What all of these water engine people conveniently neglect to mention
is that there are two byproducts of a water engine, and only one of
them is exhausted water.

Water is used as a source of hydrogen.  The hydrogen is released by
creating a saltwater solution, then rusting aluminum into aluminum
oxide.  The hydrogen is then used in the engine as the fuel.

The aluminum oxide and salt must then be removed from the tank and
replaced with fresh aluminum, salt and water.

There are a few basic issues that must be dealt with:

It takes a lot of water and aluminum to create the same amount of
energy that's available in a gallon of gasoline.  Aluminum may be
cheap, but I don't think it's /that/ cheap.  Perhaps the cost is being
discounted because you can get nearly free aluminum machine shavings
from small machine shops.  If the demand went up then it'd be as
expensive as bar stock aluminum.

The aluminum oxide byproduct must be removed and disposed of or
recycled.  The energy it takes to recycle it, in theory, is the energy
you used from the water to get at the hydrogen.  Unless unlimited free
aluminum is available in a refined form, this is simply another energy
transfer process.  Perhaps it's better than pure hydrogen gas, but
perhaps not.

The reaction continues and pressure builds as long as the aluminum is
in the salt water.  The aluminum they use is pebbled or in some form
to provide a very high surface area (once oxide forms on the outside
the water doesn't get to far into the center of a solid piece).  You
can't just lift it out of the water and expect the reaction to stop
completely until the aluminium is dry.  This would take a lot of room
for a mechanical system to do well.  It takes a lot of surface area to
generate enough hydrogen to run a large engine with any usable power.

http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/watercar/h20car2.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~anon99/water_engine/index2.html

So it's not quackery or snake oil, but there are some practical and
technical issues that are holding it back from becoming a sensible
option.  I'd put much more stock into vegetable oil diesal engines
than water engines.

-Adam


On 11/8/05, Jinx <joecolquitt@clear.net.nz> wrote:
> > Which, *if* true, makes these people charlatans. (Just like the
> > NZ water engine man is).
>
> Now, just last week I saw, and believe what I saw, and would be
> prepared to swear on a stack of programming manuals, that Top
> Gear demonstrated that a vehicle with a powerful V8 can be run
> on unadulterated, pristine, water. In fact the vehicle generated
> normal levels of power whilst running on water and was raced
> against another vehicle using normal fuel. It didn't beat it, but had
> a weight disadvantage and two occupants, and came close. It
> seems that running vehices on water is not unusual in this part of
> Iceland
>
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