Talk:Water fuel cell/Archive 2

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Marketing Strategy

I think it would be interesting and informative to have a section on the "marketing strategy" that ultimately got Meyer into trouble. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything but hearsay. The important events occurred in early 90's, before things were routinely on the web, so it makes it more difficult. Any ideas? Prebys (talk) 15:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

What trouble? Stanley Meyers was not convicted of anything. He lost a lawsuit and was ordered to repay his investors their money since he would not divulge his methods openly with them. The Judge did not rule that Stanley Meyers' water car didn't run as stated. The judge did not rule that the water fuel cell didn't work. It would be safe to discuss his marketing, yes. Anything else should be backed with actual records from the Court of Records having jurisdiction over the lawsuit. A Simple Freedom of Information query with the court will get a release of all records and should include either a transcript or recording of the hearing(s). Print facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by I55ere (talk • contribs) 18:03, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Most people would consider losing a lawsuit and being required to pay investors thousands of dollars "trouble" (I know I would). My request stands. Prebys (talk) 22:26, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Being required to "Pay" investors would be trouble. Returning an investor's money is not a fine or "Paying" them. Also, being ordered to pay their attorney and court fees is only meeting the terms set forth by the plaintiff in the lawsuit and was a chance that Meyers took by showing up in court to refute the plaintiff's allegations, rather than just settling out of court for some arbitrary amount of money. A civil suit is a win or lose deal. There are no convictions. It is still a matter of record of how the suit was worded, what the plaintiffs wanted, whether or not Meyers was allowed to give testimony, call witnesses, or show that his system worked as claimed or not. Those are facts which can be verified. By not using or obtaining the actual documents and recordings of the proceedings and then diving deeper into "Marketing Practices" only shows a malicious intent to discredit everything about Meyers and destroy his credibility and reputation. Isn't that what an UNBIASED approach is designed to prevent? To gather all the available, verifiable information and and use it to produce an encyclopedia that is ACCURATE, CONCISE and HONEST. We are creating the works that compile the human experience while detailing the knowledge gained; for all to use and to pass on to future generations. Whether Meyers system worked or not will be put through the test of time and future sciences. Galileo and Copernicus were both put through the scientific ringers for putting forth theories that ran against the known science and observations of their day. Before putting your name to an article that will be read and quoted generations from now, it would be in your best interest and the best interest of Wikipedia to state verifiable facts as we know them and as they are recorded.208.242.58.126 (talk) 17:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

In a US court, the defendant being required to pay the plaintiffs legal fees is unusual, often indicating that the defendant's position is objectively unreasonable. I must it admit, legal fees are sometimes awarded if the result is more genereous to the opposing party than the settlement offer. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:12, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing unusual about the defendant being required to pay the plaintiffs legal fees. Especially if it is asked for in the judgment, which is filed by the plaintiff and either allowed or denied by the judge. Here is the wording regarding fees taken directly from the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code. 

     § 31.007.  PARTIES RESPONSIBLE FOR ACCOUNTING OF OWN

COSTS. (a) Each party to a suit shall be responsible for accurately recording all costs and fees incurred during the course of a lawsuit, if the judgment is to provide for the adjudication of such costs. If the judgment provides that costs are to be borne by the party by whom such costs were incurred, it shall not be necessary for any of the parties to present a record of court costs to the court in connection with the entry of a judgment. (b) A judge of any court may include in any order or judgment all costs, including the following: (1) fees of the clerk and service fees due the county; (2) fees of the court reporter for the original of stenographic transcripts necessarily obtained for use in the suit; (3) masters, interpreters, and guardians ad litem appointed pursuant to these rules and state statutes; and (4) such other costs and fees as may be permitted by these rules and state statutes. Texas courts are US Courts and asking for reimbursement of fees is the norm, not an exception as you would lead us to believe.208.242.58.126 (talk) 18:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It's unusual. Courts may award such costs, but rarely do. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:45, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
It isn’t unusual in the least. It’s downright common. I’m trying to think of a way to say this politely – you’re talking out of your ass. — NRen2k5, 16:30, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Article in General

Is this an article about the Water Fuel Cell or Stanley Meyers? It opens with an intorduction to the Water Fuel Cell and gives a brief explanation of the construction and then goes into personal data about Stanley Meyers. If every article were to go into the history of lawsuits that popped up around every invention, this whole encyclopedia would read like a law library. I suggest that the Water Fuel Cell article discuss the Water Fuel Cell and state that it was invented by Stanley Meyer, or maybe this article should be simply deleted since it leads to nowhere, or placed on hold until actual data about the workings of a water fuel cell (water capacitor) can be obtained. As the construction section states, "The fuel cell consists of stainless steel plates arranged as a capacitor, with pure water acting as the dielectric." we are actually describing a water capacitor under another name. The fact that water capacitors do exist and their major flaw is breakdown of the dielectric due to an auto-ionizaion process of the highly purified water (Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 93, No. 6, 15 March 2003) should give some credibility to the possibility of the "Water Fuel Cell" existing.I55ere (talk) 17:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC) The Water fueled car, the lawsuit and death are really not relevant to the water fuel cell and its theory of operation. They would be more appropriately placed in an article on the water fueled car with a link to the water fuel cell.I55ere (talk) 18:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)17:17, 18 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by I55ere (talk • contribs)

The Water Fuel Cell is totally uninteresting except for Meyer's claims that you could power a car with it. If there were a Wikipedia article devoted to every obscure patent, it would soon grow to ridiculous size. The court case is the only thing even close to an independent evaluation of the car's (and the fuel cell's) performance, since Meyer never submitted either to outside review. If it were not included, the article would be biased in favor of Meyer's unsupported claims. As for the comment about the water capacitor, the answer is no, it in no way implies you can have superefficient electrolysis, because (as has been explained many, MANY times), electrolysis as required by the water fuel cell would require significant modification to the laws of physics, while water capacitors are pretty well understood. In short, "Fuel Cell+Meyer+water powered car" = "interesting", any one alone = "uninteresting", any two = "incomplete".Prebys (talk) 19:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

POV

I've reverted Arthur Rubin's changes to the history of Water fuel cells. This edit here places the history back into the article. Removing this newly added "water fuel cell history" section violates WP:NPOV rules. In particular, for this case, it is evidently violated since this entire article, prior to the addition of this section, only focused on Meyers Water Fuel cell. Since an article should try to represent prominent points of views on the subject matter, it is important to disucss the many other water fuel cells. --CyclePat (talk) 21:01, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

This article specifically is about the "water fuel cell" as in the Meyers concept. It is not about "fuel cells" in general, which are (as the article notes) entirely unrelated except in name. DMacks (talk) 21:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
The historical section added contains information regarding water fuel cells. The afformentioned statement proves that this article is promoting a POV, which violates Wikipedia's policy listed at WP:NPOV. All terms are properly reference... including the NASA document which specifically mentions the term "Water fuel cell". --CyclePat (talk) 21:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
As Dmacks has explained, a wikipedia article is about a subject and not a term. The information you added has nothing to do with the water fuel cell invented by Stanley Meyer, which is the topic of this article. If you wish to write about other water fuel cells, please create another article and a disambiguation page to guide the readers to the article they wish to read. Abecedare (talk) 21:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
The Pledger device is a conventional fuel cell that explicitly says it consumes carbon feedstocks for the production of gaseous fuels (which are then used in a conventional fuel cell) and does not appear to be related to any sort of resonance- or other electronically-controlled/driven system for breaking apart water. The Kamoshita, et al patent explciitly says its fuel cells run on oxidant and reductant gases (therefore again it's a normal fuel cell, unrelated to Meyers device). The Brown device (though I can't read the actual patent) sounds again like the water is a vehicle for transporting other items, not the fuel itself. The NASA device document (p6) explicitly states that "In a water electrolysis propulsion system, water stored in a lightweight, low pressure tank is fed to an electrolyzer. The electrolyzer consumes electrical energy to decompose the water into pressurized hydrogen and oxygen", so again it's not a Meyers-esque "water fuel cell" and describes how it is conventional electrolysis (or is that really all Meyers water fuel cell is?). We already have a fuel cell page. DMacks (talk) 21:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Great observations. I think they should be noted along side the information in this article to explain the differences and hence help maintain a NPOV article. --CyclePat (talk) 21:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Furthermore do take note of WP:CFORK which specifically dissallows for such content forking. All contributors should work to represent an NPOV article. --CyclePat (talk) 21:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Again, it's not the same subject (therefore WP:CFORK explicitly does not apply). It's a similarly-named topic but a different topic, so at best it's a case for disambiguation to keep people from getting confused by unrelated meanings of the same term. DMacks (talk) 21:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm sincerelly not convinced that this is "another subject". In fact I'm sincerelly not entirely convinced that there is even enought information to consider it a certain aspect of another subject which would justify a separate article. Accroding to my research it appears that these fuel cells all claim to use water at one point in time. In fact the first one even describes the process on how the water is somehow re-used. The second one clearly states that it used water as the oxidant as "A method of cooling a boiling water fuel cell". The NASA document (p.6) mentions that the feeding of water vapor feed electrolysis. One reason I'm not entirelly convinced is because I do not see the section which should be referenced when you say "it's not a Meyers-esque "water fuel cell"s". In fact, I clearly remember reading Meyers patent and it mentioning the use of water vapors in his patent (something similar to the NASA document). --CyclePat (talk) 22:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Here's the abstract of the NASA Docucment: "Electrolysis propulsion has been recognized over the last several decades as a viable option to meet many satellite and spacecraft propulsion requirements. This technology, however, was never used for in-space missions. In the same time frame, water based fuel cells have flown in a number of missions. These systems have many components similar to electrolysis propulsion systems. Recent advances in component technology include: lightweight tankage, water vapor feed electrolysis, fuel cell technology, and thrust chamber materials for propulsion. Taken together, these developments make propulsion and/or power using electrolysis/fuel cell technology very attractive as separate or integrated systems. A water electrolysis propulsion testbed was constructed and tested in a joint NASA/Hamilton Standard/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories program to demonstrate these technology developments for propulsion. The results from these testbed experiments using a 1-N thruster are presented. A concept to integrate a propulsion system and a fuel cell system into a unitized spacecraft propulsion and power system is outlined." --CyclePat (talk) 23:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) Even that abstract fails to indicate anything other than a normal electrolysis (i.e., requires significant input of external power, not a poewr-source itself) or fuel-cell. The Meyers water fuel cell actually claims to use water as the net fuel source (hence the over-unity issue) not just involve water in some way. That's what's different and notable about it. That's why this article exists here on this topic: it's different from other meanings of "fuel cell" and it's citedly-claimed to be different than just normal electrolysis. DMacks (talk) 06:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone answered your question yet? If, yes then put 'tnull | help' in the template . This means u don't ave millions of people answering your question in the same way. Chubbennaitor (leave me a message!) 08:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The lead specifically says, "The water fuel cell is a device invented by American Stanley Meyer...". This means the subject of the article is a water fuel cell invented by Stanley Meyer. Any other fuel cell, whether it use water or not, is not relative to this article because the subject of this article is Stanley Meyer's water fuel cell, not any other fuel cell. Parent5446(Murder me for my actions) 13:36, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be an old article..

People are creating more energy from Water Fuel cells.. just go and see www.water4gas.com and many others. They split water in an electrolysor, direct it into the engine and improve the fuel mileage by up to 107% -all without needing to charge the battery every day!

This is not thermodynamics -we are moving into the domain of catalysts! Just like every food chain you ingest has a specific catalyst with a specific shape.. the water responds to the catalyst and splits using less energy than it creates joining..

It doesn't fit normal energy laws, but neither did spliting the atom seem possible so many years ago! If ecperiments in cars are provin got improve the efficiecy of combustion engines with out draining the batties (ie the alternator is charging it with power form the car, and that does not fit any laws -then we need to develop new laws.

Science has come a long way but has still got further to go.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.146.55.124 (talk) 20:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

It's STILL thermodynamics - what is being referred to here is variations on injecting a fine water spray into the cylinders of a conventional gasoline engine to retard the ignition and allow the flame to run more smoothly through the air-fuel mixture. This is an extremely well known technique - and it does improve gas milage - but not by ANYTHING LIKE 100%. 10% maybe. But it has some horrible downsides that are not obvious in just a few hundred miles of driving. Firstly, the water tends to get into the oil - which causes all sorts of corrosion problems - secondly the water condenses out in the exhaust system and rusts that out in no time flat. So while it's a slightly interesting idea - it's useless in practice. You know this because if there was a 'free' way to get a 10% fuel saving, we'd all be using it. The idea of cracking water with electricity and then burning the hydrogen flat out doesn't work.
But hey - if you DO believe that you can get a 107% improvement then do this for me: Go out and buy a MINI Cooper - which does about 50mpg and costs $18,000 - with a 107% improvement, it'll do over 100mpg. This will result in a car that will easily win the $10 million DARPA prize that was announced a few days ago. Dunno how much the 'electrolysis' system will go for - let's be really pessimistic and assume it'll cost you $80,000. There you go - a $9,900,000 profit - guaranteed. Now - wouldn't you think that if it was that easy - DARPA would have aimed a little higher - or BMW/MINI would have entered a car with this system? It is a measure of my absolute certainty that this work that I'm not converting my MINI and entering the contest...yep - I'm prepared to turn down $9,900,000 - I'm that certain that this is a completely, utterly bogus claim. Now - if you believe in this claim - perhaps you'd explain why you aren't rushing out to do just that? SteveBaker (talk) 01:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I have made a 'electrolyzer' fuel cell and connected it to my car and it works perfectly. It has increased fuel savings by increasing fuel mileage by 40%. The 107% figure is overstated. The engine also has more power. Basically the unit is connected to a fuel injected system through the air intake. On a modern car, the car's computer will automatically adjust timing for the changed air/fuel ratio. The output gas from the elecrolyzer is not water vapour but a combustable gas. The gas flow is controlled by a combination of vacuum feedback and electronic circuitry to match the accelerator position. There are now many kits appearing on the internet, some with money back guarantee. One reason why we are not all using them is because of government legislation. Fuel for cars is government controlled. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.111.163.29 (talk) 12:43, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You're trying to morph the topic. Meyer didn't claim that his device increased gas mileage. He claimed it would allow you to run your car on water. There's a difference. There's already a separate article on (supposed) hydrogen fuel enhancement. Please take this discussion there.Prebys (talk) 12:57, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Final recommendation: Actually Presbys, I believe you are being impolite. The anonymous IP brings up a valid example, as I too have done with my previous edit within the article that added different patents of "water fuel cells". These other patents substantiate the idea that the term "water fuel cell" should not simply focus on Meyer's invention. Doing this, as per the status quo, is called a POV per WP:NPOV and is not permitted here on Wikipedia. That means we a problem! It should be resolved. Aside: I would like to point out that relying entirely on one or two sources (That is the Patents by Meyers) is seemingly a biased POV. Furthermore, "Water fuel cell" is a termed used in many different circumstances. Attempting to withhold this fact is not only wrong or frustrating but seriously violates Wikipedia's policies. Finally, I see another problem: Just about as serious, if not worse than putting in our own WP:OR, there are un-sourced statements which claim that that Meyers invention (ONE of many different types of fuel cells) is a violation of the thermal dynamic laws. Please provide sources. I think that if everyone worked together on one "water fuel cell" article this could turn into a full featured article listing the numerous facts. Some of us obviously have what appears to be "expert knowledge" on the subject. If so, why not add this information within the article highlighting the differences between a regular fuel cell, water fuel cell, Meyers water fuel cell, etc... and most importantly the references? I therefore recommend this article be expanded in a collaborative manner to include not only Meyers invention but other very relevant "Water fuel cells". --CyclePat (talk) 17:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I think I may have solved one of our issues by adding the etymology section. --CyclePat (talk) 18:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Anything that talks about "fuel cells" or "water fuel cells", except in the context of Meyers' device, is off-topic. It's not "POV" to talk about only one topic in an encyclopedia that is explicitly organized by topic. DMacks (talk) 18:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
The "Etymology" section added by CyclePat was just a coatrack to include unrelated content that had been deleted earlier. I have added a disambiguation link explaining the scope of this article and linking to Fuel Cell for now. If the page, Water Fuel Cell (disambiguation), is created linking to alternate encyclopedic articles on the topic, we can change the disamb. link. Abecedare (talk) 18:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
What does an essay from WP:COATRACK have to do with this? I am putting the well sourced information back in, since I sincerely do not understand this explanation. In fact the information which I returned to the article was summarized in 1 sentence to conform to the "minority" point of view per WP:NPOV... this is specifically dealt with in WP:DUE whereas
  • "Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopaedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, it must make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view." or,
  • "NPOV policy is to let competing approaches exist on the same page"
In fact the etymology section does just this and is commonly used in articles. Take for example Mass spectrometry‎ or Etymology (itself). Also, "NPOV policy often means presenting multiple points of view. This means providing not only the points of view of different groups today, but also different groups in the past." The etymology section does this and I put it to you that it's removal is not warranted under WP:COATRACK. --CyclePat (talk) 19:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
You are confusing off-topic with POV. If you are not satisfied with the multiple explanations given to you on this page, please feel free to open and RFC on the topic. I would strongly advise you against edit-warring and simply re-inserting your ~3KB of off-topic content for the 5th (?) time. Abecedare (talk) 19:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
By the way, I agree with you that WP:COATRACK was not an appropriate essay to link to; since your edits are simply off-topic and not biased. My apologies. Abecedare (talk) 19:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay! I've taken a step back to look at the article apple. I'm not sure if that's the best example because it doesn't include an etymology section but it has given me an idea of what you mean by off-topic. To for example Apple Macintosh (computer) vs. Apple (the fruit). (b.t.w.: with this example, I think you are right to say it may be off topic since Applec computer doesn't talk about the fruit.) So I looked some more... and found the article Golf which has an etymology section. This didn't really help in supporting my above final recommendation and help with the idea that we should have a disambiguation page. However, I would like to point out that ther "TERM" "water fuel cell", just like the term "apple" could have an etymology section related to other facts, ideas or as you say "off-topic" issues. Just as electric bicycle I'm not entirelly convinced with my method and will look into this issue in the next few days. --CyclePat (talk) 19:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
This article was clearly conceived to be about Meyer's "water fuel cell", and not other devices for (supposedly) extracting energy from water, let alone unique applications of ordinary electrolysis, such as the NASA propulsion system. Since you obviously feel strongly about this, the best advice would be to for you to write a "water fuel cell" disambiguation" page, where you could gather anything else to which the term might apply.Prebys (talk) 20:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

<deindent after ec>
CyclePat, I agree with most of what you say in your apple/golf post. My view:

  • An "Etymology" section describes the origin of a term, or origin of a particular use of the term. Since Meyer's water fuel cell is the topic of this article, in order to add an etymology section we would need some sources that explain how Meyer ended up using "Water Fuel Cell" as the name for his product. AFAIK such sources do not exist, nor are likely to.
  • In some cases when there is a raging controversy on use of a term, we can write a wikipedia article on the term and usage itself, for example, Gay and India's First War of Independence (term). Note that the subject of both these articles is the term itself; the topic that the terms refer to are covered in homosexuality, and Indian Rebellion of 1857 respectively. Again as far as I know, there is not a single source on the term "Water Fuel cell", which would justify creating an article Water fuel cell (term).
  • There are innumerable cases where the same term is used for distinct subjects. WP:Disambiguation is designed exactly for this purpose and we can create a disambiguation page for "Water Fuel cell". The only question is what other pages such a disamb. page should link to since I am not certain that the Brown device or the one described in the NASA document merit wikipedia article of their own. My current judgement is that they'll fail the notability requirements, but I am ready to change my mind, if we can find multiple secondary sources that refer to either of those devices.

Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 20:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think we should follow the example of The Energy Machine of Joseph Newman and title this page "Stan Meyers' Water Fuel Cell" or something similar. That will make it clear that this article is specifically about Meyers' work. Then, we can decide how to disambig/redirect the term "Water Fuel Cell". — NRen2k5(TALK), 22:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I've looked at the article lithium ion battery and have decided that this article requires a small blurb stating that Meyers Water fuel cell should not be confused with other fuel cells. This point is trully non negotiable and required if we want to have a disambiguation. --99.240.196.9 (talk) 18:01, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Good points on both the article's name and a disclaimer within the article itself.I55ere (talk) 15:01, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Water Powered Car

I notice that "water powered car" redirects to this page. In fact, this is just one of many cars that have supposedly run on water over the years, dating back at least to the 1935 "Garrett Water Carburetor" [1] - even earlier if you count magic pills that supposedly turned water into gasoline.[2] If I don't hear any objections, I'll expand the Water Powered Car page and remove the redirection. Prebys (talk) 18:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

It may be better to redirect it to Water-fuelled car and improve that article. Abecedare (talk) 19:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I fixed the redirect myself. Will leave the article improvement to you :) Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 19:08, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks!!! I would have missed the "water-fuelled car" article and started from scratch. Good thing I posted this first.Prebys (talk) 19:32, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Corrections necessary

There is a lot of bad information in this article. A perpetual motion machine is a machine that continues to create motion indefinitely without adding fuel (which is obviously impossible). The water fuel cell is not a perpetual motion machine. It is no different than any other engine which burns fuel, except that the fuel for the electrolysis for the machine is free and everywhere. By the current logic of the article, an ordinary gasoline engine must also be a perpetual motion machine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.165.49.182 (talk)

A "perpetual motion machine" need not involve motion nor itself produce energy. The formal term is probably an "over-unity device": one that allows production of more energy (in total) than it consumes (in all forms together). As is explained in the article and rehashed many times on this talk page, the Meyers cell, if it were to operate as claimed, would involve the use of water as a fuel to produce energy, along with material that could be converted back into water with the production of more energy. Please don't continue this discussion until you have read all the times before it's been had here. No reason to waste everyone's time with idle speculation and wishful thinking. DMacks (talk) 02:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Because these comments are often made by anonymous users, I suspect many are sock-puppets for a single user. Nevertheless, I've tried to slightly reword the intro yet again to satisfy the slower students.Prebys (talk) 12:36, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
A machine which could turn electricity and water into hydrogen and oxygen and then burn the hydrogen with the oxygen (which would produce water that you could run back out of the exhaust and into the tank) to drive the car AND keep the battery charged would indeed run perpetually because neither water nor electricity is being consumed. Hence, this (if it really worked as claimed) would be a perpetual motion machine. There is no getting away from that - so this aspect of the article is not "bad information" - it's completely correct in that regard. It doesn't "burn" water as a fuel - it uses it as a working fluid - much like a steam engine would. There isn't any energy left in water to extract - it's already in it's lowest energy state. The only way to turn the water into something (hydrogen) that you can burn is to put energy into it in the form of electricity. The very best you can possibly hope to do when you burn the hydrogen is to get back the energy you put in as electricity. However, you'd need to use 100% of that electricity to recharge your battery - or it'll run down and you'll have basically built a very inefficient electric car. But that assumes 100% efficiency in your electrolyser and in your internal combustion engine and in your generator...and it leaves no power left to actually move the car. This set of very simple facts have been tested and understood exceedingly well over hundreds of years. What this means that it is quite utterly impossible to build a real, working, water powered car no matter how smart you are and no matter what exotic approaches you take. The energy you seek simply isn't there in the water to start with - so there is no energy to extract. SteveBaker (talk) 02:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Renamed...

This confusion about 'true' fuel cells has to stop. Even if this device operated as claimed, it would not be a 'fuel cell' in the conventional meaning of the term. Per previous suggestion, I'm being bold and renaming it to Stanley Meyers' water fuel cell which makes it clear that we choose the meaning of the term that Meyer's used. This is also a good thing because Stanley Meyers links here and someone seeking information about the man himself would be confused to be dumped into an article about fuel cells. This way - everyone should be happy.

The 'Water Fuel Cell' article is now a disambiguation article that links to both here and to Fuel cell.

The dozen or so places that linked to Water fuel cell now link here directly - and they all make much more sense as a result.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:50, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Nicely done. Thumbs up! — NRen2k5(TALK), 05:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I moved the talk archive via cut&paste rather than using the Move tab. As a result, the old location is blanked but not completely removed. Oops. — NRen2k5(TALK), 05:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Kudos! Hopefully, this will lower the noise level... a bit, anyway.Prebys (talk) 13:13, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Good jobI55ere (talk) 16:05, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Patents

Hi I am a new user to Wiki, so I hope I am posting this suggestion correctly.

Everone attempting to flex their scientific muscle below need to take several steps backwards. It is clearly incorrect to state that the water fuel cell and other Meyer technologies were falsely claimed.

The biggest disappointment in the article is that it fails to mention the patents (which are even listed further down the article!!!) that Meyer applied for and was SUCCESSFULLY granted. The fact he did not prove his inventions in court are therefore somewhat irrelevant in terms of whether his claims were valid. Does a patent (arguably one of the highest levels of validity) not give a decent amount of confidence to the idea that his inventions were credible, and literally did what described to do??

I feel a rewording of the few feeble lines, which rob Meyer of his lifelong works credibility needs to take place. Reference to his successful patents and at least even ground needs to be conveyed, that there is as much of a chance if not more that his technology was real, rather than a hoax which this article conveys citing US court cases- which has nothing to do with the science or the validity of the technology.

Take GM's latest hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, which uses the exact technology pioneered by Meyer for example. The same principles apply with this, and although it has moved away from the internal combustion hydrogen engine, the self sustainment of the vehicle and its 'mobile powerstation' concept is proof that Meyers technology of getting a larger output of energy (in the form of hydrogen) than what is input (small amounts of electrical charge) is very very real.

The technology will reveal itself in time and I believe Meyer will finally then get his due credit. Pity it is all under wraps now, controlled and regulated. And funny that hydrogen fuel cell technology will be introduced by car manufacturers in collabortation will oil companies who never intended to slip from their perch. Their powerful grip and financial control on the world will remain.......

--DGM Ward (talk) 23:36, 2 May 2008 (UTC)--DGM Ward (talk) 23:36, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

"Take GM's latest hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, which uses the exact technology pioneered by Meyer for example." False. If it were the same technology, GM would have to ask Meyer's heirs for permission.
And a patent is no proof that the technology works as stated, only that that particular method of operation is covered by the patent. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
While powerful in courts of law, patents are powerless against the Laws of thermodynamics. Yilloslime (t) 02:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Word to the wise: Don't feed the troll.Prebys (talk) 02:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


  • The water fuel cell was definitely incorrectly claimed - what was claimed is impossible.
  • Patents are not “arguably one of the highest levels of validity”. They barely even validate that the “inventor” was the first to come up with the idea. They're a legal tool to protect the inventor's interests. As such, they prove nothing about the invention. Court judgments trump patents.
  • If the technology worked, then it would have been a trivial matter for Meyer to prove it in a court of law. He was asked to do exactly that and he refused, which has everything to do with the validity of his technology.
  • The “water fuel cell” is not a fuel cell. It’s an electrolysis cell. A real fuel cell produces electrical energy from fuel, not vice-versa. The GM hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is not self-sustaining and it is not fuelled by water. It has absolutely nothing to do with Meyer’s work.
  • The “water fuel cell” “technology” has already revealed itself – as a fraud. It only continues to be popular because, as P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” — NRen2k5(TALK), 12:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Patents prove virtually nothing. The average time spent by a patent examiner in approving a patent is 7 minutes. This is only barely enough time to read the text and fill out the paperwork for a typical patent. Worse still, recognise that that 7 minute average includes patents that take entire teams of patent officers weeks to decide...so a good number of them are accepted with no more than a cusory glance. You say that a patent is arguably one of the highest levels of validity - well, I'm sorry - but you are WILDLY off the mark there. A patent proves only that the inventor filed a patent...nothing else. I have about a dozen patents to my name. One of them (made when I was just out of college) is complete junk - it patents ideas that were very well known at the time - it passed without comment. Two other patents that I filed were screwed up by my patent lawyer who exchanged the diagrams from one patent with those of the other - resulting in two completely meaningless documents. Both were granted world-wide patent protection. No, trust me - patents don't count for anything whatever - they serve merely as legal protection in the event that the idea IS workable and someone infringes on it. SteveBaker (talk) 23:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
In case you have any doubt that patents are meaningless, note that a couple of years ago, someone finally managed to patent this idea, which most of us "invented" by the age of 12.Prebys (talk) 14:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I actually built one of those machines from a couple of Lego Technics motors as a demonstration when my son "invented" that...I think he was maybe 8 years old at the time. Because simple DC electric motors make great generators, you can connect the cable from one Lego motor to that of another. Lo and behold, when you turn one motor, the other one turns...no batteries, nothing! It's kinda magical when you see it work - you turn one motor and the other one seems to follow what you do exactly (of course it doesn't QUITE manage to mimic what you do - it always lags a bit). So - if you connect the two motors through a common axle and start them spinning - what happens? Nothing of course. They barely spin after you stop turning them with your finger. Far from perpetual motion - you get "No motion". It's truly amazing that even the overworked US patent system let that one slip through - but if the author wrapped it up with enough obfuscational language, you could see how that could happen. SteveBaker (talk) 01:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
If you read the patent, there's no obfuscation at all. It's one of the clearest patent descriptions I've ever seen. My guess is someone did it on a bet. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the wiggle room that allowed it to be patented. All I could come up with was, whereas the abstract states

"Once the system has started it is not necessary for the battery to supply power. The battery can then be disconnected."

it doesn't actually say it will continue running after you do that. After all, it's not "necessary" for the device to continue running. That, or the patent officer was just a moron. Whatever the case, I'm actually glad it's there, because it's handy to prove just exactly how little a patent means in these matters.Prebys (talk) 12:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
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