Every crisis can also be viewed an opportunity, or so it seems. As many motorists are having trouble making ends meet with rising fuel (and food) prices, various websites are popping up (usually with affiliate schemes) that make tempting promises such as:
- “…use water as fuel and laugh at rising gas costs…”
- “double your mileage”
- “…cooler running engine…”
- “no knocking”
- “one quart of water provides over 1800 gallons of HHO gas which can literally last for months”
You will find numerous websites if you google for “water fuel car” or similar terms. Mostly the websites that make these claims sell e-books and other kits with instructions on building your own hydrogen generator from glass jars, electrodes and tubes to hook up to your existing engine.
Such kits draw power from your car’s electrical system (the battery and the generator charging it) to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, which is then fed into the air intake of the engine, so the hydrogen-oxygen mixture will be burnt along the air/gasoline mixture in the car’s combustion chambers. How well can such a system really work?
If a a “water-engine” as described above were to produce extra power beyond the power obtained from burning gasoline it would violate fundamental laws of physics. The First Law of Thermodynamics states that no energy is ever lost or gained, it just changes form, such as chemical energy to heat when you burn wood or heat to mechanical energy in a steam engine. An engine that uses only liquid water to produce water vapour (i.e. water plus heat) in its exhaust while providing mechanical energy violates this law of energy balance. It outputs energy with no energy going it. It would be a perpetual motion engine, which is physically impossible.
The sad fact is, people who buy these systems usually have a very rudimentary understanding of science. They take these unverified claims at face value, or are at least prepared to give them the benefit of doubt and spend money on testing unverified claims.
The “water-fuelled car” in detail
To split water (H2O) into its constituent elements hydrogen and oxygen takes electric energy. While the engine is running that energy will come from a generator driven by the engine via a belt. Just like running with your headlights on or your radio blaring will cause your engine to work a bit harder and burn more fuel, so will an electrolytic “hydrogen generator” take its toll on your gas tank.
Assuming an efficient setup, about 50-70% of the electrical energy provided will end up as chemical energy in the explosive hydrogen-oxygen mixture fed back into the engine, the rest will just warm up the water. A gasoline engine manages to convert up to 20% of the chemical energy contained in its fuel into mechanical energy, which is then available for driving the wheels or a generator. That generator converts maybe 90% of its mechanical input into electrical power. Altogether this means that burning the hydrogen returns only around 1/10 of the power originally invested into generating the hydrogen from water. It’s like you just burnt 10 litres (or gallons) of fuel in order to avoid burning one litre (or gallon).
What this of course means is that a “water-powered car” actually burns more gasoline and gets worse mileage than an unmodified car. However, the output of the “hydrogen generator” is so small and its practical negative effect on fuel mileage is so minor, you are unlikely to actually notice that, even if you accurately measure fuel economy. For example, a setup that draws 3 amperes of current from your generator (as claimed in one of the websites we’ve studied) will only use 1/20 of one horsepower (3 A x 12 V = 36 W = 0.036 kW = 0.050 hp). The difference in fuel usage is smaller than the difference between say driving with a full or a half empty fuel tank, which also changes fuel economy as a heavier car takes more power to accelerate.
The advertised fact that the “water-powered car” uses so little water (“one quart lasts for months”) is actually a give-away that the system is a hoax. If you produced hydrogen at home from tap water and a solar panel on your roof and stored it in a pressurized tank in your car to run it on only hydrogen, you would find that the amount of water used to make the hydrogen is still in the same order of magnitude as the amount of gasoline used, maybe something like a third by volume (I’d have to look up the exact numbers on relative energy content of hydrogen and hydrocarbons). In a water car that uses virtually no water (no matter where the electricty to make the hydrogen came from) the hydrogen can not be making any significant contribution to running it because there’s too little of it!
Less pinking / knocking?
I don’t know how many of the people who sell these useless plans are simply ignorant about science and how many are fully aware they’re scamming people. In any case, their other claims are equally baseless as their claims about improved fuel economy. Hydrogen has a higher energy content but also much lower octane rating than gasoline because it burns faster, more violently. This means your engine is more likely to start knocking or “pinking” than when run on gasoline (or gasoline / ethanol mixtures), not less. This is a problem that BMW had a hard time dealing with when they converted the engine of a 7-series saloon car to run on hydrogen. In practice this problem doesn’t matter in a “water car” because those “hydrogen generators” output so little hydrogen that it makes almost no difference to the engine, unlike real hydrogen cars with hydride or high pressure hydrogen tanks.
Cooler running engine?
Also, a hydrogen / oxygen mixture does not burn “cooler” than a gasoline / air mixture. Ask the space shuttle designers: The only reason the space shuttle’s hydrogen-oxygen engine doesn’t melt itself is because it’s cooled with liquid hydrogen (at -253 C / -423 F). Hydrogen / oxygen flames burn so hot they can be used for cutting steel like butter. First, hydrogen release more energy per unit of weight than does gasoline. Secondly, while the oxygen used for burning gasoline in a car engine is diluted with nitrogen (which makes up 80% of the air we breathe), the ogygen / hydrogen mix from the generator has not been diluted with anything inert, which is another reason why it burns so hot.
The vater vapour in the “water car” exhaust has no cooling effect whatsoever, because it’s not derived from liquid water, hence there’s no cooling effect from evaporation heat. Again, in the “water car” setup it makes no difference because there’s too little hydrogen involved.
Summary
In reality a “water as fuel” car is a placebo. Technically it doesn’t make any noticable difference to the amount of gasoline you use per kilometre or mile, but it may change the way you think about driving. If you do see any drop in fuel usage, it may be simply that you’re thinking more about fuel usage because of the investment you’ve just made and now drive less aggressively than before and that can indeed result in a modest reduction. Beyond that, any claimed changes are either due to wishful thinking, a vivid imagination or a cruel hoax to deceive unsuspecting customers.
The only way you’ll really see a 50% drop in your monthly fuel bill is if you basically cut your driving in half or if you change to a significantly different kind of car, such as from a bulky V6 to an economical Toyota Prius.
The number one factor that affects fuel economy around town is weight: A lighter car uses less fuel. Don’t get a more powerful engine than you really need. A more efficient setup, such as a hybrid or a new clean diesel can make a big difference too. Use public transport, ride a bicycle or walk wherever you can. It’s good for your health too 🙂
UPDATE: Here is a good page that explains in more detail why the claims for “HHO” don’t add up (use Ctrl+A to mark the text as it’s difficult to read as dark text on dark background).
Hey Joe, like the passion in your post. 2yrs ago, I brought an open mind to the topic of HHO gas and water fuel cells and whether it could actually produce the benefits you cited in your opening. I documented every article I could find on the topic at http://aquygen.blogspot.com and really, what it comes down to for me as to whether this is viable and important technology is whether or not a dynamometer test shows that it is what it says it is. Referring to the 2nd law of thermodynamics assumes it’s a correct scenario to apply it to in the first place. There are real world tests being done today—trucking fleets, buses, etc. These folks are relying on dynamometer proofs of concept and then based on that installing them on some test vehicles in their fleet. In california, public money is being spent on this technology. So, bottom line—ask them to prove it and you’ll be surprised what you find. The national hydrogen association endorses this technology by the way. Google it or check out my site:
http://aquygen.blogspot.com
Where have you been guy? Wake up! You have the mindset of OPEC.
Mike, I would rather call it the mindset of a scientist.
I would like nothing better than a clean source of energy, without contributing to global warming. However, the known facts do not support these claims, which have not been proven under verifiable conditions. If you make extraordinary claims about some technology, you better had solid evidence.
Isn’t it odd that claimed free-energy devices always get used in cars that have existing gasoline engines or battery sets, rather than running these gadgets standalone? If they weren’t run in tandem with some conventional energy source that would prove very quickly if they work or not, but I suppose that may not necessarily be what those “inventors” want.
j, if these HHO generators actually improved fuel efficiency as claimed then it makes no sense that manufacturers don’t use them. Sure, some manufacturers have developed technology that might compete with “hydrogen on demand” *if* the latter actually worked. However, just because Toyota has hybrids and a couple of manufacturers have efficient direct injection diesels, why wouldn’t everybody else use this stuff rather than spending millions licensing hybrids and diesels from those other companies? Economically this water power claim makes no sense at all, even if you ignore the most basic laws of physics.
Ignore all the car manufacturers in North America, Europe and Japan: Why does China, India, Cuba – you name it – not use “free energy” from water (assuming it actually worked), countries which have *no* vested interest in existing car technologies and which are importers of oil just like we are?
Again, it makes no sense at all. To claim that you can make energy from a machine that takes water as input and outputs only water, requires not only to ignore the laws of science, it also requires one to believe in a worldwide conspiracy.
I visited the site you listed. What I would like to see (and what I didn’t find there) was a government study or certification that actually verified the efficiency claims made by these HHO generator salesguys.
One of your blog posts mentions that none of these kits have been submitted for EPA verification by their makers yet. I wonder why not, if they work as well as they claim.
Actually, there is quite a few papers on it. Here are a couple. Some have a cost.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=29367&id=7&qs=No%3D10%26N%3D4294952967
http://www.ntpefs.com/idaho_national_laboratory_hydrogen_study.html
http://www.sae.org/servlets/SiteSearch?charset=iso-8859-1&ht=0&qp=&col=portal&qs=&sae_qt1=&qc=&pw=100%2525&ws=0&la=en&qm=0&st=1&nh=25&lk=1&rf=0&oq=&rq=0&si=1&ql=&jsp_name=simplesearch.jsp&qt=hydrogen+injection+assist&ofType=ALL&x=0&y=0
A well thought out argument, but missing one key piece. Those who add a small amount of hydrogen to the gasoline do not claim anything that violates any of the laws of thermodynamics. The issue is that in an internal combustion engine, especially diesel, not all the fuel burns. Hydrogen, being highly dispersive and having a broad burning range (lean/rich), does not add extra power in and of itself. The claim is that injecting a small amount of hydrogen increases the amount of fuel that burns . Without the hydrogen injection, that fuel is potential energy going out the tailpipe. The energy gain by burning that otherwise unburnt fuel could quite feasibly more than offset the energy loss to produce the hydrogen.
I have not personally tested any of these systems, although the links above make it clear that some pretty good scientists have looked at it and confirmed it. The Idaho Laboratories report states that the primary reason is the flame speed – a property which is a direct result of the two factors I listed above. Essentially, the high flame speed allows the flame to travel throughout the entire combustion chamber, ensuring that all (or nearly all) the fuel burns.
An additional question is the long-term impact to the engine. I do not know if there have been any studies about that.
So, the injection claims may have merit. However, any claims to run a vehicle purely on water are certainly bogus. Your arguments are valid for that scenario.
Paul Faulstich
President
Hydrogen Energy Center
http://www.HydrogenEnergyCenter.org
I agree with Paul. The argument presented above is based wholly on the contention that the automobile will operate solely on HHO. That premise is wrong. The correct premise of the HHO generators is very eloquently described by Paul above: the injection of HHO into the air/fuel mixture enhances the amount of gasoline actually burned during the combustion process and reduces the amount emitted as waste.
Hello Paul and Jeff, thanks for the feedback.
The argument that HHO injection into the intake manifold somehow increases the degree to which fuel is burnt assumes that in modern engines a significant amount of fuel does remain unburnt under average driving conditions. I don’t believe that is actually the case. Incomplete burn would mean high hydrocarbon and CO levels in the exhaust gas, which would be incompatible with meeting current emission standards in developed countries.
While a catalytic converter on a gasoline engine could mask incomplete combustion in the engine, that would not be the case for diesel without catalyst. Nevertheless diesels tend to have low CO levels except at high altitude or heavy loads (whenever you see soot clouds). The fact is, diesel engines run with excess oxygen at partial loads, especially turbo diesels, which ensure that their CO levels are pretty low and there’s little extra energy to be gained from completely oxidizing that small amount of CO left, if HHO injection could achieve that.
As for gasoline engines with emission control systems (exhaust catalyst with oxygen sensor), they aim for a mixture that achieves complete combustion, but at full throttle tend to deviate from the ideal and run richer. The leftover CO then is primarily a function of a relative lack of oxygen. HHO injection would not be able to change that, as it adds no oxygen beyond what is needed to combust the hydrogen.
How much HHO gas is actually mixed into the air intake? One kg = one litre of water (roughly a quart) produces about 2300 litres of H2/O2-mixture. A 2 litre engine running at 2000 rpm breathes in 2 x 2000 x 60 = 240,000 litres of air per hour. The FAQ of water4gas.com claims 2700 miles per gallon of water, that’s about 700 miles per litre and probably 15 or more operating hours. What we get then is 160 litres of HHO per operating hour, which is only 1/1500 or 0.067% of the air intake of the engine. Note that mixtures of less than 4% hydrogen in air (1/25) won’t even burn. It is hard to believe then that 60 times less hydrogen will have a significant impact on the combustion of the gasoline/air mixture.
Hi, I am very interested in looking at those claims and was very suspicious about it. However, I like to add my 2cents here.
What about another scenario ? Assuming that gasoline contains double bonded hydrocarbons, as that type of ethene, so this means that there are some c=c bond in the mixture. The energy requires to ignite and burn this type of product is quite high. By adding hydrogen and oxygen into the gas mixture at a high temperature and catalytic environment, some of the hydrogen is combined with those c=c product, making them regular c-c bond, as this process is called hydrogenation.
Now, hydrogen amount decreases so the ratio coming out from the water electrolysis decreases, meaning more oxygen. Both will hugely increase the fuel efficiency.
I don’t believe the claim that it is a new energy, but it is merely a question of fuel and engine efficiency.
Information on hydrogenation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogenation
Hello Scott, a few comments about the Idaho National Laboratory study on the California Environmental Engineering test on the diesel engine.
They quote studies according to which flame velocity increases if “less than 1% of the inducted air volume” is supplemented with hydrogen.
In my example of the 2 litre engine running at 2000 rpm which inducts 240,000 litres per hour that 1% would be 2,400 litres of H2 per hour. It takes some 4,6 kWh of electricity to make one cubic metre (1,000 litres) of hydrogen in the most efficient idustrial electrolysis equipment (which means it’s going to be significantly more in the hobbyist “jam jar” type electrolysers described in those e-books, but I’ll ignore that for now). 2,400 litres therefore take at least 2,4 x 4.6 kWh = 11 kWh of energy per hour, which is a power of 11 kW or 14 hp. To put that into perspective, average car alternator max out at between 1 and 3 kW. A generator at 85% efficiency would draw about 16 hp in mechanical power to produce 14 hp = 11 kW of electrical power. Given the electrical losses in electrolysis and the efficiency of a four stroke engine, the produced hydrogen will only supply enough energy for 10% of that, about 1.6 hp. For fuel efficiency to remain neutral or even improve, the engine effectively would have to produce at least some 14.5 hp more from its existing gasoline or diesel fuel through improved combustion.
Note that for petrol (gasoline) engines faster combustion (higher flame velocity) is not usually desired: it’s what leads to knocking, which destroys engines. High-octane fuel, which contains slow-burning additives like MTBE, ethanol or methanol burns more slowly, allowing its use in higher compression engines where low-octane fuel would burn too violently. Diesel engines are different, because there the fuel is not premixed with air before spark ignition. It’s injected into the compressed air and burns as its droplets travel through the combustion chamber to reach oxygen.
Edmond, I don’t think hydrogenation is a factor here, for two reasons:
1) Oxygen (O2) has a greater affinity to hydrogen (H2) than do the alkenes that can hydrogenated to alkanes. Simply speaking, you get more energy out of burning hydrogen with oxygen than hydrogenating for example ethene to ethane.
2) Oxygen itself has a higher affinity for the unsaturated carbon bonds than does hydrogen. Therefore you’d get oxidation (of either hydrogen or hydrocarbons) before any hydrogenation could take place.
For both reasons very little hydrogenation would take place in the presence of free oxygen.
Also, you state that hydrogenation leads to more oxygen being available by taking the hydrogen out of the mix. Even if hydrogenation would take precedence over oxidation (which it doesn’t), it would ultimate not free up any oxygen because the hydrogenated hydrocarbons require more oxygen to burn than the unhydrogenated hydrocarbons. The final oxygen balance therefore doesn’t change.
Im sorry to hear all you ignorant people that cannot belive one another, first of all it takes 1 horspower to produce 25 amps at full load with a typical alternator, and my pwn hydrogen booster that I created in HIGHSCHOOl takes only 2-5 amps. get your stuff straight and do a little research, it also helps to do little experiments instead of sitting on your but in front of a computer.
Okay, as someone who spent a number of years in the automotive industry, I’d like to take a stab at things here. And if what I cover is too elementary for some of you, then I apologize for that.
First, a diesel burns by compression, not spark. This means that, instead of a single spark point that has to spread throughout the combustion chamber, the fuel is ignited more or less simultaneously. This makes for hotter combustion, creating more power in the form of torque. It also explains why diesel engines knock.
Gas engines, however, do shove a lot of unburned fuel out the exhaust valves. In the early ’80s automakers introduced exhaust gas regeneration (EGR) in which exhaust gases are piped back into the exhaust manifold to collect this unburned fuel as use it. The flaw with this is that, eventually, the exhaust has to leave the tailpipe, meaning that only a small percentage of gasses are recycled. It’s also important to note that, due to all the emissions control equipment that started stacking up and sucking horsepower in the ’70s, engines ran much hotter and as a result much of the unburned fuel was burned inside the exhaust system (where it didn’t do anybody ANY good). because this occurred upstream from the catalytic converter, tailpipe emissions were roughly what would be expected form complete combustion.
I know that there was burning inside the exhaust system simply due the the amount of heat generated (if you didn’t have a heat shield under your 1975 or later car, your carpeting would catch fire), and the amount of soot inside the exhaust system (fuel that burned inside the exhaust burned cooler and generated a lot more particulate matter as a result).
As far as the practicality of these HHO systems, I ahve never had any direct experience with them. However, given that a normally aspirated gas engine produces around 18MM/Hg of vacuum at idle but can drop to 3 or 4 (or less) under hard acceleration, and that diesel engine do not produce vacuum at all (they have to have supplementary vacuum pumps) I’m a little skeptical of a system that purports to add something to the fuel mix without an injection system.
My two cents.
Hey Joe, I’m glad to see that someone else is being pragmatic about this “technology” instead of believing the impossible on blind faith. I’m a chemist have been debunking this on several forums and it seems that it is me against the world. It is good to see that I’m not the only person who knows this is a scam.
In the end, the arguments used by supporters of water for gas always boil down to “it’s a conspiracy”. I think when that is the only argument left on your side that it is time to admit you’re wrong. I mean, come on – do they really think Newton’s laws of thermodynamics were created as part of a global oil conspiracy??? That is just crazy talk.
@KC Demoyse:
I don’t doubt that you can generate *some* hydrogen with 2-5 amps of current, but it won’t be enough to have any real impact on how much fuel your engine uses. That current at 12 V is a mere 24-60 Watts of power, so at 5 kWh per cubic metre of hydrogen (5 Wh per litre) it will produce 5 to 12 litres of hydrogen per hour at best. The engine sucks in hundreds of thousands of litres of air per hour. As a result, the little bit of hydrogen will be too diluted (worse than 10,000:1) to make any difference whatsoever.
These hydrogen generators are a placebo whose only purpose is to get people to send cash to the snake oil salesmen who peddle them and to the shills who advertise them for kickbacks.
@Bob:
Yes, I’ve come across the conspiracy talk too. It doesn’t make any sense to me either, even if you disregard the science aspect.
No matter what one may think about countries like the US or in the EU, what reason would there be for countries like China, India or just about any country that is a net oil importer to suppress or ignore energy saving technology?
None of these explanations by the “water fuel” lobby (excuse my pun) hold any water.
Hi Guys, i dont seems to agree with the analysis that is not actaully possible to run car on water.
From what i ve seen, people are doing it and it working as expected. Because someone has spent donkey years in automobile industry does not mean that he will know all…. knowing fully well that we re in technology age and research keeps going
The question i would like to ask is that which one out of the paraded “water fuel” products have u guys tried before making analysis.
http://www.carpoweredwitwater.blogspot.com
Victor, you’re entitled to an opinion of course and you’re welcome to try and use facts to convince me that I’m wrong and you’re right, just as I’ve tried to do for my point of view.
It is said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Automobile manufacturers with billion dollar research budgets are struggling to beat their competitors by 5 or 10 percent and then some guys claims mileage improvements of 40 or 50% from a $50 or $100 kit using a jam jar, a rubber hose and some copper wire. This doesn’t pass the common sense test.
Some of the claims made would violate fundamental laws of physics. Most of the people peddling this stuff don’t seem to have more than the most basic grasp of science.
If the makers of these kits want me to believe that what they’re selling is more than snake oil, they are very welcome to submit their products to the EPA or similar national institution for testing. Until they do I reserve the right to question the accuracy of their figures.
Every car manufacturer submits its cars to such testing before being able to claim fuel economy figures in their advertising. Toyota, GM and Volkswagen don’t expect me to buy samples of all their cars for private fuel economy testing for me to decide which one is best. So what’s so different about the “water fuel” guys that you expect me to buy their kits on trust?
I checked the URL you gave. That blog mentions only a single URL, which in turn is a site shilling for the runyourcarwithwater.com scam, using an affiliate ID of chemmy1379. Are you “chemmy1379” and do you get money for every purchase someone makes at that site after coming in with your affiliate ID? If so, how much?
My views are not tainted by economic interests: I don’t hold any oil company or automotive stock. Instead I buy fuel like everyone else. I currently pay 190 yen per litre (US$6.80 per US gallon) of unleaded premium fuel and consequently I will soon be swapping my Audi A4 for a Toyota Prius, which is supposed to arrive next month.
runyourcarwithwater.com is registered via Domains by Proxy, Inc. That is, the real registrant has chosen to hide his identity behind a proxy service. I wonder why a legitimate business would do that.
Victor, you say “people are doing it and it working as expected”.
The only part of those websites that support fuel saving claims (though not necessarily the numbers claimed) is when they start messing with the oxygen sensor. For example, “water4gas.com” shows a picture of an oxygen sensor (lamda probe), accompanied by the explanation: “You will learn several methods, in fact ALL the possible methods to lean the air/fuel mixture. Shown here is the simplest and cheapest of them all. It is the one method that gained 56% better mileage in my Ford Bronco-II.”
The oxygen sensor in a car is used by the engine management to balance the fuel/air mixture so that both CO/HC and NOx are minimized in the emission control system (exhaust catalyst).
Disabling it makes the engine run on a lean mixture (more air than needed to burn all fuel), which causes an increase in smog-causing NOx from the exhaust pipe. Effectively that part of the smog control system stops working. It also makes the engine run hotter, which can damage your pistons and valve seats.
You don’t need to hook up a hydrogen generator to get better fuel mileage from running the engine lean, but either way you’re risking the need for a new engine, so any saving at the pump may be only in the short term.
I’d just like to add that I appreciate this discussion. I first learned about running cars on water by clicking on an AD on CNN.com.
I’ve been a Ford engine performance tech for the past 10 years, so it was rather odd not to hear Ford any other car maker out there really going after this concept.
Whether the claims are true or not, I can’t say as I myself haven’t tried it, but I do plan on buying a small cheap car I can afford to try this out on and burn it to ground if need be.
Here is a post I made on a different blog when confronted with “but so many people use it and it works for them – how can you deny that?”
Why are hundreds of people using this? Because it is easy to get scammed but very hard to admit that you’ve been scammed. There is also the kind of placebo effect that can occur anytime someone is manipulated by the power of suggestion. There is more to the placebo effect than just “believing it will work, so in you mind it works”. People will do things to contribute to making it work – they’ll be more conscious in the way they drive. That alone can improve gas mileage by 30+%. They’ll round down gallons and round up miles when calculating mileage. “Belief” biases have been proven to exist even when trained scientists are doing research and are aware of their snares. People will use their “best tank” data (ie, one time it worked out to 45mpg, so a person claims the car regularly gets that mileage) instead of the average data. There are so many ways that people can inadvertantly cheat to get the results to avoid undermining the expense and effort of buying and installing the system (and of course not wanting to admit you are wrong after hyping something like this to a bunch of people). These phenomona are the scourge of science and always have been. There are numerous examples of scientists even duping the scientific community because they fell into these traps, and some of them still won’t admit it even after being fully discredited (look into “cold fusion” if you want an example – in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t a “conspiracy theory” crowd claiming that the cold fusion experiment was successful and that the government is supressing it for XYZ reasons, because conspiracy theorists are usually nothing more than people using really bad science).
Wow
Mindset of a scientist hey
I am sure a scientist would do his own tests.
I red all the blurb on the net and thought why not.
I took 2 sheets of stainless about 8″x8″ and folded them in half stuck them in a glass jar with 2 teaspoons of bi carb connected them to a battery and wacked it in my thirsty pig of a nissan patrol. I noticed the difference immediately.
I added a second cell and did a 40 kilometer run up the highway. I went from 3.5 ks / litre to 6.7 ks / litre.
I then did the same to my v6 3.9ltr station wagong and went from 8 ks / litre to 11.8 ks/ litre .
both cars are on lp gas around town both car are about 30% better on fuel
so ha
You cant tell me it doesnt work
I found this nice sticky post on the Mythbusters website that everyone should read. He goes through all the thermodynamics calculations and proves that this is impossible:
http://community.discovery.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9551919888/m/2321969559
Great work Joe. I had put my message similiar to yours, though it is pretty short, in many of these sites. I am not sure whether they have put it up there! You had put it up really in detail.
The only thing which I have no knowledge about, is the effect of the HHO gas in the combustion chamber (cylinder) increasing the efficiency of gas. I searched the web on this with no success. I personally wish it does, considering the gas price. Is there so much of energy content left in the exhaust gas?
Don’t believe in conspircy??!!
Watch “Who Killed the electric car?”
Most of the posts on here seem like pompous “armchair” scientists with severe limits to their thinking and mindsets. Why? Because every naysayer HAS NOT INSTALLED A SYSTEM ON THEIR CAR TO TEST FOR THEMSELVES!!! It’s idiocy to make proclamations about another’s claim without PROVING it wrong.
joew, look at Craig’s post and PROVE HIM WRONG!
Intelligent people look very foolish when they resort to “armchair” science in an effort to disprove someone they accuse of doing the very same thing! ~ Making a claim without proof.
Now, I am not an advocate of either side – but I will say this – NONE of you naysayers have built a system, installed it, tested it, and told us that it does not function. We do, however, have a littany of people who have done myriad of tests and say it DOES work, including Craig above.
I, like joew and the rest of you who say it’s “Impossible” SHOULD do, am going to spend the USD$100 to build and install a water/hydrogen hybrid system – and scientifically record my fuel consumption changes. I will remove the system and forget about if it doesn’t work. If it does work, when I share the news I am sure the fools who say it will not work will tell me it’s because I wanted it too so I fudged the numbers. Pathetic….
Wow. great blog….I agree with everything you say here.
Sparky, I guess you didn’t hear about all the new electric cars coming out. You want to know who killed the electric car 20 years ago? Lack of technology to make it work good enough for most people. Now we have much better batteries and computer systems to control everything (not to mention outrageous gas prices), so these things have finally made electric cars practical. It wasn’t a conspiracy.
Arturo, if there was a movie that was incredibly offensive to you, would you rush out to the movie theatre and support it with your money so you can prove to everyone it is offensive? I’m not supporting that garbage with my money! Do you realize how many gas saver scams are out there each claiming to to work even though NONE of them actually work? Should I run out and buy those as well? Why would I want to give my hard earned money to crooks for a product that won’t work? How many people have to prove that this garbage doesn’t work? Do we all have to buy it before we are allowed to critisize it? I’m sure the people stealing money by selling snake oil would LOVE IT if that was the code of ethics on critisizing a product – you have to waste your money on it before you are allowed to say anything negative. That is ridiculous!
Arturo,
in this day and age where consumers are supposed to be protected from fraudulent claims by unscrupulous vendors, do we still have to test stuff individually at our own expense (even if the claim defies common sense)?
In the 21st century, do I really have to buy a jar of snake oil and drink it to see if it cures my illness before I can call it junk medicine? Last that I know, any pharmaceutical company these days has to prove effectiveness and safety before they can make any medical claims for a product. They can’t even sell it otherwise.
Likewise, Toyota has to submit their cars to the EPA for crash and fuel economy testing before they can claim the Prius is safe and does 47 miles to the gallon (or whatever), same for other manufacturers.
None of these jam jar kit vendors have submitted their kits to any comparable testing.
I am not even aware of any road tests from car magazines, which evaluate cars in real life conditions and who certainly might be interested if this stuff worked.
The only “evidence” we have are claims by people like “Craig”, which can’t be verified because all we know about him is the first name under which he posts here.
If I were a modern day snake oil vendor who makes money from gullible people who buy such kits, maybe I’d post here too and claim some kit doubled my mileage. It would be in my economic interest. It would be in my interest to get people to try such kits, because each person who tries it spends $50, $100 or $300 on it and that’s how the scammers make money. So of course they’ll tell be telling people to try their snake oil before voicing an opinion, because that’s how they generate sales!
If there was an EPA report out there that stated clearly once and for all if this stuff worked or not, there would be no need for consumers to give it a try (and fork over cash to a vendor for the priviledge of testing his unproven technology for him). The onus is on the vendors to prove their products work, not on us sceptical consumers. If any vendor wants to convince me that their claims are solid and my scientific understanding is wrong, fine, post better scientific arguments here or have the EPA test this stuff.
JoeW,
I have read and have to agree, You can’t prove that the Water devise does not work. If you REALLY want to prove it’s a scam.. Then build one and try it. I think as a consumer and a person who is feeling the effect of Big Oil in America, I just can’t buy into either argument for or against. I just find it hard to believe that simple water could be so powerful but at the same time I think it takes some real arrogance to call this thing a scam without positive proof from the naysayer.
Why don’t you build this thing and THEN tell us if it’s a scam!
As a lifelong skeptic, I have found that you can’t say something is impossible when you have not tried it yourself.
Try it, then let us know the TRUTH!
Thanks
Sam
Additionally,
the article from the Mythbuster site is full of numbers that every person won’t understand. The person posting at that site also has not tested the devise or theory. Bottom line… Test it… if it works it works… if it doesn’t then sue the people who sold you the info for false advertising or false claims..
What a novel idea!! Imagine that.. making a business own up to it’s claims!
Perhaps you should try this Joe, and show us your court papers after the fact as proof.
Of course in America here we have false claims by businesses all the time and no one ever seems to stop them.. Like, Verizon as an example. Seen the ad where they claim that your covered and there are no dead zones for you Cell phone? Wrong.. I even loose a signal when I am in SIGHT of a verizon tower. And what about the oil companies? Demand is so high and Volume is low, so the price goes up.. Sure! That’s why the oil company execs take home $50 million dollars a QUARTER!! One guy.. $50 Million!!
Thanks
Sam
Pingback: does this work? "run your car on water" - BodybuildingForYou - Bodybuilding Forums
I have to agree with Joe..And appreciate the effort here by all. But I go with “REALLY” Like on Saturday Night Live…LOL
Gas engines now running on water.. “REALLY”
Water is greatest gift to mankind no doubt and to be respected and appreciated. But I agree if this were true the big companies, auto giants, investors and the like would have done this and made there fortunes long ago. Even a single inventor would have found angel capitol and
this Kit would at very least be offered by every auto dealer at purchase time as well as the huge
automotive after market.
Cars running on Water.. LOL
And how about OJ for President?
Hello,
There may be many companies out here that are selling this product for big proffit but really if you do a simple search on youtube you can find out how to build one very easily. I plan on building one from sratch this week. I am going to be using a glass jar for the initial test but for my final version I will be using plastic tubes and such. I will document my progress and I will tell you all if this is real or not.
Personally looking at the facts on you tube and such if you build it right you can dramatically improve you gas mileage. But I can be wrong.
Hey Sam, how do you know you can’t fly? Have you ever jumped off a building and tried it? Your argument that you have to try something to know it won’t work is just wrong. Quit using it. Water for gas is either scientifically sound and it might work or it isn’t scientifically sound and it won’t work. In this case it is the latter. No one here has provided an argument that has provided any scientific basis for this product.
Ben C, seriously, You Tube is a terrible place to get facts. There was a time when the FTC didn’t regulate advertisements back in the 60s and earlier when you’d see all kinds of crazy gadgets for sale – anything from x-ray glasses to body builder supplements that would turn you from a skinny twerp to a hulking monster in 7-10 days (one of my favorites was an advertisement for menthol cigarettes telling people that doctor RECOMMEND them to treat a cold!). People from that era learned to be skeptical of these advertisements and knew better than to believe them. We aren’t used to blatently false advertising, but now, thanks to the internet, it is back. There are all kinds of vehicles on the internet for spreading lies without retribution and this generation hasn’t yet realized that there are people who will sell all kinds of lies just to get your money. Buy enough of these products and you’ll learn.
The model T was originally an electric car. Hmmm, lack of technology? But for cheap fossil fuels all cars would have been electric…
@Bob
Well I don’t know if the youtube videos are real or not. What I do know is how to make the same generators they are using. So I am going to make a generator without buying a kit or instrution plans or what not. I plan to scientificly test this and and hopefully this works. On paper it looks impossible but there are forums where people are saying this works. So the truth won’t be reveiled until we actually test it in real life. That is how many things are discovered is by breaking the boundries. Newtons laws weren’t just discovered by caclulating it on paper but by physicals tests.
I will be filming my progress and posting it on the web. I will give you all the link when it is up and running. FYI I am not affilated with any of the running on water companies.
Newton, like all great physicists, was a mathematician and his work was based in mathematics. Physics in general is based in math.
Here is the problem in this scenario. The concepts that you are testing have been understood for a very long time. There is nothing new here. You aren’t going to “discover the wheel”. The problem lies in your own understanding of science. You don’t really understand the science that is happening here, so you think something that is impossible is actually possible. As I’ve hinted at before, it is kind of like when a kid thinks he can fly by flapping his arms hard enough. He is able to believe such folly because he doesn’t understand the science (and because he is letting his personal desires interfere with rational thought). To me, this “water for gas” movement is nothing more than that – a childish fantasy of getting very good gas mileage by “flapping your arms”. Good luck!
Meanwhile, real breakthroughs are happening every day by real scientists who are trying to make the world a better place. The more people buy garbage like “water for gas”, the more other shiesters realize there is a market for this stuff, and more scam products will enter the market shadowing real technology (ie, you probably know nothing about direct injection or pneumatic energy storage which are a couple more recent things that are being done to increase efficiency that actually WORK). If nothing else, you could argue that if the money spent on these scams were spent on legitimate research, our energy problems would be solved that much sooner.
@bob
I am very aware of different technologies. I am not your average joe. I love science and all the new technologies being made by people.
I am also aware that hho generators is an old technology.
Newton was a mathmetician but do you think he discovered new theories by just playing with math on paper? No he observed and tested and then came up with the math for those tests.
Now I have a theory that physical happenings can’t all be represented by numbers. It has worked so far but I don’t think it will work forever as we discover more and more stuff about our universe.
All I am trying to say is that this hho generator in your car can work or not. Math isn’t going to prove it one way or another, it can make an estimate as to what will happen. I may not understand the science of what’s happening but if I get positive results then something is happening.
@SPARKY who recommended watching “Who Killed the electric car?” and
@kai (“But for cheap fossil fuels all cars would have been electric…”):
Electricity is not an energy source (except in naturally occurring cases such as lighting), it’s an energy carrier because its energy comes from other sources, such as burning coal or fuel oil or from flowing water. For example, in the United States 49% of electricity is generated by burning coal, another 20% by burning natural gas, both of which are fossil fuels. Therefore to say that electric cars are an alternative to cars using internal combustion engines that run on fossil fuels largely misses the point, as the bulk of the electricity used by plug-in electrics would still come from fossil fuels.
The situation would be radically different only if the electricity to charge car batteries were to come from wind power, geothermal, solar or nuclear energy, which currently it does not. So when you’re discussing plug-in electric cars (or hydrogen for that matter), you always need to discuss how the electricity (or the hydrogen) will be generated, what the primary energy source will be. No car that needs a coal-fired power station to run is “zero emission” or “CO2 free”.
A “water-powered” car doesn’t have a primary energy source at all, therefore it can’t work. It’s a perpetual motion engine hoax that fronts for a money making scheme.
@Ben C:
“I may not understand the science of what’s happening but if I get positive results then something is happening.”
If positive results can be obtained, then why does none of these kit vendors have their technology verified by the EPA? Why doesn’t any one of them have their cars road-tested by a car magazine of their choice in any country of their choice? Why are none of these wild claims independently verified by any kind of authoritative institution?
If these kits worked, their sellers could only gain by having them verified and having the facts exposed to a wider audience. They don’t seem particularly interested in that.
Your governments, big oil companies and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) do NOT want you to have this technology! Besides all of the little guys selling these water fuel hybrid kits on the internet, you will not see in the near future commercially available water hybrid engines for sale en masse because the IMF, big oil companies and your governments are afraid that the global economy, which revolves around oil, would collapse! That’s why you see so many naysayers regarding this hydrogen on demand from water car kits.
Pete, your argument about a global conspiracy doesn’t make any sense. The rising cost of fuel is *harming* economies, as consumers are cutting back everywhere they can to still be able to meet their fuel bills.
Far from leading to an economic collapse, a surplus of oil would stimulate the world economy as it frees up demand for other goods and services (ignoring for the moment that cheap oil would not be sustainable). If gas prices rise a lot of people stop eating out, or they cut back on travel and anywhere else they can. This costs jobs. It makes it more difficult for politicians to get reelected, from Jimmy Carter to G. W. Bush.
Countries like Japan or Germany that have no domestic oil production have nothing to gain from suppressing a technology that (if it worked!) would save them billions of dollars in imports and insulate them from price shocks.
Countries like China and India are only just starting down the path to wide availability of private cars and setting up a car manufacturing industry. They would have *no* vested interests in protecting any particular technologies. Why wouldn’t they employ “water power” if it worked?
Why would North Korea trade away its nukes for fuel oil if it could simply make free energy from water in jam jars?
This global conspiracy argument is implausible. I frankly can’t see why any thinking person would buy into it.
I am not a scientist nor do I profess to be, but if Hydrogen releases 5 times more energy as you have stated over gasoline, then why would the mileage be about the same. That doesn’t make sense to me. The bottom line is this. You can bad mouth anything and put any spin on it that you want, but have you actually tried to build one? If not I would recommend that you not knock it until you tried. The world is full of inventions that science has said that could not be done, but someone figured it out.
The factor of five was a guestimate from memory. Actually, the energy of 1 kg of hydrogen is the equivalent of about 4 litres (weighing about 3.2 kg) of petrol / gasoline.
Here’s how that factor works in practice: A petrol engine is about 20% efficient. That means, the energy of 4 litres of gasoline produces 80% heat, while only the equivalent of 0.8 litres of gasoline is available in mechanical energy to drive an alternator. When you then generate electricity and split water with it, again 50% or so is lost as heat. You generate 0.1 kg of hydrogen, the equivalent of only 0.4 litres of gasoline. When you burn 4 litres of fuel to produce the equivalent of 0.4 litres of fuel, you have really burnt an extra 3.6 litres of fuel for no benefit at all!
The hydrogen produced in the “HHO generator” is not a power source at all. It’s more like driving with your handbrake on. All you’re doing is to make your engine work harder (burning more fuel) while generating waste heat, with no possible net gain.
There is no positive effect from “HHO generators”, only a negative one. In practice however you’re unlikely to notice: Thanks to the small size of the jam jar systems their negative effect on fuel economy is too small to really notice.
I don’t have to build this system any more than I have to go out and buy a bucket, fill it with water, punch a hole in it and then carry it around to see if as the water leaks out the water level in it rises or (as common sense would suggest) falls with time. If the bottom line of a closed system is a net *energy loss* it can not be a viable energy source.
If you want to prove otherwise then you’re quite welcome to post some scientific facts here to back up your point of view. Alternatively, have it tested by the EPA or the staff of a car magazine or any other reputable third party. I won’t hold my breath for that to happen.
I would like to add a little input of my own…
law of thermal dynamics states the hotter something is to the colder end increases efficency alone, if the fuel is burnt hotter like in high octane rating fuel it is more power. You are right if the computer thinks the fuel is lean it will use more fuel not less, if more of the fuel is burnt then less Oxygen is in the exhaust. That is why you want to trick the computer into thinking other wise. I the amount of Hydrogen that is generated is enough to burn the unspent fuel more efficiently then it will also produce more heat, and power. If Hydrogen gives an extra kick in the cylinder then it will be able to replace gas that would burn partial way instead, which means it will help in that since also. I want to try this in a vehicle myself I have a curiosity of a skeptical scientist, see with the general populace if you get to in detail of how something works it confuses them then they don’t want to buy something, beyond that the Toyota hybrids are using the same system just not burning Hydrogen the electrical alternative is actually a less efficient way of doing this. When using more conversions in your system more energy is lost due to heat. The hydrogen system uses heat as a useful process in changing it into mechanical energy, I would like to know more on what you think..
I think the best test of this is set up a system with the avg joe that does not pay for the system and has no benefit from this system except better fuel economy, and have them drive like they normally do with out knowledge of this system and see if they notice a difference