"Run your car on water"

So, I found this link somehwere (I think it was some google adds or something).

I followed it out of pure curiosity, and now I'm trying to figure out if the website is a joke or for real. And if it's for real, then what's the catch with the product/technology. At some point they imply that it's a perpetuum mobile. That you can run your car solely on water. But considering that you're supposed to use the electricity from your car's batery to separate the water, and then use the burning to move the car AND the generator to refill the baterry. That's a little far our. That's more than perpetuum mobile, that's actually generating more energy than you put in. And all this for $60 in off-the-shelf parts and however much they want for the "instructions".

Wiki says that the water engine schemes are mostly frauds. But according to the Fox News clip on the website, the US government is taking that guy seriously (don't mind the stupid news caster that doesn't have a clue about the news she's reporting about). So, what gives? Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Website: hoax or real? Tech: hoax or real?

Hoax and hoax. I've seen that Fox news report before, years ago. And it's a local Fox channel. Local news affiliates will report on anything.

Can't let the first law of thermodynamics ruin a perfectly workable scam, now can we?

Shouldn't it read "with water" and not "on water?" When I read the title, I naturally thought of this.

nossid wrote:

Can't let the first law of thermodynamics ruin a perfectly workable scam, now can we?

Didya' lern abowt dat durin yer fancy-pants buk lernin?

I did once see a car that used water as fuel. By that, I mean it achieved a fraction of a mile per hour, and traveled a distance measured in small numbers of feet. It was hardly commercially viable, and not terribly scientifically viable at all.

It takes more energy to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water, than you get from burning it.
This is the basic rule of entropy. It's a scam.

Might as well call the site "run your car on F*CKING MAGIC!"

one could wish... if I could run my car on water I would have buckets all over my apartment complex.

Well, from what they're doing it looks like they use cheaper energy (i.e. electric) to increase the efficiency of your hydrocarbon burning (more expensive energy) thus netting the user an increase in savings.... but not energy.

Nothing much more exciting beyond a normal hydrid car.

They're just capitalising on a loophole in how we pay for our energy. If everyone did this then the price per unit of electricity would skyrocket.

Even if this were possible, it strikes me that this would turn out with as many negative consequences as using food to make auto fuels.

Pretty soon we'd be hearing about a water shortage and the price of water would shoot up. Next thing I know, I've got Exxon sinking wells in my neighborhood and taking all my groundwater. Plus, everyone would stop showering, and then nobody would have a choice except driving their own cars to work. Because public transit would be even more odorific than it already is.

Count me out until they can make fuel out of lawn clippings, garbage, and old sweaty socks (i.e., stuff I'm already making at home).

Azure Chicken wrote:

It takes more energy to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water, than you get from burning it.
This is the basic rule of entropy. It's a scam.

Erm... This isn't entirely accurate. You do not separate hydrogen and oxygen from water, you split water into its constituents oxygen and hydrogen. Electrolysis is the keyword here. It still doesn't work though and the link mentions why.

I think we'd have more than enough perfectly fine sea water to use as it is proposed for fusion power in the future.

edit: This link is even more specific on the thermodynamics involved.

Funkenpants wrote:

Pretty soon we'd be hearing about a water shortage and the price of water would shoot up.

Except the byproduct of combustion is water. Come on, now; if you're going to critique make-believe, at least read the science behind it!

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

Except the byproduct of combustion is water. Come on, now; if you're going to critique make-believe, at least read the science behind it! :)

Damn, you're right. I didn't get to that part the first time I went to the website. I was distracted by Rachel's short skirt.

Actually after watching them again, especially the "Water fuel cell" video, I think the trick that they are using is that water is being used as a catalyst for the electricty process, not used as the fuel source itself.

Our easy conversion guide will show you how to use electricity from your car's battery to separate water into a gas called HHO (2 Hydrogen + 1 Oxygen). HHO, also called Brown's Gas or Hydroxy, burns smoothly and provides significant energy - while the end product is just H2O! HHO provides the atomic power of Hydrogen, while maintaining the stability of water.

I think they made it quite clear

Andy wrote:
Our easy conversion guide will show you how to use electricity from your car's battery to separate water into a gas called HHO (2 Hydrogen + 1 Oxygen). HHO, also called Brown's Gas or Hydroxy, burns smoothly and provides significant energy - while the end product is just H2O! HHO provides the atomic power of Hydrogen, while maintaining the stability of water.

I think they made it quite clear ;)

Well he's full of sh*t then, the only thing I can think of that it would help at all if there is a significant amount of "waste" electricity being generated when using a car engine (not sure, maybe it does), and he is simply using that waste to add "usefull" energy back into the system, but that "fuel cell" definitly has something inside that is consumed in the process otherwise it wouldn't be good for only a month.

Personally I believe that Energon Cubes are the energy source of the future.

edit: Oops, I think I got this calculation wrong, sorry.

Funkenpants wrote:

I was distracted by Rachel's short skirt.

This made me actually click the link.

Most websites would be improved with a short skirt Rachel on them.

It'd sure beat that damn Puzzle Pirate ho.

Who the hell has a '56 day' guarantee?

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Who the hell has a '56 day' guarantee?

That was one of the main reasons why I thought it may be a joke website rather than a scam.

This has got to be some sort of sociology experiment to determine exactly how gullible the American public is. This is way too bold to be a real scam.

*Legion* wrote:
Funkenpants wrote:

I was distracted by Rachel's short skirt.

This made me actually click the link.

Most websites would be improved with a short skirt Rachel on them.

It'd sure beat that damn Puzzle Pirate ho.

I completely agree with *Legion*.

It would be infeasible to put a water cell large enough into your car to actually run the engine. But I have seen multiple demonstrations where hydrogen will run a standard piston driven engine. I am sure most of you remember a demonstration of such a fuel cell from high school science.

But this thing is just a common web scam.

Is this guy related to an exiled Nigerian Prince asking for a loan to unlock his inheritance?

Reading their snake oil, an electrolysis add-on that injects H2 and O2 into the firing cycle of a standard engine would probably make said engine more efficient.
If said engine is already burning gas, and has the spare electrical energy to power the electroysis, anyway.

IANAP (I am not a physicist, mechanic, or anything) so I really have no idea if this would be a waste of time or not.

KingGorilla wrote:

It would be infeasible to put a water cell large enough into your car to actually run the engine. But I have seen multiple demonstrations where hydrogen will run a standard piston driven engine. I am sure most of you remember a demonstration of such a fuel cell from high school science.

I remember it from MythBusters!

If the battery is really so inefficient (and so powerful) as to be bleeding off that much extra electrical energy, the far more elegant solution would be to run the car directly off the battery.

Anyone dumb enough to fall for this scam should have their voting rights revoked.