Hur de hurr, let's crack water with energy, then recombine the hydrogen with oxygen to make water again, we'll make energy!
It's crazy how many people argue to do exactly that. Science education sucks.
Granted, he said that a side claim was that the hydrogen made the gasoline process so much more efficient that the cost of the hydrogen process was more than repaid. Physically possible, but apparently not the case.
My older brother was big into HHO over a decade ago. My father asked me about it. That was the very point I made. I didn't know if it reached break even with improved combustion or not but acknowledged it was theoretically possible. For me it was nice to finally see an answer. Even if one has a more efficient HHO generator and alternator, and you exceed the required work for the HHO, the marginal improvement simply isn't going to be worth it.
the cost of the hydrogen process was more than repaid.
No. Just no. The extra drag on the alternator will take more energy than the hydrogen can replenish. Only a 6th grader who "invents" perpetual motion by hooking a generator to an electric motor without actually trying it would believe this. Actually, 40 years ago I knew a guy who claimed to run a lawnmower engine on hydrogen by hooking it up to an alternator, and I asked him "You still had to supply it with gasoline, right?" and he replied in the affirmative. But he argued that it was much more powerful because he blew up said lawnmower engine by overrevving it until it threw the rod. I asked him if he'd disconnected the governor, and he said yes, and when I told him he could have blown it up more easily by disconnecting the governor while running on straight gas, he reeeed and claimed he knew "science"
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