# "Water Powered" cars **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 25, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909 "2008-04-25T22:52:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bjbrashier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e68b1a/32.png) [@bjbrashier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bjbrashier)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/1 "2008-04-25T22:52:16Z")
I saw an ad for a water powered car here on the Straight Dope website. Clearly, using water as a power source is garbage (how does one convert the H2O into H2 and O2, exactly, without using energy?), but people will sell you kits online to do it. That said, assumedly the kits do something. Perhaps allow you to hook up your car to the wall socket for the conversion to H2 and O2, thence allowing you to run “on water power” for a while. My question is: What is the actual per-mile cost of something like this (whatever the actual kit is) and does it beat gasoline (now $3.50/gall)? If so, is there anything else I need to worry about (low miles per refuel, etc)? What about other \>current\< alternative fuels that can work in a normal car for only a few hundred dollars for conversion? ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/2 "2008-04-25T23:03:35Z")
> [@](#): > > That said, assumedly the kits do something. I doubt it. I’m pretty sure that the kits don’t do anything as real as actual electrolysis and injection of hydrogen into the fuel stream, anyway. My guess is that they sell you something totally useless and include some “instructions” on how to “maximize the efficiency of your water-powered car” that look suspiciously like the normal instructions for getting good fuel economy. Add that to some sciencey sounding mumbo-jumbo, a “new scientific” way of calculating fuel economy that plays some math tricks (people willing to believe that they can run a car on water are likely to be easy to fool with fake math), and a healthy dose of cognitive dissonance, and the snake oil basically sells itself. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/3 "2008-04-25T23:03:50Z")
The kits are very good at extracting money from your wallet, and not much good for anything else. Stan Meyer was a big scam artist for this type of thing until he was convicted of fraud. Anything that suggests you can get more energy from burning the hydrogen and oxygen produced by electrolysis than the energy required to split water into that hydrogen and oxygen violates the first law of thermodynamics. It is all a scam. If I saw such an add here, I would report it. Don’t click on it, that increases their internet traffic. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/4 "2008-04-25T23:14:19Z")
I certainly can’t give you numbers, but I strongly doubt that a mile of travel on hydrogen would be cheaper than on gasoline. Refining pure hydrogen from water takes a huge amount of energy, but does offer some additional flexibility in the fuel picture. To run an internal combustion engine we have to get oil out of the ground. Hydrogen can be refined from water as long as we have the electricity with which to do it, and that can be generated in a variety of ways. ---
**Author:** ![bjbrashier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e68b1a/32.png) [@bjbrashier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bjbrashier)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/5 "2008-04-25T23:18:05Z")
Complete scam, huh? Well, the idea that you could get a couple of gas tanks, an electrolysis setup, and connect said stuff into your car (with appropriate modifications for water vapor in the exhaust) for under $1000 seems halfway feasible if you are already mechanically inclined. From there, the idea that I’m using household electricity to run my car and don’t have to pay for a new electric car sounds pretty good. Household electricity comes cheap – I essentially pay a flat rate for mine no matter how much I use. Going on the other end, though, I tried to find a process for reporting said ad, but didn’t see one. Anyone know the right way to report a bad ad? ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/6 "2008-04-25T23:22:40Z")
It’s much cheaper to produce hydrogen from natural gas than it is to do it by electrolyzing water. Just as you get a lot of energy from burning hydrogen into water it takes a lot of energy to make hydrogen from water. Hydrogen has the unfortunate problem of being very low energy density by volume, so finding ways to store it efficiently for use in vehicles is a major hurdle. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/7 "2008-04-25T23:24:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Complete scam, huh? 100% scam. You cannot run your car on hydrogen you produce by electrolyzing water at home because you do not have the technology to store it. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/8 "2008-04-26T00:09:13Z")
[QUOTE=Christopher] The kits are very good at extracting money from your wallet, and not much good for anything else. Stan Meyer was a big scam artist for this type of thing until he was convicted of fraud. Anything that suggests you can get more energy from burning the hydrogen and oxygen produced by electrolysis than the energy required to split water into that hydrogen and oxygen violates the first law of thermodynamics. It is all a scam. If I saw such an add here, I would report it. Don’t click on it, that increases their internet traffic. [/QUOTE] No, those are the very ads you _should_ be clicking on. Furiously. Every click costs the scam artists money, so long as the amount they have to pay to Google doesn’t outweigh the amount they take in from saps buying their crap, they can stay in business (and even afford to fend off any lawsuits). If, however, they get thousands and thousands of clicks where nobody buys anything, they’ll wind up bankrupt. (Google charges based on a number of factors, one of which is based on the value of traffic generated by the site which hosts the ads. My own sites, which have almost zero traffic, net me about $.35 every time someone clicks an ad on my sites, which means that click had to cost the company paying for the ad a lot more money. I can’t imagine what the cost would be like if folks here started clicking en masse on junk ads.) And don’t bother reporting the crap ads. Yes, they _can_ be blocked by the Admins here, but it’s a royal PITA, so they’re not going to bother with it, unless it’s a pr0n ad (which Google doesn’t hand out, IIRC). There _are_ a number of folks looking at on-demand hhydrogen generation for cars, but it’s _not_ anything those scam artists are selling. If you’re looking for a way to run your car cheaply and can’t afford to buy a hybrid/diesel, [you might want to consider converting it to propane and moving to Utah.](http://physorg.com/news128317046.html) > [@](#): > > Troy Anderson was at the gas pump and couldn’t have been happier, filling up at a rate of $5 per tank. Anderson was paying 63.8 cents per gallon equivalent for compressed natural gas, making Utah a hot market for vehicles that run on the fuel. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/9 "2008-04-26T00:37:02Z")
[QUOTE=tuckerfan] No, those are the very ads you should be clicking on. Furiously. Every click costs the scam artists money, so long as the amount they have to pay to Google doesn’t outweigh the amount they take in from saps buying their crap, they can stay in business (and even afford to fend off any lawsuits). If, however, they get thousands and thousands of clicks where nobody buys anything, they’ll wind up bankrupt. [/QUOTE] I’m no interweb expert, but I was under the impression that people could generate income simply by having internet traffic if they sell ad space themselves. > [@](#): > > There are a number of folks looking at on-demand hhydrogen generation for cars, but it’s not anything those scam artists are selling. IMO, that falls into the category of hydrogen storage. It is just a matter of how the hydrogen is stored then released. You can store hydrogen as water and release it by slowly adding sodium, but a lot more energy went into making that sodium than you’ll get out of burning the resulting hydrogen. ---
**Author:** ![bjbrashier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e68b1a/32.png) [@bjbrashier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bjbrashier)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/10 "2008-04-26T00:42:29Z")
Forgot to mention: the site advertised was [www.runyourcarwithwater.com](http://www.runyourcarwithwater.com), and offers as “proof” videos of people offering “similar technology” at technology shows. The videos didn’t exactly convice me that this site could help me… but they did make me believe that storing the hydrogen isn’t that hard. So, since I live in Idaho, which borders Utah, I now need to see if the price is at least in the same ballpark… ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/11 "2008-04-26T00:49:41Z")
[QUOTE=Christopher] I’m no interweb expert, but I was under the impression that people could generate income simply by having internet traffic if they sell ad space themselves. [/quote] Yeah, but I can’t recall any of those sites having ads on them other than Google’s (if they have any at all), and AFAIK, the only way you get money from Google ads is if someone clicks on them. > [@](#): > > IMO, that falls into the category of hydrogen storage. It is just a matter of how the hydrogen is stored then released. You can store hydrogen as water and release it by slowly adding sodium, but a lot more energy went into making that sodium than you’ll get out of burning the resulting hydrogen. Very true, and sodium isn’t the only method, as some aluminum compounds work just as well, if not better. You _won’t_ get more energy out than was put in, of course, but thanks to it’s geothermal energy production, Iceland is rapidly becoming “the place” for aluminum smelting, so the environmental damage in the form of greenhouse gases is pretty minimal. > [@bjbrashier](#): > > The videos didn’t exactly convice me that this site could help me… but they did make me believe that storing the hydrogen isn’t that hard. [How to run your car on aluminum cans, lye, and water demonstrated and explained in detail at no cost to you.](http://www.instructables.com/id/Run-Your-Car-on-Hydrogen-from-Aluminum-Soda-Cans-a/) [More free “how-to” information.](http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-Hydrogen/) > [@](#): > > So, since I live in Idaho, which borders Utah, I now need to see if the price is at least in the same ballpark… If you live in Idaho, why not run your car on vodka made from taters? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![UncleFred](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f0a364/32.png) [@UncleFred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleFred)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/12 "2008-04-26T01:11:38Z")
Well, this might not be entirely the same as what’s being advertised here, but it is possible to power your car partially on water. [AutoWeek article](http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060227/FREE/302270007/1023/THISWEEKSISSUE) This fellow has converted an existing engine to run on 6 strokes instead of 4, with the extra 2 dedicated to operating as a steam engine utilizing the heat of the engine. So, the car would have two ‘fuel tanks’ ; one for gas and one for water. I realize the water isn’t perhaps a ‘fuel’ in the same way as burning gas, but the use of the water does result in less fuel consumption. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/13 "2008-04-26T02:06:54Z")
Sounds similar to what [Honda](http://www.autoblog.com/tag/honda%20heat%20hybrid/) and [BMW](http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/12/bmw_developing_.html) are doing. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/14 "2008-04-26T14:04:13Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] …but thanks to it’s geothermal energy production, Iceland is rapidly becoming “the place” for aluminum smelting… [/QUOTE] > **[List of aluminium smelters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aluminium_smelters)** > > This is a list of primary aluminium smelters in the world. Primary production is the process by which alumina is smelted to pure aluminum. Secondary production is the process of recycling aluminum scrap into aluminum that can be used again. Capacity here refers to metric tonnes of output aluminum. The list is incomplete and missing some data. Wha..? The whole of Iceland has about the same total capacity as a single smelter an hour’s flight north of me, and while I haven’t added up the numbers, they look to me to have less (probably much less) than a percent of the world’s smelting capacity. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/15 "2008-04-26T20:18:26Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] > **[List of aluminium smelters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aluminium_smelters)** > > This is a list of primary aluminium smelters in the world. Primary production is the process by which alumina is smelted to pure aluminum. Secondary production is the process of recycling aluminum scrap into aluminum that can be used again. Capacity here refers to metric tonnes of output aluminum. The list is incomplete and missing some data. Wha..? The whole of Iceland has about the same total capacity as a single smelter an hour’s flight north of me, and while I haven’t added up the numbers, they look to me to have less (probably much less) than a percent of the world’s smelting capacity. [/QUOTE] I didn’t say it **was** “the place,” I said it was **becoming** “the place.” > **[Economy of Iceland | Aluminium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iceland#Aluminium)** > > Aluminium smelting is the most important power-intensive industry in Iceland. There are currently three plants in operation with a total capacity of over 850,000 metric tons per year (t/yr) in 2019, putting Iceland at 11th place among aluminium-producing nations worldwide as of 2023. > Rio Tinto Alcan operates Iceland's first aluminium smelter (plant name: ISAL), in Straumsvík, near the town of Hafnarfjörður. The plant has been in operation since 1969. Its initial capacity was 33,000 metric tons (... > [@](#): > > The presence of abundant electrical power due to Iceland’s geothermal energy sources has led to the growth of the manufacturing sector. Power-intensive industries, which are the largest components of the manufacturing sector, produce mainly for export. Manufactured products constituted 36% of all merchandise exports, an increase from the 1997 figure of 22%. Power-intensive products’s share of merchandise exports is 21%, compared to 12% in 1997.[11] > [@](#): > > Aluminium smelting is the most important power-intensive industry in Iceland. There are currently two plants in operation, with one under construction and two in the planning stage. > [@](#): > > If all of the currently proposed expansions and new plants are constructed, the total production capacity of the Icelandic aluminum industry will rise to 1,542,000 mtpy, compared to the current capacity of 400,000 mtpy. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/16 "2008-04-26T20:41:10Z")
[QUOTE=Christopher] Anything that suggests you can get more energy from burning the hydrogen and oxygen produced by electrolysis than the energy required to split water into that hydrogen and oxygen violates the first law of thermodynamics. [/QUOTE] While I don’t for a moment suggest the water car idea has any credence, I don’t believe what you are doubting would necessarily involve breaking the first law of thermodynamics would it? It would violate the first law of thermodynamics if the energy it took to split the molecule were less than the energy it took to combine the atoms into that molecule, but wouldn’t relate to the energy produced by the combustion of the atom/s released. Otherwise burning gasoline would also violate that law. (Physicists - am I on the right lines here?) ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/17 "2008-04-26T23:30:51Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] It would violate the first law of thermodynamics if the energy it took to split the molecule were less than the energy it took to combine the atoms into that molecule, but wouldn’t relate to the energy produced by the combustion of the atom/s released. [/QUOTE] It does not take energy[sup]\*[/sup] to recombine the molecules into water, it releases energy. It releases exactly as much energy it took to split water.[sup]\*\*[/sup] This energy directly relates to the energy produced by combustion, that is what the heat of combustion is. Yes, it completely violates the first law of thermodynamics. Burning gasoline does not violate that law because you aren’t making the gasoline from CO[sub]2[/sub] and water. > [@](#): > > Physicists - am I on the right lines here? Thermodynamics is as much chemistry as it is physics and since we are discussing the thermodynamics of a chemical process you need a chemist. That’s me. - Activation energy is irrelevant to the discussion, because all of that energy is gained back during the combustion process. \*\* This assumes that splitting water is 100% efficient, and it isn’t. For this reason you will actually get back less energy on combustion. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/18 "2008-04-27T00:17:52Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] I didn’t say it **was** “the place,” I said it was **becoming** “the place.” > **[Economy of Iceland | Aluminium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iceland#Aluminium)** > > Aluminium smelting is the most important power-intensive industry in Iceland. There are currently three plants in operation with a total capacity of over 850,000 metric tons per year (t/yr) in 2019, putting Iceland at 11th place among aluminium-producing nations worldwide as of 2023. > Rio Tinto Alcan operates Iceland's first aluminium smelter (plant name: ISAL), in Straumsvík, near the town of Hafnarfjörður. The plant has been in operation since 1969. Its initial capacity was 33,000 metric tons (... [/QUOTE] And if Iceland goes through with everything planned they may just get into the top 20 aluminium producers in the world or something. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/19 "2008-04-27T02:49:33Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] And if Iceland goes through with everything planned they may just get into the top 20 aluminium producers in the world or something. [/QUOTE] Assuming, of course, the other places can keep their operations going, which is going to be difficult and expensive if they want to cut greenhouse emissions. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2008, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/20 "2008-04-27T09:42:25Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Otherwise burning gasoline would also violate that law. (Physicists - am I on the right lines here?) [/QUOTE] Only an amateur physicist and chemist here, but you’re definitely comparing apples and oranges by bringing in gasoline. When we’re using fossil fuel reserves, (including gasoline,) we’re leveraging solar energy from long, long, ago. Plants used the light of the sun to go photosynthesyze (sp?), and the high energy molecules created in that process got changed as they passed from life form to life form, and then subjected to underground pressure. The ‘energy’ it costs to pump and refine gasoline is incidental - if we didn’t have a ‘chemical energy lode’ down there to mine the whole deal would be a huge thermodynamic wash. Hydrogen is very different. We don’t have any store of free hydrogen just sitting around to use. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909.md?page=2)