Monday, July 30, 2012

A Car running only on Water ??

A farmer has a tube-well which runs on electric motor. The electric supply to the motor is from the distribution system of WAPDA. The farmer has to pay a hefty amount of charges to WAPDA every month. A friend of a farmer comes with a brilliant idea to  save the farmer his bills. The motor runs on electricity and produces 'fast' flowing water. Why does not he use the water to run a generator? The generator will produce electricity from the flowing water that we can give to the motor.  Now we can run the tube-well in a self-sustaining manner without any need for WAPDA supply whatsoever, except for first time to kick-start our freely running tube-well and the extra-generator off course. Brilliant. Damn all the scientists and engineers out there. Why the hell they can't come up with such simple ideas and perfect solutions to problems.

National media is abuzz with news about the invention of a water-kit by a Pakistani Engr. Agha Waqar. The kit is claimed to run any type of car or a generator using just distilled water and do this in a damn cheap manner. WaO... !!! All the problems of world about the fuel, resources, transportation, electricity shortage solved. All we need is distillation water plants and the magic water-kit. The national media is gone crazy as regards reporting this ground-breaking achievement. The news has even reached Iranian Press TV and Khaleej Times. 

The claims of Agha Waqar have been taken seriously by our government. According to Federal Minister Khurshid Shah, as reported in  Capital Talk by Hamid Mir, the government is seeking expert opinion on the matter. A demonstration was arranged to the big players in vehicle market to experts from NUST, LUMS, Suzuki Motors, Toyota etc. They were very interested in knowing more about the invention and asked a lot of questions, initially. The experts have been requested to submit their views on the feasibility and business potential of the kit but still have not responded.



The minister expressed concern about the security of the engineer and our own Hamid Mir was quick to highlight similar achievements in recent history and dire 'consequences', say sudden death or imprisonment on some other charges,  of such endeavors for the inventors. The new technology poses serious threat to the existing manufactures of vehicles and as per the conspiracy. 

Pakistani are not unfamiliar with such hoaxes claiming big discoveries or certifications at very early age. In the race to break the news first, the reporters, actually anchors to be precise, do not wait to verify the authenticity of claims from the related experts. 

Talat Hussain, in his program dared invite famous Dr. Atta ur Rehman for the comments.  Now we are talking to someone who qualifies at least for basic comments about the scientific standing of the water-kit. Referring to very basic principle of conservation of energy, Dr. Atta declared all the fiasco as non-sense and making fools of the masses. It is impossible to generate more energy out of a system than what is provided as input. 


It is worth to mention here that Agha Waqar holds only an Associate Engineer Diploma and a B.Tech degree. A reader even little acquainted with basic science can have a feeling of how 'confidently' he is defending their invention in a 'scientific' manner and how questions are posed to Dr. Atta.

I invite the reader to think about the typical invention cycle. In case, one comes up with such a grand idea and happens to demonstrate it physically, does one to media and ask for funding for mass production. It is alarming how rapidly the news is spreading across the social media without a hint of doubt about the feasibility of the idea. Very few people talk about how the idea violates basic laws of science just like the brilliant tube-well idea. We are rather coining new conspiracy theories as to how the price of water will rise now and how the guy will be put to death by some agents. 

16 comments:

  1. It depends. We as scientists always run on fundamental laws but nevertheless with time we are biased due to laws. They are proven laws, yet now and then people get to nullify them.

    The thing is this, that there is some other trick too besides the gas combustion that he claims. I myself know that it contradicts the basic laws of thermodynamics, but i'm always open to new challenges even if they void simple laws.

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  2. The way that associate engineer argued with an authority like Dr Atta Ur Rehman, was disgusting and totally foolish. Mr Inventor had little or no knowledge of scientific laws. Just to share, once I met someone who thought of generating energy by placing wind turbines in front of industrial exhaust fans. Idiots..

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  3. I'm trying to follow this since morning what actually happening. In science we never say NO, 2ndly Dr.Atta don't need to talk like that rather then trying to find the real fault on this water-kit. He just ignore the whole idea, that's really bad, that's show how much Dr.Sahib narrow minded. 3rd any invention not related with his qualification. We will know the reality just wait.

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  7. Yasin, you very aptly described a pertpetual machine. Dare I present another example. A battery is used to run a car. The running car is used to charge the battery. However, I have an issue with the relevance of this argument in this context.

    The question is pose is this: Does the law of conservation of energy apply when energy is used to extract a fuel that may be utilzed to produce energy? If it does, wouldn't that make extraction of fuel useless. If the amount of energy needed to pump oil out of the wells were equal to the amount of energy burning of that oil would produce, the whole exercise would be futile. However, it is clear that the law of conservation of energy does not apply.

    As far as I can understand the gentleman is claiming that he is able to seperate H2 and O from H2O at (I am assuming) very low currents. IFF that is true, this would be the actual breakthrough. So, current is used to produce highly volatile Hydrogen gas, small volumes of which can sufficiently drive a car. The claim is Not that the car is running on the battery, as Dr. Atta (with all due respect) was asserting in the interview, but from Hydrogen extracted from H2O. As a scientist I can and should be Very critical on the actual production of Hydrogen instead of harking on the Law of Conservation of energy.

    What do you think?

    PS, the title should running "Car running on Hydrogen"

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    1. hmm.. I dare not comment on the authenticity of the claim made by Engr. Waqar. But one thing that pinches me is when he and Hamid Mir claims that there is no difference felt while driving a Hydrogen fueled car of Mr. Waqar as compared to regular gasoline fueled car... As we know that when we convert to CNG one can feel a sudden dip in performance of car as energy content of CNG is less than that of gasoline... So i went to google and check that what is energy content of Hydrogen and I found out that Energy content of gasoline is 34.2 MJ/liter and that of CNG is 9MJ/liter and that of Hydrogen gas is 0.01005 MJ/liter... If it is so then how come Mr. Waqar's car drives the same as it does on gasoline is beyond my understanding...
      For reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

      Muhammad Mubeen Masud

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    2. Mubeen Yar, I am not saying that the claims are sound. I only contend that the argument that it does not comply with the law of conservation of energy is not relevant.

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  8. I think Dr. Atta was asserting that we need external input from battery to the supply energy to carry out hydrolysis.

    And when taking into account the efficiency of all the system components carrying hydrolysis and combustion, we end up producing amount of energy much less (say50%) than the energy we supplied as input from the battery. So, H2 produced using Hydrolysis is not as efficient as producing the same energy from common fuels.

    A 2008 Answer to the same question on AllExperts.com makes some rough calculations in this regard: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Physics-1358/2008/6/Energy-Hydrolysis.htm

    Considering water is much cheaper source of Hydrogen, the question boils down to the cost of charging and re-charging the battery.

    Considering all such technical issues and the general attitude of our public towards acceptance of hoaxes in these times, he probably chose to respond strongly to it.

    Let's wait for the results from Pakistan Engineering Council or other scientific bodies in Pakistan.

    After all, why we need such a hype and fuss in media circles before verifying the claims systematically.

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    1. I totally agree. That is exactly what I pointed to in my previous post. Mr. Waqar is alluding that he is able to produce sufficient Hydrogen with a process with low power requirements compared to traditional processes. If the power requirements are sufficiently low then the alternator should be able to recharge the battery.

      If what Mr. Waqar is saying is true, then this process would be the actual achievement.

      Personally I am a sceptic. I believe if something is too good to be true, it usually is :). However, I thought that people from either side of the fence should make scientifically arguments.

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  9. in this program also Dr abdul qadir khan call and says that it is possible
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  10. hahaha sientist ata jahil insan jb gari chalegi tou battery altenator se recharge hoti hai

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  11. I was doubltfull about the claim of this pakistan diploma holder (Agha Waqar). But after watching few his interviews I am getting more and more confidence in his achievenment. His invention is basically the Pakistani Method of Electrolysis which is different from others. And which his secret. Though he is not high technical person and his debate with Dr, Atta ur Rehman was not convincing but listening to his more interviews he some how clarified many technical questions. Great job. Frankly speaking Dr. Ata ur Rehman was very blunt to call his a non-sense or Fraud. This effect my respect for the Dr. sahb. He is great but he got no right to insult others. Lets wait for more technical verifications of the invention before we nullify it. Great job and hope Mr. Agha Waqar succeed in his work.

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