Remember the famous quote:  Necessity, who is the mother of invention – Pluto (427 BC – 347 BC)

Whenever there is an out of proportion rise in fuel prices (I think we are already adjusted to regular hikes!), we try to find a way to either reduce the oil consumption or do away with it.  Although there is an altogether different theory as to Why are crude prices falling? ,  I always remember those golden tips to save oil like checking my tyre pressure, switching off engine on signals, taking a walk when I can instead of driving, etc. 

The top on the list is to visit my favorite mechanic, who believes himself to be a magician and always does those “special adjustments” to improve the vehicle’s mileage. Never checked if it really works  but I suppose it satisfies my conscience and make me feel that I have done all I could to save the world from global warming and fuel crisis.

Now, how would you react when I say that some companies are claiming to have invented cars which will not use oil as the fuel but WATER!  The most recent is a Japanese company, Genepax giving a news release claiming this.  This is nothing new and we have people way back in 1805 e.g. Swiss inventor Isaac de Rivaz claiming to have devised such mechanism to run a car on water. 

I have always wondered if we have so many people claiming to have ways to avoid using oil for their fuel requirements, why have we never seen these ideas turn into reality ?  I could think of only two reasons:

• The big oil companies and people having interests in these companies do not want these to be out
• The water cars don’t really work

According to Genepax, they have developed a system which breaks water (H2O) into Hydrogen and Oxygen and the fuel cells collect the electricity generated to run the car. Now, at a high level, I would agree with this but the question would be – Are we defying the very first law of Thermodynamics – “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed – it can only be changed from one form to another.” 

On a closer look, there seems to an unanswered question – How is water broken into pieces?  They are using a catalyst / reactor to do this, thus converting one form of energy into the other.  Or may be the company is just sharing one side of the coin and have kept the secrets from the general public for obvious reasons.

I will not write off the idea but I think I will wait till a commercial version of this idea is available in the market.  Till then I would definitely try and feed my conscience.

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