Plans for a water powered car.

reply to post by Screwed


Thanks, enjoyed the YouTube video thanks for the link you gavel

reply to post by john_bmth


I don't get this. You are really honestly stating that unless I supply evidence to a claim, then the claim is false?

Really? This is what you actually believe?

Surely, if I don't supply evidence to support a claim, then the claim is unproven. Why does unproven = false in your world?

The problem comes in you would need to compress the gas before injecting into the engine, which takes power. Next you lose about 30% of your power in the creation of your hydrogen, lots of drain on an alternator with a pretty bad short with two leads in water. If by chance you do get the hydrogen to feed into a conventional engine the recombination process with oxygen creates water, not good to have in your carbon steel cylinder bore. Great theory but always remember you do not get something for nothing.

reply to post by RogerT


Yes. That's how science works. Unless I can demonstrate that I am the second coming of Jesus Christ, my claim is false. True and false don't get equal weighting, science doesn't work like a court of law where people are innocent until proven guilty.

Well every theory starts with a hypothesis which must be falsifiable or say verifiable. And if we are not too strict a hypothesis is not much more than an educated guess. The hypothesis as such is not false by default.

One of the posters claims that he observed certain effects by messing with his engine. His hypothesis might be that there a consumption reduction achieved by addition of oxyhydrogen. One could of course argue if the hypothesis is scientifically sound, hehe. But it is actually testable. He could run the engine with the electrolytic cell disabled to and measure the consumption verify his claim.

A simple experiment would be to fill the gas tank. Drive a certain distance with constant speed with the device enabled. Refill the gas tank to get the consumed fuel volume and repeat with the device disabled. Post the values here.

A few others have tried similar devices and didn't see the predicted effects on consumption, which is documented and actually a strong sign that it this hypothesis is false and the devices a scam.

But I wouldn't say that the poster is lying, just that his hypothesis is most probably wrong, and the reason for the reduced consumption is not the additional oxyhydrogen but his tampering with the engine. But that's just my guess.

reply to post by moebius


I tried it a couple of years ago, I doubt it would be worth the trouble of building something that didn't work, again, just to post results here. Though if anyone is thinking of going to the trouble, that would be interesting. The only modification I made to the engine itself was to insert a pipe neatly into the intake manifold. I had no catalytic converter, no engine electronics at all to worry about, no oxygen sensors on the exhaust etc. This eliminated most of the reasons in the literature that could cause these things to be ineffective which mostly centre around on board computer. I had no computer, engines don't get any simpler, just a very old fashioned diesel, the electrical system basically just there for the glow plugs/starter motor and the headlights. I also ran many tanks of fuel over months, both with and without the electrolysis units. It was quite clear that there were benefits, though at the cost of a very slight increase in fuel consumption.

Though I urge people to try it themselves rather than take my word for it. I actually brought plans to make this unit. As the whole point was to increase fuel efficiency, I obtained a refund due to it simply not living up to the stated claims. There was a caveat that for basically unknown reasons it might not work on all vehicles (this should have been warning enough) I tried many different electrode configurations and amperages etc for quite some time after the original design proved ineffective. I even experimented with my own designed units.

Though my point is not necessarily to dissuade people. The wondrous claims usually amount to amazing results reported by "a friend of a friend" . I am interested in hearing experiences from people directly, who have had success with this. I also wonder why people who sell these things don't get genuine verifiable 3rd party testing done to show it works. It seems to make sense to do this if you were going into the business of selling these things to the public. I can think of one reason they don't.....

Originally posted by Cogito, Ergo Sum
reply to post by moebius

 

It was quite clear that there were benefits, though at the cost of a very slight increase in fuel consumption.

What does this mean? Given that the main reson for the device is to lower fuel consumption it sound backwards to say there were benefits but it used more fuel.

What were these benefits?

Originally posted by daskakik

Originally posted by Cogito, Ergo Sum
reply to post by moebius

 

It was quite clear that there were benefits, though at the cost of a very slight increase in fuel consumption.

What does this mean? Given that the main reson for the device is to lower fuel consumption it sound backwards to say there were benefits but it used more fuel.

What were these benefits?

The benefits were that the engine seemed to run smoother. The torque characteristics changed ie. it seemed to have a bit more "get up and go" at the mid range rpm's than normal. Nothing dramatic and this is only my observation, I didn't have a dyno to test it on or anything.

The major benefit was a lack of exhaust fumes. You could literally put your nose on the end of the tailpipe without smelling anything. Not bad for an old diesel engine.

reply to post by Cogito, Ergo Sum

The thing I've tried to research but find conflicting answers, is what the long term effect will be on the engine, if any. Some say it might shorten engine life, unless certain modifications are made. I think Autowrench also mentioned some question about that. If it caused someone to need an engine rebuild after 60000 miles instead of 120000 miles, that would certainly offset some of the benefits you mentioned.

But there's no doubt that water is a clean combustion product when burning hydrogen.

reply to post by Cogito, Ergo Sum

Thanks for sharing your experience Cogito, Ergo Sum.

I am interested in hearing experiences from people directly, who have had success with this.

It would be awesome if autowrench could do some simple consumption tests and document them to get a better idea of what is going on. It would certainly strengthen his claims. But he is of course not obliged to do so.

The benefits were that the engine seemed to run smoother. The torque characteristics changed ie. it seemed to have a bit more "get up and go" at the mid range rpm's than normal.

One possible way to explain this effect would be that you would be enriching the air with oxygen, analogous to nitrous oxide injection. It would also explain the increase in the consumption. But that is speculation on my side.

Originally posted by john_bmth
reply to post by RogerT

 

Yes. That's how science works. Unless I can demonstrate that I am the second coming of Jesus Christ, my claim is false. True and false don't get equal weighting, science doesn't work like a court of law where people are innocent until proven guilty.

Aha, I get it now.
So basically, unless it's been through the peer review system and validated by said system (how does that work anyway when stuff is hotly debated?), then it must be false.

So if I claim that I am less than 8 feet tall, unless I can show you a peer reviewed paper containing sufficient evidence, then my statement is false ergo I am over 8 foot - according to your model of science?

Hmmm. So basically, without a peer reviewed paper, not only can true be false, but false can be true!!

Originally posted by RogerT
Aha, I get it now.
So basically, unless it's been through the peer review system and validated by said system (how does that work anyway when stuff is hotly debated?), then it must be false.

It's not assumed to be true until it's proven true. Einstein's theory of relativity was hotly debated at first. Eventually, it was proven.

So if I claim that I am less than 8 feet tall, unless I can show you a peer reviewed paper containing sufficient evidence, then my statement is false ergo I am over 8 foot - according to your model of science?

The example I gave in this thread was a claim by someone that when they turn off their engine, they burn less gas than when the engine is running. That's not an extraordinary claim, it's what you'd expect. Same with your height being less than 8 feet.

It's the extraordinary claims that demand extraordinary evidence. I'd say even one peer reviewed paper isn't enough by itself if the claim is truly extraordinary. The next step to show it's true would be an independent replication of the experiment in the paper. That's the step where cold fusion fell apart. They published the paper, but it wasn't replicated, at least not consistently. The US Navy is still testing that and is still publishing interesting results. But the scientific community remains skeptical, because nobody is using cold fusion to power anything yet. Rossi claims to be, but he's close to his deadline so we shall soon see if his extraordinary claim is true. It's assumed not to be true, until he proves it with extraordinary evidence.

Arb, I've no issue with this particular post.

My issue is with John's insistence that if it isn't peer reviewed then it's false, which is clearly garbage for any sentient being.

I am attempting to get clarity on the 'rules of science' that John has appointed himself judge and jury over in these threads, and if there is any value in applying his version of them to an alternative technology thread.

One could say my posts are off topic, as I am not relating them specifically to the OP. I am simply attempting to remove "if you can't show me a peer reviewed paper about it, then it doesn't exist" from the thread as a valid position.

I understand the 'extraordinary claim needs extraordinary evidence' conversation, but who decides what is extra-ordinary? To me, feeling and experiencing the effects of chi/ki/prana/life force is perfectly ordinary but to a scientist who cannot measure it and lacks the bodily sensitivity to experience it personally, no doubt it is extra-ordinary.

I may even make an extra-ordinary claim, and have bags of evidence to support the claim, perhaps even undisputable proof type evidence, but what John is saying is according to his version of science (and it seems reality is nested within science?!), unless I can demonstrate a peer reviewed scientific paper, my evidence and experience are somehow not valid, real or truthful.

So yeah, it's his arbitrary use of 'link me to the peer reviewed paper' in order to validate the existence of a phenomenon that I take issue with.

In terms of extracting water from energy, I don't have enough personal experience to be decided one way or the other. I'd like to see some independently tested results from some group without an agenda, but in the meantime, I'm not going to go around insisting people are lying or deluded just because the mainstream science community hasn't issued its rubber stamp.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
It's assumed not to be true, until he proves it with extraordinary evidence.

OK, 'assumed not to be true' - yes I can go with that. It's one step down the slippery slope and 'assumed to be unproven' would be more honest IMO, or even 'not assumed to be true'.
'Assumed to be false' - not the same, in my world.

Is that semantics?

John takes it one step further to 'It is false'.
That's anti-commonsensical, supremely arrogant and says more about the person making the statement than the phenomenon they are making a statement about.

He even goes further than that and says:

"this is not my area of expertise (i.e. I don't know) but I'm still going to insist I know that it is false, because there are no peer reviewed papers being presented to me at this time"

Originally posted by RogerT
Is that semantics?

Yes, you are talking semantics.

I like the way Carl Sagan summed it up better:

"extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

You could write pages about semantics of truth, levels of evidence, and other semantics, but I think that phrase sums up the most important concept. This link elaborates:

skeptico.blogs.com...

We have a lot of evidence that cars can't run on water, so that's why a claim to the contrary is truly extraordinary and requires mountains of evidence. I'd go a step further than John and say one peer reviewed paper by itself isn't enough to prove an extraordinary claim.

But I'd differ from John slightly in stating my reasons for knowing it's false, it's not just the lack of a peer reviewed paper, but as the above link suggests, it's the existence of a mountain of evidence such as knowledge, experiments and measurements regarding the chemical energy required to break the chemical bonds in water molecules, etc.

We certainly don't know everything, but there's a lot we do know, especially about the chemical bonds in water molecules and their associated energy, which is at the heart of the question about running cars on water.

So when people make claims that contradict what we know, (or at least think we know), then yes, it will take a lot more than a youtube video to convince us otherwise, and I'd say more than one peer reviewed paper.

OK, I'm aligned with everything you say there except that "we have a lot of evidence that cars can't run on water". Whilst we may have a lot of evidence that cars can't run on water the way some people claim they can it is not the same as your assertion.

This is not just twisting sematics to suit an agenda, it's about being authentic and accurate with labels.

Saying - 'cars can't run on water' is very different to 'we haven't yet found a peer reviewed way to make cars run on water according to the model proposed by the OP'

The former is a statement of fact, which is unprovable in a Universe of infinite potential/possibility. The latter is an invitation for discussion, thinking, and practical experimentation.

I guess I am balking at the absolutism in the stance.

In terms of breaking water into H and O2, I'm not doubting the conventional wisdom that standard electrolysis takes more energy that recombining the molecules gives out (sorry for the lay terms).

In my meagre research into this, it looks like the DIY'ers are proposing other mechanisms, that operate in ways we are less familiar with.

My favorite was the idea of using harmonic frequencies, but I'm not sufficiently educated in this field to make a meaningful case for it. Puharic seems to have been fond of this idea - I thought the paper I linked before made the case, but I confess I didn't reread it before posting earlier and was relying on 4 year old memories.

Here's another discourse on harmonics etc quoting Puharic:
merlib.org...

Electrolysis by simple direct current would create hydrogen and oxygen with a net energy efficiency of only 54 percent, according to Puharich, a Virginia-based inventor. But he says his alternating-current system reaches better than 90 per cent efficiency.

A former physician, Puharich discovered the water-splitting technique a dozen years ago but has only recently presented his findings publicly.

Originally, he was investigating the DISRUPTIVE EFFECT of electrical resonances on blood clots and noticed a peculiar thing: in dilute blood, a SPECIFIC FREQUENCY made bubbles appear in the liquid.

Lab analysis showed that the bubbles were composed of oxygen and hydrogen.

A barrel-shaped cavity contains the water in Puharich's recently refined system. He introduces alternating current at A KEY FREQUENCY of 600 cycles per second.

The cavity resonates with the impulses in somewhat the same way the body of a violin resonates with the sound of one string, ADDING HIGHER AND LOWER HARMONICS TO THE PRINCIPAL TONE.

The additional harmonics, Puharich says, cause the proton in the hydrogen atom TO ROTATE, further forcing the hydrogen to split from the oxygen.

Could he have found something that changes the way the molecular bonds react to electrical current?

Originally posted by TWISTEDWORDS
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

The answer to that question of your is yes, you can split the atoms using the alternator. You would simply hook up the positive lead and negative lead from the alternator to two copper rods for the experiment submerged in water. while the alternator runs it would produce the + and - charge to the rods and the would split the water atoms into gas bubble at the top of the reservoir. You would then capture the hydrogen on one side and the oxygen on the other. No problem at all.

Your only problem with water for long term use is the rods. You would really need either gold, platinum or palladium rods to be perfect as neither gold nor palladium will rust in water. You can also use a hybrid metal used in jewelry called Nambe wear metal. It's an alloy and again won't rust, but will conduct.

In all practicality you would need a reservoir of plastic and nothing that would corrode with water. Building a automobile would be costly as the gold or alloys would eat you up.

You can use 316L Medical Grade Stainless Steel bolts. Expensive, but they have a lot of nickel in them. Gold would be the best choice, but who has gold laying around to experiment with these days?

Originally posted by RogerT
I guess I am balking at the absolutism in the stance.

To make this statement is taking one statement in my post out of context. I specifically qualified my response wth comments about our understanding of the energy levels required to break chemical bonds in water molecules and the mountain of evidence related to that. And I also made some statements like "what we think we lmow" which is certainly not absolute. So the implication in context, is that one would need to demonstrate some fundamental flaw in our understanding of how the chemical bonds in water molecules work, or something along those lines, to contradict our claim that "we can't run a car on water". Another part of the context is the scenario posited in the OP, that is using the cars alternator to power the electrolysis is the part that makes it impossible based on our current knowledge of physics, chemistry and thermodynamics, just to name a few disciplines.

What's not impossible is to develop a super efficient solar panel and put it on the car's roof and use that to power the electrolysis in Arizona. Then you might run a car on water using solar power rather than the car's alternator. I haven't seen such panels made commercially yet but I've seen research being done on them and they don't break any laws of physics, where the goal would be perhaps 90% efficiency, which is aggressive considering the current efficiency of maybe 30% for some panels, but 90% efficiency is not theoretically impossible.

Originally posted by RogerT
In terms of breaking water into H and O2, I'm not doubting the conventional wisdom that standard electrolysis takes more energy that recombining the molecules gives out (sorry for the lay terms).
merlib.org...

Electrolysis by simple direct current would create hydrogen and oxygen with a net energy efficiency of only 54 percent, according to Puharich, a Virginia-based inventor. But he says his alternating-current system reaches better than 90 per cent efficiency.

Could he have found something that changes the way the molecular bonds react to electrical current?

Any electrolysis makes you put more energy in, than you get out, standard or otherwise.

A claim of increasing efficiency from 54% to 90% is not all that extraordinary, though it's an impressive improvement. Whether it's true or not, I don't know. But it's not an extraordinary claim that we automatically assume is false based on a mountain of evidence to the contrary. So one could say such a claim doesn't require extraordinary evidence. In a claim of 90% efficiency, one peer reviewed paper might be sufficiently convincing. However, for claims of efficiency over 100%, one peer reviewed paper wouldn't be enough. And that's what you need to run a car on water, over 100%, or over unity. 90% efficiency isn't good enough to use the car's alternator to run the car indefinitely on water. Nor is 99%.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Sorry again, I didn't make that clear enough, I am complaining about absolutism from John's posts, not from your posts.