Water is not a viable energy source, because it takes more energy to extract hydrogen than to produce it. Is this a 2-month-delayed april fool's gag?

Yep - this totally violates the ol' 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics - since you could theoretically pump the exhaust H20 back into the fuel tank, you'd have a perpetual-motion machine on your hands - kind of a no-no in our universe. While it's possible that we do indeed need to rewrite all the physics books, it's very very unlikely...

I watched the video, if what they are saying is true, it's pretty powerful stuff.

That's correct, if you're using, prior to this if true, today's technology. That doesn't mean that a system can't be developed that does readily extract hydrogen releasing more energy than it consumes to do so.

People can get so pessimistic can't they? Myself, I am eager for the day when hydrogen cars are efficient.

Wood is not a viable energy source, by your estimation. Wood takes far too much time and energy to cut, chop, and stack. But yet people everywhere use it to heat and cook. The fact is, it's only a matter of time before hydrogen can be efficiently produced from water. Current research is promising. Look it up for yourself.

Well, unless the laws of physics change, that's not true, actually. It takes about 237 KJ/mol to electrolyse liquid water at STP. Hydrogen does not dissociate from water without that energy coming from somewhere, and thermodynamics dictates that there is always an additional entropic cost as well (your apparatus simply can't be 100% efficient). And you can't get more than that back out of the hydrogen later on either - conservation laws and all that. So unless we're handing out a lot of Nobel prizes and rewriting pretty much all of physics as we know it, this is just wishful thinking (or a hoax). Hey, it could be true, but the chance of that is vanishingly slim.

Wood and water are very different animals, energy-wise. Wood is a material that sits at the *top* of a potential energy curve (just waiting to be catalyzed into a big exothermic reaction we call "fire") while water sits in a thermodynamic *trough* - it's never going to release gobs of energy from its bonds like wood will. Hydrogen gas, the fuel for hydrogen-powered engines (not water) is like wood, in that it wants to give up all that bond energy. But you must put that energy *in* in the first place. There is a *huge* energy gap between water and H2 gas. Wood gets its energy input from photsynthesis (solar energy) while the tree is growing all those years in the sun. Water, on the other hand, is the downhill product of combustion of H2 in oxygen. So you essentially have to *unburn* it to get H2 again, putting in the same energy that was released when it was burned (plus a little more to pay the entropic toll). In essence, wood and H2 gas act as batteries, storing lots of energy in their bonds - but water can't serve this same function for thermodynamic reasons. Make sense?

Also, please don't confuse this with hydrogen power, which is a viable technology that does not ever claim to violate thermodynamic principles. Hydrogen systems are based on H2 gas, not water. You must be aware however that H2 gas is a storage medium, not a fuel - it's a way of storing and moving energy from other sources (ranging from renewables to fossil fuels or nuclear power).

Cynic. :P


Have you read any current research about different methods of extracting hydrogen while in-car? It's fascinating stuff. And supposedly would bypass the "trough" you described. With the addition of a certain chemical[s], ordinary water can effectively break down. Of course this is years away and would never be a "free" energy source like people think.

I'd find you the articles I read, but it's late here and I'm running a 1/2 marathon in 5 hours and,frankly, I wouldn't know where to look. It had something to do with hollowing out bacteria found in hot springs.


There's promising research in biofuels, as well. Algae may be viable. You just have to dream a little.

Personally, I am skeptical. Anything that violates at least 2 Laws of Physics in order to run...99.9999999999999999999% of the time there is a simple explanation of the system that they don't tell you.

These guys claim that you don't need anything else like exotic metals to add to the engine...only water. Hell they even said it would run on tea!

By this deal, the car exhausts water...so all you would need to do is route the thing's tailpipe back into the engine and run until the motor wears out.

Guys with engines that run on water have been around for about the same amount of time that engines that run on gasoline have. Every one of them were either crooks, confused, or both.

I'm not a cynic, I'm a biofuels researcher :)

Then you are to be praised.

(Well to be perfectly accurate I'm still a molecular bio grad student aspiring to be a biofuels researcher) ;)

Whaaat? You lied!

Even still, it's a promising field. Good luck.

Everything is impossible until someone does it.

Lord Kelvin claimed heavier than air man-made machines could never fly (he also said radio had no future); this was someone who supposedly knew what he was talking about, given his field of work.
He was dead wrong, wasn't he?
So was everyone else who said things we now do regularly (like flying in airplanes) would never be accomplished.

Don't be pessimists - hope. That's our most important renewable resource, isn't it?