** Editor's Note **

The system only generates enough power to run a specialized vehicle for a few miles a day. While the science is strong and the direction is a good one, the results aren't quite as dramatic as they sound in the above article.

wonder how long before some government agency or whatever shuts this down in the interests of a clean environment (in the interests of the oil companies)?

Hydrogen is such a load. Once people realize it's just a Second Law of Thermodynamics-violating smokescreen for the oil companies (since you can only get enough hydrogen from burning fossil fuels to power electrolysis or by extracting it from hydrocarbons like oil), maybe we'll start spending our time on something useful, e.g., inexpensive solar cells that operate at an efficiency less abysmal than 30%. Until something like that happens, it’s all just another forgettable science project.

You can also help some students out should you be interesting in fostering innovative science programs in schools

Don't show this to the Engineers club. We'll rip it to pieces. In a nutshell:

1) This is obvious. Photocells to make electricity, which mkes hydrogen, which powers an engine. All the pieces have been in place for thirty years. Nobody bothered doing it before because five minutes with a calculator will show that the amount of light collected on the roof of a car will power it for an incredibly short distance. Awesome learning project for a class, but implying that it has any real bearing on the future of transportation is rotten journalism.

2) "Inexpensive solar cells tat operate above an abysmal 30%" should be along shortly after fusion (never). The efficiencies we get now are miraculous. Each gate only works on one wavelength of light. Etching a multi-gate cell to collect a broad spectrum, and therefore raise efficiencies into the thirties, is challenging and weill never be cheap. Never.

In fact, most solar cell consume far more energy in their manufacture than they will ever produce in their lifetimes. Empirically speaking, solar cells are bad for the environment.

3) There is some very exciting work being done on hydrogen from fermentation and from solar electrolysis in the presence of a catalyst. And Methanol is chock full of hydrogen, and can be produced by fermentation. The dream of hydrogen from non-fossil sources is plausible. Of course I doubt Bush knows that.

I think we should just burn horses to make the fire to fuel our automotators.

Reading that blatantly annoys me. There are so many great "alternative" energy sources that have provided a great deal of evidence, or at least that are deserving of interest and funding, but they don't get anything but a little private funding. Fuck "experts." Fuck them in the "ass."

even if it isent practicle yet neither was the first computer, or the first plane, or the first car for that matter (infact the first cars tended to explode and run on railroad trakes) im sure people of the day made such comments as "that will never be practicle" or "that will always be to expensive" but today cars are everywhere and dirt cheap. the simple fact taht you can run a full sized car on nothing but tap water is definatly a step in the right direction.

No, it's really not; I actually think this is a step in exactly the wrong direction. It's obvious to anyone who reacts to this story with logic rather than emotion that employing these technologies in this way is a mathematical dead end. I'm all for pie-in-the-sky idealism when it comes to alternative energy sources, but the sad reality is the media furor over this non-event is going to lead to tons of funding for something that cannot and never will work. If we spent that money on something that isn't such a blatant waste we might actually see results that would have a practical impact upon the world; instead, all we're going to get is, "Well, now that we've spent 1.8 billion dollars on reengineering our car, it only needs 37 hours of solid sunlight to make it down to the supermarket, and you'll still have enough fuel to carry six whole apples back with you!" :smattering of clueless media applause:

there's tons of fantastic energy systems, the problem is that one half of the people doesn't want to make the investment and the other half has some vested interests never to see it happen.

I am not defending this sunlight/water car specifically whatsoever, and referring instead to other developments, but I find your reponse ironic, not necessarily wrong, just ironic. Ironic because THERE HAS BEEN FOR QUITE A LONG TIME LUDICROUS AMOUNTS OF FUNDING POURING INTO SHIT THAT DOESN"T WORK AND WILL NEVER WORK IN ANY PRACTICAL LOGICAL SENSE! Why aren't you bitching about that?! If you are worried that much about funding going the wrong way because of this tiny event, then your missing the bigger and uglier picture that has been going on for much longer.

I think you hit it dead on with that statement.

well they only spent 10,000 on there car id hardly call that a waste.. and while the technology might not be mathmaticaly possible that dosent mean there isent promis in it... someday (hopefully soon) someone will invent a more ifficent solor cell and then this would be more realistic. I also think any project that gets more money spent on alternative energy is good.

in the last 50 years we have done some amazing things, we went to the moon, built enough weapons to blow up the world a half dozen times, built supercomputers that will fit in your pocket, and robots that are smaller than a human hair. all of this we did with money (and alot of it with goverment funding) . and 50 years before that all these things were considered mathmaticaly unrealistic just like this car. if we can do those things i think we can build a car that runs on water if we put our minds, and money into it.

Chalk one up for Arifuckingzona. Now if we could just find a way to build a solar-powered air conditioner that will cool off the entire Valley....

Anyone remember Chain Reaction?