Running Your Car on Water

I recently visited a couple websites which tried to explain how to run a car on water. The sites are selling e-books or manuals on how to do the conversion yourself for a few hundred dollars. They even claim that you will qualify for Federal tax credits for converting to a “hybrid” car, as this one infers:

http://water-for-gas-reviews.com/RunYourCarOnWater.html

(I do not even want to link to them on the fear that it will legitimize their scheme, but you can make your own decisions.)

I won’t even address the possible trouble with the IRS on this topic, since in effect you are designating your car as a a hybrid without any certification. Check the tax code yourself on the IRS.GOV website. You will have to stretch your, and your auditor’s imagination a bit to get that one.

After deciphering the poorly written explanations of how the technology is supposed to work, it appears that the proponents (shall we call them snake-oil salesmen?) are telling you to use your car’s electricity to create electrolysis, or the process of breaking water down into its component parts of hydrogen and oxygen. Hopefully, they have two paths of collection for the gases so they remain separated prior to injection into the fuel line, but I doubt it. That would be quite a modification to do by yourself.

Then, some of these site discuss the resultant gas, HHO as increasing the combustion rate of engines. I wonder why the automobile manufacturers couldn’t figure that one out? Oh, I forgot – these sites are implying that the automakers are knowingly creating inefficient cars! If that were the case, Toyota wouldn’t have had to sell its Prius to conquer the fuel-efficient car market – Toyota could have done this couple-hundred-dollar modification itself and saved the money on the hybrid drive system and the expensive batteries. Of course, that’s part of the conspiracy – Toyota wants to sell these expensive cars to us unsuspecting customers!

Another thing that concerns me, is that if this system does inject hydrogen into the combustion process, wouldn’t that create more moisture in the engine? Yes, moisture is created in gasoline and diesel combustion too, and can be a major problem if you don’t run your engine long enough to create the heat necessary to evaporate the moisture from the engine and exhaust systems. This is called wet stacking and will reduce the engine’s life. I suspect that if the gas-to-water system really works, then it would only aggravate that problem.

Another consideration is whether the hydrogen adds power to the fuel-air mix? Maybe it adds a little bit, but since energy is neither created nor destroyed, it had to come from somewhere. Did it come from the water? No – water is a stable molecule which does not burn, and thus, does not give any energy via combustion. Then, the extra energy had to come from the hydrogen, right? Yes, it did. But the hydrogen was separated from water by adding energy via the electrolysis process. That energy came from the car battery, which was charged by taking energy from the drive train, which derives it from the engine, which is powered by the gasoline or diesel fuel. Since a perpetual motion machine has never been developed due to frictional and heat losses, we have to assume there are losses in this system too. Reference the Wikepedia article on HHO, which clearly states: “The energy required to generate the oxyhydrogen always exceeds the energy released by combusting it. (See Electrolysis of water:Efficiency).”

This would be similar to a homeowner trying to generate his own electricity by buying an electric motor connected to his home utility grid, and connecting it to a generator into which he plugs his appliances. Sure he generates electricity, but the power ultimately comes from the utility grid, and he loses some of the power due to friction in the drive train between the motor and generator, and the resistive heat losses of the circuits. By the way, I have seen this proposed on the internet as a way of “generating free electricity.” The inventor of that system, like the inventor of the gas-to-water system, also mysteriously disappeared due to another conspiracy.

Here’s my challenge: While the engineers reading this are probably agreeing with me, the snake-oil salesmen are probably outraged.

I would love to hear comments from both sides of this argument, and I will publish all opinions as long as they are not SPAM or overtly commercial.

Let’s see if someone convinces me and I wind up eating crow on this issue!

hho

How High Efficiency Air Conditioners Work

Chilled-water and Cooling-tower AC Units

Click Here to Request Information on High Efficiency HVAC Systems and Retrofits

In a chilled-water system, the entire air conditioner lives on the roof or behind the building. It cools water to between 40 and 45 F (4.4 and 7.2 C). This chilled water is then piped throughout the building and connected to air handlers as needed. There is no practical limit to the length of a chilled-water pipe if it is well-insulated.

You can see in this diagram that the air conditioner (on the left) is completely standard. The heat exchanger lets the cold Freon chill the water that runs throughout the building.

Cooling tower

Cooling Towers
In all of the systems described earlier, air is used to dissipate the heat from the outside coil. In large systems, the efficiency can be improved significantly by using a cooling tower. The cooling tower creates a stream of lower-temperature water. This water runs through a heat exchanger and cools the hot coils of the air conditioner unit. It costs more to buy the system initially, but the energy savings can be significant over time (especially in areas with low humidity), so the system pays for itself fairly quickly.

Cooling towers come in all shapes and sizes. They all work on the same principle:

1. A cooling tower blows air through a stream of water so that some of the water evaporates.
2. Generally, the water trickles through a thick sheet of open plastic mesh.
3. Air blows through the mesh at right angles to the water flow.
4. The evaporation cools the stream of water.
5. Because some of the water is lost to evaporation, the cooling tower constantly adds water to the system to make up the difference.

Cooling towers

The amount of cooling that you get from a cooling tower depends on the relative humidity of the air and the barometric pressure.

For example, assuming a 95 F (35 C) day, barometric pressure of 29.92 inches (sea-level normal pressure) and 80-percent humidity, the temperature of the water in the cooling tower will drop about 6 degrees to 89 F (3.36 degrees to 31.7 C).

If the humidity is 50 percent, then the water temperature will drop perhaps 15 degrees to 80 F (8.4 degrees to 26.7 C).

If the humidity is 20 percent, then the water temperature will drop about 28 degrees to 67 F (15.7 degrees to 19.4 C). Even small temperature drops can have a significant effect on energy consumption.

To understand how the relative humidity and atmospheric pressure control the temperature drop in a cooling tower on any given day, check out USA Today: How a sling psychrometer works.

Whenever you walk behind a building and find a unit that has large quantities of water running through a plastic mesh, you will know you have found a cooling tower.

In many office complexes and college campuses, cooling towers and air conditioning equipment are centralized, and chilled water is routed to all of the buildings through miles of underground pipes

Bryant, Charles W., and Marshall Brain. “How Air Conditioners Work.” 01 April 2000. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://home.howstuffworks.com/ac.htm> 21 May 2008.

Will We Keep Paying More for Electric Power?

Note: Try our quick and free Online Energy Savings Calculator.

Electricity price inelasticity means that the laws of supply and demand are unlikely to cause electricity prices to drop in the future due to a lack of demand caused by rising prices. These higher prices will make it difficult to pass legislation encouraging the use of green energy. Consumption will probably not decrease and electrical power prices will continue to rise.

The Wall Street Journal puts it well in this quote below, taken directly from their article “Pain at the Plug: Fuel Costs Push Up Electricity Rates, Too

That raises some interesting questions. How easy a sell will climate-change bills like Lieberman-Warner be for Congress, when the bills will add between 11% and 64% to the cost of electricity which is already going vertical?

What will higher electricity prices do to demand for juice? When gasoline prices spiked in recent months, demand slumped for once. Normally, demand for gasoline is pretty inelastic in the short-term. Only sustained high gasoline prices lead to big changes, like more fuel-efficient cars, carpooling, and the like.

Demand for electricity is even less responsive to price than demand for gasoline is. Spot market rates for electricity aren’t posted across town, and you don’t pay the power bill every week.

Driving Your Car on Water – Scam Alert!

You are better off clicking here and getting gas rebate rewards which can add up to free gas for life

Caveat Emptor: Watch out for businesses and products which promise to save you gas by adding some expensive liquid to your fuel tank, or, as I have recently seen, a company which sells a car engine conversion kit to allow your car to run on gas.

It seems that a large number of people believe this hype, and with gas prices increases at their current rate, maybe many of us are willing to suspend our disbelief in the hopes of finding a solution.

However, the reality is that mineral oil appears to have replaced snake oil as one of the preferred means of reducing the mass inside your wallet.

These additives, at best, have a one-time effect of cleaning parts inside the engine to allow it to run more efficiently. Nevertheless, those types of cleaners are available at your local car parts or hardware store, usually much less expensively, and do not have to be added to every tankful, as these outfits claim, because they do not do anything to the gas to make it more efficient.

For real benefits, you could buy a more fuel efficient car, or just take the proven advice offered on the following website:

Sierra Club: Filling Up For Less

Strategic Oil Reserves – An Alternate Solution

Congress has another brilliant method of reducing gas prices – here’s my over-simplified solution:

CNN.COM Strategic Oil Reserves

Estimated savings: 1 cent to 25 cents per gallon. I guess you can pack your bags and take that road trip across the country now.

Furthermore, it’s strange that we drill for oil and pump it out of one hole, only to buy it from the market and drop it down another, in this case, an abandoned salt mine set up as the strategic oil reserves.

We could have been lazy about it and just left it in the first hole.

I’ve got an idea: Why don’t we take Alaska’s ANWAR reserve and designate it our Strategic Oil Reserves? That way, we can just leave the oil in Alaska, save money by not extracting it, let the caribou live in peace, and have a huge oil reserve which won’t cost the taxpayers anything and won’t increase current demand on oil.

Great! But where’s the pork?

Congress will never touch that!

Wrongfully Accused – A Bio-Diesel Start-up Defends Itself

ETHANOL PLEADS NOT GUILTY!

BY: KENNETH C. REED
Natural Alternative Fuels, Inc.

Ethanol is currently on trial, charged with causing world hunger and civil unrest. It is alleged that the corn and grain diverted from the food chain to produce biofuels has lead to severe food shortage and disrupted food security around the world. Alternative fuel production has been blamed for high food prices at the grocery store and causing a “silent famine” among the world’s poor. Some have gone as far as to claim that production of ethanol and biodiesel from grain is a “crime against humanity.” To the charges, ethanol pleads “not guilty.”

The purpose of this article is to set forth the truth and debunk the myth about ethanol and biodiesel. The public deserves to know the truth so that they can discern fact from fiction and propaganda. Armed with truth, consumers will be less inclined to succumb to biased media hype, special interest group propaganda and knee-jerk decision making by political leaders. The truth will expose the real culprits behind high food prices and the hunger crisis.

The real perpetrators of the current world food crisis are: Fear, greed, rising demand, dwindling supply, prolonged drought in Argentina, heavy rains and flooding in the mid-west U.S. and other parts of the world, and foreign government decisions to reduce grain exports in an effort to drive down domestic prices. These factors all play a pivotal role in the price and availability of food. U.S. ethanol production uses 25 percent of the nation’s corn output, however, the corn used is field corn and not sweet corn used for human consumption. The actual net impact of ethanol production on food prices in the store amounts to a few pennies. Now compare this to the following facts.

Truth 1.

A barrel of oil sold on the New York Stock Exchange for $75.00 in July 2007. On May 7, 2008, this global commodity sold for $122.00 per barrel. By May 9th, the price hit $126.00 per barrel. It takes approximately 6 weeks for a barrel of oil to make its way from the refinery to the consumers’ gas tank. In addition, oil companies switch from winter gas to summer gas; a process that will soon take place and will result in an upward spike in gas prices.
Truth 2.

Consumers paid approximately $2.78 per gallon for gas in April 2007. On May 7, 2008, the average cost of gas was $3.61 a gallon. The American public will soon feel the effects of $126.00 per barrel oil and the summer change-over gas as the cost of a gallon of fuel will exceed $4.00 and move toward $4.50 by the end of June, 2008.

Truth 3.

Rice is the number one food staple for nearly ½ of the population of the world. The record price of $894.00 per ton was set on May 6, 2008. The previous record was set in May 2007 when the price was $327.25 per ton. Much of the world’s population that relies on rice as their primary dietary supplement are poor and have been the hardest hit by this sharp increase.
Truth 4.

Thailand, the world’s largest exporter of rice, ships 1/3 of all rice exports. The world is gripped by the fear that Thailand will soon restrict rice shipments, thereby furthering the global food crisis. The Thai government has said it will not impose such restrictions. Nevertheless, worry has caused consumers to hoard rice which has lead to a $2-$3 increase in price in the grocery store. Sam’s Club and Costco have placed limits on bulk rice purchases claiming their decision is “based on recent supply and demand trends.”

Truth 5.

Fear concerning Thailand’s potential to restrict rice exports is fueled by the fact that other major world exporters (India and Vietnam) indicated that they will reduce rice exports in an effort to drive down domestic prices. China, Egypt and Cambodia have imposed such restrictions.
Truth 6.

By December 2007, the price of wheat had topped $10.00 per bushel. This is after experts had predicted that wheat would sell for $3.80 per bushel by June 2007. May 2008 wheat sells for $12.92 per bushel, having fallen back down from $19.80 per bushel in February 2008. This price volatility is coupled with the fact that the world’s wheat supply has diminished to its lowest level in 60 years.

Truth 7.

A bushel of corn sold for an average price of $3.40 in June 2007. By May 5, 2008, a bushel of corn sold for $6.02. Soybeans sold for an average of $6.35 per bushel in 2007 and reached $13.32 per bushel by May 2008. Corn and soybeans are the primary feedstock for producing ethanol and biodiesel fuels.

Truth 8.

Developing nations like China and India have become more affluent, resulting in increased food consumption particularly meats, poultry and vegetable oils. People who once ate approximately 44 kilograms of meat are now eating 110 kilograms of meat per year. Increased meat consumption requires increased livestock which requires significant increased grain feed for the livestock. This increase in demand for grain has been a trend for the past 5 years, significantly impacting world-wide supply and is a cause of surplus levels dwindling to their lowest point in 60 years.

Truth 9.

Prolonged drought in Argentina, floods in mid-western U.S., heavy rains in other areas of the world have slowed the planting season for farmers. Unless the weather changes soon, crop yields will be significantly less in 2008. Lower supply, world-wide population growth and increased demand results in higher prices. Add to these factors the decline in the value of the American dollar and the shift of investment dollars into global commodities, and you have the ingredients for higher food prices in the grocery stores. At the same time everything is rising in price, household incomes remained flat or declined. Unfortunately, the poor of the world suffer the most. Civil unrest in areas of predominantly poor have nothing to do with production of ethanol, but everything to do with the widening gap between the “haves and the have-nots.”

Truth 10.

This time, ethanol and biodiesel is here to stay. In prior generations, major oil companies and special interest groups have been able to block the penetration of biofuels into the market. With rising energy costs, increased concern for global warming and greater emphasis on reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil, the time is right for America to invest in alternative fuels. The renewable fuels industry achieved 25.4 billion in revenues in 2007 from sales of 15 billion gallons of fuel. The market is projected to grow to 81.1 billion dollars by 2017.

Major oil companies raked in 123 billion dollars in profits this past year while the price of gas at the pump reached levels which force people to choose between driving and eating. American truckers are unable to afford to fuel the trucks that deliver most of this country’s food to the stores. Truckers have paid in excess of 22 billion dollars more in gas in 2008 than they did in 2007. Higher gas prices are passed from the truckers to the stores and from the stores to the consumers. The sad truth is that there is no food shortage. Food is in the store and rotting on the floors of the warehouses; but the people of the world are increasingly unable to afford to purchase the food due to severe price increases fueled by ungodly price increases for oil. If it had not been for the

availability of ethanol and biodiesel as a competitive alternative to petroleum-based gasoline, the price of gas would be even higher than it is now.

In conclusion, the charges against ethanol and biofuels are wrong. At best, those who promote these charges are misinformed. At worst, these people and groups are part of a conspiracy to reverse U.S. government policies that promote alternative fuel development; the goal being to protect big oil profits.

Knowledge is power. Power is the strength and ability to effect change. Without knowledge, our people will perish. To ignore the knowledge shared herein is to fall victim to the smoke and mirror tricks intended to divert attention away from the real culprits behind the suffering of the people. The facts speak for themselves. It has very little to do with the production of corn-based ethanol. The real ringleaders for the alleged “crime against humanity” are fear and greed and the people or companies that trade on that fear. On the basis of the facts and truths set forth herein, the charges against ethanol and biofuels must be dismissed!

Respectfully submitted by:

Kenneth C. Reed,

© All rights reserved. Kenneth C. Reed. Natural Alternative Fuels, Inc. May 9, 2008