# "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:** 4
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/61 "2008-05-10T21:14:08Z")
[QUOTE=Rick] [nitpick] Thirty amps is 420 watts as the nominal voltage with the engine running is 14 volts.[/nitpick] [/QUOTE] Nitpic accepted. I was trying to find a good reference for hp to watts for a standard alternator. I looked up electrical hp and all I found was one hp = 746 watts. I’m not weighing an opinion on this but I find the ability to make a burnable gas fascinating. The “mason jar” set up described by water4gas looks like 18 feet of stainless steel wire and 5 stainless steel rods. I’ve seen what appear to be more complex attempts by various people and at least the experimentors are trying to measure their results. How hard is it to measure amps versus liiters per minute of HHO produced? And dyno time isn’t that expensive that this couldn’t be tested in an afternoon on a car with a fuel flow meter and an amp meter. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/62 "2008-05-10T21:39:47Z")
[QUOTE=magiver] It was speculated that a car could be run purely by the process but no system to date has been demonstrated. [/QUOTE] The fact that they even dare speculate at this is evidence enough that this is a scam. Such a system clearly violates the first law of thermodynamics as I was stating earlier in the thread. When they run into this critisism, they fall back on the “it makes the gasoline burn more efficiently”, which would require a degree in combustion thermodynamics to disprove. Of course the people on these websites don’t give any real science. They rely on pseudoscientific jargon to confuse people into thinking they’ve found something new. If it did work, they wouldn’t be pushing it so hard on the internet, they would get a patent or publish a paper. If you really want to find out about this technology, look for it in peer reviewed journals. Unfortunately, you won’t find it, because it doesn’t work. Since there are no patents, any professor of automotive engineering could come along and test this wonderful invention and make it public knowledge. There are no patents there are no publications, yet the idea has saturated the internet. Good science doesn’t work this way, ergo it is bad science. If you still think it’s a good idea to buy one, then don’t wait buy one now. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/63 "2008-05-10T21:53:54Z")
[QUOTE=Magiver] That’s not the claim made. This is added to gasoline. It was speculated that a car could be run purely by the process but no system to date has been demonstrated. [/quote] That _is_ what’s being claimed. The guy get’s out of the car and says, “We can can go about 100 miles on four ounces of water.” The amount of hydrogen in 4 ounces of water contains **less** energy than you could find in 4 ounces of gasoline. The **only** reason he’s claiming four ounces of water is that it sounds cool. There is absolutely **no** practical way that one could get any reasonable motive power out of four ounces of water. Period. Paragraph. > [@](#): > > I’ve been looking at this as of late and there are a number of systems out there being experimented on. None of them involve pure water. They all require an electrolytic catalyst. Some systems use tap water (for the minerals in it) but most of the people trying this use baking soda as a electrolytic agent. It’s not a pure electrolysis process, which would involve separating out the 2 gases. I don’t know if this changes the equation any. I’ve been looking at hydrogen powered car technology since the mid-90s. If you want a serious, _factual_ discussion of the technology, then I highly recommend [this book.](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0945516045?tag=promefiresfou-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0945516045&adid=1VFY9HPWW3K0QXPCXXF1&) It has technical discussion of not only how to run a car on hydrogen, but also how to produce and store it. > [@](#): > > There are many video’s of experimenters on you-tube and the goal is to get the best liter per minute per watt. You can figure out how to make one of the devices by watching the videos. It doesn’t require purchasing any of the books or equipment being sold. Yeah, I’ve seen many of them. Some of them look legit, but others of them are quite clearly snake oil. > [@](#): > > From a practical standpoint the system cannot draw more than 30 amps on a car system which would be 360 watts. That would be slightly less than 1 hp drawn on an engine. Whatever amount of HHO that is produced would have to increase the fuel burn by more than 1 hp to make the process efficient. Spitting water is an energy _sink_, you **never** get as much energy **out** of the hydrogen as you put **in**. Catalysts can reduce the amount of energy needed, but so far, **no one** has managed to hit the break even point, much less gotten enough hydrogen out that the energy produced by burning the hydrogen (or even running it through a fuel cell) is greater than the energy it takes to produce it. The **real** benefit of hydrogen as a fuel source is that its renewable, and, if properly produced, clean. It will **never** be able to run your car better than gasoline can as it simply does **not** have the energy density of gasoline. Anyone who tells you otherwise is flat out, freakin’ wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/64 "2008-05-10T22:07:03Z")
OK, OK, we all know that most claims to run a car on water are scams. But, for a theoretical, intellectual exercise, let’s say you… 1. Extract hydrogen from water. We can do that. 2. Store it somehow and mount the tank on a hydrogen car. That’s been done. 3. Run the car for a mile. Can do. Nothing impossible here. So how much would that mile cost in terms of fuel? By fuel cost, I’m including the cost of all materials like electricity (if any) and other expendables. This should be roughly computable. Or, $X in gives you $Y out. Maybe $10 worth of oil gives you $2 worth of hydrogen. I realize that if you use oil to extract hydrogen from water, and the price of oil goes up, the cost of hydrogen will, too, and you haven’t gained a lot. But if you can divorce the cost of the source fuel (by moving to Iceland, maybe), this process might begin to be attractive. If X is a lot less than Y, you’ve got a deal. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/65 "2008-05-10T22:17:46Z")
The key to answer your questions: Is what kind of engine you intend to burn the hydrogen in. A fuel cell will give you the best performance as its more efficient than anything else. A gasoline engine converted to run on hydrogen will have some performance issues, while an engine specifically designed to run on hydrogen will work better. IIRC, a diesel engine converted to run on hydrogen will perform better than gas, but don’t quote me on that. I can’t recall if there’s any real problems running turbine engines on hydrogen or not. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/66 "2008-05-10T22:33:37Z")
**Tuckerfan,** if you’re answering me, it doesn’t matter what kind of engine for this exercise. Just pick one and do the computation. (Maybe pick the most likely to be efficient.) ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/67 "2008-05-10T22:52:01Z")
[QUOTE=musicat] 1. Extract hydrogen from water. We can do that. 2. Store it somehow and mount the tank on a hydrogen car. That’s been done. 3. Run the car for a mile. Can do. Nothing impossible here. So how much would that mile cost in terms of fuel? By fuel cost, I’m including the cost of all materials like electricity (if any) and other expendables. This should be roughly computable. [/QUOTE] Are you talking about stopping the car, burning gasoline to make hydrogen, then driving on hydrogen or are you talking about driving the car at the same time as making hydrogen, compressing it then switching over to only hydrogen? The first case is all plausible, but is obviously very inefficient, since each step loses energy. The second case requires that you put extra load on the alternator while driving. The mistake is in thinking that the energy for electrolysis is free. Same as in the first case, you lose energy at every step. ETA: In each case you are better off just burning the gasoline energywise. Actually, I’m really not sure what your getting at. Due to the energy requirement of electrolysis, most hydrogen is not produced by electrolysis. Instead it is produced from natural gas by steam reforming or the water gas shift reaction. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/68 "2008-05-10T23:15:46Z")
[QUOTE=WarmNPrickly] ETA: In each case you are better off just burning the gasoline energywise. Actually, I’m really not sure what your getting at. Due to the energy requirement of electrolysis, most hydrogen is not produced by electrolysis. Instead it is produced from natural gas by steam reforming or the water gas shift reaction. [/QUOTE] Yes, but that’s only a temporary solution. Demands are going to be such that we’ll have to use hydrogen produced from electrolysis at some point. Thankfully, solar power generation is starting to come down in cost. **Musicat** , I can’t find my copy of _Fuel From Water_, which has the information, or I’d look it up. There’s two big bugaboos with hydrogen: Production and storage. Right now, reforming it out of carbon based fuels is the cheapest method, but one of the problems with this is CO[sub]2[/sub] is produced as a byproduct, which then has to be disposed of. Electrolysis of water is expensive, but will get cheaper. Storage is being worked on and there’s many promising solutions. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/69 "2008-05-10T23:17:39Z")
[QUOTE=Musicat] 1. Extract hydrogen from water. We can do that. [/QUOTE] Yep, that’s easy. But it requires an energy source to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen. So… if you already have an energy source, why not use it to directly power the car? Why have a middle man? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/70 "2008-05-10T23:26:20Z")
[QUOTE=Crafter\_Man] Yep, that’s easy. But it requires an energy source to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen. So… if you already have an energy source, why not use it to directly power the car? Why have a middle man? [/QUOTE] Because it’s a little difficult to fit a solar plant or a nuclear reactor in a car. Not to mention the trouble of running pipe for geothermal systems to a car. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/71 "2008-05-11T02:05:42Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] That _is_ what’s being claimed. The guy get’s out of the car and says, “We can can go about 100 miles on four ounces of water.” The amount of hydrogen in 4 ounces of water contains **less** energy than you could find in 4 ounces of gasoline. The **only** reason he’s claiming four ounces of water is that it sounds cool. There is absolutely **no** practical way that one could get any reasonable motive power out of four ounces of water. Period. Paragraph. [/QUOTE] I’m not defending these people but what was “demonstrated” in the video was an add-on. No mention of any actual results were made beyond the fact that they expended 4 ounces of water in 100 miles. No mileage claimes were made. It’s completely misleading. They go on to say it “could” be done as a sole source of fuel. I can add a can of soap bubbles that get sucked into an engine over the course of 100 miles. BFD. Did the magic vapor do anything? Could you spend 1 hr on a dyno with a fuel flow meter? No? Why the hell not? It’s not that expensive. These people are selling ebooks. There’s no overhead at all. It’s pure profit. ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/72 "2008-05-11T06:52:35Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] That _is_ what’s being claimed. The guy get’s out of the car and says, “We can can go about 100 miles on four ounces of water.” [/QUOTE] No it is not. No he does NOT. I’ve already quoted EXACTLY what he says in this thread. I’ll do it again: **“On a hundred mile trip, we use about 4 ounces of water.”** That is not the same thing! That is Fox News taking a quote out of context. If you had a car with worn rings that drank oil and told Fox News that “on a hundred mile trip, we use about a pint of oil”, they’d probably shape a feature around it claiming a new miracle oil-burning engine. Very soon after that statement about the 4 ounces, the voice-over itself says: **"Currently has it rigged as a ‘water and gasoline hybrid’ "** That gives the game away. The feature is really about hydrogen supplementation using an electrolysis kit, which is all the rage at the moment and is almost certainly nonsense. Nevertheless, in this feature, some carefully cynical editing makes it look like something is being claimed which _hasn’t been claimed!_ Gives them a sensational story, and they can deflect charges of outright lying or failing to check their facts by saying they were misinterpreted. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/73 "2008-05-11T14:46:39Z")
[QUOTE=WarmNPrickly] Are you talking about stopping the car, burning gasoline to make hydrogen, then driving on hydrogen or are you talking about driving the car at the same time as making hydrogen, compressing it then switching over to only hydrogen? [/quote] > [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Because it’s a little difficult to fit a solar plant or a nuclear reactor in a car. Not to mention the trouble of running pipe for geothermal systems to a car. > [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > > [@Musicat](#): > > > > 1. Extract hydrogen from water. We can do that. > > Yep, that’s easy. But it requires an energy source to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen. So… if you already have an energy source, why not use it to directly power the car? Why have a middle man? Y’all are assuming too much. I proposed an intellectual exercise in the simplest terms. Nothing was said about it being a good idea or efficient. Nothing was said about performing the conversion action on wheels or in realtime. You can refuel from a hovering helicopter for all I care. Let’s go over this again:[ol][li]Create hydrogen[_]Store it[_]Put the hydrogen on a vehicle that can use it for propulsion[\*]Go[/ol]You can create the hydrogen in your kitchen if you want or in the back seat. You can use any conversion method you want. You can use any storage that works.[/li] Now, compute the costs to create the hydrogen fuel; the costs that would be repeated if more fuel were made (I’m excluding fixed capital costs for now). If it takes 2 oz of oil to both power the method and provide raw stock for a fixed quantity of output, figure out what that cost is per mile. Now we have a number. Let’s say it is 5 per mile. Compared to today's .15 per mile for Shell regular (just a rough number, don’t nitpick), our hydrogen fuel is too expensive to be practical. Now let’s see what happens when we change some factors. First, assume the price of oil continues to go up. This will make the cost per mile for standard, gas-fueled internal combustion engines to go up, too. And it would make the cost of the raw material to make hydrogen go up as well (using the above conversion method). Since both costs are tied to the same commodity, we can’t expect much to change in this scenario. Second, what happens if we can replace the petroleum source for both raw stock and conversion energy? What if we go to Iceland, use geothermal energy and convert, not petroleum, but water, into hygrogen? Or use solar or wind power? Now the rising cost of oil is no longer so closely tied to the end fuel cost. And it’s entirely possible that the efficiency of geothermal, solar, or wind power will increase, and at some point, this hydrogen conversion scheme might make economic sense. I am curious about just where that point is. If it begins to be attractive, then we can talk about the details – fuel transportation, distribution, infrastructure and capital costs, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/74 "2008-05-17T20:48:13Z")
[QUOTE=SmartAleq] Sorry, but it is absolutely NOT nonsense. The company I’m helping build right now is doing exactly this. [/QUOTE] :o I hated to read this post. I hope you have not been taken to the cleaners. Are you able to get away from this company, like fast? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2008, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/75 "2008-05-18T03:38:37Z")
While I wouldn’t invest in any companies because of the pitfalls involved I’ve been researching this over the last couple of weeks. There are people who are in it for the money and there are people who donate their ideas in an open format. Clearly there are people who claim an energy return that is above the wattage consumed and that is very possible given the chemicals involved. If the process of burning hydrogen/oxygen also produces a residual water-to-steam flash of mechanical power then it would produce more power than energy consumed. It would be a mechanical advantage that is not in conflict with any physics laws. It would be similar to the 6 cycle engine that uses wasted heat energy and water to produce steam. I am fascinated with the idea of producing useable gas for soldering and brazing and since I have almost everything on-hand to make an HHO generator I will try a test run on my beater in a couple of weeks. I still have to work on the exhaust but the old girl just got a new water pump, timing belt, and half shaft. she needs some excitement. I would never produce a kit for this, even if it worked. There are huge safety concerns along with maintenance issues as well as engine wear problems. It’s not practical to operate on the street. On a side note I was amazed at the information I was able to pick up. there are some clever people on this planet. I found out how to make a printed circuit using a regular printer and a host of other tid-bits. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2008, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/76 "2008-05-18T03:44:13Z")
Water is a byproduct. It’s already burnt. You can’t extract any more energy from it. 'Nuff said. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2008, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/77 "2008-05-18T04:19:25Z")
[QUOTE=Crafter\_Man] Water is a byproduct. It’s already burnt. You can’t extract any more energy from it. 'Nuff said. [/QUOTE] Not sure what that means. Water doesn’t burn. But the systems appear to produce a lot of water vapor in the tail pipe. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2008, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/78 "2008-05-18T04:24:01Z")
[QUOTE=Magiver] Not sure what that means. Water doesn’t burn. But the systems appear to produce a lot of water vapor in the tail pipe. [/QUOTE] Water is the “ash” produced from burning hydrogen. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2008, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/79 "2008-05-18T04:37:48Z")
[QUOTE=Q.E.D.] Water is the “ash” produced from burning hydrogen. [/QUOTE] That I understand. If it flashed to steam then there is mechanical energy imparted against the piston. That would be the only explanation for any gains from such a system. If it reforms to water in the exhaust from a gasoline/hydrogen burn then there could be no mechanical advantage. This would show up as a change in temperature in the exaust manifold. ---
**Author:** ![matt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@matt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2008, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909/80 "2008-05-18T08:09:32Z")
[QUOTE=Magiver] That I understand. If it flashed to steam then there is mechanical energy imparted against the piston. [/QUOTE] It’s already steam. Hydrogen-oxygen combustion produces gaseous water, not liquid water, as a consequence of the energy of its own combustion. There is already plenty of steam in the cylinder and the exhaust, because the fuel already contains plenty of hydrogen bound into the molecules. Gasoline is a hydrocarbon fuel, mainly heptane, C[sub]7[/sub]H[sub]16[/sub]. It burns to form CO2 and steam. A trace of hydrogen and oxygen would fractionally increase the amount of steam, which wouldn’t do a whole lot. [QUOTE=Magiver] That would be the only explanation for any gains from such a system. If it reforms to water in the exhaust from a gasoline/hydrogen burn then there could be no mechanical advantage. This would show up as a change in temperature in the exaust manifold. [/QUOTE] You’re thinking in terms of water supplementation, extracting extra work from the waste heat usually lost to the cylinder walls. But adding hydrogen and oxygen does not result in liquid water in the cylinder, which can then flash to steam. It just adds a tiny amount of steam to all the steam that was already there. And that steam is hotter than the cylinder walls, so it loses heat _to_ them, instead of extracting heat _from_ them and converting it to work. Liquid water in the cylinder doesn’t increase efficiency anyway, because the engine cycles far too fast for heat transfer from the cylinder walls to the water droplets. Crowther’s six-stroke won’t work as described. A different design whereby pressurised cooling water is heated to several hundred degrees in the cylinder cooling channels, and _then_ injected in a fifth stroke and exhausted in a six stroke, would work. It would flash to steam from its own heat content when it escaped its high-pressure confinement. But that’s a different topic entirely to hydrogen supplemenation. Google “bottoming cycles” for more than you ever wanted to know! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/water-powered-cars/446909.md?page=5)