You're losing your credibility

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Oh boy, Reuters! Another time I get to make fun of you in less than a week. I'm so excited. Hi. why don't you just pay for a science editor? PLEASE! You are confusing people! Everyday, this world becomes more and more technical, and before you start scaring young mothers into not giving their children vaccines, or telling people that diet soda seems to still make you fat, or exclaim that now we can run cars with no fuel, please get a science guy . . . just advertise on slashdot or something . . . sigh

Too bad I didn't stumble upon this on my own. My lovely slashdot science feed did the stumbling. You should read the comments on that slashdot article. Some of them are pretty hilarious.

First of all, I forgot to mention that bisphenol-A is also found in every single plastic water bottle out there. Not just Nalgenes: Aquafina, Dasani, Poland Springs. Probably those polyethylene bike bottles . . . That is the main reason why you shouldn't discard your Nalgene. You'll prolly get higher doses of whatever it is you may think could possibly give you cancer from a brand new bottle than you would from a dusty old Nalgene...probably. That, and it's not so unlike refusing to leave your house because you can't prove you won't get hit by an alien spaceship . . . man I did not get my point across in that post!

Away from BPA and back on the "water fueled car:" Yes, we know that if you break up a water molecule into Hydrogen and Oxygen gas, then you'll have lost of Hydrogen and you can burn it and make things go! The problem is that you have to add something to the system to break up the molecule. Guess what that is? Energy. More than likely in the form of electrcity. Which means you need a battery of some sort, which makes this, not a water-powered car, but a battery-powered-water-power car. Bet that's efficient. You also need some metal to pass the electrons. Water + metal causes oxidation which reduces the efficiency of the process even further. Eventually the metal will have to be replaced and deoxidized. Which also costs . . . you guessed it, more energy.

So is it impossible to run a car on water? of course not! It's very possible; they're probably actually doing it in that video. The problem is that it's not been proven to be more effcient than gas. And Reuters certainly doesn't say anything about that. It also seems rather clean and good for the environment, but if you're charging your battery or deoxidizing your metal with electricity from a wall socket in sunny California, you're pulling power from the grid which is more than likely coming from a petroleum/natural gas/coal burning power plant . . . so in the end you're probably just ruining the environment harder.

You all know how I hate to be the rain on a parade, but I did think this comment was hilarious and demonstrated just how well Reuters explained the car and validated the premise . . . oh how I love sarcasm

flyingsquid says: Hello? Did you even watch the video? It's pretty impossible to argue with what the video shows.

The video clearly shows a little, blue car with the words "Water Energy System" in small, green letters. What's more, the car has the words "H2O POWER", in big, white capital letters, written on it. "H20 POWER" is written on the front, the back, AND even the sides, in ALL CAPS so it's impossible to miss that this car uses H20 POWER. If it's NOT powered by water, then how come it says "H2O POWER" all over the car, Mr. Smarty Pants?

If that wasn't enough to silence the skeptics that the car uses H2O POWER, the video features a guy in a suit talking about the car. The fact that the guy talking is wearing a SUIT clearly shows that these guys are professionals, because professional people wear suits. Now, I can't tell what he's saying, because it's in Japanese. But that's not important. The fact that he is saying it in JAPANESE is the important thing. Because that PROVES that he is Japanese! And everyone knows that Japanese people are very, very smart. To top it all off, the video is narrated by a woman with a sophisticated-sounding British accent. The same kind of sophisticated British accent you will hear on the BBC, one of the world's most reliable news organizations. You can't argue with information that is presented with a sophisticated sounding foreign accent.

Always wear a suit and speak Japanese when talking to Reuters. They'll video you and put you on the internet.

If you want to learn more about the electrolysis of water or specifically the efficiency of the process, well, there ya go. That link on electrolysis also explains fuel cells pretty well. It's pretty much the opposite of the water powered car. It takes in Oxygen and Hydrogen and expells water. Those look a little more promising.

OH! Reuters! Hey! I just thought of something! If we combine a fuel cell and a water powered car, we would have a miracle car that never needed to fill up on anything! . . . I know I left that suit somewhere around here . . .