Emerging Technologies

This website has set off a lot of woo woo metres.

Emerging Technologies Development Corporation , a St. Louis based R&D sponsor announces a breakthrough of monumental proportions in the race to produce an automobile that runs on water.

Emerging Technologies Development Corporation ,now has dozens of working models in various stages of testing of a Hydrogen on demand generator that will totally eliminate the need to store compressed hydrogen, fuel cells(?), hybrid electric cars and other approaches to automobile propulsion.

“The beauty of this system is that it is fast and extremely cheap to produce the hydrogen. Currently with a single generator about the size of a coffee pot we are generating 3/10 liter per second “, says William Alexander, CEO of Emerging Technologies Development Corporation. The by product of this system seems to be nothing more than heat and water that is generated when the oxygen is allowed to recombine with the atmosphere. Without using chemicals, typical evaporation or electrolysis this system is environmentally pure.

“This method is so safe you can hold it in your hands or tuck it under your arm even while it is actively producing the hydrogen “, says Alexander.

Bench testing of larger generators and “ gang “ generators is under way. Preliminary tests indicate a gang generator configuration will yield 2 liters of hydrogen per second for pennies per liter.

With this kind of availability at virtually pennies per liter there is simply no reason to store or compress hydrogen, construct complex hybrid systems or use battery systems with the attendant threat to the environment for battery waste. Emphasis added.

It's unclear why a man who makes his living selling measurement tools would talk about what the product "seems to be". But what about the claim to make H2 for pennies per litre? Is that good? Lets do the math.

At atmospheric pressure and room temp, one litre of H2 is 0.041416 moles. (Thanks to the hard to link to ideal gas calculator http://www-tech.mit.edu/Chemicool/idealgas.html)

The heat of combustion of H2 is 285.83 kJ / mole.

Multiplying we see that one litre of H2 represents 11.838 kJ of potential energy (supposing we are planning on burning it). Dividing by 3600, we see that's 3.3 Wh, or 0.0033 kWh.

Why would anyone want to pay pennies for that? Electrolysis would be much cheaper. What the company is claiming is to be testing a very expensve method of producing H2. How could this be the basis of a system that replaces battery storage for electric cars or complex hybrid systems for better fuel efficiency? Impossible of course.

Hydrogenerate Website down

The Hydrogenerate website has been down since Sunday. The Wayback has some snapshots of their site from 2001-February through 2003-June. We already noted that the company's stopped SEC filings. The list of officers on file in Nevada doesn't reflect that the CEO resigned in 2004-January. The Nevada corporate file number is 22205-2001, and the status there is "Current List on file". They need to file an officers list by the end of August. The filing fee for that will be $125.

Tathacus Due Diligence on Xogen

When Tathacus first proposed to acquire a stake in Xogen, they claimed to perform some due diligence on Xogen which they describe in their prospectus. About the DD report the prospectus says

The Corporation (Tathacus) engaged Evans & Evans, Inc to prepare a Feasibility Study Report dated October 1999, and amended by an Addendum dates February 25, 2000 in support of the proposed acquisition of an interest in Xogen and as required by Circular No. 1 of the ASE policies. The Feasibility Study provides an independent assesment of the critical aspects of the business and business plans of Xogen. The information in the Feasibility Study has been derived from information collected from the management of Xogen. A confidential engineering report prepared for the Corporation on Xogen's technology was reviewed by Evans & Evans and the following summary also contains extracts from this report.

I add the emphasis around how Evans & Evans gathered their information since so much of it is obviously wrong. They had two sources, the Xogen management, and a confidential engineering report of unknown authorship that were the basis of the incorrect claims they make about the Xogen process.

The Evans & Evans report starts on page 17 of the prospectus, and contains a few interesting items I'll skip over like a brief account of the demonstration unit that exploded. Going straight to the "Comparison with Existing Methods" on pages 21 and 22 one can see it's troubled.

1. The Xogen process uses power-consumption levels that can be orders of magnitude lower than conventional electrolysis to produce useful volumes of hydrogen. Conventional electrolysis requires heavy currents and is therefore much more expensive. The relative efficiency of the Xogen system makes wind and solar-powered hydrogen generation feasible, possibly in conjunction with battery power.

One need not read past the first sentence to see that E&E are not engineers. Power is the rate of energy used over time, not a measure of energy itself. There are no power-consumption levels required for electrolysis. An arbitrarily small amount of power can generate an arbitrarily large amount of H2 in enough time. Some people have assumed this error was a typo and that E&E meant to say that the energy required per unit of H2 produced is orders of magnitude lower with the Xogen process than with conventional electrolysis. This is impossible, since electrolysis is fairly efficient and orders of magnitude more efficient would amount to perpetual motion. As we discussed in Efficiency of Xogen Process, the Alberta Research Council report clearly shows the Xogen process to be about 50% efficient. Again, there are no "heavy-current" requirements for electrolysis. Current is the flow rate of charge. Electrolysis requires two moles of electrons per mole of H2, but there is no minimum flow rate for electrolysis. Also, as we show in Errors in ARC's report to Xogen and Earlier Xogen Publication of ARC Report the Xogen process has the same volume of H2 per Amp hour of charge as electrolysis.

2. The Xogen process works with any natural water, including ordinary tap water, sea water, and may be polluted or clean. Conventional electrolysis requires chemical additives, usually dangerous acids, to give the water sufficient electrical conductivity to support the heavy electrical currents.

More with the heavy current business. Electrolysis is possible with sea water. But you wouldn't use sea water for electrolysis unless you wanted Chlorine gas as well as Hydrogen. Ditto for the Xogen process.

3. The hydrogen and oxygen gases produced by conventional electrolysis combine quite readily into water when under pressure. The gases produced by the Xogen process exhibit little or no tendency to combine under pressure.

This claim that H2 and O2 remember if they were generated by electrolysis or the Xogen process is magical. It shows a lack of any sense of irony to place a claim like this just pages after the description of the witness-injuring explosion of the demo unit.

4. In conventional electrolysis, the electrodes are "consumed" by the process, so their replacement is necessary. The Xogen process, however, does not consume the electrodes.

The ARC report found that Xogen process does consume the stainless steel electrodes.

A lot of junk was fed to Evans & Evans. Unfortunately, they were unaware that they didn't have the training required to audit it.

Efficiency of Xogen Process

Longtime Xogen watcher vcrepair suggested that I look at the temperature chart provided as part of the report we reviewed yesterday. If we assume that this chart was built using the same test run that provided the 66.8 l of H2 for 18 Amp hours of current, then we can calculate two quantities that a lot of people comlained were not included in the report, the efficiency of the Xogen process and the Voltage associated with the 18 Amp hours.

Assume that
Energy drawn from battery =
Change in heat energy in the water +
Change in chemical potential in the H2

Really, there would be other losses but I assume these are small. We can calculate both the change in the heat energy in the water and the change in the chemical potential from the data provided.

Change in heat energy

The chart states that the increase in heat in the water was 231 W for 37 minutes, and 254 W for 16 minutes. Simply adding these we get 12611 W minutes, which is 210 W hours or 757 kJ.

Change in chemical potential

The report claims 66.8 l of H2. I think that's a little higher than it was, but I'll use it here anyway. At a reasonable lab temperature of 70 degrees, 66.8 litres is 2.77 moles. Multiplying by 285.83 kJ/mole, that makes for a 792 kJ increase in chemical potential.

Total Energy

1550 kJ = 792 kJ (H2) + 757 kJ (heat)

Voltage

24 V = 1550 kJ * 1 Wh/3600 J * 1 / 18 Ah

Efficiency

51% = 792 kJ / 1550 kJ
Both these figures crosscheck when compared to the efficency one would compute if one assumes that the system tested was 8 cells connected in series to a 24 V power supply. In that case, the efficency would be 49% = 1.47 V / 3 V. Since we are working with only 2 significant figures in the charge reported by the ARC (18 Amps) this is reassuring agreement.

Earlier Xogen Publication of ARC Report

Longtime Xogen watcher vcrepair found this older publication of the ARC report that contains the details that explain how the ARC mistakenly found a factor of 8 difference the ARC found between standard electrolysis and the Xogen process for the H2 produced per unit charge. The report can also be found in the SEDAR archives.

Tathacus Resources Ltd.
Summary of ARC test results and Company comment
April 6, 2001

Following is a summary of some of Alberta Research Council's test results. ARC was not required to conduct an economic assessment of the process. Under the terms of agreements between Tathacus Resources and Xogen Power, certain of the data will remain confidential for proprietary and competitive reasons. A complete copy of the ARC report on the tests has been filed with the Canadian Venture Exchange on a confidential basis.

Summary of ARC test results:

The Process involves the passage of electrical current through water for the generation of hydrogen gas and oxygen gas mixture.

A single waveform generator was used to operate a number of cells simultaneously.

No mechanically moving parts were apparent in the four generator systems which were examined and tested.

The feedstock water for the tests of the Process was taken from a municipal water supply line. No additives to the water are employed in the Process.

The gas production appears to be controllable on demand.

Gas samples collected and analyzed were found to contain hydrogen and oxygen gas in a ratio approaching a value of 2:1.

The Process produced a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen gases without recombination to at least 50 psi. (ARC did not test beyond 50 psi.)

The pressurization increased in a linear manner over time (during the
short duration test), as illustrated in the graph in the following URL.
http://files.newswire.ca/123/0405pressure.xls Link isn't dead.
(Company note: The data points were derived from an early prototype
generator designed for research purposes only and not optimal gas
production)

There was no heat sinking or cooling of the water incorporated in the test apparatus.

Water temperatures increased from 13 degrees Celsius to 30 degrees Celsius during the test. Temperature increase in the water of the Single Cell Modular Generator was observed to be 0.0013 degrees centigrade/minute/watt of battery input power.
http://files.newswire.ca/123/0405temp.xls

Chemical analysis was conducted on the water by an independent laboratory before and after testing. The elements iron and manganese had increased as follows:

<<
(All Prototype Systems)

Before After 10 Minutes After 20
Minutes
of Operation of Operation

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Iron less than 0.002 mg/L 0.568 mg/L 0.786 mg/L
Manganese 0.001 mg/L 0.079 mg/L 0.175 mg/L

----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>

Both iron and manganese are components of stainless steel, suggesting
that the source of the increased iron and manganese content may be the
stainless steel plates which form the cells.

Tathacus comment on select ARC results:
Prototype testing
Four prototypes were tested by the ARC. They can be described as follows:

1. Sealed Horizontal Generator - A sealed vessel containing a
single cell comprised of stainless steel plates connected to a 12 volt DC
power supply, a driver and a single electronic digital waveform
generator. The total volume of the vessel with the cell in place was 5.35L.

2. Split System Generator - A split generating system comprised of
two sets of four cells contained in 8 open trays, where each tray contained 5 litres of City of Calgary tap water. Each set of four cells was connected to separate 24 volt DC supplies but the two sets were both connected to a single electronic digital waveform generator. Emphasis added. Bingo.

3. Vertical Multiple Cell Generator - A multi-cell sealed vessel containing six vertically aligned cells all connected to a single 24 volt DC power supply, two electronic drivers and a single electronic digital waveform generator.

4. Single Cell Modular Generator - A modular design vessel containing a single horizontal cell measuring approximately 15 cm x 25 cm x 8 cm. The vessel was made from 18 mm thick acrylic material with a top cover of 9.5 mm thick aluminum. The cover allowed for the connection of a thermocouple to monitor water temperature. The vessel contained a single cell connected to a 24 volt DC power supply, a single driver and a single electronic digital waveform generator. The single cell within its own vessel was intended by Xogen to function as the basic building block of its modular, scaleable system.

Xogen confirmed to Tathacus that the prototypes supplied for testing deliberately did not incorporate any form of heat sinking of the water. This was necessary to calculate the Process heat gain in order to engineer the cooling requirements necessary for commercial applications. Similarly, the tested prototypes included no filtration equipment to ensure accurate measurement of all properties of the Xogen process.

Comment on gas analysis
Xogen has advised Tathacus that conventional electrical methods of hydrogen production typically have wet gas output that requires drying prior to most commercial uses. Due to the lower operating temperatures possible with the Xogen process, a dry oxygen-hydrogen gas can be produced that is suitable for combustion purposes without further processing. Given the two-thirds hydrogen, one-third oxygen composition of the gas, Xogen has a nearly perfect stoichiometric mixture for combustion.

Comment on iron and manganese findings
Xogen has confirmed that plate and connector material optimization has yet to be undertaken. (Re-specification of plate material or design adjustments may occur in future as a result of optimization studies.) Further, Xogen advised the Company that none of the test apparatus has been the subject of optimization engineering, this being the matter of future development intended to be conducted largely in the context of technical co-venture or licensing agreements with appropriate, qualified parties in each field of potential commercial application.

"Two graphs are available to accompany this release. To receive a
copy by fax please call Canada NewsWire at (403) 269-7605."
%SEDAR: 00010678E

We can see above how the factor of 8 error was made. If the volume results that purport to show that Xogen's process are not electrolysis are based on the 8 cell "split system generator" or some other configuration where 8 cells are in series then the whole current is passing through each cell.

Errors in ARC's report to Xogen

The report lampooned in "Xogen and Faraday" purports to show that Xogen's Hydrogen generation process is not conventional electrolysis. It was prepared by ARC (the Alberta Research Council). The report is an odd hodgepodge. Extrapolations from electrolysis theory are made to 5 significant figures and defended with multiple footnotes. But the tests on the Xogen device are described in vague terms with important measurements not reported, and others reported to only 2 sig figs. A lot's been made of the fact that the report describes only the Amp-hours of current used in the Xogen tests, not the Voltage, making it impossible to determine the efficiency of the process. But that appears not to have been the purpose of the report. The report was, apparently, intended to show that Xogen's process isn't electrolysis. But why would anyone want to show only that the process isn't electrolysis, why not try to show that it's efficient? Maybe we'll never know. But what's clear is that the report shows the reverse of the conclusion, that the Xogen process is standard electrolysis. There were three errors in the Alberta Research Council's report that obscured the obvious truth from them:

The estimation of the amount of H2 to expect from electrolysis was done incorrectly;

No accounting of the impurities is shown for the measurement of the H2 from the Xogen process;

The circuit analysis is all wrong, undercounting the current for the Xogen process by a factor of 8.

I'll show the first two errors here and the third after Google finds me a more detailed version of the report.

First lets look at how the results for electrolysis were calculated:

1 mole of H2 gas is equivalent to 22.414 L, or 0.022414 m³ of H2 gas.
2 moles of electrons are equivalent to 53.6 Ah [(2 mole)(96,485 C/mole)(1 A/Cs)(1 h/3600 s)].
Ideally, 1.47 V is needed, so the ideal power efficiency is:
(53.6 Ah)(1.47 V)/(0.022414 m³) = 3.52 kWh/m³ of H2 gas
at 25 °C, 1 atm (1.013 bar).

Simply put :
53.6 Amp hours of current flowing will liberate 22.414 litres of hydrogen gas at 0 degrees C, 1 atm.

The 22.414 litres from 53.6 Amp hours is then compared to the Xogen results. This is an extrapolation from theory, not an experimental result, and it's obvious why nobody would want to try to replicate it in the lab. Who would want to roll all that equipment into the freezer? How can you handle the instruments properly with mittens on? But since the Xogen process was, presumably, not tested in the freezer either, it's incorrect to compare to the volume at 0 degrees C. The MIT Ideal Gas Law calculator makes easy to check that at 70 degrees F, 53.6 Amp hours worth (one mole) of H2 is would be 24.145 l.

Now about the impurities they say:

(d) The output gas is a stoichiometric mixture of hydrogen and oxygen containing less than 3% water vapour;

There would be other impurities as well as the air suspended in the water is going to be released as the water is heated, but water vapor would be the main one. But when the amount of H2 is calculated, the impurities do not seem to be taken into account. So where the ARC says:

18 Amp hours of current flowing will liberate approximately 100.2 litres of hydrogen/oxygen gas of which 2/3rds (66.8 litres) is hydrogen and 1/3rd (33.4 litres) is oxygen.

they should have shown that the impurities were not counted in the volume of H2 O2 mixture, but they don't. How much impurities were there? The ARC hinted at 3%. So where the ARC says there were 66.8 litres of H2 created, 64.8 is probably closer to the truth.

Many people who read the ARC have computed:
53.6 Amp hours for electrolysis / 22.414 l
------------------------------------------ = 8.9
18 Amp hours for Xogen / 66.8 l

which they round to 9.

But it would be more correct to use:
53.6 Amp hours for electrolysis / 24.145 l
------------------------------------------ = 8.0
18 Amp hours for Xogen / 64.8 l

So by my calculations, the Xogen process produces only 8 times as much H2 per unit charge as conventional electrolysis. Which is perfect, since I'll show later that the circuit analysis error by the ARC leads them to undercount the current used in the Xogen process by a factor of 8.

Xogen and Faraday

Michael Faraday's laws of electrolysis state that:
1 - The mass of an element discharged at an electrode m is directly proportional to the amount of electrical charge Q passed through the electrode.
2 - If the same amount of electrical charge Q is passed through several electrodes, the mass m of an element discharged at each electrode will be directly proportional to both (a) the atomic mass of the element, and (b) the number of moles of electrons required to discharge one mole of the element from whatever material is being discharged at the electrode (the charge number z).

In January 2004, Xogen released a study that proported to show that they had developed a new electrochemical process other than electrolysis to extract Hydrogen and Oxygen from water. The report was available from their site for only a short time before it was pulled, however an investor posted a copy to a message boardbefore it was taken down.

Following on its mandate, the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) has assessed data testing and analysis conducted relative to the basic science of the Xogen technology (hereafter 'the technology') and makes the following statements and I comment in italics:

The technology is not conventional electrolysis as governed by the laws of electrolysis established by Michael Faraday in 1834, because:
(a) The technology produces approximately 3 times more gas output for approximately 1/3rd the current required by conventional electrolysis;
(b) The gas output in part (a) is achieved without special water (i.e. deionized, demineralized) or catalyst (electrolyte). Only City of Calgary tap water was used; Do Faraday's laws not apply to Calgary city water?
(c) As a minimum, with the same power input, the gas production that has been achieved with environmental streams tested is similar to what has been achieved with ordinary tap water; Do Faraday's laws require that environmental streams of water provide dissimilar results to tap water?
(d) The output gas is a stoichiometric mixture of hydrogen and oxygen containing less than 3% water vapour; Do Faraday's laws specify that electrolysis should produce more than 3% water vapor?
(e) The electronic circuitry is digitally driven; Do Faraday's laws specify analog controls?
(f) The gas output does not require drying or filtering prior to its use for combustion;Or a minimum of impurities?
(g) The technology is manufactured from off-the-shelf components. Or parts that are not "off-the-shelf"? Remember, Faraday worked in the 19th century. What special components does Xogen think he was using?

In order to address issues of safety, the Xogen generator output was combusted as it was produced, without the requirement for gas storage.

The output gas has been used to operate a Briggs and Stratton engine and a 1kW Honda generator under 90% load conditions, with very minor modifications to both engines.

The TAP also provided an additional clarifying statement that read, "Faraday's Electrolysis Laws must not be confused with the Laws of Thermodynamics. Faradays Electrolysis Laws describe the maximum usable output obtainable using conventional electrolysis for a given quantity of input energy. No. For a given quantity of current. The Laws of Thermodynamics clearly state that the energy available in a given system will never exceed the overall energy contained within the given system. The Xogen Technology does not under any circumstances violate this fundamental Law of Physics." Yet many Xogen/Tathacus investors understood them to say with this report that they were generating more energy in the form of Hydrogen than they used in the form of battery power.

Technical Advisory Panel(TAP)

Keith Clayton holds a B.Sc. Chemical Engineering and is a Professional Engineer in the Province of Alberta. He joins the panel after retiring from Agrium Inc. with more than 35 years of service. His most recent position with Agrium was as Director of Technology. Mr. Clayton brings a great depth of knowledge on hydrogen generation technologies and techniques, hydrogen being a key input into the fertilizer manufacturing process.

Norm Bartley holds a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering, and is a Professional Engineer and Faculty Member at the University of Calgary. He specializes in electronic circuits and systems, and has provided expert opinions on the Xogen Technology in the past.

Amar Amarnath holds a Masters Degree in Chemical Engineering, as well as a B.Tech (Honors) in Chemical Engineering, and is a Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario. Mr. Amarnath is an independent consultant, and has served as such for numerous companies, including Syncrude, Sherrit Inc. and Agrium. He has over 25 years of experience in broad based hydrogen generation techniques and chemistry related fields.

Technical Advisory Panel(TAP)

The Xogen technology performance as independently tested by the Alberta Research Council March 2001.

18 Amp hours of current flowing will liberate approximately 100.2 litres of hydrogen/oxygen gas of which 2/3rds (66.8 litres) is hydrogen and 1/3rd (33.4 litres) is oxygen. Concerning the physics of the Xogen technology, all other disclosure about the technology that we can make at this time is contained in US patents 6,126,794 and 6,419,815.

How do we compare

Conventional Electrolysis of water

53.6 Amp hours of current flowing will liberate 22.414 litres of hydrogen gas at 0 degrees C, 1 atm.

Xogen Technology

18 Amp hours of current flowing will liberate approximately 100.2 litres of hydrogen/oxygen gas of which 2/3rds (66.8 litres) is hydrogen and 1/3rd (33.4 litres) is oxygen.
Tested by the Alberta Research Council March 2001.
The TAP has concluded that the technology is not conventional electrolysis as governed by the laws of electrolysis established by Michael Faraday in 1834, because the Xogen technology does not operate within the voltage parameters as defined by Faraday's Law.What voltage parameters specified by Faraday's laws? The Xogen technology produced approximately three (3) times more oxy-hydrogen gas output using approximately one third (1/3) the current used by conventional electrolysis. As a minimum, with the same power input, the gas production that has been achieved with environmental streams tested is similar to what has been achieved with ordinary tap water.

Conventional electrolysis of Water

Electrolysis of water is by definition the use of electrons via an applied current and voltage to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. The chemistry of the process is determined by the following equations:
Positive electrode (anode):
Negative electrode (cathode):
Net reaction: * - Potentials based on measurements made in 1 M sulfuric acid at 25 °C and 1 atm. Taken from p.D-121, CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 55th Ed, CRC Press, 1974. This potential is the same whether the solution is acidic, basic, or neutral. However, it has been argued that added heat energy is needed to compensate for the change in entropy of the system. This added heat raises the minimum necessary potential of the system to 1.47 V ( J. MíO. Bockris, 1980). Note that for electrolysis, the Voltage required is given to 3 significant figures, while for the Xogen process, it's not shown. The theoretical power efficiency for the electrolysis of water can be calculated in a number of ways. As long as the same conditions are applied to each case, the results give a relative comparison between the actual efficiencies of different electrolysis gas generators. The water electrolysis industry typically reports power efficiencies in kilowatt hours of power required to produce 1 m³ of pure hydrogen gas at 25 °C and 1 atmosphere pressure (101.325 kPa). Ideally, one mole of water plus two moles of electrons will produce one mole of hydrogen gas. The "ideally" refers to the Voltage. The conversion of 2 moles of electrons to one mole of H2 is certain.
1 mole of H2 gas is equivalent to 22.414 L, or 0.022414 m³ of H2 gas.
2 moles of electrons are equivalent to 53.6 Ah [(2 mole)(96,485 C/mole)(1 A/Cs)(1 h/3600 s)].
Ideally, 1.47 V is needed, so the ideal power efficiency is:
(53.6 Ah)(1.47 V)/(0.022414 m³) = 3.52 kWh/m³ of H2 gas
at 25 °C, 1 atm (1.013 bar).

Simply put :
53.6 Amp hours of current flowing will liberate 22.414 litres of hydrogen gas at 0 degrees C, 1 atm.

Conventional electrolysis as governed by the laws of electrolysis established by Michael Faraday in 1834 will have the above performance.

Source Taken from CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 55th Ed, CRC Press, 1974.

More independent laboratory test data will be posted shortly. That didn't happen.

Eric Krieg's electrolysis pages

Eric has a page on frindge electrolysis and a page on an attempt at replication of Xogen's claims. Actually a lot has been going on at Xogen recently and I'll try to catch up on it and post.

earth2012.org

The h2fc.com newsletter update for the day introduced me to this gem. They explain that they are looking to raise a nice round £1 million funding in donations. One is sorely tempted to hope that this is an educational humor site like Hoax Industries.

The page that describes how their water fueled car is supposed to work uses as much text to describe how 4 stroke internal combustion engines work as they use to describe their hydrogen generation technology. A substantial portion of the discussion of the hydrogen generation technology covers the Tacoma Narrows Bridge failure. There are no references to publications or patents.

Their plan doesn't describe their plan to build or test their device. One would think that someone trying to raise a million pounds in donations would want people to know how the donations will be spent.

Classic Water Fuel Nonsense

The wayback machine at archive.org has a snapshot of the Hydrogenerate PR written when the founder was still around. From 2002-April we get:

There have been many attempts to create fuel from water, most of which have proved to be unsuccessful or not cost effective. Many attempts have failed because the process involves the use of other forms of energy to produce the hydrogen, thus creating more problems than are solved.

HERI has overcome the problems of trying to create hydrogen from water. no longer do you require large reactors; no longer will you require high pressure tanks; no longer will you require an external fuel source; no longer will you require purified water to create hydrogen; and no longer do you need large machinery with many moving parts prone to break down. HERI utilizes an electrochemical procedure which produces:
Electricity
Heat
Hydrogen Gas (Low pressure for Cooking, etc.)
Distilled Water (Potable)

In simplified terms, HERI uses a unique process to generate all of the above products. HERI's process has no moving parts and requires low maintenance. The catalyst produces potable water as a byproduct of the electrochemical process. Once exhausted the catalyst can be disposed of as an inert waste, completely safely and with no environmental impact whatsoever.

HERI has developed a working prototype. The company believes that within the next six months, its product will be available at a cost effective price World Wide.

Too Good To Be True Hydrogen Companies

Summary below.

Company	Claimed Cost	How are they doing?
Hydrogenerte	6 cents per cuft or 10X propane	Founded by a fugitive on the run from an unrelated charge, they brought in respectable management, led by CEO David Rosenberg, in 2002. The company's old perpetual motion claims are visible now only on the Wayback. In January 2004, Rosenberg resigned. The stock has since fallen to the pink sheets as the company has stopped reporting. Of the companies listed here, this is the one to watch as Hydrogenerate was the first to file for a patent, or announce a sale.
Genesis World Energy	$3000 powers a home 20 years.	Company is privately held by a few hundred investors, mostly from New Jersey and New York. Claims to the contrary are oversimplifications. Company claims to be trying to sell licenses, but hasn't sold any yet.
Alternate Energy Corporation	Below 10 cents per kw sic	Good coverage by Sterling Allen. Company has filed SLAPP suit against h2fc.com.