The Water Car Hoax

February 22, 2010 by jason

I'm really going into the Lion's den with this one and I don't know if this is going to be blogger suicide, but having read so many people's views about these 'Water Cars' I really felt like I had to write this commentary. Before I start, let me just establish my background, and why I feel qualified to criticise the feasibility of the Water Car technology. I have studied basic Chemistry and Nuclear Physics, have an Honors Degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and most importantly have taken a lifelong interest in the evolution of innovative ideas and technologies. If you are the kind of person who promotes these sorts of technologies you'll probably believe that my years at University have only brainwashed me into thinking the way that they want me to think. But no matter what your views, I do encourage you to read this article, if only to get a different perspective on things.

Water What?

Put simply, a Water Car is a vehicle that uses only Water as a catalyst for the production of energyt. The water is dissociated into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and this is then burnt in a combustion engine to drive the vehicle. Since the combustion of Hydrogen in Oxygen produces Water as well as heat, it would mean that the car could consume nothing while producing energy indefinitely. It would consequently violate (among others) the First Law of Thermodynamics which states that you can't make or destroy energy.

Why Water burns

Before I explain how Hydrogen is obtained from Hydrogen, let's first think about how Water can be created from Hydrogen and Oxygen. Hydrogen is a highly flammable gas, which basically means that it has a lot of spare energy. If heat is added to Hydrogen in the presence of Oxygen, it will burn very rapidly. This basically means that the energy "stored" in the Hydrogen molecule is given up and released as heat, light and - in the case of an explosion - even sound. This release of energy is the reason why when you burn a flammable gas, the heat it releases is larger than the heat you used to set the reaction (e.g. from a match). Burning (or Combustion) is a chemical reaction, which means that there are reagents and chemical products. When Hydrogen burns in the presence of Oxygen it forms Water Vapor.

You can think of Water as the depleted form of Hydrogen. It is also possible to reverse this process and split the Hydrogen from the water molecule (i.e. give Hydrogen its energy back). This is done by either adding heat or electricity to the water. To reverse the combustion reaction we need to give back the energy that was released when the hydrogen burned, we need to do this not only to comply with the First Law of Thermodynamics [1], but also simple common sense. Here is a simplification of the First Law of Thermodynamics, as applied to Hydrogen Combustion:

By burning hydrogen we are moving Hydrogen + Oxygen into a different state, specifically Water + Energy. This reaction can be reversed, which means that Water + Energy can create Hydrogen + Oxygen. The 'Energy' term is the same in both reactions, meaning that the amount of energy released during the combustion of Hydrogen is the same as the amount of energy absorbed when Water decomposes into Hydrogen and Oxygen (ie. Energy in the first sentence is the same amount of energy as in the second sentence).

This reversal of the combustion reaction, when performed by passing electrical current through a body of water, is called electrolysis. If that was a little much to get your head around, you wouldn't be the first. Most people don't really understand what the First Law of Thermodynamics is, and they don't realise that claiming to break the First Law of Thermodynamics with a chemical reaction simply doesn't make any sense. If you look closely at the wording of sentences in the above paragraph, you'll notice that it is as much an expression of common sense as scientific theory. The First Law of Thermodynamics, as applied to chemical reactions, is not an abstract scientific proposition, but rather a simplification of what me and you perceive in our day to day lives. Let me now simplify the First Law of Thermodynamics into a simplified analogy:

If it's here, it came from somewhere. If it's not, it didn't come from anywhere.

If you take anything from this article, please let it be the above sentence. Ofcourse, we can't know everything, and it may well be possible to extract energy, or even create it, using some unexplored properties of Matter, Time and Space. But the water car does no such thing. It does not access the inner workings of the Hydrogen Atom nor does it exploit an unknown property of electricity. The most famous purporter of the Water Car is Stanley Meyer, whose miracle electrolysis technology simply involved pulsing electricity through water. Stanley Meyer claimed that his electrolysis technology could produce Hydrogen which, when burnt would create more energy than was initially used to create the hydrogen. Since the energy released from Hydrogen Combustion is the same energy as which is consumed during the seperation of Hydrogen from Water, you should now be able to see that, aside from breaking the Laws of Thermodynamics, this 'Technology' simply doesn't make any sense.

Enter, the Water Car Hoax

So why would someone say that they can make a car that runs on water? The simple answer in today's world is Ignorance. In the early 90s it was still possible to commercialise on this scam, which some people, such as Stanley Meyer with his patented "Water Fuel Cell" capitalised on. Stanley Meyer was found to be guilty of "Gross and egregious Fraud" by an American Court in 1996 [3]. With the refusal of the US Patent Office to grant patents to Devices that create more energy than they consume (which could be used to create Perpetual Motion Machines), it is difficult for Water Car Fraudsters to patent their inventions. The Conviction of Stanley Meyer further reduced public acceptance of the Water Car, but some hardline supporters still exist. Stanley Meyer Died in 1998 from what a coroner concluded to be a cerebral aeurysm, but some conspiracy theories about what actually happened remain [4].

As I said, nowadays the amount of commercialised websites that sell Water Car technology is virtually zero, as any attempt to sell such a technology will inevitably get you sued. Some non-commercial sites and a wealth of community forums still openly support and discuss the validity of the water car, but amongst the scientific community this issue was settled before the dawn of the 1900s. If you want to make up your own mind about the credibility of these websites, the two most common ones are waterfuelcell.org and waterpoweredcar.com.

The Water Car Pseudo-Hoax

One last important issue to cover is what I have, as of now, coined as the Water Car Pseudo-Hoax. This is something that has come up on the internet as well as on TV for the past few decades. Basically, it involves the marketing of a simple hydrogen fuel cell as a miraculous Water Technology. A brilliant example of this is a 2006 FOX Report. The report talks about an inventor who has recently patented a "revolutionary" electrolysis technology which allows his car to run using only Water as a fuel. The report fails to mention that, although water is sort of used as fuel, every ounce of energy coming out of the car comes from electricity, which has to be provided in order for the car to conver the water into into hydrogen (which it then burns as fuel).

Many websites are now cashing in on this idea, such as water4gas.com, which sells "Conversion Kits" that allow your car to run on both Gasoline and Water. Ever wondered why they don't just make them run purely on Water? Well, now you know: Because the energy has to come from somewhere!

Please don't hate me

I don't know whether the average reader will be able to take something from this article, but if you've read this far I am guessing you found it at least a little informative. I don't claim to know tommorow's fuel source, and I look forward to being here when we discover a way to power our global economy sustainably. Having said that, I also want to do my part in helping to rid the world from fraudsters who prey on people who simple haven't had the good fortune of reading an article like this. Feel free to comment there if there is anything you'd like to discuss with me.