Reuters released this story about a water powered car. It is a top-5 most watched video on YouTube today:

Supposedly the car is powered by nothing but water, and “a liter of water will keep the car running at a speed of 80 kilometers for about an hour.”

How does this work? According to the video:

Once water is poured into the cars tank, an energy generator takes hydrogen from the water, releasing electrons that power the car. “The main characteristic of this car is that no external input is needed. The car will continue to run for as long as you have a bottle of water inside for you to add from tme to time.”

This sounds great. You can get water from your tap for a penny per gallon and power your car with it. Is this for real? Of course not. As we discussed in Ode to Stanley Meyer, either it is a pure hoax or something else is going on.

If something else is going on, this article explains what is probably happening:

Genepax Water Car: Too Good to be True? Yeah

From the article:

The way it’s usually done is with metal hydrides. These react with water to produce hydrogen, which is then used to power the car. But since these hydrides will deplete with time, they need to be replaced and so they are actually the fuel, not the water. And you can be sure that more energy will go into producing them than will be taken out, making them an energy carrier, just like a battery…

Sodium Borohydride is one of these metals, and it could become a great energy carrier. It is fairly easy to recycle Sodium Borohydride after you use it in your car. Mainstream car manufacturers have demonstrated fuel cell cars that use sodium borohydride:

Chrysler Natrium: The Power of Na

Here is a nice explanation of how it works:

Hydrogen Storage via Sodium Borohydride

The key thing to understand is that you have to put energy into the process of recycling sodium borohydride. That is why it is an “energy carrier” rather than a “fuel”.

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