Kirsten wrote:

The free-energy questions usually include a video of a car mechanic who has created some amazing car, which can run on a gallon of water for ever.

The part about it ‘running forever’ or even “creating a car” cannot be true. I don’t know if it’s your error or your mysterious emailer’s mistake, but nevertheless it’s not true. I have never heard of anyone claiming that a car could run forever on “HHO”, or even just run on HHO alone.

What I have seen reported on are stories where some mechanic has built an on-board HHO delivery system that supplements the fuel that the vehicle already uses for the purpose of increasing mileage and burning the fuel cleaner.

So, allow me to share what I’ve learned about the whole HHO thingee, on converting water into supplemental fuel for gasoline powered vehicles.

Disclaimer: I am not an HHO seller, inventor, or proponent. I just prefer opinions based on facts rather than half-truths, innuendo, lies of omission, outright lies and agenda promotion.

So, what would I know about it and why?

I became interested in HHO because I drive an ‘03 Chevy Avalanche 55 highway miles each weekday to work and back. The truck is paid off and I do not want a new monthly bill, even for a more efficient vehicle, in this uncertain work environment, so I’m keeping it. Besides, it’s very handy. I try to improve my mileage by going slower and not using it for around town driving. The mileage used to be about 20 MPG before ethanol was forced into regular unleaded gasoline. Now the mileage is 16 MPG (10% or less ethanol. Thank you environmental wackos and green weenies). When gas jumped to $4.00 a gallon, I became really focused on saving gas. So, I looked into the HHO method and learned quite a bit.

I found detailed instructions posted to mininova.org in a .pdf file (reputedly for sale at $89 or so elsewhere) and downloaded it.

Some facts about it.

HHO is a commercial term, not a chemical term. So let’s bury that nonsense now. The retail store “Best Buy” would be a good example of something named for marketing purposes as opposed to its actual description. I’m going to use the inaccurate term HHO to save some typing.

HHO is a supplement to the fuel system, not a replacement in these systems. There is no one that I know of no one who is seriously marketing HHO as a replacement for fossil fuel. The claims are that it will improve gas mileage by 15-25%. And a SlapChop will make your life more exiting.

The electrical power used to produce HHO from water is provided by the vehicle’s charging system. It does not come from a coal fueled electric power plant located miles away and producing gobs of evil CO2.

A typical setup would have a water tank and pump somewhere on a vehicle with a tube to transport water to the conversion chamber mounted near the engine. The conversion chamber with electrodes, electrical power, tubes to bring the water into the chamber, a low water sensor (turns on the pump to keep the unit supplied with water), a tube leading to the intake manifold/carburetor spacer/injection port, a set of pressure gauges and a potentiometer to adjust the amount of gas being produced. Ideally, the device would produce an “on demand” amount of gas to make an improvement in the gas mileage.

Whether the electrical power is enough to produce a worthwhile amount of HHO is unanswered in the data I’ve seen. That, along with the device’s size leads me to believe it would not produce an adequate amount to be useful. In the do-it-yourself instructions, the device’s conversion chamber is made from a 12 inch length of 4 inch diameter schedule 80 CPVC pipe and with the caps, about 15 inches long. That is about 188 cubic inches of volume. Of course when the guts (electrodes, fill sensor and other small parts) are added in it makes the volume even smaller. How much can it be converting? It can be made bigger by adding to its length, but it needs to fit in the engine compartment. The 15 inch by 4 inch unit might fit in the Avalanche’s engine compartment, but it would be tight.

When I read the directions for building one of these contraptions, I learned that it could be built and installed for about half of what kit would cost ($250-$400 depending on options). The one expensive part is the engine adapter/connector that costs between $200-$300 and is not included in the kits that I saw.

So there you have it. Maybe it works as advertised, maybe it doesn’t. I can’t say at this point because there has been no followup since gas prices came back down.

I did see the Mythbusters episode where they “tested” an HHO system and it failed. The episode was funny and entertaining, but they did not build the thing correctly. They did what they usually do; made assumptions and ran with it.

The good news is that there are alternatives to replace fossil fuels in current vehicles. It’s cheaper and lighter than lithium batteries, smarter than hybrid vehicles, less expensive than ethanol, and provides longer range and more power than any of those choices with no co2 emissions.

It’s called hydrogen. That’s right, more energy from water. But read on.

Another disclaimer: I do not represent the company that manufactures this system and I receive no payment for spreading this information. I simply believe that hydrogen is the way to go and this one is the best I’ve seen. There is none of that evil CO2 that is produced making batteries, ethanol and hybrids. BTW: I’d be happy yo learn about other makers of similar systems.

Basically, this system allows you to produce and store your own hydrogen and refuel your own vehicle for free once the thing is paid for (about $11K that last time I looked). The system in their words…

The basic system consists of two parts, the Hydrogen fuel system in your vehicle, and a Hydrogen generating system that remains in your garage. The Hydrogen generator is either powered by Solar electric panels or a wind turbine set-up, either of which makes Hydrogen fuel at virtually no cost.

If you want to know more about this system, check it out HERE.

“The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.”

“The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.”

“Convergence of evidence” was the primary support of the alien abduction nutjobs.

Citing convergence of evidence supports nothing and debunks nothing. As always, it is about the evidence, and as regards anthropogenic global warming, that jury remains out.

In closing, let me say that it is my fault, and that of my peers, that peer-review, statistical uncertainty, and ‘consensus’ are not part of the common lexicon. We have a responsibility to educate and we are doing a poor job. For more on consensus, I recommend you read Michael Shermers excellent 1997 book, ‘Why people believe weird things.’ There is a significant amount of information on the convergence of evidence (which is happening with human-induced climate change) providing support for a particular hypothesis. Compare the arguments that currently are used by human-induced climate change deniers to those used by deniers of other phenomena we know to occur. The similarity is remarkable…

I don’t know the numbers but I wonder. Let’s say we burn petrol(or any other fossil fuel) at a power plant and use the energy to make hidrogen which we later burn in a car. This might be more efficent. A power plant might be able to extract more energy out of the same amount of oil. Also the power plant can probably take care of the CO2 better, pumping into the ground or some other scheme. The cars themselves would only issue water. That water should be pure so if we use salt water in the proccess we end up with secondary water desalination. And what about the cars, if hidrogen is lighter(for the same amount of energy) than petrol and the engines lighter than we have cars with less mass and thus more efficent.
Again, I don’t know the number but just thinking about the bigger picture. If any of those points raised is true it might be a good idea to switch to hidrogen economy.

I meant it may turn out to be right.