H2earthrise

Technological Development

Yesterday's inaugural blog disclosed last week's H2earth Institute discovery that a missing inductor, added by Dave Lawton when building his solid state circuit, but not yet incorporated on the original CAD schematic generated for him by PGFED, (following his initial success with the alternator-based electromechanical approach) constituted the critical difference between his working Meyer Water Fuel Cell, and the otherwise identical ones made from his plans by several other experimenters working from the same .PDF document. Mr. Lawton was the engineer in the lab; Mr. Kelly was the engineer on the CAD; through no fault of either, one component fell through the cracks; being in the final hardware, but not in the published diagrams documenting it.

The world's most expensive engineering organization, NASA, has periodically encountered this sort of problem, even with all of the engineers involved located in the same place, and hundreds of them looking at the same documents. Sith happens.

Shortly after posting that blog, we compared the [Inductor-less] single-tube gas flow test of Mark, a WFC investigator, above, with a single tube gas flow test of Dave Lawton's own [Inductorfull ?] unit. Mark faithfully constructed the circuit, and seems to have done a very professional job of it. However, just as there was a substantial difference in gas yield between the complete six tube Lawton setup, and a virtually identical one recently completed in Florida, so too do we see that discrepancy between these experiments. What Mark's tube lacks is the internal high frequency, high voltage oscillations through the system, which Lawton's scope detected as a "sidewards jitter", originally thought to be an instrumentation artifact. The Institute's preliminary engineering analysis suggests that this jitter is a series of very brief, very fast, very high amplitude HF/HV pulses, superimposed on the nominal 12 volt, 4 amp, 3Khz digitally pulsed squarewave signal nominally supplied by the circuit.

Ultimately, as better test equipment is applied to the system, this mysterious supra-signal being imposed by the Inductor will be characterized for optimization. When a second Inductor (or "Resonant Charging Choke") is added, the harmonics that might result could be truly complex. Perhaps a better method of data visualization would be of use here; something more representative than mere scope tracings. Any ideas?


Movement Matters

A persistent myth among waterfuel enthusiasts over the years has been that one thing preventing the sale of consumer devices to operate motor vehicles off of nothing but water is that there is some federal law or regulation which prohibits it - and that, if you try to bring a waterfuel system to market, "the feds" will shut you down for competing with gasoline. There is no more fanciful or less rational myth than this, in the whole waterfuel conundrum. Nobody has ever been able to cite "Chapter & Verse" as to where this anti-water law exists in the United States Statutes, of federal administrative code; no one can offer up a page number in the Federal Register where it became law or from which any such federal rule or bureaucratic regulation ever took effect. In short, its a Bold Faced Lie.

This would be a merely entertaining (if not embarrassing) extension of the - somewhat more well founded - Conspiracy Theory, were it not for the fact that Zigouras Racing has recently been intimidated into suspending its reportedly successful waterfuel systems program, in the mistaken fear that some federal law would prohibit them from marketing the [apparently successful] result of their efforts. Water for Fuel, LLC of Klamouth Falls, Oregon, reports that Zigouras has had two cars and one static test engine running on nothing but water. They have already sold complete waterfuel systems on eBay.

There is no such law! Zigouras is being lied to by whoever told them that. Their lawyer should demand from this source, "Chapter & Verse" on this law. Make the lying bastards come clean: Prove it. Otherwise, bring that product to market, before the Chinese do. If *IF* there were some bureaucratic regulation against this, it would never stand up to a court challenge; there is no way the Clean Air Act can be misconstrued enough to authorize such a bizarre rule.

The H2earth Institute, here in Washington, D.C., will provide legislative and regulatory governmental liaison, at no cost to Zigouras Racing, - or any other successful waterfuel systems manufacturer - and find sponsors for any legal fees that a court fight against the regulation might entail.

They must demonstrate a static test setup, with an engine on a test stand running carbon-free, on waterfuel technology alone - powering its own alternator - and then will have all the resources they need to productize this setup. It would take us no more than a week, with a proper demonstration in hand, to line up a roomful of eager dynamic young activist attorneys, willing to take on the EPA/DOT on a pro-bono basis, to overturn this [most likely] fictional regulation.

If it exists, and were brought to light, it would instantly unite the political class here in D.C. against the offending bureaucrats; you would have immediate bipartisanship, from Ralph Nader's leftist Public Interest Research Group, to the libertarian, capitalist Cato Institute, it would earn enmity across the ideological spectrum, and trigger an mass stampede by camera-hungry Members of Congress, and bloviating Senators alike, to cosponsor bills for its repeal.

In fact, what a wonderful publicity stunt for waterfuel technology it could be...We bring a few dozen water powered cars to Washington, parade them around the EPA or DOT or whomever, with banners and horns, begging to be cited, ticketed, arrested - for the "crime" of driving our cars on nothing but water. Overnight, the world would know that waterfuel is REAL; and the end of petroleum would be a foregone conclusion. Would-be manufacturers like Zigouras and Water for Fuel couldnt buy advertising like that for less than $100 Million. What a Country! Just Do It...


Philosophical Musings

Forget Iranian nukes for the moment (or even, the more likely problem of Pakistani nukes), and focus on a more potent danger: The Clathrate "timebomb". Frozen methane hydrates, a strange form of water ice, trapping methane within its crystaline structure, exist in the permafrost and on the seafloor, in the thousands of billions of tons. Methane is between 20 and 70 times as potent a greenhouse gas as Carbon Dioxide. The climate impact of the methane now being released from melting subsoil clathrates in arctic Canada, Russia, and Alaska will dwarf the carbon effects of the Kyoto treaty, even if the U.S. had subscribed to it, and even if those nations which did were actually observing the pact.

Subsidence from the melting permafrost is actually crumbling buildings above the arctic circle, all around the world. The buildings themselves are a tragedy, whole towns are having to be evacuated after a century or more of "Northern Exposure" community life. In many places - Siberia has a frozen tundra peat bog the size of Germany - the permafrost extends dozens, even hundreds of feet below ground. It took millions of years to capture and store that carbon, and it will likely all have melted by mid-century. We havent a minute to waste in bringing the WFC into common usage; its the only technology profound enough to make a difference in the time we have left.