Water Powered Car: Is HHO a Viable Option?

[theCandyman]

Hopefully this belongs here, I see a few other threads on hydrogen power, so I guess I am safe.

My brother showed me a clip of an article off some new program about a man named Denny Klein who recently "patented his process of converting H2O to HHO." He was using the result in weilding, but he was able to stick his hand in the flame and still when he turned it on a piece of metal, it melted. Then he had the idea of using it to power his car, claiming that in the results it took only 4 ounces to travel 100 miles in his gas-water hybird car.

I know I read recently on these forums that there was someone who tried to sell a car that ran on water, with the claim that his catalyst helped break down water into hydrogen and oxygen, but I could not find it. They also explained the law of thermodynamics that refuted whatever the nut claimed about his engine. This would not happen to be the same guy, would it?

Here's is the link my brother got this from: http://digg.com/technology/Water_Fuel_-_HHO_Gas - You can watch the video clip here.
I tried reading what everyone was saying, but on there even the uninformed seemed to act as if they knew what they were talking about, which quickly turned confusing.

To finally get around to my question, could this process ever produce net energy (he already admits it uses more than it produces)? And what is HHO; hydrogen bonded to hydrogen and oxygen, instead of oxygen bonded to two hydrogen perhaps (strikes me as odd, because H2 is stable by itself)?

 

[Danger]

HHO is just another way of writing H2O. I don't have time to check the link (and I've had several beers), but anything that uses that sort of terminology is probably crackpot.

 

[dav2008]

He says the only product of whatever reaction is happening is water. That means he somehow took water, converted it into a higher energy molecule (say hydrogen and oxygen gas), and then obtained work as the molecules converted back into lower energy water.

You're not going to get more energy back than you put in. You'll just get less.

If anything it would make more sense to run the cars off of electricity directly than to use that electricity to do some magic voodoo to water that gives it energy.

 

[theCandyman]

Since he talked about hydrolysis in the interview, I thought it might just be hydrogen and oxygen. Would his hand not get burned and the metal heat up because of oxidation?

 

[russ_watters]

Its a scam.