SAFE, Inexpensive Hydrogen Fuel For Your Car?
Back in May I wrote an article for Green Options called “The Perfect Hydrogen Vacation,” and it was centered around a young Galesburg, IL college student by the name of James Hunt. His claim to fame is development of a hydrogen fuel generation system that would power internal combustion engines with hydrogen. To say the least, I got a few negative comments about Jim’s invention, mainly that it was nothing more than an attempt at a perpetual motion machine.
The Galesburg Register-Mail newspaper, which broke the story first last April, has two more updates, “From Concept to Company” and “Energy Source Answers some Old Problems,” written by John Pulliam. I’m particularly fascinated with this story because Galesburg is my home town.
Well, Jim, shown in the Register-Mail photo at the left with a fire engine he hopes to convert into a hydrogen fueled mobile power unit, has moved out of the lab at Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg to his own plant in nearby Monmouth, IL with 15 employees. All that, he says, in a period of 9 months from concept to reality.
The company’s name, by the way is Akvo Energy America, and the shop is full of engines undergoing conversion to his hydrogen fuel system. Part of his plan is to fuel power plants and desalinization facilities with hydrogen. He plans to use the fire engine as an emergency portable desalinization unit, something sorely needed in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina ravaged that city.
His process extracts hydrogen from water via what he calls plasmatic induction, a form of electrolysis, using electricty to zap water in a small reservoir tank which releases hydrogen bubbles. The bubbles, of course, become the fuel, a never-ending source as long as drinking water is in the small reserve tank. It’s a bit more complicated than that, he uses reserve batteries and solar cells along with non-radioactive carbon rods in the system. Hunt claims one fill-up of rods will power a vehicle for a year-and-a-half; the emissions, of course, are water vapor.
Hunt claims to have a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. and what he called “a couple of pending contracts.” Two major universities are testing the process and he said GM was ready to license his system right now.
Besides the fire truck, a 1995 Civic, a 1976 Corvette Stingray, a Hummer and a pickup truck are waiting for conversion to the system. But before they can go on the highway for testing, they must be verified by the Environmental Protection Agency. This process is underway.
Jim hopes to eventually move his plant back to Galesburg and occupy the now empty Maytag manufacturing plant. Looking ahead, he hopes to have more than 1,000 employees for production and distribution. When would this happen? Maybe in 18 months, maybe more.
I interviewed Jim on my own website in April, the Lindberg Report.org, while he was still a student at Carl Sandburg College. Since Planetsave and Green Options are going through changes that right now don’t support audio, you might want to listen to Jim talk about his invention. As soon as we get audio on this site, I’ll have an updtated interview with Jim.
We’ll keep track of this young man and his invention that may just turn the hydrogen fuel world upside down, especially when billions of dollars are being spent trying to bring hydrogen powered vehicles out of showrooms, when Jim’s research cost $22,000.
IF this were real and the inventor had any balls what-so-ever, he would take it underground and get it to the world. You can bet on this. The former is a big check. How about the latter? CHECK!
I really do believe this is for real however We are not going to see it produced because it does work The only problem here is Mr Hunt wanted to make money from it and applied for a patent.
The only way we will ever see stuff like this at this level is to make it open source and publish all the plans for free - then and only then could people like Mr Hunt actually produce these units as well as others and still make some money as not everyone will have the ability to make one at home
A good dite would be http://hydrogengenerator.cc/
Lets see these ideas and get the system out there - there are some countries that would allow this to be used on public road with a small road user charge per/Km as not all fuels are fully taxed at the pump ie Diesel
I’m a firm believer in hydroxy gas as fuel, I currently have a cell as a supplimental supply in an older carbeurated truck, it gets way better fuel mileage then anything offered from the showroom, it works, it’s real, believe it. I’m working toward totally hydroxi powered vehicle, it might not be me, but it will be done.
Present your research. “A hoax” is easy to say but you present nothing to prove it. I have seen this device in service. It works. Hearing about it is one thing. Seeing with my own eyes, and knowing what it takes to make a gas engine run on hydrogen is another. You are like the folks of old, “the world is flat” but no one every ventured out to see if it was true, until Columbus. I wait to see your research. In the meantime, Mr. Hunt has sold the device to a corporation that wishes to market the HHO generator. Lets see if they can do it.
What you have to remember is this. The Federal Governement is not ready for hydrogen or electric cars. There is big money in the gas tax for both the Federal and State governments. They are not set up to tax a vehicle any other way yet. So they are not ready to give up the revenue loss from NOT using gas. Big oil has dumped a lot of money into oil reserves and have a huge infrastructer to support and they certainly do not want us off gas yet. The magic number that keeps coming up between the government, oil and the car manufactures is 15 years. Lots of revenue from taxes to be made, profits to be had, and no pressure on manufacturers to make cars that comply.
As for the Water4Gas, they are not saying you can run soley on hydrogen. The best their little device can do is supplement gas with hydrogen and extend the fuel mileage. What Mr. Hunt has is far different and can supply an engine with hydrogen ONLY. This is the difference in normal electrolysis vs. plasma to extract hydrogen from water.
Again, I look forward to your research.
I’ll trade you all my water4gas pdfs for your pog collection.
Stories like this have the same elements; something you want is available easier / cheaper than before; there is some science which is well-known and valid; there is a mystery element, which might or might not be valid; there are little or no verified test results.
Verdict, pending some incontrovertible evidence, more likely to be a scam than not.
Thanks for sharing I have been researching hydrogen fuel cell technology now for the past couple of years. II can honestly say it is a great thing when you can take any old car and turn it into a gas saving car. I was able to personally increase my gas mileage 130% on my 97 saturn test car. Which already got really good gas mileage in the first place. For the ones saying this is a scam you are by far wrong. Then to the ones who think this because our government has not been supporting these type’s of programs. This is because these officials do not see it as a beneficial program because it would steal away from the money they make on oil. Until they are willing to part with some of this money we will never be free of the burdan of using fossil fuels until they are all used up and you have to take a second mortgage out on your homes just to get a tank of gas.