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.
I’ll trade you all my water4gas pdfs for your pog collection.
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!
This is a hoax. The water4gas guys REALLY are interested because its another way for them to glean money from the poor saps who believe all this junk. ITS FALSE. DON”T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS SNAKE OIL…
As with any threatening technology, Mr. Hunt has been given the rabbit chase by the Federal Government. They have further threatened him to NOT drive his converted vehicles on our highways as they have not been tested and approved. Here we go ladies and gentleman. Big Oil wins again. This isn’t over. I have met Mr. Hunt and he is genuine. I have seen the device and it works very well. I watched a Chevy 305 V8 run on just his device. My amazement wasn’t how much hydrogen he was producing, which in itself was amazing, but the pressure he was producing was about 8 times or more than any other HHO device I have seen. He actually has to reduce the pressure before the hydrogen hits the intake manifold. He has the generator and all the electronics that goes with it to produce hydrogen on demand. As for energy used to make the hydrogen…..the unit I saw was running strictly off of the alternator and battery of the Chevy engine. Mr. Hunt has other devices that are running on his HHO device, such as a small home generator. My interest is to convert diesel and gas turbines to hydrogen. I also want to experiment with his HHO device and a fuel cell to power my home. It’s doable and he has done it. Now we need to all get off our combined apathetic asses and help get this technology through our closed minded government.
OK…So what ever happened to AKVO Energy Corp. ? The website was registered but has never materialized. The newspaper article from back in Nov has no follow up. The writer of the newspaper article will not answer my e-mails asking for update. No new mentions on the web of any of the people in the articles from Nov 2007. This is very odd! Anyone in contact with AKVO Energy? Anyone know what’s happend to them?
William Green
[email protected]
BRAVO!!! The neighsayers can just continue down that same old distructive, waistful path. I love to see anything or anyone who tries to improve on this current state of affairs. According to the American Hydrogen Association, even burning lesser amounts of hydrogen in combination with other carbon based fuels can negate the overall negetive effects of our carbon based economy… THANK YOU FOR TRYING & GOOD LUCK with your project! ! !
I am interested in details of th technology – especially the electrolysis system – if available.
How does the system compare to the OPEN SOURCE water4gas.com technology?
Sounds like it may be the same but a bit more professional in appearance and production.
My main interest is in whether the system will run an engine 100% or is it in addition to gas or diesel.
Hope to see a reply,
We will gladly share our details as well – a buddy and I are upgrading the w4g idea and putting it into cars trucks, boats, etc.
Great good luck,
Ed Starr
619-749-9647
This is a good and interesting story of someone trying. However, it is discouraging when these stories do not disclose the watts (power values such as voltage type, and current) required for a sustained release of hydrogen to run a certain sized engine. Not including these things always hold the story to suspect.
As I am an optimist, I am willing to be a neutral researcher and possible investor if I was asked. I think I could have a good idea in about 1 to 2 hours. If you are for real, contact me at [email protected] .
I think that if you have a system that produces high amounts of hydrogen from extremly low electric input you could be a huge player in solving world wide energy problems.I am sure that have heard of Stanley Meyer,he claimed to have done this many years ago.The affects of this system are clear,we would not need oil.You would be a threat to the established fuel oil system,how do you plan on handling this problem?Meyers system never got establisched on the market.And he was mysteriously killed.How are you going to deal with with that kind of force?
Oh no, not another scam artist! And right here in Central Illinois no less. Well, they come and they go.
The so called “plasmatic induction” has been known for a long time and was not invented by Hunt. This process has no advantage over any other form of electrolysis. It is well known that any form of producing hydrogen from water consumes more energy than the energy contained in hydrogen. The result is a net energy loss.
People are hoping for some magical cure for the approaching economic catastrophy of diminishing oil. Panic will indeed set in when liquid fuel is soon not available in any form. But who is listening? This is why people will grasp at anything that promotes hope in even “educated” people who do not take the time to do even the most rudimentary basic research.