Earth2012 this month announced the launch of a major new project: they're going to build a water-fueled car. And they're soliciting donations to help them achieve this ambitious dream. Of course, a water-fueled car might raise a few skeptical eyebrows, but Earth2012 says the science behind their project is all very sound. The tank of their car will be filled up with water, but the water will then be converted onboard into hydrogen. So it's really a hydrogen-powered car, not a water-powered one. And hydrogen-powered cars, of course, already exist.

What makes my hoax detector start ringing when I read about their project is their description of the onboard water-to-hydrogen conversion process. From what I understand, it takes quite a bit of energy to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. This has always been one of the major stumbling blocks on the road to a hydrogen economy (the cost of producing hydrogen). But Earth2012 says that it has developed a 'revolutionary way of creating hydrogen from water.' This involves vibrating the water at exactly the correct frequency, thereby causing the water to easily separate into oxygen and hydrogen.

Maybe Earth2012 really has developed this revolutionary new process, though the details they provide about it are awfully sketchy. But it all sounds an awful lot like a water-as-fuel hoax, of which there have been many in the past... one of the weirdest being Guido Franch's claims back in the 70s that he had developed a cheap green powder that, when added to water, transformed the water into gasoline. Franch gave a few demonstrations of his powder, though never under scientifically controlled conditions, and his credibility took a bit of a blow when he confessed that the secret of the powder had been given to him by a group of spacemen from the planet Neptune. The Straight Dope has an article about Franch if you're interested in reading more about him.

Update: Parazyte has provided a link to an article (in English) about Daniel Dingel, a Filipino man who claims that he invented a water-powered car back in 1969. The rest of the site is in German, but click here to see a video of Mr. Dingel driving around in his watercar.