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SCOOP: Laws of thermodynamics broken (again)

Here's an idea -- why not make a device that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, using electricity generated by your car's engine.

Then (and here's where it gets real clever)-- feed that hydrogen into the engine -- so as to generate more electricity, more hydrogen and provide motive power.

Isn't that a stroke of sheer brilliance?

Gosh, why didn't someone think of it before?

Now we can drive around using water for fuel and almost eliminating those horrible greenhouse gases from our tailpipes.

Okay, you've heard it all before and (being intelligent people) you know that this just won't work. Indeed it violates the most basic of laws relating to the conservation of energy and thermodynamics.

Well can someone tell the Renewable Energy Trust (RENZ) and Professor blair Fitzharris of Otago University

According to this story running on the NZ Herald website, the backers of a wonderful device that makes all sorts of wild and wonderful claims have been invited to launch that system here in NZ, by RENZ.

Okay, so it's not a *pure* "run your car on water" system of the kind we've seen proposed so many times before - but, at first sight, it still seems to be offering a whole lot of something for nothing and therefore violating the laws of physics.

By creating hydrogen and oxygen through the electrolysis of water, using the car's alternator, the system promises fuel savings of up to 70 percent.

Okay -- so where's that 70% of extra energy coming from?

I'll admit that I'm not a chemist - so perhaps there's some fiendishly clever molecular shuffling going on when that hydrogen and oxygen are mixed with your regular petrol and burnt under high compression in a combustion chamber -- but even that would violate the laws of thermodynamics.

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Modern internal combustion engines are already running at about 30% efficiency with a maximum theoretical efficiency of around 60% and the *practical* maximum efficiency is little over half that figure. The laws of physics would therefore indicate that the claimed three-fold increase in fuel-efficiency (by what ever means) is just not possible.

You'd think a trust chaired by a university professor would know that -- or at least do the research.

So, is this yet another case of a con-job based on shonky science?

Well take a look at the Hydro-charger website.

Impressive eh? (cue Tui's add).

Indeed, google the Hydro-Charger and you'll find all the warning flags that go with this kind of "miracle" device.

What's more, I see the fact that they managed to dupe the RENZ trust is now being used as a promotional tool. The obvious implication is that if an energy trust with academic connections thinks it's okay then it must be kosher.

I wonder if RENZ has given Hydro-charger any money to assist in their product launch here or by way of a funding grant?

Oh, I'm really pee'd off that our reputation as a tech-savvy nation is being destroyed by those who should know better or who effectively endorse products that are obviously nothing more than hype.

After Jim Anderton's show of stupendous stupidity in giving government backing to a magnetic fuel-saver device (more shonky science), this just puts the icing on the cake doesn't it?

What do you think?

Does the effective endorsement of this device make us all look like idiots?

Is it time we increased the amount of science we teach in schools, after all, if even our university professors don't know the basics then surely we've got a huge problem?

Can someone give the Prof and his trust a towel to wipe all that egg off their faces?

Why does it take some part-time commentator (Aardvark) to repeatedly flag these bad-science devices that Kiwis who should know better seem to get tied up with?

Have your say on this...

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