Automobile engines that can run on water, is this True? If it is why are we not using it?

Question

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/727263/autmobile_engines_that_run_on_water/

Answer 1

http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/

Hydrogen fueled cars are on the roads now. There are buses running in some major cities in the U.S. that have hydrogen engines, and use hydrogen from "cracked" water for fuel.

BMW is even getting on the bandwagon...
http://www.bmwworld.com/hydrogen/

Here's a how-to site on how to convert your car to a hydrogen fueled engine...
http://smartflix.com/store/video/1226/How-to-Run-Engines-and-Cars-on-Hydrogen-and-Other-Fuels

How can you people say that it is a scam when the technology is out there and being used in your own country. The ONLY reason that this is not more widely used today, is because of the monopolies the big auto makers have had on classical engines and their gas fuel sources.

Answer 2

Absolutely not. While it is true that by applying energy to a water molecule you can break it up (2H2O => 2H2 + O2), the energy applied equals the energy returned by the recombination through combustion of H2 and O2 at BEST... But this is the real world and the energy loss in the manmade systems to achieve this is prohibitive. You won't in the near future see a car that you fill up with ONLY water to run on. And if the energy gained by the sun can bust those bonds, then the energy gained by the sun would propel the vehicle and NOT water.... there is no sense in hydrolising a water molecule with power from the sun to just convert it back to water in an engine. Why add the water weight... The whole problem with automobiles is energy storage in a weight and size manageable package. At the moment there is NO reasonable alternative!!! A person might say that you can have an electric car. Ok, where does the energy come from? Most energy comes from burning FUEL... not from hydro electric plants, not from nuclear fission plants, not from windmills, and not from the sun. Ultimately humanity has 2 and ONLY 2 ways of harnessing energy... by consuming a non renewable fuel (oil, coal, uranium, things that come out of the earth), and from sunlight (hydroelectric, windmills, solar panels, etc...). Hence, cut the fat and go right to the source... the sun is the closest thing to a renewable resource we have and we need to focus on that.

Answer 3

Duh. Because it isn't true. This urban legend has been around for over forty years.
(but it must be true because it's on the internet.....right?)
Hydrogen is a great fuel -- clean, abundent and cheap -- oops, did I say cheap? Not on your life. It actually costs more to produce H than it does to refine petrol. Maybe someday, when a better method of extracting H from tap water can be found or gas prices shoot up to ten dollars a gallon. The idea than you can fill your tank with water and plug your car into an electrical socket and suddenly you will have a tank full of hydrogen overnight is just fantasy. It's very complicated to extract, compress and store and would take a $200,000 device in your garage to do it. Let's not forget the household powerbill that would increase to $850.00 a month. Don't give up just yet...H is just too good of a fuel source to NOT research. Strangly enopugh, our best hope of having inexpensive hydrogen in the future is the big oil companies. They could produce it much, much cheaper than a home device ever could. And why not? Do you really think they care what kind of fuel we buy from them? It waould be much easier (and safer) to simply drop a pipe into lake Michigan for hydrogen extraction vs drilling, refining and purchasing crude from hostile nations.

Answer 4

The thing on the left is an IC engine (running on petrol or paraffin). You cannot feed fuel into an engine through the exhaust vents without destroying the engine.

In short, he would appear to be talking complete and utter bollocks.

If it were possible, they would be on the market. Car manufactures would stand to make a lot of money from such an engine.

Answer 5

I was a chem major and this is pure bull crap. Water is H20. It is basically BURNT hydrogen. The only way it can give off any more energy is if an element (like Lithium (Li) Potassium (K), or Sodium (Na) or some other very reactive metal) strips off the Hydrogen and combines with it instead. In those cases the fuel would be Li, K or Na. Of course there's the hydrogen fusion gig.

The only real "water" engine takes electricity to split water in to Hydrogen and Oxygen. So in actuality it really just STORES energy (electricity) as Hydrogen & Oxygen. Then later inside the engine it "burns" the hydrogen instead of gasoline.

There's the hydrogen fuel cells (but what he has above is in some sort of internal COMBUSTION engine). Hydrogen fuel cells do not produce power by burning. It produce power from the electric discharge during hydrogen & oxygen reaction - basically a form of battery. It doesnt run on water. It runs on Hydrogen and the waste product is water.

It is just pure simple chemistry. Or as we say it in chemistry STOICHIOMETRY (what goes in comes out - no more, no less).

If this engine above has carbon input, then it has to spit out carbon in some form (not some other "light element" as he puts it). The only way one element changes into another is through nueclear reaction or radioactive decay. If he had any kind of nueclear reaction (or decay) he would need to wear lead underwear to protect his family jewels.

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But here's something to consider, we need about 1.25 gallon of fuel to produce 10 gallons of sugar cane ethanol. But to produce 10 gallons of CORN ethanol it take 7.5 gallons of fuel. So why does USA insist on going with CORN ethanol? All politics and politicians taking money in the form of "political donation". They used to call it bribery, but just pass some new law and it is now considered "lobbying" and "donation".

But keep searching. The truth is out there.

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Answer 6

Whatever may be, nothing is impossible. Many scientist was name crazy, insane or mad when they annouce their ideal. Some comments even came from great people and lets not tell who they are. But what happens in the end. So lets not presume what's going to happen next. Isn't teleporting that we see on the movie use to be just frictional, see what now, they can actually teleport lasers. We had to be more open to ideals that sound crazy at first, we never know one day the one that you are laughing at are one million times or even more richer than you for being crazy. Hee.

Answer 7

Yes, hydrogen fuel cells combust hydrogen and oxygen to create water as a byproduct of running the engine.

1) It is very expensive and energetically unfavorable to produce hydrogen gas.
2) Oil companies don't like the idea, and making a change to this type of engine will require a complete change from petrol economy to hydrogen economy.
3) This idea is still in it's experimental phase of development

Answer 8

If they have been doing this for as many years as they say, why haven't they actually driven a car with it yet? 25 years and they can't figure out how to put a hood back on a car? 25 years and there isn't a single product using the technology? Don't thin so, Baba Louie!

Answer 9

it IS true and the reason it isnt in mass production is because the government shut a company making the system down. after all, how can they control or even price water? my very good friend has used their blueprints to design the system at home and has his car running on water. to the mechanic....did you say the same about electric cars 15 years ago?

Answer 10

there's no such thing,the steam engine is the only engine that uses water for power,and it has to be heated by an alternative fuel,good luck.