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Man invents water-powered car. No, really.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FBH4_FWBVA

This is setting off my bullshit-o-meter, because I find it hard to believe you can crack water molecules into an energetic gas without there being a greater energy cost somewhere along the way. OTOH if it actually works as advertized... Well, you can kiss the oil companies, coal companies, nuclear power industry, and who know who else buh-bye...

Date: 2006-09-07 03:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] daveamongus.livejournal.com
Uh, wow?

If true...

Wow.

But yeah, I guess that's the big question. He says he uses electrolysis to break the water down, which means an investment of electricity. Obviously for his welder, that's electricity coming off the grid, but in a car? Either it would have to be so little electricity that you could make it go using an alternator and a battery, or else it's still low enough to work with the typical gas-electric hybrid setup.

Date: 2006-09-07 03:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] daveamongus.livejournal.com
It looks like their own website offers more modest claims.

Date: 2006-09-07 04:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wolfstormdancer.livejournal.com
Yeah its kinda far fetched but I thought it was cool. The media can definitly blow things out of proportion. Although with a big enough magnito and alternator you should be able to crack the water as fast as needed. Then its a qustion of pressure into the system to run the engine. As an additive like they say on their website it makes little difference. If you could run the vehicle off f the hydrogen alone.... that would be a breakthough of monumental proportions and he would disapear real quick never to be heard from again.

Date: 2006-09-08 04:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] selenite.livejournal.com
with a big enough magnito and alternator you should be able to crack the water as fast as needed.

An alternator powered with, say, gasoline? Sheesh.

Date: 2006-09-08 04:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] selenite.livejournal.com
Looks like Sen. Domenici (shown helping arrange a government grant) sees these guys as a way to bring pork home to the state.

As for the physics of it, total BS. You can heat water enough to get a plasma of hydrogen ions and hydroxyl radicals (HHO) but it's going to cool down damn fast and the energy goes into heat, not work. As a cutting torch I buy it. But the water is a working fluid, like in hydraulics, not a power source.

There's no way you can power a car usefully with this. You could do straight hydrogen but you're still burning something to break down the water.

I'm sure there's some oil, coal, and nuclear execs watching this and laughing themselves sick at how money that could fund competition is being thrown down this rathole.

Date: 2006-09-08 12:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wolfstormdancer.livejournal.com
So your saying that you have a better Idea? It is feasable to use this as an additive like their website says to extend the MPG but not replace gasoline completely. It is a shame that some people can't use thier imagination. I personaly would like to think this is a step in the right direction but them I'm a electronics engineer not a chemical one.

Date: 2006-09-08 09:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] selenite.livejournal.com
Electronics engineers at my school got taught principles such as "conservation of energy." Farmers produce food from shit, but there's a lot of other materials and energy inputs going into the process. Saying you can get energy from water is just as true as saying you can get food from shit . . . it just ignores all the really difficult and expensive parts of the job.

As for using my imagination, it doesn't take much to imagine someone with connections to a Senator scamming the government out of a few million bucks by deluding the ignorant.

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