Water-Fueled Car Too Good To Be True?

Water-Powered Cars
Like clockwork, every time oil prices shoot up journalists scramble for stories about energy, and a few water-powered cars and perpetual motion machines always make it through. That's what happened with the Genepax Water-Powered Car featured on Reuters (and then a bit too uncritically on TreeHugger, but also on many other green sites like Environmental Leader, Celcias, etc).

How this Water Car Probably Works
One thing that helps fuel the conspiracy rumors surrounding water cars is that the media run these segments where they show "water cars" actually driving around, and it all seems to work, and then we never hear about them again. People figure that Big Oil (or the Illuminati, whatever) is suppressing the technology. The reality is more mundane: It is actually possible to make a car look like it runs on water without breaking the first law of thermodynamics. The way it's usually done is with metal hydrides. These react with water to produce hydrogen, which is then used to power the car. But since these hydrides will deplete with time, they need to be replaced and so they are actually the fuel, not the water. And you can be sure that more energy will go into producing them than will be taken out, making them an energy carrier, just like a battery.

Water Cars Create False Hopes and Real Apathy
There is a real danger in widely reporting these stories without debunking them, or at least being cautious to say that the "water car" is probably not doing what it claims it does until rigorous proof of the contrary.

The danger is that it creates false hopes, which then turn into real apathy. Either people believe that there's a solution to all our energy problems "coming real soon now", and so there's no need to worry and make efforts. And the people who've been around longer end up disillusioned and frustrated because they've been promised "water cars" for decades and it never comes, so they think that there's a big worldwide conspiracy against it (and somehow none of the dozens of "inventors" and "engineers" who worked on these projects were able to put the technical information on the internet).

The Bottom Line on Water Cars
As Carl Sagan used to say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The next time you hear about a water car, remember that and don't get your hopes up too quickly.

Comments

[RTIII]

As a scientist I agree wholeheartedly with this article EXCEPT the characterization of the catalyst as a fuel.

A car that "creates" hydrogen and then burns it IS using hydrogen as the fuel. If water is being separated to create the hydrogen, then the water is a hydrogen storage technology - since water consists of two hydrogen atoms for every oxygen atom. However, if I recall correctly, using electricity it's about a 9:1 cost in energy. That is, it's about 11% efficient, or thereabouts.

I read a research paper indicating that all known catalysts up to then were subject to other chemical reactions that caused a problem with continuing the conversion. It's not that the catalysts were being _consumed_ - as in a fuel - (because then they wouldn't be catalysts!) but rather other issues. For example, their surfaces may be coated with an oxide that prevents further access to the catalytic material and so the useful life is short. ...That's where this story has it wrong - catalysts don't get consumed in the processes they foster because if they did they would not be considered a catalyst, by definition. (These guys need a better - more scientifically literate - proof-read­er.)

I do, however, recall reading that there were some promising catalytic strategies coming along, and one of them MAY someday work better.

By the way, the other big problem here is the media being so scientifically illiterate as to suggest that the water in such a system was the

[RTIII]

...fuel.

[twgbonehead]

Sorry, but the metal hydrides are NOT catalysts (and the article doesn't say they are catalysts, either). They are the energy storage medium, aka the fuel. You miss the whole point here. WHERE DOES THE ENERGY COME FROM???

It can't be coming from the water, because the car burns hydrogen (to produce water). If it was actually somehow "extracting" energy from water that would be a perpetual motion machine. The energy is coming from the metal hydrides, and therefore they are the fuel.

And HydrogenMan, the hydride storage material may be "easily" replenished with more hydrogen, but IT TAKES ENERGY TO DO THAT - either in the form of electrical energy, or in the form of hydrogen gas.

[wadenelson1]

You're a scientist?

[Hydrogenman]

The language used in this piece confuses. It could be easily misconstrued as a dismissal of hydrogen as a fuel or energy carrier. In fact, metal hydrides do not have to be replenished if hydrogen is the energy carrier. When the hydrogen fuel is depleted, the hydride storage material just has to be replenished with more hydrogen, which is easily done. Hydrogen is a pollution free, inexhaustible energy carrier. Hydrogen is already much cheaper than gasoline. We just need to build an infrastructure to dispense it. We can put a hydrogen fueling station within two miles of 70% of the US population within a few years for about what it costs to keep our armed forces in Iraq for a month. This is an important option that doesn get talked about nearly enough.

[KillTheMessenger]

On an industrial scale hydrogen happens to be made from natural gas, at a loss of energy. It therefor must be MORE expensive than natural gas. Let's check that, shall we?

According to

http://www.hygen.com/exec_sa.htm

Hydrogen prices are around $8.50/1000 cubic feet. I take 2006 as the baseline for this price because there is a citation for 2006 in the source.

At the same time (2006) natural gas went for $6.40/1000 cubic feet wellhead price and roughly double that for residential.

Now to the energetic value. Natural gas is between 950-1150 Btu/cubic foot = 1000-1210kJ/cubic foot . One cubic foot of hydrogen is only 361.12 kJ. So natural gas has roughly THREE times the energy content and is CHEAPER at the well head.

Hydrogen? A cheap fuel? Hardly.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

The money I don't put into the compressed air mine is going for hydrogen drilling.

[DMSmith]

We now have fueling stations that can be used to dispense bio-diesel, which can now be made from wood chips and continuously growing saw-grass. Use this in bio-diesel hybrids, and combine that with putting large electric motors into existing cars and powering the batteries with solar (already being done, check the internet) and combined we have the answer - using existing cars and inrfra-structure, with wood chips and saw grass grown locally, and needing no shipping. Oh, and plug-in hybrids using ethanol. No more imported oil. NONE.

I already drive a Mercedes diesel on bio-diesel made from local waste potato chip oil.

If we want to solve this, we can. Easily, fairly simply, and in a decent time-frame. We just need to DO IT.

I started already. How about you?

[lvogt]

I still prefer electric cars because the hydrogen fueling stations are still based on the big corporate, gas station model. Electricity can be had anywhere including produced from your own solar or wind resources.

[Cathexis]

What's laughable is that potable water is becoming as scarce (or more) than oil!

[fredamae]

it was already successfully invented in the 50's......­even in the early years of the last century, steam was used to power "steam donkey's" in the logging industry.

follow the money and you will find the reason it is not here now.

[KenGirard]

I am not sure you understand what "potable water" is.
To put it in real simple terms it means fit for human consumption. As in drinking water.

I think we all know that steam can be used to power stuff, but how do you make the steam? The very best system I know of is nuclear (as it is what they use for nuclear power plants) but we don't need a million little atomic piles rolling on the road. We could burn coal, wood, natural gas, propane, etc. but none of them is clean or easy to get in the quantities we'd need to make the switch.

Now using solar power (redirected sunlight) to heat the water to turn a turbine to make electric to recharge my car battery... that I can live with. Just as long as you don't try to put it on my roof.... but only because I like the giant tress that shade my house.

[KillTheMessenger]

Steam not being here? You got to be kidding me. Almost every thermal power plant on Earth uses steam turbines to make electricity. Just because you don't see it does not mean it is not here. I would guess that roughly half the energy the world consumes has at one point or another been stored in high pressure steam.