Whatever happened to the water-fueled engine?

Whatever happened to the water-fueled engine? Way back in the late 1970s I heard rumor of a car which ran on water. I was 11 or 12 years old and thought that would be cool, but couldn't figure out how that might work.

About eight years later, I ran across an article in I think USA Today. It told of an alternative-fuel competition at a US university, I think, and one of the vehicles had a water-powered engine.

Kindly, the paper also had a photograph of this car and its engine.

The article explained that the machine split water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and when burned, the only exhaust was a little CO2 and water.

The article stated that the public would not soon see such an engine because it cost about $1,000,000 at that time.

I have since not seen nor heard a word of such an engine. I even searched the internet recently but found nothing (but I'm not a Googlexpert). I would think that now, 15 years or so later, we would be a lot closer to an affordable water-splitting hydrogen engine.

Have you seen one?

General

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105788/

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99086.htm

http://bwt.jeffotto.com/bwt_catalogue/engine.htm

Quote:

UCSA Brown's Gas Engine >>>
When Browns Gas in a cylinder is exposed to a spark, it implodes. The stoichiometric mixture of hydrogen to oxygen is perfectly balanced, but when air is added with a spark an explosion occurs. An internal combustion engine can thus be made to run using water as the fuel

Just stuff from a quick search. You should probably search for "hydrogen engine" too.

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One thing is certain:

- NO one has been able to show how to get energy from H2O (aside from nuclear fusion).

- Theoretically, you can't have any of 'runs on nothing' engines since it violates law of conservation of energy.

- There have been MANY hoaxes (especially in U.S.A.) claiming water-fuelled engines. Not one worked, not surprisingly...

- 'Cold fusion', a popular pseudoscience hype, could be a physical process allowing for 'water fuelled' engine. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to exist..

- Once ITER is built, and after some breakthrough physics and engineering, we might have water-fuelled engines (size of a large building) called TOKAMAK or 'fusion reactor'. But looks like not before 2050.

- For many 'pseudoscience' discussions, go http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/pseudosciencefront.html

Relative

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The old Stanley Steamer used to run on water - but it required coal or gas to heat the water. So I know that's not it. I do seem to recall something on 60 Minutes about a car that ran on water some years back. Nothing has been seen or heard from this guy since. Maybe the oil companies got hold of him.

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Quote:

The article explained that the machine split water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and when burned, the only exhaust was a little CO2 and water.

Your problem's there. You couldn't have a machine that would be able to do this efficiently. It would be more useful to use stored electrical power as a power source than use it to split water up and then recombine it.

Of course carrying around compressed hydrogen is inherently dangerous anyway. A leak in an enclosed place could lead to a tremendous explosion. The thinking is to force compressed hydrogen into a crystal matrix to make it safer, this is not so cost-effective.

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Quote:

The article explained that the machine split water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and when burned, the only exhaust was a little CO2 and water.

That is impossible. The amount of energy needed to split the water would be greater than the amount you got from burning it. That's simple.

If you are talking about an internal combustion engine that runs on stored hydrogen then it has been done many times by many groups.

The big things stopping it from being used are; where do you get the hydrogen from and, how do you safely store the hydrogen.

Ford has done it.

Mazda did it with a rotary.

In fact, if you do a little searching about a guy called Francois Issac de Rivaz you'll find that one of the first internal combustion engines ever built ran on hydrogen. That was almost 200 years ago!

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Oh, I forgot, BMW is planning on selling the 7 series with a petrol /hydrogen duel fuel system. It will be launched in Europe about 2008.

Short Article.

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Quote:

Detailed plans and diagrams on how to convert any gasoline powered engine to run safely on hydrogen.

Run your car on water. You can also power your lawnmower, a generator to power your home, for cooking and heating, even for water pumping and space refrigeration.

When Hydrogen burns, it produces water vapor or steam. It is the ultimate solution to our dependancy on fosil fuels.

We provide detailed plans from an inventor who has converted his car to run solely on water -- and has been doing so for many years. These plans are not concept or theory, but a tried and proven design. These plans alone are worth the cost of this report.

A simple system which will improve your car mileage by at least 25% for less than $12 in parts.

Why wait?! Run your car on water!

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That's cool! You only need to spend $50 to get proof that a;

Quote:

Simple Circuit to prove free energy exists. Also Plans to show you how to build a completly solid-state Free-Energy device. Output is over 100% efficient! FREE(when you place an order OVER $50.00)

I've always wanted to build a hoverboard..... Hmm..... And a lightsaber..... That would be coool. Cool

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List of Water Powered Car Inventors
Hi I have been following the trail of potential water powered cars for a few years now, over this time I have compiled a list of successful inventors!
Here they are!
Andriah Puharich
Archie blue
Bob Boyce
Carl Cella
Charles H. Garrett
Daniel Dingel
Hector Pierre Vaes
Nakamatsu Yoshiro
Sam Leslie Leach
Stanley Meyer
Steven Horvarth
And a few other unidentified people!
The most noteable of these was Stanley Meyer who is dead unfortunatley! In fact so are Carl Cella & Hector Pierre Vaes all before there time and under suspicious cercumstances! The rest have either been threatend, sold out or keep to them selves! Apparently it's not a good idea to threaten Big Oil companys. An internet search will find info all of these individuals!

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Hmmm. The article states "Our only motive is to help the world. It is our objective to build a world based on trust and sharing, rather than fear and greed." Then it goes on to ask people for money with no possible reurn on their investment. Something suspicious is going on...

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water engine
Water fueled engine? Good luck. Most large scale energy producers would try and block any attempts to market one through political power ties ( notably the BUSH families ties to Saudi oil families ). Unless you marketed it in a manner that did not promote it as an energy alternative to fossil fuels. Hmmm... what's that? Popular Mechanics august issue, under what's new. Well lookie here, Estes Hydrogen Fuel Rocket, Well I'll be, a toy that uses electrolysis to seperate hydrogen from H2O then ignites it. Wow, something people have been saying was impossible or too expensive sold as a $50 TOY. I guess it just goes to show you......

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Sigh.

I'll go through this in simple languauge so as not to confuse anyone.

The concept of a vehicle of ANY sort carrying water as fuel, splitting that water into it's components, and then burning those components in order to propel the vehicle, without ANY OTHER energy source, is.....

ready.....

wait for it.....

BLOODY IMPOSSIBLE!!!

Fortnibras.

The toy you are talking about needs 6 D-cell batteries to operate. Without them it wouldn't work either.

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Water engine
Of course. Then again, without an alternator recharging a battery you would not be able to run a production car.

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I think I'm done with this thread.

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Speaking of recharging, I read of how electric cars are more efficient now than their last resurgence in the 1970s.

One of the things the manufacturers did was to have the vehicle recharge the batteries using kinetic energy when the vehicle is coasting.

I just thought that was a cool idea. Smile

General Tsao

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Water engines and other fables.

So, this cousin of a guy I worked with knew a guy who bought a brand new Cadillac. After a month of driving, he noticed the gas gauge was still reading close to full. He didn't want to run out of gas, so he took it to the dealer to have the fuel gauge checked out. When he came to pick it up, the dealer said GM would like the car back. If he would agree to return the car and sign a statement that he would never discuss this with anyone, they would give him a new Cadillac every year for the rest of his life. So he took the deal.

What happened was GM had bought out the patent from a guy who had invented a 100 miles per gallon carburater. (That wasn't the only high mileage patent they bought out). They were using it in an experimental Cadillac. They never intended to market it because they were in cahoots with the oil companies. It's possible the oil companies bought out the patent from GM. Anyhow, somehow the experimental car was accidentally sold.

I asked the guy I worked with for the address and phone number of his cousin. He said that his cousin had moved to Alaska. His cousin told him the man who bought the Cadillac had moved to Florida and had died a few years ago.

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65 ford f100
Whey my grandpaw got his 65 ford f100, his friend rigged up a special tank on the inside that fed water through a line connected to the carburetor, i believe, thus creating a water and gas mixture, and gave him better gas mileage. unfortunately, he took out the tank about 20 or so year ago and lost the plans of how to put it back on Sad

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Adrian, Please don't go. Let's see if we can teach/persuade.

FORTNIBRAS, you said,

"Of course. Then again, without an alternator recharging a battery you would not be able to run a production car."

And where does the alternator get the power to create electricity to charge the battery? From the fuel tank.
It takes horse power to run an alternator. If alternators ran by themselves, you'd have a perpetual motion machine.

TRAILOR
I was around when that was being done. Proponents of spurting water into the combustion chamber didn't claim the water was adding power, but that it decarbonized the various engine parts and the spark plugs. The proponents argued that cars ran better on damp, rainy days. And, I think there's some merit to that belief. I had a brother-in-law who would drizzle water into the carburetor throat while he kept the revs high with his other hand or else the motor would stop.
But the water was not being converted into energy.

GENERAL TSAO
It would be great if all roads were downhill. There is some power being wasted when braking downhill that can be captured, but you have to get
up before you coast down. So, electric cars rely primarily on highly polluting coal plant generators, natural gas, etc. to get their electricity.
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I hope ,my first posting was understood to be satire about water engines and other fantastical beliefs.

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BillyFalcon,
If my parents walked to school uphill both ways, then there are certainly parts of the world that are downhill both ways.

Very Happy

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