them, they collapse back into water, releasing that energy.

So unless the Japanese have discovered a revolutionary new law of physics, this car is a hoax.

-Jeremy

Rocket fuel is highly combustiable and is made up of mostly just oxygen and hydrogen in a liquid state.

water, is made up of hydrogen and oxygen.

Ashes are made out of wood and oxygen.

It should be easy to make a machine that puts them back while releasing energy, right?

Poop is made from food, reverse the process and...

GAAAHHH!!!! Anyone who believes that this would work, please please PLEASE study some physics. Or, read: "Voodoo Science", "Why People Believe Weird Things" and "The Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark".

There is no such thing as free energy.

water powered combustible engines is actually an awful idea. if 80 million U.S. cars ran on clean water, water would become more scarce on the globe than it already is.

maybe they can run on sewage.

Albatross @ 41:

Actually there's absolutely no reason a car couldn't 'run on water.' The simple issue is you need to use electrolysis to separate the hydrogen and oxygen, then you reunite them in order to run the car. You can surround these processes with other technologies to augment efficiency of power transfer, but underneath that's what's happening.

The electrolysis could be very simply powered by solar panels on the car: no conservation-of-energy problems here. You can also separate the hydrogen and oxygen with wind-powered electricity, or a treadmill hooked to your household power grid.

Once you've separated the hydrogen from the oxygen you can use any number of technologies to store the hydrogen, and to render the process of energy capture more efficient when recombining it with oxygen.

And as for commenter #1's concerns, the end product of this process would be potable water - pure H2O, which could have started as sea water. So your car could actually PRODUCE drinkable water, if you wanted to come up with a way to capture it.

Yes, it is possible. Using PV to make the hydrogen, to burn in an engine, results in about a 95% energy loss. The car would travel 20 times further on the PV if you just used the electricity to drive a motor.

This idea is smart just like investing a dollar to get a five cent return is smart.

But it works. Send me money, and I'll send you back five cents for every dollar you give me. I promise this plan will work.

karl @ 4:

how about a car that runs on air.....i live in the southwest where water is in shortage so air could be a good idea
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4251491.html

will compressed air work???

Beelzebud @ 3:

Call me skeptical. We've seen this same headline about a dozen times in the past few years, and every time it turns out to be a hoax, or the work of a quack that falls apart under scrutiny.

My sentiments exactly. No facts on their website.

Anyone who thinks this would be a good idea is a complete moron! So instead of burning fossil fuels which have no redeeming quality other than it makes a bunch of asshats rich, instead lets burn up all of the natural resource that all living things need to live...

People are really dumb these days...

Lay off the fluoridated water please!~

I thought we were supposed to be the pro-science wing of the blogosphere. Maybe CNN/India isn't a terribly reliable place to get your latest newsflash. Please John, take this post down. It's an embarassment and doesn't do much for the credibility of this blogsite.

Let's drill in ANWR and off the coast and remove all of the oil out of the ground and burn it.....or we could make cars that run on water. Whichever.

It's not April Fool's Day is it? I despair when I think that any intelligent person could buy into this crap. Then again it's nice for the mentally handicapped meat puppets to have something to talk about on television.

Dallas @ 1:

This is a horrible horrible horrible idea. A car running off water would be worse for the world because we are in the middle of a global water shortage. Many news outlets have been reporting on papers detailing potential 'water wars' that will come about within the next 30 years. Come on guys. Don't advertise this as something good.

There is no"global water shortage" because we live in a closed system. Hydrogen is the most prevalent element in the universe (after "stupidity") and burning it creates water (you don't need oxygen to burn hydrogen).

Think about the limited amount of oil existing deep underground in limited places, vs the amount of water covering the surface of the Earth. There is probably a 100:1 ratio of water to oil on the planet, and you don't need nearly as much water to run an electric car as you need oil to power a sub-compact.

Using water for fuel isn't even close to being a problem.

I agree with poster #1. Considering we all have to DRINK water and that there is talk of a global water shortage... this is a straight up stupid idea.

Stick to biomass. Fuel that can be grown and regrown in the same soil, recycled, and has minimal pollutants.

Converting all our vehicles to water is kinda like a heroin addict saying that they're gonna kick the disease by switching over to cocaine.

Duh!

Kelvin Phillips @ 53:

Listen, I am tired of hearing srcreams of "scam!" every time this subject comes up. First off, this company is not asking for any donations, they are working to get a patent and all that implies. Second, I remember years ago a small article in the Chicago Sun Times where a scientist developed a small proof of concept water engine to see if it could work and suceeded. (I know, I know what happened since then? I don't know, maybe he was only trying to prove the concept worked or someone bought him out.) Honestly, if Thomas Edison lived today and the oil companies controlled the gaslight industry, the light bulb would never have been invented.

The problem, Kelvin, is that a "water engine" violates a fundamental set of laws of physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamics

This idea has come and gone since the 1960's. It never works, and it will never work. There is no point putting false hopes in ideas like this. It is about as likely as being able to wish yourself to the surface of the moon by sheer willpower alone. Both things are about as likely.*

* According to Quantum Dynamics, the moon wish is actually probably slightly MORE likely, but I digress.

how about compressed air??looks like a promising technology
http://www.celsias.com/article/air-car-tantalisingly-close/

Here is a good discussion on the hoax value of this idea:

http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=print_topic;f=56;t...

"basically, you use 5 kW (6.7 hp) to gain 1.2 kW (1.6 hp) using a really old and obvious piece of technology."

A good technology that we should be spending more time on is flywheel. Replaces batteries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage

kat @ 23:

This whole thing is a hoax, it's been floating around for a few weeks. Thoroughly debunked here: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/06/perpetual_motion_via_fuel_cell.php

Fuel cell power is hardly a hoax.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkRysyghrKM

liberalDAPofDESTINYmoderation @ 57:

George @ 42:

GAAAHHH!!!! Anyone who believes that this would work, please please PLEASE study some physics. Or, read: "Voodoo Science", "Why People Believe Weird Things" and "The Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark".

Or the Bible!

So I guess we know everything there is about science and there is no room ever for improvement.

CannibalPlanet @ 63:

Mugsy @ 51:

Easy: http://www.runyourcarwithwater.com/

If you buy this, I have some real estate on Mars to sell you. Ocean front.

Wait a minute bro. I was going to sell him my time machine so he could go back to the era of cheap gas. It's slightly cheaper.

This is an OLD story and has been debunked as a not realistic if not fraudulent.

Kelvin Phillips @ 53:

Listen, I am tired of hearing srcreams of "scam!" every time this subject comes up. First off, this company is not asking for any donations, they are working to get a patent and all that implies. . . .

We're not saying it's a scam because it's too easy, or because we're mired in the status quo or something.

We're saying it's a scam because the physics behind this is simple, easy to understand, and absolutely irrefutable. They're claiming to have invented a perpetual motion machine.

They might as well claim to have invented a car that can travel back in time, or defy gravity, or teleport you across the country.

Viable or not, isn't it amazing what happens when science and mathematics are emphasized in school (instead of allowing prayer and Intelligent Design)?

YouCantHandleDaTruth @ 75:

HHO PRODUCES BURNABLE GAS!!

Even skeptics say it does!!!!

Just not "efficiently" as if we give a damn about the efficiency of the production, just throw more alternators on a vehicle at the wheels and apply them during braking or something.

NO ONE WORTH THEIR SALT will say HHO doesn't produce a burnable gas.

You might consider changing your handle to "cantunderstandthetruth".

this may be the answer in some parts of the world
http://www.popularmechanics.co.....51491.html

Yellow Elephant Safari @ 77:

Jeremy Friesner @ 20:

Any time you hear about a car that "runs on water", that should instantly set of the scam alarm in your head. Ask yourself, why do the oceans never catch fire? Why do we use water to put out fires, rather than (say) gasoline? Answer: because water does not contain available energy. A water molecule is in a stable, low-energy state. If you add enough energy to water, you can separate it into hydrogen and oxygen, which are both fuels... and when you burn them, they collapse back into water, releasing that energy.

So unless the Japanese have discovered a revolutionary new law of physics, this car is a hoax.

-Jeremy

Or perhaps the Japanese have read a HS chemistry book.

Yeap, then practically applied some principles.

Also, they video says it runs for only an hour...good enough for me!!!

Takes me usually 25 35 mins to get to work driving 65

If it runs anything like Stanley Meyers' car, it could be very viable, without impacting available drinking water. Meyers invented a fuel cell that, instead of functioning like a classical chemical electrolytic cell that breaks down water into hydrogen and oxygen, functioned as a capacitor that uses water as the dielectric. Borrowing from Tesla, he pulsed the capacitor with high-frequency (>20KHz), high-voltage (>30KV) bursts of low amperage (a couple of mA) power. This caused the dielectric (the water) to breakdown, disintigrating the water into oxygen and hydrogen. The power required to break the water down is magnitudes less than what is required in a classical chemical electroysis rig. Unlike a regular electrolytic cell that soon gets so hot that the water boils, Meyers' fuel cell stays at room temperature. It also requires no addition of salts to make the water conduct electricity. He received numerous patents for this invention.

Meyers fuel cell is a closed system that takes water, breaks it down into a mixed gas of oxygen and hydrogen, burns it in the internal combustion engine, collects the exhaust (pure steam vapor), cools it in a radiator and recycles the condensed water back into the water tank for another go round. the engine is started with gasoline and then switches to hydrogen as the engine starts producing power from the generator/battery. It was estimated that coast to coast would take 22 gallons of water and about 4 gallons of gas.

The following link has films of both the fuel cell and a car that runs on the thing.

http://waterpoweredcar.com/stanmeyer.html

The DoD has tried powering Humvees and HEMTT's with this, so I hear from a person I trust. Meyers is now dead, and his patents have expired or are near expiration. I've tried this in the lab, and it works.

Paul @ 86:

If it runs anything like Stanley Meyers' car, it could be very viable, without impacting available drinking water. Meyers invented a fuel cell that, instead of functioning like a classical chemical electrolytic cell that breaks down water into hydrogen and oxygen, functioned as a capacitor that uses water as the dielectric. Borrowing from Tesla, he pulsed the capacitor with high-frequency (>20KHz), high-voltage (>30KV) bursts of low amperage (a couple of mA) power. This caused the dielectric (the water) to breakdown, disintigrating the water into oxygen and hydrogen. The power required to break the water down is magnitudes less than what is required in a classical chemical electroysis rig. Unlike a regular electrolytic cell that soon gets so hot that the water boils, Meyers' fuel cell stays at room temperature. It also requires no addition of salts to make the water conduct electricity. He received numerous patents for this invention.

Meyers fuel cell is a closed system that takes water, breaks it down into a mixed gas of oxygen and hydrogen, burns it in the internal combustion engine, collects the exhaust (pure steam vapor), cools it in a radiator and recycles the condensed water back into the water tank for another go round. the engine is started with gasoline and then switches to hydrogen as the engine starts producing power from the generator/battery. It was estimated that coast to coast would take 22 gallons of water and about 4 gallons of gas.

The following link has films of both the fuel cell and a car that runs on the thing.

http://waterpoweredcar.com/stanmeyer.html

The DoD has tried powering Humvees and HEMTT's with this, so I hear from a person I trust. Meyers is now dead, and his patents have expired or are near expiration. I've tried this in the lab, and it works.

We could use sewage water if we wanted to and store the methane (which I don't know why it's not done now)

John @ 87:

Disclaimer, I didn't read all the comments above. Just the first 30 or so.

This thing is a SCAM. It (or variants of it) has been around a lot longer than a few weeks.

The responses in this thread seem to be
1) Gullible ecstasy. "Wow! This is great! Will solve the oil crisis/peak oil etc..."
2) Cautious optimism "Wow! If true, this will solve the oil crisis/peak oil etc..."
3) Conspiracy predictions "Watch as this will be bought up and forever silenced by the big oil companies"
4) Those who correctly point out that this is a scam.

Again, ANOTHER person who wont claim that HHO does NOT work they just insult people or talk about "efficiency"

jed @ 69:

HHO on demand is viable and already being used by many do-it-yourselfers. It can be installed easily on existing cars, trucks, gasoline or diesel engine. Running solely on water is slightly impractical at the present time.
The HHO on demand systems being used already, suppliment a normal gasoline burning engine to run more effeciently, sometimes doubling the mpg. It only uses a very small amount of water, usually around a quart, in these systems. That's all. For weeks.
It is easily used with gasoline in ordinary cars with ordinary engines. No special engine conversions necessary like an ethonol burning engine. It can increase the milage of any car a lot and will actually make it run cleaner with less emissions. One guy removed his catalytic converter, took it for a test, and they found it to be one of the cleanest running engines they ever tested.

My car already gets 30 mpg city and 40+ highway (actual, not rated at) and I'm seriously thinking about installing one of these setups. Mock on it all you want. The oil barons will sleep better and speculators will speculate even more.

My bet is that HHO will be standard equipment on all cars within 5 years. It probably already would have been had we not had oil prostitutes running the executive branch.

For those of you who just don't get it and think this car is a good idea may I ask you: what energy source is running the electrolysis unit that is generating the oxygen and hydrogen in the water? This vehicle will run until that power source is exhausted and then the car will stop no matter how much water you pour into it.

John @ 87:

Disclaimer, I didn't read all the comments above. Just the first 30 or so.

This thing is a SCAM. It (or variants of it) has been around a lot longer than a few weeks.

It annoys me that people that THINK they know the science involved here are quick to lable this a "scam".

No where do they claim you don't need to keep adding water to generate the electricity. This is definitely NOT a "Perpetual Motion" scam.

Anyone that believes fuel Cells that generate electricity from water are "science fiction" have probably been hanging around James Dobson too long.

Paul @ 92:

jed @ 69:

HHO on demand is viable and already being used by many do-it-yourselfers. It can be installed easily on existing cars, trucks, gasoline or diesel engine. Running solely on water is slightly impractical at the present time.
The HHO on demand systems being used already, suppliment a normal gasoline burning engine to run more effeciently, sometimes doubling the mpg. It only uses a very small amount of water, usually around a quart, in these systems. That's all. For weeks.
It is easily used with gasoline in ordinary cars with ordinary engines. No special engine conversions necessary like an ethonol burning engine. It can increase the milage of any car a lot and will actually make it run cleaner with less emissions. One guy removed his catalytic converter, took it for a test, and they found it to be one of the cleanest running engines they ever tested.

My car already gets 30 mpg city and 40+ highway (actual, not rated at) and I'm seriously thinking about installing one of these setups. Mock on it all you want. The oil barons will sleep better and speculators will speculate even more.

My bet is that HHO will be standard equipment on all cars within 5 years. It probably already would have been had we not had oil prostitutes running the executive branch.

Yeap!! Up the timing or compression and you got some efficiency. The storage part is harder but doable IMHO

Ah, the madness of crowds...

Peter G @ 94:

For those of you who just don't get it and think this car is a good idea may I ask you: what energy source is running the electrolysis unit that is generating the oxygen and hydrogen in the water? This vehicle will run until that power source is exhausted and then the car will stop no matter how much water you pour into it.

So what, that'll happen in an ICE also.

Your point?

liberalDAPofDESTINYmoderation @ 6:

Well...unless you're near the coast...using seawater might be a problem...I think fresh water is far too valuable to be used as a means of propulsion for a car...nice try guys. But I think it back to the drawing board for the lot o' ya!

if serious - this might be the stupidest thing I've ever read.

as long as a chemical reaction is is being used to drive the breakdown of water into fuels, there is no net loss from the described reaction. any net loss will occur with the creation of the chemical required to break the water in the fuel tank however.

as long as we're using metal and water for fuel, let's go large...

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=3825610222960975525&q=sodium&ei=Y...

don't make water scarce!

Albatross @ 55:

Weaseldog @ 46:

Yes, it is possible. Using PV to make the hydrogen, to burn in an engine, results in about a 95% energy loss. The car would travel 20 times further on the PV if you just used the electricity to drive a motor.

No need to get snotty. A 95% energy loss constitutes a technological and engineering challenge. If we had been working on this process since 1980 we could possibly have reduced this energy loss. Instead we built SUVs.

Low energy efficiency is also balanced by the price of the energy: if you're converting sunlight ("free energy") into electricity, then the low efficiency is not costly. If every car in America were covered with photovoltaic sheets that were separating water and storing hydrogen, that constitutes energy that would have otherwise been wasted being instead invested into moving the car just a little farther, "for free." (And yes, producing the PV cells has a cost.)

Like I said, we could have been working on this for thirty years. Instead we could start now, and have some results by 2038. Or we can do nothing and have no results by 2038.

Actually, folks have been working on this since the 19th Century.

Hydrogen is used as a chemical feedstock for a huge range of products including fertilizers, herbicides, plastics, explosives, etc...

All of these industries have an interest in producing hydrogen more efficiently and thus, more economically.

Currently, the most efficient way to make it, is from natural gas.

You seem to think that there has been very little research into this when in fact it has been the subject of intense research for many years.

Get the facts right.
The people who are telling you this doesn't work, aren't saying it doesn't produce Hydrogen.
They aren't saying Hydrogen is not a fuel.
They aren't saying fuel cells don't work or don't exist.

(Those are just some of the crazier claims I've heard)

We are saying it doesn't work because Turning water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and burning the Hydrogen in the Oxygen to get water back, requires more energy than it outputs.

Unlike fossil fuels (for example) which contain a lot of energy in their liquid form, water contains very little. So you can get more energy out of petrol than you can from water. Which is why cars can work on petrol, but will never work on water.

All the crazy anti-intellectual anti-science anti-thermodynamics optimism in the world, isn't going to change that.

This is a SCAM.

Those who think it isn't a scam, need to go back to school and learn some science. And some critical thinking skills.

I wish people would stop talking about how we're going to use up valuable water on this sort of technology.

Here's a newsflash for the ignorants who keep espousing that concern - this technology is bogus. You have nothing to worry about.

What you should really be worried about is why you got suckered into this nonsense in the first place, and why this article was linked by C&L...

John @ 112:

Get the facts right.
The people who are telling you this doesn't work, aren't saying it doesn't produce Hydrogen.
They aren't saying Hydrogen is not a fuel.
They aren't saying fuel cells don't work or don't exist.

(Those are just some of the crazier claims I've heard)

We are saying it doesn't work because Turning water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and burning the Hydrogen in the Oxygen to get water back, requires more energy than it outputs.

Unlike fossil fuels (for example) which contain a lot of energy in their liquid form, water contains very little. So you can get more energy out of petrol than you can from water. Which is why cars can work on petrol, but will never work on water.

All the crazy anti-intellectual anti-science anti-thermodynamics optimism in the world, isn't going to change that.

This is a SCAM.

Those who think it isn't a scam, need to go back to school and learn some science. And some critical thinking skills.

See!!! I told you these guys would be on here talking about "efficiency" as if there aren't a ton of source that wont make up for it.

Bottom line, we can produce PLENTY of A to get a small amount of B where A is relatively cheap and easy to do = WE COULD CARE LESS ABOUT EFFICIENCY!!!!

Barbara Key @ 103:

Actually, we wouldn't have problem with that in our house. We took the condensation line from the air conditioner and feed into a large, large bucket (very, very large). We haven't had to use tap water to do laundry or flush toilets in over two months.

Water supply is a function of where you live. My geothermal heat pump in Michigan takes 28 gallons per minute of potable water, 24 hours a day out of a well and pumps it into an ajacent lake.

Run a hose up from your state and you won't need your barrels anymore.

America is heading towards a new Dark Ages. I can't believe there's such a high percentage of people who fall for this stuff, over and over and over.

Bottom line, we can produce PLENTY of A to get a small amount of B where A is relatively cheap and easy to do = WE COULD CARE LESS ABOUT EFFICIENCY!!!!

Care to put some dollar figures on any of that? Throw out an example so we can understand what you're proposing.

And are you willing to listen to serious criticism about such an example, or is that not allowed?

Duncan @ 122:

Bottom line, we can produce PLENTY of A to get a small amount of B where A is relatively cheap and easy to do = WE COULD CARE LESS ABOUT EFFICIENCY!!!!

Care to put some dollar figures on any of that? Throw out an example so we can understand what you're proposing.

And are you willing to listen to serious criticism about such an example, or is that not allowed?

Solar?

Charge small battery bank during the day, use stored electricity to produce gas during night, pump gas into car during the day to supplement on board HHO conversion?

What say you?

Apparently it runs on bong water!

I'll believe it when I see it

Miss Kitty @ 10 is right: it is in fact possible to run a car on bullshit, whereas it is not possible to run one on water. The fact that we don't run cars on bullshit makes even clearer why this water-car idea is so silly.

Remember the Chrysler turbine from years ago? It ran quite well, but they killed it. How about we redesign the turbine into a very, very small package and use it to power about 6 alternators or generators and charge batteries? Ought to give great mileage and keep the batteries charged.
The turbine actually ran in the Indy 500, driven by Andy Granatelli, and he would have won had his gearbox not broken. He didn't have to stop as often as the other guys for fuel. Might not be water, but seems like it might work.

Weaseldog @ 125:

YouCantHandleDaTruth @ 116:

John @ 112:

Get the facts right.
The people who are telling you this doesn't work, aren't saying it doesn't produce Hydrogen.
They aren't saying Hydrogen is not a fuel.
They aren't saying fuel cells don't work or don't exist.

(Those are just some of the crazier claims I've heard)

We are saying it doesn't work because Turning water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and burning the Hydrogen in the Oxygen to get water back, requires more energy than it outputs.

Unlike fossil fuels (for example) which contain a lot of energy in their liquid form, water contains very little. So you can get more energy out of petrol than you can from water. Which is why cars can work on petrol, but will never work on water.

All the crazy anti-intellectual anti-science anti-thermodynamics optimism in the world, isn't going to change that.

This is a SCAM.

Those who think it isn't a scam, need to go back to school and learn some science. And some critical thinking skills.

See!!! I told you these guys would be on here talking about "efficiency" as if there aren't a ton of source that wont make up for it.

Bottom line, we can produce PLENTY of A to get a small amount of B where A is relatively cheap and easy to do = WE COULD CARE LESS ABOUT EFFICIENCY!!!!

What's the source of the energy then? and why is worthless in it's current form? Why does it have to be invested into hydrogen to be useful?

The sun, it produces plenty of heat and light and it's cheap and plentyful.

Heat from a car exhaust to produce HHO with Peltier junctions attached to a car exhaust etc

Just a couple of ideas to produce A needed for B

George @ 128:

Miss Kitty @ 10 is right: it is in fact possible to run a car on bullshit, whereas it is not possible to run one on water. The fact that we don't run cars on bullshit makes even clearer why this water-car idea is so silly.

Said Big Oils bloggers...

Jus sayin, 10 grade chemistry does tell us a burnable gas is created using water.

This car, Jeebus, John McCain?

I don't know which one I'm more eager to believe in first!!!

YouCantHandleDaTruth @ 88:

Paul @ 86:

If it runs ,,,Snip...in the lab, and it works.

We could use sewage water if we wanted to and store the methane (which I don't know why it's not done now)

It is done. Most sewage plants already recover and use the methane that they generate from their anaerobic digestors for heating or power generation. The problem is that digestors are finicky beasts that wouldn't lend themselves to portability, and they generate solid wastes which must be continuously removed. It means a centralized production system at the local wastewater treatment plant level, and would require that the gas be cleaned and compressed. It doable.

The Peace Corps used to do a thing like what you are talking about. They made little digestors that would fit behind a house, the family would dump all their sewage, animal manure and plant clippings into it amd it would ferment and produce methane in sufficient quantities for cooking and heating hot water. These were part of an over all plan to teach reforestation in areas like the Himalyas or Ethiopia. Pretty coool stuff.

To Mugsy and DaTruth. As it happens I am an engineer and have been practicing for nearly thirty years. I do not dispute the fact that one can use an energy source to electrolyse water and then recombine the oxygen and hydrogen to generate electricity. Of course you get less energy out than you put in. Furthermore it would be far more efficient to use the electricity source that is driving the electrolysis to drive the vehicle than to use it to generate a fuel for an internal combustion engine. There is no engineer or scientist in the world who would not laugh at the spectacular inefficiencies of this design.This is not a step forward.

Like clockwork, every time oil prices shoot up journalists scramble for stories about energy, and a few water-powered cars and perpetual motion machines always make it through. That's what happened with the Genepax Water-Powered Car featured on Reuters (and then a bit too uncritically on Crooks and Liars, TreeHugger, and many other green sites like Environmental Leader, Celcias, etc).

One thing that helps fuel the conspiracy rumors surrounding water cars is that the media run these segments where they show "water cars" actually driving around, and it all seems to work, and then we never hear about them again. People figure that Big Oil (or the Illuminati, whatever) is suppressing the technology. The reality is more mundane: It is actually possible to make a car look like it runs on water without breaking the first law of thermodynamics. The way it's usually done is with metal hydrides. These react with water to produce hydrogen, which is then used to power the car. But since these hydrides will deplete with time, they need to be replaced and so they are actually the fuel, not the water. And you can be sure that more energy will go into producing them than will be taken out, making them an energy carrier, just like a battery.

There is a real danger in widely reporting these stories without debunking them.

The danger is that it creates false hopes, which then turn into real apathy. Either people believe that there's a solution to all our energy problems "coming real soon now", and so there's no need to worry and make efforts. And the people who've been around longer end up disillusioned and frustrated because they've been promised "water cars" for decades and it never comes, so they think that there's a big worldwide conspiracy against it (and yet somehow none of the dozens of "inventors" and "engineers" who worked on these projects were able to put the technical information on the internet).

Duncan @ 135:

Solar?

If that's your example, I think everyone here is in agreement. Solar IS a viable (if still expensive, unfortunately) source of energy.

This article is not about solar. It's about using water as the source of energy. That's the difference. What you are thinking about is somehow using the chemical energy of water as temporary storage for energy. Batteries also store energy, as does a spring in a watch. But storage is not the same as source.

The people citing the laws of thermodynamics are asserting that water is not a viable source of energy, nothing more. Don't conclude that it's some sort of conspiracy against energy research. It's simply a dead-end that has been tread many times before.

It's not a "dead end",

Lets review shall we...

FACT NOT IN DISPUTE: You can use water and electricity in a process to produce a burnable gas
FACT NOT IN DISPUTE: The current process for HHO (above, and in vid) is VERY inefficient
FACT NOT IN DISPUTE: An efficient process is NOT needed to get 5 mpg more out of a diesel engine using HHO

I don't think we're in total disagreements in these 3, no?

Thx

Dallas @ 1:

This is a horrible horrible horrible idea. A car running off water would be worse for the world because we are in the middle of a global water shortage. Many news outlets have been reporting on papers detailing potential 'water wars' that will come about within the next 30 years. Come on guys. Don't advertise this as something good.

You can recycle its water, water into gasses, burn the gasses which makes water, repeat

Rumor has it, the SEC was so afraid of HHO that it started buying up all the sodium metal it could find (using money from the huge fines they levied on naughty investors). Because you can't transport sodium very safely, they stored it in the basement of Building 7. (Look it up, oh doubters: nobody denies that the SEC was storing stuff in Building 7.) The problem is what happens when sodium metal hits water (or vice versa): you get sodium hydroxide and lots of hydrogen gas. Add a spark and kablooie.