Possibly the end of relying on oil?

evhudsons

http://keysnews.com/node/38326

Local Florida Keys resident runs his SUV on tap water!

BlueFox

Sounds like really polluted water. :biggrin:

polkfarmboy

I am skeptical till I know more

whats kinda strange is why this is not on the evening news or why car manufacturers have not figured this out if its " chemistry 101 " like the inventor said

evhudsons

removing the hydrogen without using much energy has been a holy grail for the entire industry. How could he accidentally discover this when tons of people and money could not do this. Sometimes little things that are crucial are overlooked and discoveries happen, but I would like to see how this pans out. But if he is only using gas to start the car and then he really does have a way of producing hydrogen from water efficiently and is not a scammer or con, then I think this could be huge.

cnh

Lots of people, many top notch scientists and engineers, have been working on hydrogen fuel cell tech. for some time now. Some guy with what amounts to water and some electrodes does NOT have to worry about patenting "anything"!

An amusing and fanciful story.

cnh

EndersShadow

polkfarmboy wrote: »

I am skeptical till I know more

whats kinda strange is why this is not on the evening news or why car manufacturers have not figured this out if its " chemistry 101 " like the inventor said

Who says they havent? Who says the oil companies will not buy said patent for a ridiculous amount of cash and bury it? Who says the car companies havent been paid off to keep their engines running just at regulations?

brgman

Algae is our future!!

nooshinjohn

I call bs... If he has not configured the engine for hydrogen already, it would go bang when switched over from gas. Nice story though.

evhudsons

out of curiousity I looked up more info. It almost looks like this guy did his own research and applied to his car acting like he discovered it. Within the last year or so they have made really big advancements. The only problem is getting the same performance as gas powered does now. I think they are close now. I actually thing car companies would want this, they sell cars not gas. The cheaper it is to run cars, the more they will be run hence putting mileage and thereby creating need for newer cars. We could then drop the arabs hold around our neck, and use our own oil for what we need if daily driving gas is no longer needed.

HHStuart

Did you know the word gullible is not in the dictionary?

sucks2beme

There's been someone with a breakthrough car runnig on water every year for the last 10 years.
I think they do real estate investing seminars on the side as well.

decal

HHStuart wrote: »

Did you know the word gullible is not in the dictionary?

You don't know how to use a dictionary do you Stuart?:cheesygrin:

tommyt21

What they dont tell you in this news story is this guy has allready patented a motorcycle that runs only on unicorn farts and pixie dust.:eek::redface::rolleyes: He also working on a passenger jet powered by wishfull thinking and hot air.:redface::rolleyes:

bmbguy

Oh great. Now the water utils are going to start charging us 3 to 4 bucks per flush.

nooshinjohn

tommyt21 wrote: »

He also working on a passenger jet powered by wishfull thinking and hot air.:redface::rolleyes:

Nothing new there... our government has run on that for decades now.:cheesygrin:

tommyt21

bmbguy wrote: »

Oh great. Now the water utils are going to start charging us 3 to 4 bucks per flush.

With this guys math based on his new water engines mileage.That means everytime a **** circles the toilet bowl you could have circled the earth.:eek::eek:

Polkersince85

Dr. No already has him in the enclave. Bond is enroute.

BlueFox

Two words: cold fusion.

inspiredsports

evhudsons wrote: »

http://keysnews.com/node/38326

Local Florida Keys resident runs his SUV on tap water!

I guess they didn't get that gulf oil well spill cleaned up as well as they thought ???

evhudsons

We have good aquifer water, but our streets and locals are to be suspect and sometimes lacking objectivity.

tonyb

I love these stories, year after year, same thing and nothing comes of it. Look, on the outside chance this guy is for real, some other things will happen first before you ever see it in reality.

You won't be able to use just tap water first of, government will add regulations that would require some sort of additive, supporting a chemical company on one hand, and limiting you on the other. Then, they will have to tax this special regulated water, that you probably will only be able to buy from a gas station on a seperate pump much like diesel. Then add state and local taxes ontop of the fed taxes, add the middle man profit, and bingo, your right back where you started. Upside, less dependant on foreign oil, downside, won't cost you that much less out of pocket. Also, if getting off of foreign oil was our goal, then we can do that by drilling ours, buying Canada's, or other countries oil that are friendly to us. But thats not the goal is it ?

You guys are framing the conversation around whats cheaper for you, and thats normal, but don't you understand that government keeps looking for ways to take more from you, not give back. If they believed in lowering prices, giving back....they could knock of the taxes on gas for a time until things settle down. Won't see that happen anytime soon. Dream all you want, you'll never see regular tap water run a car in this country, for the masses anyway.

Fossil fuels.....is what made civilization what it is today, without it we'd still be in the stone age. Is it our future ? Who knows, but until some boy genius comes up with a formula, it's what we have to work with.

markmarc

brgman wrote: »

Algae is our future!!

I'm a big believer in the future of algae as replacement for importing oil. It can be grown extremely fast indoors in vertical tubes. The refining process is just one extra step. I see empty factories in the rust belt repurposed with skylights into massive algae growing "farms". It's been proven to work, the water supply is in place, and the technology is off the shelf. The military saw the potential some 30 years ago. To me it is a no-brainier.

F1nut

evhudsons wrote: »

We could then drop the arabs hold around our neck, and use our own oil for what we need if daily driving gas is no longer needed.

The Arabs actually don't have a hold on us, although a lot of folks (oil companies, Wall St.) would like us to think they do.

According the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. consumes 19.2 million barrels of petroleum products per day. Of that amount, a net 49% is produced domestically. The rest is imported.

Where is it imported from? Only a small fraction comes from the Middle East, and that fraction has been declining in recent years. Last year, imports from the Persian Gulf region -- which includes Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates -- made up 9.8% of total petroleum supplied to the U.S. In 2001, that number was 14.1%.

The U.S. imports more than twice as much petroleum from Canada and Mexico than it does from the Middle East. Add in the share produced domestically, and the majority of petroleum consumed in the U.S. comes from North America.

This isn't to belittle our energy situation. The nation still relies on imports for about half of its oil. That's bad. But should the Middle East get the attention it does when we talk about oil reliance? In terms of security and geopolitical stability, perhaps. In terms of volume, probably not.

nooshinjohn

As usual... great post there Jesse!:cool:

tonyb

Jessies right, we don't import that much from the middle east. The problem comes in where oil is a commodity traded/ sold on a world market so anytime the Arabs sneeze, speculators drive up prices. They can also lower prices too, so lets not demonize Traders here. Gas prices at the pump, by the time the end user pays for it, has so much involved you simply can't lay blame at any one thing. It's just too complicated of a process. But.....you can do something about it with what you have direct control over. Supply, regulation, refineries, pipelines, transportation. It may not cure all that ailes us, but sure would help a whole bunch.

Algae is another one of those bandaid energy fixes, flavor of the month. It just isn't sustainable for the amount we need. Which is why even knowing about it for decades, it's gone nowhere. Electric cars are about 100 years old now, gone nowhere. Wind, solar, has promiss for limited applications. You can come up with probably 10 more alternatives for energy, but none are more applicable than oil.

If you took the hundreds of billions of dollars we spent in the last 5 years on alternatives, and put that into refineries, pipelines, and deregulation, gas prices would be under 2 bucks and we wouldn't even be having these discussions.

tommyt21

tonyb wrote: »

Jessies right, we don't import that much from the middle east. The problem comes in where oil is a commodity traded/ sold on a world market so anytime the Arabs sneeze, speculators drive up prices. They can also lower prices too, so lets not demonize Traders here. Gas prices at the pump, by the time the end user pays for it, has so much involved you simply can't lay blame at any one thing. It's just too complicated of a process. But.....you can do something about it with what you have direct control over. Supply, regulation, refineries, pipelines, transportation. It may not cure all that ailes us, but sure would help a whole bunch.

Algae is another one of those bandaid energy fixes, flavor of the month. It just isn't sustainable for the amount we need. Which is why even knowing about it for decades, it's gone nowhere. Electric cars are about 100 years old now, gone nowhere. Wind, solar, has promiss for limited applications. You can come up with probably 10 more alternatives for energy, but none are more applicable than oil.

If you took the hundreds of billions of dollars we spent in the last 5 years on alternatives, and put that into refineries, pipelines, and deregulation, gas prices would be under 2 bucks and we wouldn't even be having these discussions.

AMEN preach it brother!! Most people dont know that North America has more fossil fuel reserves than all of the middle east. It is goverment policies on behalf of the Enviromental Religious Exstremists that put us in the spot we are today!

heiney9

tommyt21 wrote: »

It is goverment policies on behalf of the Enviromental Religious Exstremists that put us in the spot we are today!

WOW, that's a gross unsubstantiated statement. As Tonyb so eloquently stated, even if we got ALL our oil here the government and other middle men would still get their cut and prices wouldn't be that much lower. Only positive is that it would most likely be a lot more stable.

H9

evhudsons

Petroleum is relatively cheap, has huge restores because there is plenty of it despite fears of depleting it, and it is extremely efficient as a fuel. Any alternative has a long way to go to overcome the edge petroleum has on the energy market. It just sucks because of pollution.

pitdogg2

EndersShadow wrote: »

Who says they havent? Who says the oil companies will not buy said patent for a ridiculous amount of cash and bury it? Who says the car companies havent been paid off to keep their engines running just at regulations?

^^^^^you'd better believe it's been done before.......when the oil companies make 100's of billions of $$ profit per 1/4 and yet we as tax payers still subsidize them and most if not ALL of the politicians are in their pockets NOTHING will ever change.

tommyt21

heiney9 wrote: »

WOW, that's a gross unsubstantiated statement. As Tonyb so eloquently stated, even if we got ALL our oil here the government and other middle men would still get their cut and prices wouldn't be that much lower. Only positive is that it would most likely be a lot more stable.

H9

It is my opinion that enviromentalism has become very dogmatic and semi religious. I also beleive that these same forces help dictate how policy is derived and influnce the current structure of business. I stated I agreed with Tonyb and was just adding another element into the mix. I understand that people that dont even handle the product create much of the pricing (speculators). I was asserting that its a cobination of issues and stated one of them. I appreciate you and Tonyb's comments I think both of you are very Intelligent and I always get a great amount of information from you guys. Maybe my post came off as a little strong and I may not have communicated my point very well which is typical for myself. However, that was a semi flame response singling me out by declaring it to be devoid of any facts (unsubstantiated) when no one else put forth any.

H9 have a good day, as I said I always like reading yours and some of the other club polk longtimers posts, thats why I keep coming back

Thomas

heiney9

My only comment was to point out what a huge general statement that was. A single factor like allowing unregulated access to our oil reserves in no way, shape or form will ease the crunch on oil, atleast not significantly enough to make much of a difference. The problem is far, far more complex than that. Then to name environmentalists as religious extremists is inflammatory and self serving and simply not true.

H9

P.s. I am neither super religious nor a rabid environmentalist. But labeling a single group and stating they are at fault is ludicris and plain silly.

That is all, carry on