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Galveston1 · Oct 7, 2008, 03:59 PM

In the news recently there was shown a small car that runs exclusively on WATER. The water is separated into HHO and then burned as fuel, the emission being only H20. What impact do you see in this on prices, stock market, oil, etc?

tomder55 · Oct 8, 2008, 04:26 AM

My initial take is that pottable water will be a scarce resource in the near future with or without a car that drives on water .

My next question is ,what energy does it take to split the water to the hydrogen and oxygen ,and what energy source is used in the conversion ? My guess is that it takes more energy than it generates .

Finally ;what would us Northeasteners do in the middle of a freezing winter day ?

Galveston1 · Oct 8, 2008, 10:32 AM

I think you are missing the something. When you burn the HHO, you get H2O as a by-product. You use nothing. Why couldn't cities use sea water? They would get energy and purifed water at the same time.
The water is separated by on-board generator, and apparently it is possible to get more energy out of the gas than it takes to separate the water.
Think about a generator at your house run on this technology. You could use all the electricity that you wanted to.
Don't expect the oil industry to endorse this!

I am just wondering what dislocations could occur when this becomes widespread.

NeedKarma · Oct 8, 2008, 10:34 AM

Hmmmm... it takes energy to separate water into its elements. Do you have a link to the science behind this?

tomder55 · Oct 8, 2008, 10:42 AM

NK is right . There is no such thing as free energy . My guess is that it takes more energy to separate the (2)H from the O than is gained .

As for salt water ; how corrosive would that be ? I guess I don't understand the chemistry .

Galveston1 · Oct 8, 2008, 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by NeedKarma

Hmmmm...it takes energy to separate water into its elements. Do you have a link to the science behind this?

Do some research on the 'net, but you will most likely have to go to sites other than official, because most of what is being made public is by individuals. Things like this have historically been suppressed. Not in the interest of big business, you know.
I CAN tell you that a dc current is being electronically altered into a dc pulse that builds in the electrodes to 1000 or more volts. This accelerates the production of the HHO gas. The trick here seems to be that since hydrogen will burn in concentrations from 4% to 75%, it is not necessary to burn it at the extraction rate of 2/1 or straight, but as a fuel gas mixed with air.

This is not the object of my question though. Assume that it is possible and tell me what changes you expect.

excon · Oct 8, 2008, 10:56 AM

Hello Gal:

You're talking about a fuel cell, and the process of electrolysis. That's the conversion of water to it's parts. The process of turning the water into fuel spends more energy than is produced.

The same thing is true with fusion reactors. More energy goes in than comes out. We are on the edge, however, of a breakthrough in BOTH technologies. THEN it'll be great. But, until then, it's only potentially great.

excon

NeedKarma · Oct 8, 2008, 11:02 AM

Ballard is a large Canadian company that specializes in fuel cells. That why it piquéd my interest.

I imagine big oil continuously tries to quash its expansion into all markets to protect their interests. The development of this technology has been going on for many years, I wonder what the stumbling block is? Probably like excon said, the efficiencies aren't there yet.

Galveston1 · Oct 8, 2008, 03:43 PM

Even at the present time many are adding HHO to their fuel mix to increase the mileage. For it to work you need to tweak the signal from the O2 sensor. That requires minimal electronics. We are indeed on the brink of something great. What kind of chaos would be caused if in 5 years this became readily available to everyone?

tomder55 · Oct 9, 2008, 02:21 AM

My guess is that would depend on the cost of the plug in to fire up the electrolysis process. If it was competitive with hydrocarbon energy sources then it would shake up the energy world. I think just the development of flex fuel cars and investing in the infrastructure would have an impact.
You have piquéd my interest ;but right now I can't help but think this sounds like a hoak or a pie in the sky dream ;much like Excon said when referring about fusion reactors .

BTW ;those evil big oil companies also invest in the reseach and exploration of alternative energies sources. Maybe they are not in the forefront but their investments are in the multi-millions.

Galveston1 · Oct 9, 2008, 04:21 PM

It's not in the interest of ANY energy company to encourage the development of FREE energy.
Think about the lost jobs and tax revenue, for a couple of things. Of course, in a while everything would get sorted out and then everybody would be better off. In the meantime if this came on-line abruptly, it could cause some chaos.

ETWolverine · Oct 9, 2008, 07:17 PM

I've read about this technology too. The process of splitting the water into HHO is called electrolysis. And it can work as a fuel source.

First of all, it is not pure water that is being used for the process. There is baking soda mixed in to act as a catalyst. The energy to perform the electrolysis comes from the already existing battery in the car. A wire runs from the battery to the container of water & baking soda, into which an electrical coil is inserted. When the car is turned on, the H2O splits into HHO, and the Hydroxy (HHO) is shunted into the fuel system of the car to act as a fuel source.

Right now, the technology is being used along with traditional gasoline to fuel cars rather than as a substitute. However, according to my research (which I admit is limited) the use of H2O/Hydrogen fuel to supplement gasoline has been able to increase fuel efficiency by as much as 120%, though the more realistic figure is closer to 15-20%. Still, that's a pretty big increase in fuel efficiency.

Here's a website that explains the system. Water2Gas

And here's a video regarding this technology in use. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZOsOB3z3IE

IndEngMan · Jan 17, 2009, 03:30 PM

Now looking at the future possibilities anything is feasible in terms of a car that can run on alternate energy sources. The real issue is what will happen to the economy. In terms of oil and gas consumption its use in motor vehicles of all sizes is relatively small against its use in production of products and energy itself. So that producing a car that can run on water would drop oil prices but not cripple it. As the major energy consumption for power needs to be focused on getting major production cells to be green. So that this introduction of technology must lend itself to major energy consumption before the power of oil can be seen as nothing

TexasParent · Jan 17, 2009, 11:59 PM

My concern is if they only can use fresh water, there is only so much of it to go around and it could become more scarce than oil. Unless of course we all start collecting rain water.

Canada is particularly vulnerable, as they have a large percentage of the worlds fresh water. I can see a pipeline being built to export it to the US. Canadian's will not be happy with that. What about countries and US states that have water supply problems?

I suppose it's a lot easier to potentially collect rain than it is to find more oil which is finite in it's amount anyway.

If they can ever use seawater we are in business.

Hey can you collect the water that these cars give off and recycle it?

galveston · Jan 20, 2009, 03:21 PM

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Hey can you collect the water that these cars give off and recycle it?[/QUOTE]

That's the beauty of the system. The water is separated into its gasses, the gasses are burned in the combustion chamber (recombined) and water exits the engine as steam. No water is lost anywhere.