by Cheryl Rofer
Every time the price of gas goes up, someone brings out a car that is claimed to run on water.
Here's the latest, from Japan (video).
"It all sounds too good to be true," gushes the Reuters reporter.
She's got that right.
The explanation is
The key to that system, it seems, is its membrane electrode assembly (or MEA), which contains a material that's capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction. Not surprisingly, the company isn't getting much more specific than that, with it only saying that it's adopted a "well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA."The reason that hydrocarbon fuels can produce energy is that they produce water and carbon dioxide. Water is always, outside of unusual circumstances, the product of a reaction. Its energetics, that energy that is given up when hydrocarbons are burned, makes it that way. Or you can look at as a property of water: you have to add energy to change it to anything else.
It takes energy to get hydrogen and oxygen from water, more energy than the hydrogen and oxygen will produce by being recombined. Period. No catalyst or MEA system can change that.
So these reports are nonsense. And not even particularly original nonsense. Too bad the reporters don't know that.
Thanks to JLK and Kat for the links.