Eric 8's Comments
If this is like other so-called water powered cars, it's not actually water which powers the car, but most likely a pure aluminum block.
Aluminum is actually incredibly reactive, but aluminum oxide is incredibly stable. When you look at an aluminum can, the silvery color you see is actually aluminum oxide. When exposed to the atmosphere, aluminum immediately oxidizes, and that oxidization layer protects the lower layers from further exposure.
So cars that run on "water" tend to run on the energy generated from oxidizing aluminum (using the oxygen from the water). Very neat as an alternate fuel, but the problem is that pure aluminum doesn't exist in nature, on earth it's mined from Bauxite ore, and refining it into pure aluminum requires a huge amount of energy (which is why recycling already-refined aluminum is one of the most effective forms of recycling). So all it represents is a shift in where those emissions occur, from being emitted by the car itself, to being emitted at an electrical generating plant which powers the aluminum refinery.
Aluminum is actually incredibly reactive, but aluminum oxide is incredibly stable. When you look at an aluminum can, the silvery color you see is actually aluminum oxide. When exposed to the atmosphere, aluminum immediately oxidizes, and that oxidization layer protects the lower layers from further exposure.
So cars that run on "water" tend to run on the energy generated from oxidizing aluminum (using the oxygen from the water). Very neat as an alternate fuel, but the problem is that pure aluminum doesn't exist in nature, on earth it's mined from Bauxite ore, and refining it into pure aluminum requires a huge amount of energy (which is why recycling already-refined aluminum is one of the most effective forms of recycling). So all it represents is a shift in where those emissions occur, from being emitted by the car itself, to being emitted at an electrical generating plant which powers the aluminum refinery.
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This story reminds me of Naked Came the Stranger:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Came_the_Stranger
The book was written by 25 authors who were frustrated that the books making top seller lists really only needed to offer stories about sex, and the sales would come.
So these 25 authors got together and purposely wrote the worst, saltiest piece of crap they could. Each author took one chapter, without really sharing with other authors what they were up to other than the basic premise (so there was not much consistency throughout the book). They even rewrote some sections which turned out to be too-well written.
It rocketed to #1, and eventually the authors came forward out of a sense of guilt from how much money they were making off of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Came_the_Stranger
The book was written by 25 authors who were frustrated that the books making top seller lists really only needed to offer stories about sex, and the sales would come.
So these 25 authors got together and purposely wrote the worst, saltiest piece of crap they could. Each author took one chapter, without really sharing with other authors what they were up to other than the basic premise (so there was not much consistency throughout the book). They even rewrote some sections which turned out to be too-well written.
It rocketed to #1, and eventually the authors came forward out of a sense of guilt from how much money they were making off of it.
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Not only is that still not ok when it's done at a small scale by local businesses which struggle to make ends meet, but it's much worse when it's a single corporate entity controlling the fates of 700,000 factory workers world wide, and which boasts PROFITS of over $400,000 PER EMPLOYEE!