- Jun 9, 2004
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Videos of this "miracle fuel" have been circulating on the web lately. What do you think? My automatic response is to call BS on this.
Several sources have claimed that it will never work due to something related to hydrogen valence. Can anyone explain this further?
Several sources have claimed that it will never work due to something related to hydrogen valence. Can anyone explain this further?
Cars run on water: Miracle or scam?
Businessman claims hybrid technology more efficient with less emissions
Posted: May 20, 2006
Though the developer of a technology that uses water to produce a flammable gas says it provides a solution to high gas prices plaguing the nation, detractors claim the businessman's idea is a scam.
Denny Klein is president of Hydrogen Technologies Applications in Clearwater, Fla. His patented machine uses an electrical charge to separate the atoms of H2O into HHO, a gas he calls "Aquygen."
"You get a huge energy response," Klein told the Tampa Tribune. "But this gas is very, very safe."
He first used the fuel to power a welding tool, but soon tried it out in a hybrid automobile.
The flame, though on its own registers just 259 degrees Fahrenheit, heats up to the melting point of whatever substance it touches, explained Steve Lusko, project manager for Hydrogen Technologies Applications.
"For example, when you ignite our flame and touch it to steel, it will cut right through it at 1,400 degrees," Lusko told WND.
"It will melt a hole right through a brick at 4,500 degrees. ? It reacts to whatever it touches."
So, Lusko says, the gas has the ability to bond to whatever fuel it is mixed with, like gasoline in a hybrid car.
"Upon combustion, you get a dramatic increase in energy BTUs," he said, "and you get an equally dramatic decrease in emission pollution, because the burn is so highly efficient, what would have come out of the tailpipe as an emission ends up getting burned up and used."
An "electrolyzer" in Klein's 1994 Ford Escort uses electricity from the alternator to initiate the electrolysis process to make the HHO gas out of water, explained Lusko. That gas is then pumped to the manifold and into the gas tank.
"The gas then bonds with the gasoline in the gas tank," Lusko said, "and then upon combustion, that's when you get the reaction, giving you higher gas mileage and cleaner emissions."
Why not run a car with exclusively HHO gas?
"We have combustion engines here that have run completely on our Aquygen," Lusko said, "but it would be a matter of engineering."
Lusko says in tests the mileage of the hybrid vehicle has improved anywhere from 25 to 53 percent.
Hydrogen Technologies Applications has a patent on its generator and has one pending on Aquygen.
Lusko says the company has already talked to some auto companies about using the technology in new vehicles.
Not everyone in the tech world is cheering for Klein and his process.
Writing on peswiki.com, Ken Rasmussen stated: "[Klein] may have an efficient way to break down water for pure hydrogen and oxygen to run an engine. Several of us are on the verge of perfecting the process, but none of us want to make fools of ourselves with TV claims until ALL the bugs are exterminated."
Rasmussen was referring to a TV news story that ran about Klein on Fox affiliate KRIV-TV in Houston, Texas.
"Gases are dangerous and hard to store and hard to compress ? they do not do an efficient job of temporarily storing energy," wrote Eric Kreig on the same site. "The gas produced by separating water is dangerous and has been called many things. ? It has been available for years from many sources. These machines are heavy and suck in a lot more power than you ever get out of them by burning the gas back into water."
Wrote a message board participant at peakoil.com: "Overall, [the technology is] rather pointless, as it wastes lots of energy. Just a simple charge-and-go electric car sounds like a much better idea."
Yet another opined: "Some scamsters have claimed that their miracle electrolyzer produces a magical mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, that is somehow different from other mixtures of hydrogen and oxygen in that it is not explosive and contains three to 10 times as much energy as hydrogen. Historically, scammers have given their magical mixtures all sorts of names. HHO or Klein gas appears to be nothing more than the latest name given to this nonsense."
Lusko was adamant the technology is real and the company has nothing to hide.
"We are what we are," he said. "The technology is what it appears to be. Do you think we would expose ourselves on Fox News if it were a scam?"
Added Lusko: "The only fools that would [call the technology a scam] are people who haven't seen it. It's not possible to make that statement if they have any idea what they're talking about. ? I witness the technology every single day of my life."
Lusko says he became an investor in the company a year and a half ago and told Klein at that time he "must be a part of this." That's when Lusko began working for the firm.
"This technology is going to end up being in the mainstream eventually," he predicted, "and then the critics are going to look absolutely foolish."
Klein says he plans to take Hydrogen Technology, which now has private investors, public this year.