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The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about dubious- sounding claims, and whatever else strikes our fancy. The site is also home to the Hoax Photo Database, the Hoax Forum, and the Hoaxipedia.

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RUDE ROVER
The Christmas dog with no class! He sings and toots Jingle Bells.
INFLATABLE TREE
Who needs the hassle of a real Christmas tree?
FARTING SANTA
Go ahead and pull his finger!

I somehow doubt that someone with a faulty grasp of grammar, spelling, and punctuation is just the sort of person to crack the hydrogen production problem for us. I'd rather put my faith in somebody more qualified to get his point across in a meaningful and informative manner.

You know, something other than "Dude..? Are you like really R'Tarded or something?".

I have given this concept some considerable thought. First of all, one must be able to think outside the box. Secondly, the gentleman from Clearwater, Fl. that the news clip on youtube about the water engine has gotten more thumbs up from several engineering firms etc.. They say his invention is very plausable and seems to work. He is obviously not a mechanical or chemical engineer, but seems to me rather to be a saleman type person that has modified a Brown's gas torch.

Here is the major thought of mine on the subject....How is it that companies with virtually endless supplies of research and development money (regardless of who they are) that employ chemical engineers and mechanical engineers by the thousands, that supposedly understand all of the current theories concerning the trades, can't come up with the kind of scientific results as a Brown's gas torch salesman can?

Something else to consider: Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and be a nay sayer trying to explain how EXPENSIVE it is to use electricity to generate hydrogen.....
First of all, when was the last time the alternator in your car or truck sent you an electric bill?
OK I know....the next thing somebody is going to tell me is that your vehicle only has one alternator.....and that is does not make enough power to decompose water into hydrogen to run a car......
How many WOULD it take? Two? Three? Five? Ten? Twenty?....Hmmm let me see, I think they might go as high as 200 amps each or is it more?
If a belt can turn the pully on one alternator, couldn't it pull two....etc? How many?

Ok so now I'm going to hear that it is too big of a drain on the engine to run multiple alternators to power numerous batteries.....

So who ever said it had to be driven by the motor?
Two wheel drive vehicles have 2 extra wheels that are not powered......does that mean that an extra 2 wheels with gear ratios modified to drive the alternator/generators?

If you think you can, or think you can't, generally speaking you are correct. If you're waiting for the right opportunity to do it, waiting for the right day, waiting for Uncle Bob and Aunt Jane to go home.....you'll be waiting forever and it'll never get done.

Don't die with the hope for mankind in you silent, it might be you,YES YOU that holds the key to last piece of the puzzle....DO IT TODAY!

Geeze Laurence, it's simple high school physics here.

Alternators don't just provide free power, it has to come from somewhere else first. In a gasoline powered car the gasoline is burned in the engine to provide mechanical force, which drives the wheels. This mechanical force is also used to drive the alternator. No engine = no alternator running = no electricity.

Now, you might argue that an engine burning hydrogen would also provide mechanical energy that can be siphoned off to run an alternator, and you'd be right. You could even chain many alternators together to provide enough electricity to break the hydrogen out of water. But that requires a lot of mechanical power. So much so that you wouldn't have any power left over to actually move the car.

In fact the problem is even greater than that. Right now there is no way to get more power out of water via hydrogen than is required to get that hydrogen in the first place.

If this isn't clear then let's try an extremely simplified example.

You want to produce 100 units of power by generating hydrogen from water. Unfortunately since this is such a difficult process it turns out that it requires 120 units of power to produce that 100 units of hydrogen power. That's right, every time we produce 100 units of hydrogen power we consume 120 units of fossil fuel power, or the equivalent. That's a net loss of 20 units. More or less, this is in no way meant to be an exact demonstration.

It simply requires more hydrogen to electrolyze all that water than you get back from it. It's an energy sink.

If you can figure out how to produce 100 units of hydrogen power with 100 units or less of conventional power then you've got something.

That's the goal people are working toward. Until that goal is reached hydrogen will require more energy to run your car than gasoline, which is rather counterproductive.

And I'm not even touching your '2 extra wheels' fiasco.

If one wanted to find "free" energy to convert H2O to hydrogen in a car they would only have to target the vegicle's efficiency short-falls. Capturing the extra power during idling times or reusing the exhaust to run a heat engine (about 75% of all energy from gasoline is exhausted through the tailpipe as heat). That energy could then easily be used to extract hydrogen from water. Of course, it could also be used more efficiently in an electric motor.

MPG gaines could VERY roughly be calculated by multiplying the efficiency of each step in the process. Exhaust heat * Heat Engine Generator Efficiency * water to hydrogen * ICB efficiency = 0.75 * 0.30 * 0.70 * 0.25 = 0.04. So one could improve the overall fuel efficiency by 4 points. Of course these numbers are arbitrary estimates, but not too far off.

Eric, I've been told on several occasions that about 80% of the energy in gasoline is used moving the engine or wasted as heat in the engine compartment. Capturing that waste heat loss would be another "free" source of energy to use. Regardless, the point has been made previously thta it takes more energy to break water into hydrogen and oxygen than you would recover to power the car. I think centeralized hydrogen generation plants with "gas stations" for providing fuel to cars would be better. If the technical problems can be worked out.

Guys, unless kg-s of platinium used as electrodes any hydrogen generator is not gonna last too long. Keep your grand for other purposes, spend for chocolates for your sweethearts or smtg?

This link to a Guy named Aaron who shows his simple water fuel cell. http://waterfuelcell.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1501&highlight=&sid=5723bc040d57062de071394a20015533#1501

Link here to the video... http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g307/imaaronhall/?action=view¤t=MVI_0127.flv

Link here will take you to page with many links to others who use this method and to Inventor's videos (before he died from poisoning) where he teaches how to make this water fuel cell... http://waterfuelcell.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=416

This process is NOT Electrolysis. It is 180% out of phase with Electrolysis. Is exactly the opposite of Electrolysis. Produces much more power that is required to produce the hydrogen. Does so with tap water and no additives.

Naysayers never get anywhere, except nowhere.

KISS, I hope you read this with an open mind. Those links you provided prove nothing, all the evidence given can easily be faked. It would be more to the point if this device had undergone a series of scientific tests under controlled conditions. And do not say that science is against this guy, that is the refuge of the con artist. Since elctrolysis is the use of electrical energy to break apart the hydoren and oxygen molecules in water, the exact opposite would be to use energy to create water from free hydrogen and free oxygen. I don't know the technical term for the process but I've always heard it called "burning hydrogen" and it has been around for decades at least.

In the Middle Ages there was a chess-playing machine that beat many human players, even some very good ones. The games were public and watched to make sure that the owner of the machine wasn't making the moves himself. He wasn't. It wasn't until much later that the midget inside the machine was discovered. He was an excellent chess player.

I thought the exact opposite would be to combine oxygen and hydrogen into water while producing power - wait, that actually happens when the hydrogen is burned.

Well it seems that not to many took notice in the chemistry/physics lessons at school. A known fact petrol EXPLODES UNDER COMPRESSION. Hydrogen IMPLODES ON IGNITION. Now you would know the fastest burning substance in the world is HYDROGEN
If I Released 20 litres of Hydrogen into a workshop and reached into my pocket took out a box of matches an lit one I would still be here as hydrogen would be forced being the lightest material known to man to the top or ceiling instantly any small cracks etc and it would have escaped to the atmosphere with in 30 seconds NO BOOM i'm sorry but the petrol would burn for some time producing a noctious gas and smell of petrol.

Now just how do you convert a petrol engine to run on hydrogen -- quite easily --- Weather you have a cylinder of hydrogen or a Water to hydrogen/oxygen converter the same thing operates.

The Petrol Engine. Because of the slow burning speed of petrol so that a spark will detonate the petrol gas in the cylinder under compression ths spark has to be set at about 12mm/ 1/2in before TDC to allow the motor to run. Now remember the facts of Hydrogen - the fastest butning substance in the world -- needs the compressed gas to be ignighted just before TDC or at TDC - remember Hydrogen IMPLODES and produces Water in the cylinder head. Now comes the clever part. Fact Water Boils at 100deg C (a small diversion, if you have a small compressor to blow your tyres up you will find the input will be cool but the output hose will be warm to very hot - no not friction - the temperature enflicted by compression up to 450deg C. How ever let us return to the petrol engine of the common car the compression at about 8 to 9 to 1 will produce up to 300deg C. water boils @ 100deg C so we have instant steem and more but the steem bufs will tell you super heated steem is about 250deg C. and we have a compressed temp of about 350deg C. we have lift off with super heated steam. Now to those who want to run both petrol and hydrogen you have a timing problem which would have to be able to be changed at the same time as you change over. To get the Hydrogen delivered economically use the Joe-Cell system it works with less than 4 amps at 12 volts at start and will generate hydrogen to power a V8 4 litre engine with ease (130km on a cup and a half of water as described in one of the videos.) have yet to test it but it runs the honda 11hp genset 15amps at 240v over night on a cup of water. By the way the energy from hydrogen will deliver up to 60% more than petrol and leave no polutants other than water. Try it out and Join Us with free Fuel.

Darryl, yes hydrogen will produce only water at a by-product, however, energy from hydrogen does not produce 60% more than petrol. One unit of energy is the same as any other unit of energy. Unless you were trying to say a given amount of hydrogen will produce 60% more energy than petrol. Wrong. If anything it is the other way round. The more complex the molecule the greater energy that can be released from it. Simple physics. And as far as the Joe-Cell goes, start talking about it once it passes some scientific tests. Until then, I don't believe your claims.

HYDROGEN Generators.

Learn Charybdis in Hell on Mon Jun 11, 2007. The Joe-Cell for Charybdis in Hell should do some research and come up to the level of 2007 not year 1807. Now he asks why the governments don't go for it, very simple they would get no money from its use no excise/taxes on water.

The oil companys control many governments around the world - they even have wars about Oil.

By the way the Joe-Cell is a very simple system utilising 316/7 stainless steel tubing and from 1.6mm to 4mm wall thickness the tubes
ranging from center pin at 12mm to 14mm and spaced evenly tubes 10mm larger in say 5,7,9,11 steps (12mm +, 22mm -, 32mm +, 42mm -, 52mm +, 62mm -, 72mm +, 82mm -,)
the interesting thing about this process is quite simple. Let us put the system together using air as the electrolite and the tubes are each insulated from each other and we connect say the negative from a battery to the center and the positive to the outer tube. you have now charged a capacitor. now whot would happen if we measured the voltage at the intermediate tubes we would have an equal voltage drop on each plate from the center to the outer tube showing an actual capacitor.
Now let us put some water in the mix and cover the plates of the capacitor and again apply the power to the center pin and the outer tube as before after a few seconds the current will drop to below 4 amps and from then on always stay below 4 amps. you will notice that a froth has formed on the top of the capasitor this gas is hydrogen and oxygen. how does it happen well if you understand that water and it has to be the purest you can get it will work , water is an insulator so whot is happening can be explained this simple.
The capacitor is subjected to a catistropic failure as the stainless steel plates cannot change like the foil wrapped capacitors in the old TV sets of yester year that used to fail caused a gooy confetty to be spread inside the TV case.
This failue in the capacitor converts water to hydrogen and oxygen. So with this free almost hydrogen being delivered to the intake of the engine you have hydrogen system powered energy.
The cylinders placed in a glass beaker which a large lid can be arrached with an outlet tube and a screw plug to top up the water level and a tube fed into the air cleaner towards the air flow valve, timing set petrol turned off, turn the key on for 5 seconds then start the engine it will run now re adjust the timing by ear you will hear the engine run sweetly lock it up, give it a few revs, watch the glass with the warer and plates they will make the water very fizzy and when it is running dis connect the battery from the cell and provided the engine is 3,500 rpm or more the engine will runwith out power to the cell - so take that for a spare alternator or two. (do a Google on Joe-Cell and get up to date and physically make one instead of pulling things to pieces with out even leaving your keyboard and computer.)

Christopher Cole in Tucson, AZ on Mon Sep 17, 2007 at 07:55 AM

Thank you for allowing me to be critical of you who have not even tried to make it work, like the bee cannot fly and because nobody told it,it couldn't, it flys, and the 2stroke motor, those polutant motors theoretically will not work, so when you cut the lawn or hear a chain saw running tell them it is not possible, I dare you to try this out instead of waisting energy critisising what you are lacking in knowledge.

One reasearch the subject as I did 35 years ago, but it took 3 years on the internet to find out how it works, and like I was told change your idea's and make one and you will be surprised how it works. I will give you any assistance you may need, just ask me if you dare.

Hate to tell you this Darryl, but the flight characteristics of a bee aren't a mystery to science. Maybe you should do some learning of your own first.

I'll put this in caps since people seem to miss it.

NOBODY IS SAYING HYDROGEN VEHICLES DON'T/WON'T WORK!

There, was that clear enough for you?

The argument is that it isn't efficient enough to beat the cost of oil. Will it ever? Probably. Is it worth pursuing? Definitely. But right now hydrogen powered vehicles (real ones, not the fantasy ones that people keep harping on) are just more expensive to own and operate. You haven't changed that fact with your post, sorry.

Darryl Thiselton, some of my background: My father was an Electrical Engineer and I spent most of my adult life in electronics. I grew up learning about capacitors and worked with them for twenty years. A capacitor will store DC energy and filter AC energy. It isn't a miracle device. Show me some scientific proof that your Jow=Cell will work as you claim. Until then, since you do not seem to have an undersgtanding of basic electrical physics, don't blame me when I question your miracle device.

A car alternator only uses about one horsepower.

People fearing hydrogen is like worrying about cuts from a butter knife, gasoline it the sharp knife. Gasoline IS highly explosive when there are gas fumes, but in liquid state it doesn't normally burn. Hydrogen is basically the same way except hydrogen is less likely to explode than gasoline.

Oh! When I was in school (Late 70's), we studies alternative energy sources. I read numerous articles on hydorgen powered vehicles... We even saw a movie showing then driving a hydrogen powered Gremlin. So hydrogen powered cars work, but do they last???

Actually, the question is not whether or not hydrogen powered engines work, nor if hydrogen is economical to make or not. It is easily produced with common household lye, water and aluminum (trash aluminum cans), none which has any substantial cost. The real obstacles here is how to meter the aluminum into the soloution so that hydrogen is not being produced once the vehicle is stopped, causing a release of flamable hydrogen, and exactly how to "wet" the hydrogen so that the metals do not break down due to inpingment as the hydrogen implodes as it burns. It seems that most people on this board argue rather than discuss and move forward. Doesn't it make more sense to offer positive input rather than negative?