free hydrogen

SEC Files Charges Against GMCC and Richard Brace

2008-02-29T18:10:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of detail and some surprises in the complaint. Really credit goes here to he SEC for acting pretty quickly. The
summary follows:

On February 22, 2008, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed an action against GMC Holding Corporation (GMC) and its chief executive officer, Richard Brace, for defrauding investors by issuing false press releases touting the company's development of a motor technology device capable of generating unlimited energy and negotiations to sell this technology for hundreds of millions of dollars. The Commission's complaint further alleges that these false press releases enabled GMC and Brace to raise more than $2 million from investors through illegal unregistered offerings of the company's stock.

According to the Commission's complaint, GMC and Brace issued press releases in 2005 falsely claiming independent tests, issued by a professional engineer, on the motor device showed it was able to produce more energy than it consumed. The complaint also alleges that GMC and Brace issued false press releases in February and March 2006 stating that it was negotiating with unnamed S&P 500 corporations to acquire the company's technology for $300 - 500 million. These press releases, drafted by Brace, were utterly false. In reality, according to the complaint, the press releases claiming that the motor device produced more energy than it consumed failed to include the professional engineer's limitations, namely that the efficiency lasted only a few moments and that they were unable to duplicate the results in subsequent tests. Additionally, GMC and Brace never contacted, much less negotiated with, an S&P corporation, or any other company, regarding the sale of the company's technology. According to the complaint, GMC's false press releases artificially pumped up the company's share price and trading volume and helped GMC raise more than $2 million from investors through illegal unregistered stock offerings, which provided GMC's only source of revenue.

The Commission's complaint charges that the defendants violated Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act) by conducting an unregistered offering of securities and making material misrepresentations and omissions to investors. The Commission's complaint seeks a final judgment permanently enjoining defendants from further securities laws violations, ordering defendants to disgorge their ill-gotten gains, and assessing civil penalties. The complaint further seeks an order barring Brace from serving as an officer or director of a public company and from participating in any offering of a penny stock.

On March 8, 2006 the Commission temporarily suspended trading in GMC's securities (Release No. 53442) and instituted administrative proceedings against GMC for failure to make its required periodic filings (Release No. 53448). On April 5, 2006, the Commission issued a settled order deregistering GMC's securities, finding the company had failed to file the required reports of a publicly traded company (Release No. 53601). The Commission acknowledges the assistance of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) in this matter.

More details are in the complaint (PDF). The complaint claims that the summary of Gene Augistin's report published by GMCC was written by Richard Brace rather than Augustin. The complaint also claims that GMCC wasn't communicating with anyone about a potential sale of their technology at the time that GMCC was announcing the imminent sale, hundreds of millions of dollars, and a cash dividend.

A good article in the Orlando Sentinal by staff writer Richard Burnett gets some comments from Brace. Says the Sentinal:

In an interview Monday, Brace denied any wrongdoing in the case, blaming the problems on former consultants who had allegedly embezzled money from the company.

It's going to be hard to blame any embezzlement by consultants for the quotes the Brace is supposed to have fabticated or the press releases about an imminent nine figure deal when there were no discussions with anyone! The Sentinal article ends in a long rambling quote from Brace that is really worth a read.

Linda Stein at The Times, Trenton on Genesis

2006-11-12T12:36:00.000-08:00

Read Duped investors to recoup a portion of their losses before November 25th while it's still free. Stein paraphrases Deputy Attorney General Patrick Flor

Kelly was described as an "ex cellent salesman who fooled a lot of people." About 500 of those who in vested in his company were from Mercer and Burlington counties, though his company apparently was never registered, even though Kelly claimed it was a Delaware corporation. Investigators found Kelly used the money for other purposes such as spending $200,000 on eight cars for himself and $80,000 for a fountain for his home.

At sentencing, Kelly told the judge

"I'm heartbroken this happened," Kelly said. "I really believed in this project. We worked very hard on this project for seven years. The choices I made were with the expectation the project would go well."

It starts with really believing and it ends with selling stock in a company that doesn't exist and spending the money on cars and Koi ponds while you tell investors that you are building products.

Stein notes also

The judge noted that Kelly had a limited criminal record but it did include a 1995 conviction for conspiracy and making false statements to a government agency in Rochester, Minn.

Thats must have eluded the New Jersey based promoters who claimed to the investors to do a background check on Kelly.

Also brought out in the Times article is that Kelly's assistant John Yoka has 5 patents. A Pet Locating Collar is the only one I can find.

Quiet End to Genesis World Energy

2006-09-29T22:57:00.000-07:00

Patrick Kelly pled guilty on 2006-07-31, admitting to spending $200,000 of the United Fuel Cell Technologies money on personal vehicles. So that's the yellow Hummer and a few more cars. The sentencing hearing is not scheduled yet. John Yoka's case is still pending.

Can we get the "free Patrick Kelly" guy back to explain why Kelly admitted to those charges? Was he swayed by my propaganda?

Update 2006-11-11
Thanks to an anonymous poster who alerted me off that the case against Yoka was dismissed. From the New Jersey Attorney General.

Idaho Man Sentenced for Stealing Funds Invested in Bogus Fuel Technology Venture

TRENTON – Attorney General Stuart Rabner and Division of Criminal Justice Director Gregory A. Paw announced that an Idaho man has been sentenced to prison for stealing funds from victims who invested in United Fuel Cell Technologies Inc., a phony corporation that the defendant claimed had developed a revolutionary technology to convert water to hydrogen fuel.

According to Director Paw, Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Kelly of Mercer County sentenced Patrick Kelly, 51, of Kuna, Idaho to five years in state prison on a charge of second-degree theft by failure to make required disposition of property received. The defendant also was ordered to pay $400,000 in restitution. Kelly pleaded guilty to the charge on July 31, admitting that he used more than $200,000 in funds invested in United Fuel Cell Technologies to purchase eight cars in his own name.

An investigation by the Division of Criminal Justice determined that between November 2000 and June 2004, Kelly collected about $2.5 million in investments in United Fuel Cell Technologies from about 500 people, mostly New Jersey residents.

It is alleged that Kelly spent investor funds on a variety of expenses, many of which were clearly not related to the business or the development of their purported technology. Kelly allegedly spent $80,000 for a fountain for his home and financed a credit card for his 12-year-old daughter.

“This defendant is going to prison because he stole from investors,” said Attorney General Rabner. “We are committed to vigorously prosecuting these cases to protect New Jersey residents who are trying to invest and save for their retirement or their children’s education.”

“Mr. Kelly claimed to offer investments in a breakthrough technology. In reality, he offered only lies,” said Director Paw. “We have ensured that he will be appropriately punished for his greed and deception.”

The Division of Criminal Justice obtained a state grand jury indictment on Sept. 23, 2005 charging Kelly with second-degree securities fraud in connection with his sale of “common stock” in United Fuel Cell Technologies. The indictment alleges that he falsely claimed that United Fuel Cell Techologies was a Delaware corporation, and that Hewlett Packard and IBM had agreed to assist the corporation in developing and marketing its technology and related products. In fact, United Fuel Cell Technologies was never incorporated, and Hewlett Packard and IBM did not make any agreement with the company. Kelly also was indicted on second-degree charges of conspiracy and theft.

The judge today dismissed charges in the case against a second man, John Yoka, 35, of Livermore, Calif.

Hydrogen fuel cells, which are a legitimate technology, generate energy using hydrogen or hydrogen-rich fuel, with water as a byproduct. However, Kelly, who also used the name Genesis World Energy, fraudulently claimed to have invented a process to separate the hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water to produce hydrogen and oxygen gases to be burned as fuel or used in fuel cells. He claimed the technology would free the U.S. from dependence on oil from the Middle East.

State Investigator Noelle Holl and Deputy Attorney General Patrick J. Flor were assigned to the investigation for the Division of Criminal Justice. They were assisted by Investigators Dean Kuehnen and Julian Leone of the New Jersey Bureau of Securities. Flor prosecuted the case and represented the state at the sentencing.

Note that the period when Kelly was collecting investments, November 2000 and June 2004, includes the period that the Genesis website was up claiming that they were not taking investments.

Curious $1.9 Million Writeoff for Alternate Energy

2006-04-29T19:43:00.000-07:00

The latest Annual Report from Alternate Energy Corp includes a curious write-off. What's curious is not the amount or that it's written off, but that this is occurring now and not a year or more ago. First lets take a look at what they say in the latest 10K.

In accordance with SFAS No. 142, "Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets," which was adopted in its entirety on May 22, 2003, we evaluate the carrying value of other intangible assets annually as of December 31 and between annual evaluations if events occur or circumstances change that would more likely than not reduce the fair value of the reporting unit below its carrying amount. When evaluating whether or not the asset is impaired, we compare the fair value of the reporting unit to which the asset is assigned to its carrying amount. If the carrying amount of a reporting unit exceeds its fair value, then the amount of the impairment loss must be measured. The impairment loss would be calculated by comparing the implied fair value of the reporting unit to its carrying amount. The initial evaluation of our patents and technology, completed as of October 1, 2003 in accordance with SFAS No. 142 resulted in no provision for impairment losses being recorded. Additionally, we performed our periodic review of intangible assets for impairment as of December 31, 2005 and identified asset impairment as a result of the review of approximately $1,906,000.

It's interesting that they would point out here that they found no impairment in 2003, but neglect to reiterate what they reported in the 2004 annual report: Additionally, the Company performed its periodic review of its intangible assets for impairment as of December 31, 2004, and did not identify any asset impairment as a result of the review. The company filed suit against Rothman in October 2004 over the asset that was just now written off. The most concise statement of their claim was in their 2005-July 10SB12G/A where they said We alleged in our lawsuit that Rothman had in fact sold the technology to other companies, and on more than one occasion, prior to entering into the agreement with us. We additionally allege that the technology he purported to sell did not work.

So in or before October 2004, they sued Rothman claiming the technology was not his to sell, and didn't work. But two months later, they reviewed it, and found it unimpaired. Then 12 months later they found the impairment. So did something happen in the 12 months between reviews that made the Rothman technology worth less? Since the company recognizes now that the asset is worthless, they should have recognized it in 2004. The 2004 financials should be refilled.

Alternate Energy Corp Late Annual Report

2006-04-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

Alternate Energy Corp on April 4th filed a NT 10k announcing that their annual report would be late. Explaining why they would not file their annual report on time, they stated:

The Registrant was unable to file its annual report on Form 10-KSB for the fiscal year ended December, 31, 2005 in a timely manner because its independent auditors could not complete their review and issue their report as a result of an outstanding balance due, which has been satisfied as of the date hereof. The registrant anticipates that its form 10-K might not be completed for filing by the extended due date.

It looks like there might be some confusion over priorities over there. Their 2005-Q3 quarterly shows them having $165k in deferred consulting costs and $219k in prepaid expenses. So those prepaid expenses don't include the auditor. What consultants are they paying first?

GMC Holding Now a Private Company

2006-04-09T14:53:00.000-07:00

GMC Holdings is now a private company, as a result of a settlement with the SEC on April 5th. The order is shown below.

GMC holdings on April 7th changed its webpage to reflect this change in status and made the following statement indicating that the SEC investigation is not yet closed.

The management of GMC Holding Corp. would like to inform our stockholders of the events and conditions currently facing the company. The Securities and Exchange Commission has instituted an investigation of GMC’s management, financial reporting and progress on technologies. We are fully complying with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the attempt to assist them with this investigation to accelerate a conclusion. We are confident that our complete disclosure of all information regarding our business practices, financial condition and current R&D progress will facilitate this result. In order to protect our shareholders, we requested an expedited delisting at this juncture. We wish to assure our stockholders that even though we are not trading, it is business as usual for the company.

We continue our efforts to improve our Cold Motor and other complimentary technologies. Negotiations continue with parties interested in purchasing a portion, or all of our technology. Once we have reached a resolution with the Securities and Exchange Commission, we have identified plans to move the company forward assuring that our bona fide stockholders will benefit and share in any sale of our REMAT technologies assuring that our bona fide stockholders will benefit and share in any sale of our REMAT technologies

Lee Webb has also posted updates to his Feb 15 Stockwatch article on April 7 and March 8. And there is a new Stockwatch article April 10.

GMC Holding Corp (GMCC) Class Action Lawsuit

2006-03-22T18:50:00.000-08:00

George M Khoury, a previous CEO of GMCC (then Here Comes Grandma), is trying to organize a class action suit against GMCC. Additionally he filed in 2005-May a suit (case number 13-2005-CA-008899-0000-01) against GMC Holding Corp, CEO Richard Brace, and former director Stuart Cooper. It would be great to see investors fight back against GMCC and Brace but I'm skeptical of this effort for a few reasons.

Khoury's announcement is filled with Richard Brace class wishful thinking and self-contradiction. Towards the end Khoury writes In the event the technology the Company claims ownership too (sic), has a value of 350 million dollars, shareholders will be well served in joining me and others in this class action suit. It's self-contradictory to entertain the idea of 9 figure asset sales while contemplating a suit, since if Brace really was negotiating a 9 figure deal, shareholders would want to cut him some slack. Worse, shareholders should not be encouraged to continue to daydream about the motor or selling it. They need to wake up and realize that there is no invention and there are no buyers.

It's hard to see what's the commonality of interests between the older shareholders such as Khoury who turned over control of the worthless GMCC to Brace in 2002 in exchange for a share of whatever he could make of it and the new shareholders who turned over actual money in 2004-2006 to own a portion of a "fueless motor". I've talked to Khoury about this and he hasn't answered.

Finally, given Khoury's past involvement with Brace and GMCC, it's possible that investing in a Khoury led effort to recover their investment wouldn't be throwing good money after bad. A credible recovery effort would need to be run from outiside Castleberry.

SEC Halts GMCC and Institutes Administrative Proceedings

2006-03-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

The SEC News Digest for 2006-03-08 shows that they halted trading in GMC Holding Corp (GMCC).

The Commission announced the temporary suspension of trading in the securities of GMC Holding Corporation, a Florida corporation based in Casselberry, Fla., at 9:30 a.m. EST on March 8, 2006, and terminating at 11:59 EST on March 21, 2006.

The Commission temporarily suspended trading in the securities of GMC because of questions that have been raised about the accuracy and adequacy of publicly disseminated information concerning, among other things, the proposed sale of GMC's alternative energy technology referred to as REMAT and the company's financial condition and because GMC is delinquent in its periodic filing obligations under Securities Exchange Act Section 13(a). This order was entered pursuant to Exchange Act Section 12(k). GMC, a non-reporting issuer, is quoted on the Pink Sheets under the ticker symbol GMCC. snip (Rel. 34-53442)

They also announced proceedings.

SEC INSTITUTES ADMINSTRATIVE PROCEEDINGS AGAINST GMC HOLDING CORPORATION FOR FAILURE TO MAKE REQUIRED PERIODIC FILINGS

On March 8, the Commission issued public administrative proceedings against GMC Holding Corporation to determine whether the registration of each class of its securities should be revoked or suspended for failure to file required periodic reports. In the Order, the Division of Enforcement alleges that GMC is delinquent in its required filings with the Commission. The Division of Enforcement also alleges that the common stock of GMC is quoted on the Pink Sheets.

Based on the above, a hearing will be scheduled before an administrative law judge to determine whether the allegations contained in the Order are true, to provide GMC an opportunity to dispute these allegations, and to determine whether it is necessary and appropriate for the protection of investors to suspend or revoke the registrations of GMC Holding Corporation's securities.

The Commission directed that an administrative law judge shall issue an initial decision in this matter no later than 120 days from the date of service of the Order. (Rel. 34-53448; File No. 3-12232)

More detail should be available tomorrow at http://sec.gov/news/whatsnew/wn030806.shtml, including that the SEC tried to mail GMCC a delinquent filings notice in 2004, but the notice was returned since the company address had changed. So adding .pk to the ticker symbol doesn't grant a permanent get out of filing free card?

Water Pseudoscience and Attorney Induced Silicosis

2006-03-07T20:29:00.000-08:00

The Gallery of water-related pseudoscience has an extensive list of magic, clustered, magnetized, and otherwise bunk-filled water schemes, including one free energy scheme, the joe energy cell. Update: I neglected to point out that I borrowed this item from a treasure trove of junk, debunkers.org.

NPR has a great story on plaintiffs attorneys cooking up silicosis cases for fraudulent lawsuits and the sharp federal Judge Janis Jack whose inspection of the expert testimony brought the fraud to light.

GMCC REMAT Part 2: Lee M Webb Interview

2006-02-19T13:15:00.000-08:00

Lee M Webb interviewed GMCC President Bruce McKenzie for an article in Stockwatch. Lee put portions of the interview into the public domain.

Since 2004, the company has claimed to have a self-powered motor that represents the Solution For The World's Power and Energy Needs. The company even published a report by an engineer supporting their claims of a breakthrough, which we discussed in part 1. Indented items below are quotes from Webb's interview. I have edited his quotes for formatting and to add links not part of his article.

What does the company say?
When asked about the company's earlier claims about the greater than unity observations, Mr. McKenzie attempted to put some distance between GMC's current focus and that topic.

"The greater than unity tests were all visual," Mr. McKenzie said. "They were not double-blinded or triple-blind studied by engineers."

GMC's president said the phenomenon was observed and the company has to take responsibility for the news release; nonetheless, he was clearly not comfortable with those claims.

"The world we're in is not truly trying to be over unity and those words -- perpetual motion, over unity -- those are not the claims I would like to see the company's direction," Mr. McKenzie said. "That's why you haven't seen any more of that.

"Richard Brace is the CEO and I'm the president and we've got more reality from engineering groups that have educated some of the marketing people around here."

According to Mr. McKenzie, part of that education involved making clear that claims about the technology had to be run by "an educated source" before news releases were issued.

"It was lax on our part with some engineers that interpreted (the test observations) and there was a marketing guy standing around -- he's no longer with us -- and he took it and ran with it before anybody could control it," Mr. McKenzie said.

According to Mr. McKenzie, the company plans to issue a series of properly vetted news releases soon, but investors will not hear anything about over unity devices from him.

While Webb finds that the company shied away from its claims of a self-powered motor in his interview, the claims are still on their website. The "marketing guy" who is no longer with them most likely refers to William Windsor, who is still on the officers list for GMCC and another company, MOGENIX, INC. with GMCC CEO Richard Brace. William J Windsor has by means of default judgement been made subject to an SEC enforcement action over the "prime bank" high yield investment scheme The Gateway Association. The SEC complaint states that Windsor was also has six state securities fraud convictions for defrauding investors and a federal conviction for money laundering.

Webb asks also about the mobile lab announced in September.

What about the mobile lab?
GMC's president was asked what had become of the mobile lab that the company claimed was being constructed and equipped to demonstrate the REMAT motors last September.

"Actually, that was not necessary because the people showed so much interest that we didn't have to put a road show on the road to go pursue our end buyers," Mr. McKenzie said.

"We have three or four people to the table right now that are interested," he continued. "They've flown in, they've brought their engineers in and we're negotiating now with one of those buyers."

The buyers refers to the announcement by GMCC that this motor that powers itself (but you didn't hear it from him) has attracted attention form fortune 500 companies (but you wont hear it from them) and that GMCC plans to sell it and pay a dividend to its shareholders.

What about the price tag?
Mr. McKenzie was then asked about the $350-million to $500-million price tag suggested in the news release.

"We've had verbal evaluations on our technology and now we're actually going to have meetings in the next two days for written validation and confirmation of those numbers," GMC's president replied.

What about the audit?
Turning to some earlier news releases, Mr. McKenzie was asked about the status of the company's audit, which was announced last August.

"Well, that auditing firm has been tied up with a lot of other large business firms here and we are in negotiations with them to pass it off to another firm that can give it more time," Mr. McKenzie explained. "We're trying to accelerate that picture more than we are to dead-end the picture.

"We've interviewed two other firms already and we're thinking about transferring the work to these other two firms.

"Hopefully we'll have all our auditing done in the next three to four weeks."

End buyers?
Mr. McKenzie was asked whether GMC had produced or sold any of the motors.

"We're an R and D firm and we're preparing to license a few entities that have the infrastructures to take our technology to the marketplace, if they desire," Mr. McKenzie said.

"We're discussing licensing here, not manufacturing," he added.

"We haven't signed up with anyone, yet," Mr. McKenzie replied when asked whether the company had any licensees.

This should be our antepenultimate article on GMCC. We'll check back in a month to see how those meetings with buyers went, how the audit has progressed, and if the company has removed the overunity claims from its website now that its president says that investors will not hear anything about over unity devices from him.

GMCC REMAT Part 1: The Law of Experiments

2006-02-18T14:40:00.000-08:00

John Brignell has compiled a list of "laws" including Langmuir's Laws of bad science and Maier's Law, to which he adds insightful laws of his own, including this The Law of Experiments:

The law of experiments
The first trial always produces a result that is bizarre and points to a great scientific breakthrough.
First corollary
The effect never reappears in any subsequent trials.
Second corollary
In fields such as epidemiology and drug testing there is only one trial.

A classic example of the law and corollary 1 can be seen in Gene Augistin's study of the GMCC REMAT Fuelless Motor. In June 2005 professional engineer Gene Augustin tested the REMAT and the company issued a press release with the following summary of the test:

ORLANDO, Fla., July 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- GMC Holding Corporation (OTC Pink Sheets: GMCC) (http.www.gmcholdings.com ) announced today results of internal testing and independent verification of its high-efficiency electromagnetic pulse motor-genarator. Mr. Eugene Augustin, PE, was asked to opine on the performance tests of GMC'S REMAT technology. Augustin indicated that the first test, measuring input/output power ratio, produced about 140%efficiency. In following tests, using a capacitor bank with a resistive load, the observed efficiency was 150%. According to Augustin, "These observations were demonstrating a 'greater than unity performance' device, which I thought that I would never see in my lifetime. In my 50 years of professional experience that includes patents on several inventions, teaching AC DC machinery, including electric motors and generators, numerous designs in the field of microwave radiation and propagation and professional consulting in these fields, I believed that 'greater than unity devices' were an impossibility. I am now convinced that REMAT devices need to be explored, researched and tested so that this unique technology can be utilized for all the world."

That sounds like a confident assessment by an experienced engineer announcing great scientific breakthrough. But was it based on a completed testing and double checked? Or was this a preliminary test with a bizarre result? The full version of Augustin's full REMAT report shows that it was a preliminary test, undertaken without a test plan, with very limited data collection, which were called short when the REMAT stopped working completely.

Page 1

Page 2

As for corollary 1, that the bizarre result indicating a great breakthrough not hold up in subsequent testing, Gene Augustin has subsequently said:

Finally, the last three paragraphs of my report state that much more investigation is needed. There has been much investigation by GMC, but I have not observed a repetition of the phenomenon.

Unfortunately the failure to replicate the result is not always enough to convince an interested party than his great breakthrough isn't real. As Lee M Webb shows in his stockwatch article the failure to replicate the result has not led GMCC to conclude that it's great breakthrough isn't real. Though it's not clear what they now think their great breakthrough is.

Let's Do It Again

2006-02-05T23:59:00.000-08:00

Shipping out metal plates and submersing them in water to produce Hydrogen is an expensive way of producing Hydrogen, and an extravagant way of producing energy. Sooner or later, investors will figure this out. So the next step is to focus on the value of the oxides or hydroxides also produced in this reaction. Before going over the recent announcements from AEC, take a quick review of the Hydrogenerate claims that Alternate Energy Corporation is recycling.

In 2002-08, Hydrogenerate announced that their process produced Hydrogen at a cost of 6 cents per cubic foot, which is not so great. In 2003-09 they announced that recycling could reduce the cost by 25%. Just before Hydrogenerate stopped financial reporting, they issued a press release claiming that they had even sold some of their "by-product".

AEC does one better than rehash Hydrogenerate's story. With their unique combination of hyperbole and innumeracy, AEC is now making claims indicating that Hydrogen represents much less than 1% of the value of their process, with most of the value coming from converting metal into "valuable" rust. One wonders why management attention is so focused on the tangential Hydrogen issue. If their latest announcements are correct, 99% of the value of their process comes from a material they haven't even named!

This is a long post since I'll include the entire press release and a quote from the SB-2. Any bolding is my emphasis.

2006-01-18 Press release

Alternate Energy Corp. Announces Upgraded Business Model
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Opens Up a Billion Dollar Worldwide Market of Opportunity BURLINGTON, ONTARIO--(CCNMatthews - Jan. 18, 2006) - Alternate Energy Corporation (AEC) (OTCBB:ARGY) on November 14, 2005 announced that it had filed a provisional patent on a new production process by which it can economically produce pure hydrogen and commercially saleable commodity chemical products that open up a billion dollar worldwide market to the Company.
These developments have resulted in AEC re-defining its business model, while positioning the Company to become a player in the production of pure hydrogen for a wide spectrum of commercial applications.

Over the past year, AEC has worked closely with a nationally recognized, independent chemical laboratory in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to further refine its process. The revised formulation has improved hydrogen production significantly, with the added creation of valuable commodity chemicals. Since the commodity chemicals have a much higher market value/weight than the hydrogen itself, subsidization of the hydrogen's selling price via the sale of these chemicals can easily bring it more into line to compete directly with current gasoline prices. Long awaited by the automotive industry, AEC's solution could be society's closest answer to the hydrogen economy becoming a reality and make driving a hydrogen fueled automobile affordable. For example, AEC's solution could be an ideal candidate for the "Hydrogen Highway" in California, due to the overall low cost required to produce the required hydrogen fuel for future hydrogen powered cars - on the spot.

Prior to these recent developments, AEC had been focused on small, portable, on-demand hydrogen production systems which it continues to refine. These recent improvements to its process have resulted in the production of commercially saleable commodity chemical products. This has opened a large door for AEC - bulk hydrogen production at stationary customer sites, with the simultaneous production of chemical commodity products, recovered as a routine part of the production process.

Mr. Blaine Froats, Chairman & CEO of AEC, stated, "As reported earlier, we have recently filed a provisional patent with the U.S. Patent Office relating to significant improvements to our hydrogen production process that resulting in, not only increased hydrogen production capabilities and a more efficient production process, but also the ability to produce a number of broadly used chemical commodity products which have demand in existing multi-million dollar global markets."

Mr. Froats commented further, "These discoveries and developments have substantially impacted our business model, and have afforded us the ability to offset the cost of producing hydrogen to such an extent that we believe our prices can be very competitive in the bulk hydrogen market, while also moving into the commodity chemicals marketplace with certain products that are valued at market prices greatly exceeding the value of the hydrogen being produced."

AEC's research indicates that the market for bulk hydrogen gas is enormous, currently estimated at approximately US$3 billion globally. In an attempt to clarify for the shareholders what the impact of the Company's new business model might have going forward, the following example should be helpful. By locating just one stationary hydrogen production unit at the site of a food oil manufacturing facility, AEC could supply on-demand, high-quality hydrogen to the plant to satisfy the needs of their hydrogenation process and fuel for in-plant power generation, while also producing its commodity chemical products from the same facility. The Company would expect such an installed system to typically result in gross revenues to the Company of about $80 million, with gross profits exceeding $30 million at current market prices for the produced hydrogen and commodity chemicals.

AEC's commodity chemical "by-products" clearly meet industry standards after having been thoroughly analyzed by an independent laboratory for quality and purity. Mr. Froats went on to say "These recent developments at AEC have changed our outlook for the future of our company. While we initially were solely in the "hydrogen" business, the financial opportunity, as presented to us by these developments, has clearly opened up the commodity chemicals business to the Company. It is also interesting to note that these developments have caught the eye of a number of world class players in the hydrogen and chemicals businesses and could lead to AEC forming a number of large scale joint ventures in the near future."

From the 2006-01-19 SB-2/A

We believe that the by-product can be used by the pharmaceutical, food, and fertilizer industries worldwide. The by-product is produced in a liquid form and is later dried into a powder, which can be blown into plastic containers, sealed and shipped. For every 0.0893 Kg of hydrogen produced, 8.5 Kg of the by-product is produced. Throughout the entire process, everything is either sold or used again.
...
The worldwide bulk hydrogen market amounts to 45 billion Kilograms per year. This amounts to approximately $3.37 billion in sales in Canadian funds. The majority of the sales are generated from the following industries

The average price they are estimating for Hydrogen seems low. $3.37 billion Canadian for 45 billion kilograms is 7.5 cents Canadian per kilo. A kilo of Hydrogen has about as much energy as a gallon of gasoline. 7.5 cents is just too cheap. But why should AEC spend a lot of time validating the economics of the Hydrogen side of their business when the other figures they report show that it's a miniscule sideline.

The mass ratios presented are extreme. 8.5 kg of by-product for 0.0893 kg of Hydrogen is 95 / 1. That's awful. (More in another post.) I think this is a calculation error on their part, but it's their number, so I'll use it.

The values presented are also extreme. They say that the byproduct has a much higher market value/weight than the hydrogen itself. I think this is another calculation error on their part, but it's their claim, so I'll use it. Since the process produces, by weight, 95 times as much by-product as Hydrogen, the by-product must be worth much more than 95X as much than the corresponding Hydrogen produced. So the Hydrogen is worth much less than 1.0% of the economic output of this process. So, Hydrogen is a side-issue, and their main business is producing the by-product. What's that? They don't say, but we'll learn in May, when their patent application publishes. Anyway, AEC's main business is producing "by-product", and they haven't said what the "by-product" is. Why don't they want to say what business it is they are in?

HERE is a Surprise

2006-01-29T19:04:00.000-08:00

While the Hydrogenerate site has been down for some time and appears not to have been updated since early 2004, the Hydro Environmental Resources Europe site is still up. While they mention the "independent gas analysis was conducted in Hillboro, Oregon proving the effectiveness of the ECHFR system", they neglect to discuss the economic analysis presented in the full report:

VANCOUVER, Wash., Aug. 26 PRNewswire-FirstCall -- Mr. David Rosenberg,Chief Executive Officer made the following statement, "On August 14, 2002,HERI staff took the recently repackaged industrial Electrochem Hydrogen FuelReactor (ECHFR) to FST Consulting International, Inc. in Hillsboro, Oregon for independent third party testing and analysis. The purpose of this analysis was to certify the purity of hydrogen gas being produced by HERI's industrial grade ECHFR."

Dr. Michael Lysaght, Chief Science Officer stated, "Sample measurements were taken periodically over a period of several hours with hydrogen gas purity improving from a low of 99.99% to a high of 99.9992% during the courseof the reaction. It should be noted here that this unit was an industrial configuration of the ECHFR and not fully optimized for gas purity. HERI is currently developing a high-purity stainless steel reactor that is expected toimprove hydrogen purity to the six nines purity level. This latest design ofthe ECHFR will address emerging fuel cell technologies and the semiconductor industry where high purity hydrogen gas is a requirement. Additional information will be posted on the HERI website (http://www.hydrogenerate.com) after the initial testing phase." He further stated that, "It has long been HERI'smission to produce the highest purity hydrogen gas as inexpensively as possible. The FST report details the purity of the hydrogen gas effluent as a function of time while the HERI Lab Report provides a cost analysis for the reaction described in the FST report." Dr Lysaght, provided the following results from FST's analysis of the ECHFR:

Component Description Cost
A 8 oz consumable A @ approximately $ 0.70 lb. $0.35
B 12 oz consumable B @ approximately $ 0.40 lb. $0.30
C 1.5 gal water base negligible
D 1.05 oz catalyst no recurring

costs Total cost of reactants $0.65
Cubic feet hydrogen gas produced 10.78
Cost per cu. ft. of hydrogen gas $0.06

Dr. Lysaght noted that the "detailed figures do no include packaging costsand will vary depending on application, size of reactor, and gas purityrequired. Specific efficiency data can be provided upon request based on gas purity required."

SAFE HARBOR PROVISION With the exception of historical information contained in this press release, the matters described herein contain certain "forward-looking statements" that are made pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management's current reasonable expectations and are subject to certain assumptions, risks, uncertainties, and changes in circumstances. Acts or results may vary materially from those expressed or implied from thestatements herein or from historical results due to changes in economic,business, competitive, technological, and/or regulatory factors. More detailed information about these factors is set forth in filings by Hydro Environmental Resources, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: HYVR) with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent Annual Report onForm 10-KSB and the most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-QSB. Hydro Environmental Resource, Inc. is not obligated to (and expressly disclaims any obligation to) revise or update any forward-looking statements in order toreflect the events or circumstance, whether they arise as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

The 6 cents per cubic foot of Hydrogen is not a good price. Using the Ideal Gas Law Calculator we can see that a cubic foot of Hydrogen is 1.2634 moles. The Hyperphysics Electrolysis page gives the energy for burning Hydrogen as 285.83 kJ/mol. So a cubic foot could be 361.12 kJ. The DOE Energy Ant gives the energy content of gasoline as 130.88 mJ. So a gallon of gasoline has he energy of 360 cubic feet of Hydrogen, but costs only 45X as much as Hydrogen from the ECHFIR. Gasoline is an 8x better value.

The company later tried to change the focus away from the uneconomical cost of Hydrogen to the value of the by-product. Since the patent application has published, we know the "valuable byproduct" is Al(OH)3. Not really that valuable. Hydrogenerate went as far to announce that they had sold some of that stuff. They stopped reporting before announcing how much (little) they sold it for.

Hydro Environmental Resources announces first sale of chemical by-product and conclusion of field test

VANCOUVER, Wash., Jan. 22, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Hydro Environmental Resources, Inc. (OTCBB:HYVR) Interim-CEO Mark Shmulevsky said: "We are pleased to announce our first sale of the by-product produced during the production of pure commercial-grade Hydrogen at low-pressure in our reactor. Over the past 12 months, we have completed all necessary testing and third-party lab analysis of the byproduct for content and purity. We have begun the process of identifying strategic partners interested in the purchase of these chemical by-products. Our by-product has a number of uses in both commercial and industrial applications. The by-product can be easily removed from our vessel after the initial materials have been chemically consumed during the production of hydrogen. We believe the added revenue opportunity from the sale of these by-products, coupled with the production of hydrogen gas and recoverable heat energy produced, continue to make our technology extremely viable and cost-effective in the growing alternative energy industry."

Each reactor, based on application size put in production, will yield a known amount of recoverable, sellable by-product.

The company also concluded field testing of its reactor installed in the home of former CEO David Rosenberg. During its testing, Mr. Rosenberg hosted Oregon U.S Senator Ron Wyden. During the visit, the senator was shown the unit being utilized in the application of supplying hydrogen and heat energy.

The unit was installed to supplement the existing hydronic heating system. This was the company's first field testing of the unit's development of both the unit's heat exchange process and by-product recovery. The field test has confirmed the overall cost of producing hydrogen to be significantly reduced through the capture and use of both the heat energy and by-product recovery.

About Hydro Environmental Resources

Hydro Environmental Resources, Inc. holds the rights to the Electrical Chemical Hydrogen Fuel Reactor (ECHFR), which is one of the first hydrogen reactors that eliminates the need for an outside energy source to produce a pure commercial-grade of hydrogen at low pressure. This proprietary process delivers a highly mobile, more cost-effective and physically safe production of hydrogen than alternative methods which require outside energy sources such as electricity, solar power and fossil fuels. The Company (HERI) was founded in 1998 with the primary goal of exploring avenues to improve the global environment through the development of safe and efficient methods of alternate energy production. The HERI team is focused on the production of alternate energy in the form of hydrogen gas, heat recovery, and waste treatment, clean and potable water, through its breakthrough technologies. Today the ECHFR can provide environmentally safe and cost-effective hydrogen and heat energy to meet the needs of the enormous alternative energy industry.

Safe Harbor: cut

Another doomed Hydrogen from water scheme has recently jumped on the valuable by-product bandwagon. What's old is new again when we next review AEC.

So Long to Earth 2012

2006-01-27T14:28:00.000-08:00

Earth2012 has given up its effort to build a water-powered car. We covered thie plan to riase a million pounds in donations for this project back in 2004-07. Some of their old pages, including the description of how the water-powered car was supposed to wok, have been taken down, but can be found on the wayback.

This is Stef Kling's announcement:

January 2006 - Water Car project closure

Since July 2004 Earth 2012 has been trying to raise funds for the development of an engine that uses water as fuel. It is with deep regret that I have to announce that we have not succeeded, and that we have decided to discontinue our efforts. Effectively this means the closure of the Water Car Project for Earth 2012.

So what happened?
The original idea was to fund this project via donations. We knew from the start that if this was to succeed we would need to partner up with a well established organisation, as Earth 2012 does not have the audience that is needed. We have talked to several organisations, but we learned that this project was too risky for them to take on.
On our own we did not generate enough donations to even cover basic expenses (we have only received 40 donations), so we decided to change our approach and seek investment. We have talked to several interested parties, but only one option met our criteria. We nearly achieved financing in April last year, but then this organisation had to withdraw unexpectedly for internal reasons. Since then no suitable alternative has been found.

So has all been lost?
No. We have made some progress on the technical front in the last 1.5 year, and we have all learned a lot. The technical team is trying to obtain funding via other routes without involvement of Earth 2012. We hope that they will succeed and that the world will see this technology some day.

We would like to thank everybody who has supported us from the bottom of our hearts.

On behalf of the whole team,

Stef Kling

The Hydrogen Economy

2006-01-09T20:02:00.000-08:00

A breakthrough from the people who can't remember past He on the periodic table

There is a good article over at hydrogenpowernews questioning the idea that Hydrogen is obviously the fuel of the future. He's got a link that's presently broken to fuelcelltoday. From hydrogenpowernews

Hydrogen incentives have the earmarks of supporting a technology that was chosen as the winner before all of the factors were examined or were simply ignored. Fuel cell cars exist now at astronomical prices which keep the hope alive and advocates cheering but you have to conciously avoid looking at technologies already in place and gaining ground that could dramatically improve our energy outlook to continue asking for more government expenditures in this area.

A more detailed argument is made by Ulf Bossel, Ph.D. in (pdf warning) Does a Hydrogen Economy Make Sense?. From Bossel

Unfortunately, politics seems to listen to the advice of visionaries [1], lobby groups and environmental activists, all presenting qualitative arguments, but hardly ever based their arguments on facts and laws of physics. A secure sustainable energy future cannot be based on shaky arguments, hype and political activism, but has to be built on solid grounds of established science.

The visionary Bossel refers to is Jeremy Rifkin.

Engineuity Recycled

2006-01-02T11:48:00.000-08:00

I got some mail from Engineuity explaining that they had worked out the cost and weight ratio of their system using Aluminum rather than Magnesium. Reworking the calculations, we can see that their claim that the Aluminum would weigh about 3 times as much as the gasoline equivalent is correct, but the idea that Al is about as expensive a source of energy as gasoline is pie in the sky.

1 gallon of gas is 130.88 mJ.
1 mole of H2 is 285.83 kJ, so a gallon of gasoline carries the energy of 457.89 moles of H2. The reaction
3H2O + 2Al -> Al2O3 + 3H2
yields 1.5 moles of H2 per mole of Al, so 457.89 moles of H2 would require 305.26 moles of Al. The atomic weight of Al is 26.981538, so that would be 8236.5 grams of Al. With gasoline weighing about 2.8 kG per gallon, that's about 3x the weight of Aluminum. Aluminum is a couple of dollars a kilo, so to get a gallon of gas equivalent from Aluminum would cost $17 per gallon plus any retail markup and tax.

Engineuity says they expect the recycling value of the oxide would close the gap between the cost of Aluminum and gasoline. But alumina sells for about $400 per metric ton. A kilo of Al, which costs about $2.20, would yield about 1.9 kilos of oxide which is worth about 75 cents. Recycling can offset the cost of the Engineuity process by at most 35%, which would still cost about $11 for the Aluminum equivalent of a gallon of gasoline.

Charges in United Fuel Cell Technologies Indictment

2005-12-21T19:22:00.000-08:00

Patrick Kelly and John Yoka were charged with three counts relating to United Fuel Cell Technologies. The name "Genesis World Energy" is not mentioned in the indictment. The grand jury charges that:

Count One Conspiracy -- Second Degree.To engage in what's charged in counts two and three.

Count Two Theft by Failure to Make Required Disposition -- Second Degree. That about $400k was raised from UFCT investors to be used for marketing, distribution, and sales of fuel cell technology but was treated as personal funds by Kelly and Yoka.

Count Three Securities Fraud -- Second Degree. That about $2 million was raised from investors and that some material claims made to the investors were false or misleading.

That UFCT was a bonafide and active Delaware corporation;
That HP and IBM had agreed to work with UFCT.

John Yoka Indicted with Patrick Kelly

2005-11-27T17:59:00.000-08:00

John Yoka has been indicted along with Patrick Kelly over United Fuel Cell Technologies, which was more popularly known as Genesis World Energy. This Trenton Times story will be online till December 2nd or so. Read it while you can.

Saturday, November 19, 2005
By LINDA STEIN
Staff Writer
Bail was set at $100,000 yesterday for a California man who is accused of bilking investors out of $2.5 million in a scheme to turn water into fuel.

John Yoka and Patrick Kelly, his partner in United Fuel Cell Technology Inc., allegedly got about 500 people, mostly New Jersey residents, to invest in their company between 2000 and 2004, said Deputy Attorney General Patrick Flor.

A state grand jury indicted the pair in September on charges of conspiracy, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and securities fraud, said Flor.

Yoka lived his entire life in New Jersey before moving to Livermore, California about the time the UFCT share sales started.

Alternate Energy Files Most Hyperbolic Lawsuit Ever

2005-11-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

OK, Alternate Energy Corporation vs Russell Rothman might not be the most hyperbolic suit ever, but it includes some extravagant claims such as:

Finally, the technology does not actually work. Rothman represented that by implementation of the technology, plaintiff could effectively produce Hydrogen gas. This representation was completely false, and known to be false by the defendant, as the technology does not and cannot produce Hydrogen gas.

Well maybe Rothman's process is not effective for some applications, and I've always complained that the cost claims AEC made for Rothman's process were incorrect. But it's goofy to make an unqualified claim that Rothman's process does not produce Hydrogen. Alternate Energy has several press releases discussing tests they ran using Rothman's process to produce Hydrogen, powering the Astris golf cart in 2003-09, and tested for purity by Maxxam Analytics, and performing well in flow rate tests in 2003-08. If the process does not and cannot produce Hydrogen, wouldn't the flow rate be zero?

Genesis World Energy Founder Arrested in Idaho

2005-10-30T15:52:00.000-08:00

On September 23, Patrick Timothy Kelly was arrested by the Ada County Sheriff on a warrant for "flight to Idaho" from New Jersey. The Ada County jail registry is updated every morning at 9:30 Easterm time, and he was still there this morning. At a hearing on October 26th before Judge Oths, Kelly was to be represented by public defender Kevin Rogers against prosecutor Heather Reilly. The NJ State Police would not disclose why they have a warrant out for Kelly, so it's not necessarily related to United Fuel Cell Technologies, Genesis World Energy, Genesis Energy Systems, GWE Technologies, or Genesis Scientific.

Since his arrest, there have been no updates to genesis-scientific.com, Kelly's 415 area code phone has stopped answering, and one of his domain name registrations has gone "pendingrenewalordeletion". So it seems like he's not been getting a lot of assistance from helpers. And since he's represented by a PD and not made bail in over a month, his supporters seem absent as well.

Engineuity Aluminum or Magnesium Wire System

2005-10-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

Engineuity R&D a startup from Ashkelon, Israel announced a "Breakthrough in Alternative Fuel". From the write-up at Fuel Cell Works:

Using a light metal wire (such as: Aluminium, Magnesium), water and a special conversion unit, the company has succeeded to produce a continuous flow of hydrogen and steam under full pressure, temperature and power control.

How original! Who would have thought of using Aluminum wire to make Hydrogen? Besides Francois P. Cornish. And who would have thought of using Aluminum and Magnesium? Besides Hydrogenerate.

The volume required for containing the metal wire is similar to the volume required for petrol; however its weight will be 3 times greater. These values are significantly preferred over those associated with other alternative fuel solutions. The cost of this new fuel will be comparable with petroleum fuels at present day prices.

Gasoline must be darn expensive in Ashkelon. The reaction Mg(s) + 2H2O(g) Mg(OH)2(aq) + H2(g) yields one mole of H2 per mole of Mg. One gallon of gasoline is 130.88 mJ, and a mole of H2 is 285.83 kJ, so to replace a gallon of gas would require 457.89 moles of Mg. Multiplying by its atomic weight of 24.3050 we can see that's 11.129 kg of Mg. A gallon of gasoline is 2.791 kg, so the equivalent Mg weight 3.988 times as much, which in Ashkelon rounds to 3. And let's forget the weight of the ash tank. Mg costs in the neighborhood of $2 per kg. So gasoline must cost more than $20 per gallon in Ashkelon.

I should add that I intentionally ignored what Hydrogenerate called "the valuable by-product", Mg(OH)2. Recycling that isn't going to change the cost much.

Alternate Energy Corporation Calls Chip Taylor

2005-09-16T20:37:00.000-07:00

Alternate Energy corporation sued Russell Rothman, the inventor of its original Hydrogen generation technology, claiming that his technology never worked and that Rothman had previously sold it to someone else. We've previously discussed the incongruities around AEC's glowing statements about Rothman's technology to the press and its investors and its in court statements that the technology never worked.

But what of the claim that Rothman had sold the technology previously? Whom to? One of the parties appearing for AEC claiming that Russell had previously sold the technology to him is Lewis (Chip) Taylor. It's curious that Chip Taylor and AEC would both buy the same invention and not know that they had done it, given the close relationship between them.

On April 23, 2003, months before AEC announced any Hydrogen related activities, it announced that it had signed an agreement with Select Molecular Technologies.

In addition, Mr. Blaine Froats, Chairman of AEC stated, "AEC has signed a letter of intent with Canadian based Select Molecular Technologies, Inc. (Mississauga, Ontario) to explore a sharing of technologies to create a new and novel method of generating electricity for the retail consumer. This will involve the use of a newly developed fuel cell and storage battery." Mr. Froats continued, "Select Molecular Technologies Inc is a private Canadian company that is associated with Mega-C Technologies and Mega-C Power. Mega-C Power, is a technology leader in the field of next generation high efficiency and environmentally friendly batteries".

Additional announcements regarding the business plans and operations of AEC will be forthcoming.

A similar announcement is made again on 2003-07-10

Alternate Energy Corporation (AEC) recently announced it has signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Mississauga, Ontario-based Select Molecular Technologies, Inc. (SMT) to "explore a sharing of technologies to create a new and novel method of generating electricity for the retail consumer."

"This will involve the use of a newly developed fuel cell and storage battery," said AEC chairman Blaine Froats. "[SMT] is a private Canadian company that is associated with Mega-C Technologies and Mega-C Power. Mega-C Power is a technology leader in the field of next-generation, high-efficiency and environmentally friendly batteries."

AEC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Environmental Products Group, Inc., a leading provider of products produced from recycled plastics.

It goes without saying that nothing ever came of these announcements. But it's worth looking into the parties involved. SEC filings from Axion Power provide the following history. Mega-C Technologies was formed in 1999 by C&T Co and a group of investors led by Chip Taylor to commercialize battery technology owned by C&T. In 2001, Mega-C Technologies sublicenced its rights to the C&T technology to Mega-C Power. In 2003, the sales by certain shareholders, including Chip Taylor, of Mega-C Power stock became the subject of an Ontario Securities Commission investigation. Subsequently the company was unable to raise capital and sold its rights to the C&T technology to Axion. Select Molecular Technologies is run by Chip Taylor, as outlined in NEDELJKO ULEMEK vs Lewis Taylor.

So AEC announced in April and July of 2003 that they were making plans with Chip Taylor controlled companies. Later in July 2003, they announced that they had licensed Hydrogen generation technology from an unnamed source, and began making many pie-in-the-sky claims for that technology. How is it possible that Taylor didn't ask AEC if they were working with Rothman back in 2003? It's difficult to believe that AEC did not know back in the fall of 2003 about Taylor's claim that Rothman had sold his process to Taylor. Yet the first that AEC discloses this to its investors is April 1st 2005.

Rothman Confirms Maxxam Tested His Process

2005-09-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

As we observed, Alternative Energy Corporation makes some rather strange claims about Maxxam Analytics testing their process in 2003-10-07. On 2003-09-22, the company bought a Hydrogen generation process from an inventor whose name they did not disclose at the time. Some time in 2004, they stopped working with the inventor and in 2004-10-22, sued him, claiming, among other things, that his process does not work. From 2005-Q2 report

On October 22, 2004 we sued Russell Rothman in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Case No. 04-CV-277760CM2). We are seeking the rescission of agreements between us and Rothman, return of shares paid to him, and return of money paid. We had entered into an agreement with Rothman for the purchase of certain technology related to the production of hydrogen gas. Rothman represented to us that he had all right title and interest in the technology and had the ability to sell the technology. We alleged in our lawsuit that Rothman had in fact sold the technology to other companies, and on more than one occasion, prior to entering into the agreement with us. We additionally allege that the technology he purported to sell did not work. We do not rely on the Rothman technology for the production of hydrogen. We have developed our own proprietary processes for producing hydrogen. Rothman has counterclaimed against us for breach of contract in the amount of $2 billion and is asking for punitive damages in the amount of $10 million. We believe that the counterclaim is completely without merit. Mr. Rothman's attorney has withdrawn from the case and the Court has ordered Mr. Rothman to obtain new counsel by July 28, 2005.

So they have developed another process. But it seems strange that they still claim that

The output from the AEC process was certified by Maxxam Analytics, and analytical laboratory company in Canada, to be 99.9% pure hydrogen on October 7, 2003.

Really? Two weeks after buying Rothman's process and a year before suing him they took a different process to Maxxam? That's strange. The company was, apparently, still working with Rothman as late as
2004-05-25. Rothman has told me that he was present at the tests at Maxxam, and that it was his process they tested.

Hydrogenerate Founder Guilty of Lewd act on Child

2005-09-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

Hydrogenerate founder William Woslum, aka James Pelto, James Strader, and etc has plead guilty to two charges of lewd act on a child in San Diego. He had faced 50 counts. Woslum had a prior conviction for molesting a girl in Ventura County in 1981. He faces a hearing on October 17 to determine if he has a bank robbery conviction from 1964.

San Diego media covered the story:
http://www.10news.com/news/4793859/detail.html

Kudos to the Thai police who caught him and the FBI who kept the search on all this time. San Diego Deputy District Attorney Wendy Patrick did a great job getting him behind bars without a trial. I hope the 9 year old who, 12 years ago stood up to Woslum's threats serves as an inspiration to the investors who, mostly, have taken Pelto's lewd act on them lying down.

Alternative Energy Corporation vs Rothman Part 2

2005-07-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

In 2004-October, Alternative Energy Corporation claimed (among other things) that the technology they acquired from Russell Rothman "did not work". AEC originally acquired a 40 year license to the Rothman technology in 2003-July. In 2003-September, they purchased an interest in the to be filed patent stating

"The unanimous decision to buy out the technology was based on a number of re-affirming test results which were recently conducted - in particular, the successful joint fuel cell test. These technology-validating trials confirmed in our minds that we needed more 'skin' in the game, as it represented an enormous business opportunity for our company and its shareholders," said Froats.

That's difficult to reconcile.

Once the company realized that the Rothman technology wasn't working, they had an obligation to tell shareholders. The first oblique disclosure of a problem was the annual report for 2004. So they must have discovered that the Rothman technology "did not work" rather recently, perhaps after the 2004-Q3 report. Yet it seems impossible that it would have taken AEC from 2003-July when they first licensed the technology till mid 2004 to determine that.

There is an apparent anachronism in Alternative Energy Corporation's continuing claim that Maxxam Analytics tested their process on October 7, 2003. That was only weeks after they purchased the Rothman technology, and more than a year before the company announced any problems with it, so, presumably, that's what they were testing. But AEC isn't using that anymore, since it "did not work". So it makes no sense for AEC to claim now that Maxxam has tested their technology.

Alternative Energy Corporation Patent Opacity

2005-06-25T16:41:00.000-07:00

Alternative Energy Corporation accounts for technology acquisitions about as well as it describes its technology. The annual report for 2003-Q3 claimed that their patent and technology acquisitions for that quarter, were $4M. But in the annual report filed for 2003, they claim that they acquired less than $2M for the whole year. Again in 2004, the Q3 report claims $329k for the quarter, yet the annual report claims $218k for the whole year. There are no explanations for the discrepancies.

There is an even greater discrepancy between Alternative Energy Corporation's annual reports and their in-court posturings. In court, they claim:

On October 22, 2004 we sued Russell Rothman in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Case No. 04-CV-277760CM2). We are seeking the rescission of agreements between us and Rothman, return of shares paid to him, and return of money paid. We had entered into an agreement with Rothman for the purchase of certain technology related to the production of hydrogen gas. Rothman represented to us that he had all right title and interest in the technology and had the ability to sell the technology. We alleged in our lawsuit that Rothman had in fact sold the technology to other companies, and on more than one occasion, prior to entering into the agreement with us. We additionally allege that the technology he purported to sell did not work. We do not rely on the Rothman technology for the production of hydrogen. We have developed our own proprietary processes for producing hydrogen.

It's hard to understand how they can claim that the Rothman technology doesn't work, when the 2 million in technology assets they claim on their balance sheets is the Rothman technology. If Alternative Energy Corporation claims the Rothman technology they bought doesn't work, why haven't they written it off? The first they let the investors know if a problem was in the 2004 annual report. So, presumably, the original provisional patents filed in the fall of 2003, the abandoned ones, were for the Rothman technology. And the tests done in 200310 by Maxxam Analytics, mentioned as late as the last prospectus,were presumably using the technology that "never worked".

Of course, the Rothman technology could not possibly work as AEC described that it did, producing energy in the form of H2 at a lower cost than fossil fuels. That's impossible. Of course, AEC's current process can't either.

AEC Patent Assets
Year or quarter ending	Patent and Tech Assets	Patent and Tech Investment
200306	$62,863	$62,863
200309	$4,153,650	$4,090,787
200312	$1,969,236
200403	$1,969,236
200406	$1,970,248	$1,012
200409	$2,300,077	$329,829
200412	2,124,373	Written off: $41,085; Disposed: 62,863; Acquired: 218,000
200503	$2,124,373

AEC Patent Asset Changes from 2004 Annual Report
Balance, May 22, 2003	$ 0
Patents and technology acquired during the year	$1,969,236
Balance, December 31, 2003	$1,969,236
Patents and technology acquired during the year	$218,000
Patents and technology disposed of during the year (note 10)	$62,863
Balance, December 31, 2004	$2,124,373

Foundation Energy Joins GWE Technologies

2005-06-12T10:03:00.000-07:00

Foundation Energy, LLC and GWE Technologies, LLC have consecutive file numbers. For some reason, the trademark application for "GWE Technologies" was made by Foundation Energy. Foundation Energy is also now forfeited.

Genesis World Energy Deleware Registrations

2005-06-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

Patrick Kelly registered at least two Delaware corporations as part of the Genesis World Energy operation, GWE Technologies, and United Fuel Cell Technologies. GWE Technologies is the only related trademark I can find. UFCT was the company Kelly sold stock in back in 2001. Neither registration is current. It looks like renewals were never paid for either. UFCT was authorized for 1500 shares. Is that how many they sold?

GWE Technologies

UFCT (United Fuel Cell Technologies)

Two More Genesis Scientific AKAs

2005-06-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

Kelly got a trademark for GWE Technologies, and, apparently, registered a Foundation Energy in Delaware. None of the product names (HICEF, Edison Device, awater) are trademarked.

Genesis Scientific AKAs

2005-06-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

Patrick Kelly has used a lot of facades in in promoting investment and licensing opportunities for the Edison Device. The domains included general-systems.com, gs-net.com, genesisworldenergy.com, genesisenergysystems.com, and, now, genesis-scientific.com. Also he registered a few businesses:

2001-08 United Fuel Cell Technologies in Delaware

2003-03 World Energy Management in Nevada

2003-09 GWE Technologies in Delaware

2004-01 Genesis Scientific in Nevada

Here is the registration for Genesis Scientific. Notice that the only officer ever listed was Nancy Lake of Nevada Corporation Center, who is an officer of over 100 companies.

Alternate Energy Corporation Product in YYYY?

2005-05-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

The latest press release describes their running a small engine. A couple of statements stand out.

The purpose of the demonstration was to provide a complete overview of the unit's functionality while showcasing some of its key benefits, including portability, safety and environmentally friendly by-products.

The by-product of their process is metal oxides soaked in caustic liquid. What is it they do at their demonstration to show that stuff is safe? I'm not saying it's dangerous. But how do they demonstrate that?

Also their boilerplate now includes the claim that they "shipping initial hydrogen production and electricity generation systems later in 2005". Ah, so that's when they plan to have a product. Their FAQ has been answering the question:
2) To whom will you be selling the product and when?

2003-11 AEC intends to sell a combined product (our hydrogen production unit and a carefully selected, third-party fuel cell), through one or a number of major organizations being considered to the home owner and commercial power and government markets. AEC acknowledges the numerous large-scale market application opportunities for low-cost hydrogen, but has chosen to focus on the alternative energy sector pursuant to its corporate mandate / mission statement.

Though much is contingent on funding and/or the securing of suitable manufacturer/distributor alliances, marketing and manufacturing plans are currently being developed for AEC to have its hydrogen production technology deployed with various partners within one year (2004).

2004-06 Ditto.

2004-11 and later AEC intends to sell a combined product (our hydrogen production unit and third-party fuel cell or internal combustion engine/generator), to a wide spectrum of major organizations in the industrial, commercial, residential, utility and government markets.

So, as late as a year ago, Alternative energy corporation was claiming they would have a product last year. And now, their FAQ simply doesn't answer the "when will you have a product" question.

Alternate Energy Corporation FAQ Backtrack #1

2005-05-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

The Internet Wayback is a great tool for tracking moving targets. Let's compare the Alternate Energy Corporation FAQ from 2003-Nov, 2004-Jun, 2004-Nov, and now.

1) Why is AEC’s hydrogen production technology unique? How is it more viable than other forms of hydrogen production?

2003-Nov It has been stated by leading industry experts that the hydrogen economy will not become reality until two important developments occur;
a) A reduction in the selling price of a reliable fuel cell, and
b) The availability of low-cost hydrogen.

Many fuel cell prices have started to descend, but are still considered to be too high for mass appeal. In addition, what is not included in these prices is the operating cost, which can include the replacement of very expensive membranes (i.e. PEM). The PEM fuel cell’s current cost includes the precious metal platinum, which currently represents approximately 30% of the cost of the cell. Therefore, any saving in cost is over-shadowed by the cost of the platinum, the result being an expensive fuel cell.

AEC’s affordable, on-demand Hydrogen production technology provides the solution to item b) above.

The least expensive hydrogen is currently derived from the reformation of fossil fuels such as natural gas, costing approximately $0.10 to $0.12 per kw (emphasis added) Check the units. What's 12 cents per kW mean?. Current cost estimates indicate that AEC can produce hydrogen at a significantly lower cost and realize a strong profit even with selling it at a very competitive price. For business reasons AEC has not announced their cost of producing hydrogen nor the selling price

This will mean a potential savings to those that use hydrogen for any number of retail and small commercial applications. For those considering the purchase and use of fuel cells for alternative power needs, our low-cost hydrogen drastically reduces the operating costs, making it an affordable investment.

In summary, AEC is the only known low-cost producer of high-quality, on-demand hydrogen.

2004-Jun Ditto.

2004-Nov a ) Astris partnership played up.Many fuel cell prices have started to descend, but are still considered too high for mass commercial appeal. In addition, what is not included in these prices is the operating cost, which can include the replacement of very expensive membranes (i.e. PEM). The PEM fuel cell's current cost includes the precious metal platinum, which currently represents approximately 30% of the cost of the cell. Therefore, any saving in cost is over-shadowed by the cost of the platinum, the result being an expensive fuel cell. AEC has partnered with Astris Energi, a leader in Alkaline fuel cell technology, because of their fuel cell's strong reliability and lower cost due to a non-reliance on precious metals.

b) Cost claims made more vague. The least expensive hydrogen is currently derived from the reformation of fossil fuels such as natural gas. Current cost estimates indicate that AEC can produce hydrogen at a significantly lower cost and realize a strong profit even with selling it at a very competitive price.

For those considering the purchase and use of fuel cells for alternative power needs, our low-cost hydrogen drastically reduces the operating costs, making it an affordable investment. Combining a relatively low-cost and reliable fuel cell with AEC's inexpensive, on-demand hydrogen offers an affordable and portable fuel cell solution to the market.

2005-May Ditto.

Alternate Energy Corporation on diet, drops sugarcube

2005-05-15T17:39:00.000-07:00

Alternate Energy Corp is a publicly traded company (symbol is ARGY) with too good to be true claims for a Hydrogen from water as they say through a "green" system at a price competitive with the fossil fuel kWh cost of energy.

One of the more inanely worded claims they have made for their process has been removed from their FAQ, but can still be found at their old site, that

To look at another example: A sugar-cube sized piece of our material, combined with the required chemicals and water will produce enough hydrogen to fill a cubic area the volume of a football field three (3) times.

Maybe they were unable to get the rules of football changed to give football fields a defined volume.

Anyway, what volume of Hydrogen could a sugarcube sized piece of their fuel produce? Of course, they don't say what their fuel is, and have managed to avoid patent applications publishing. But we can't be far off using Al. Assuming that a sugarcube is 1cc, to what height could reacting it with water fill a football field with H2?

The Webelements Periodic Table shows 10.00 cc as the molar volume of Al. So 1 cc of Al would be 0.1000 mol. Assuming complete combustion of Al in water, we have 2Al + 3H2O -> Al2O3 + 3H2. So 1 mol of Al would yield 1.5 mol of H2; 1cc of Al would yield .1500 mol of H2. The ideal gas law calculator shows that at STP, one mol of H2 has a volume of 0.022413 cubic meters. So 1cc of Al would yield 0.003362 cubic meters, or 3362cc of H2. An American football field is 160 ft by 320 ft, or 4,756.636 square meters. The H2 yielded by a cc of Al in water would fill a football field to a height of 0.00007068 cm. Reality is a factor of a million off from any plausible interpretation of ARGY's claim. When a company makes a mistake that big, it's not enough to remove it form their FAQ, they ought to issue a correction.

Update
As recently as last November, AEC was saying

To look at another example: A sugar-cube sized piece of our material, combined with the required chemicals and water will produce enough hydrogen to fill a cubic area the volume of an imaginary cubic football field three (3) times.

Is "imaginary cubic football" a Canadian game?

Genesis Scientific Efficiency

2005-02-16T22:32:00.000-08:00

It's simple to compare the production numbers Genesis claims for its electrolysis to ideal electrolysis. As we discussed earlier, their "test results" page claims that their "g-cell" can produce 5.3439 cc/minute/square cm using 0.2509 Watts/square cm. Simply dividing the flow per area by the power per area, and dividing by 60 to convert from minutes to seconds, shows 0.3550 cc/Joule. To convert to Joules per mol, we need to convert from cc to mol, for which the ideal gas law calculator provides 4.46175159318548e-05 mol/cc. Also note that even if the vapor is perfectly dry, it's 1/3 O2. So multiply the 0.3550 cc/Joule by 2/3 and 4.4617e-5, and invert the result to obtain 94.71kJ/mol. This compares to an ideal of 285.83 kJ/mol, for 301.8% efficiency.

Genesis's efficiency claims are clearly wrong. It's possible the numbers are simply made up. If there really was a test, it's impossible to say where they went wrong, since the procedures are not spelled out. The Alberta Research Council report on the Xogen process (reviewed earlier) provided enough detail that it was possible to figure out what mistakes they had made.

Genesis has updated their report to state the voltage of their "e-cell" fuel cells, 0.714V. The potential change in for burning Hydrogen is 1.48V, so if their fuel cells operate as they claim, they would convert chemical energy stored in Hydrogen to 48.2% electrical power, and 51.8% waste heat. The waste heat situation is more drastic than the 51.% suggests. Assume, for argument that the 301.8% efficiency claimed for the g-cell is correct. The energy from burning H2 would consist of waste heat (heat), useful energy (useful), and the energy required to produce the H2 (self).

1 - Just from the heat of combustion of H2, we have:
heat + useful + self = 285.83 kJ/mol

2 - From the e-cell performance reported, we have that:
heat/(useful + self) = 51.8/48.2
heat = 1.076 * (useful + self)

Substituting into 1 we get:
2.076 * (useful + self) = 285.83 kJ/mol
useful + self = 137.7 kJ/mol

Subtracting the (impossibly good) 94.7 kJ/mol claimed for the g-cell we get
useful=43.0 kJ/mol

Dividing by 285.83 to convert to percent, we now get that the energy produced by the fuel cell would be allocated:
51.8% - waste heat
33.1% - H2 generation
15.0% - useful energy

So for every Watt of useful power generated, it would generate 3.45 W of heat. Genesis claims they have plans to produce units that would power a home. To produce 10 kW of power, it would produce 34.5 kW of heat. That's as much as two commercial pizza ovens. That would call for a pretty fancy cooling system.

Genesis Scientific posts "test results"

2005-01-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

Pat Kelly has renamed Genesis World Energy Genesis Scientific. I guess he wants his scams to all have the same initials. He's posted a table that he claims are verified by "qualified independent testing laboratories". It's possible that Kelly is sincerely confused about the measurement of his process or its novelty. But he has to know that he didn't have any independent lab review this mishmosh. Watts are used in this table to refer to a measure of power (the right way), as an average power draw over a 60 minute period, and an average draw over a 90 minute period. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to spot the usages. To help, I'll walk through the calculations that relate the rows in the table to each other.

>>> # Flow is per minute. From the table
>>> FlowPcc=[5.3439, 6.9967]
>>> PowerPcc=[0.2509, 1.991]
>>> # Divide flow per area by power per area to get flow per unit of power.
>>> FlowPWatt=[a/b for (a,b) in zip(FlowPcc, PowerPcc)]
>>> FlowPWatt
[21.298923874053404, 3.5141637368156702]
>>> # Divide by 60 seconds per minute to get cc/Joule
>>> VolPJ=[x/60 for x in FlowPWatt]
>>> VolPJ
[0.35498206456755671, 0.058569395613594505]
>>> # Assuming this cost, how much energy to make 100l?
>>> l100e=[100000/x for x in VolPJ]
>>> l100e
[281704.3732105766, 1707376.3345577202]
>>> # Assume the "wattge" in row 3 of the table really is power. Divide into
>>> # energy to get time.
>>> wattage=[78.25, 316.18]
>>> testlength=[a/b for (a,b) in zip(l100e, wattage)]
>>> testlength
[3600.0558876751002, 5400.0137091458037]
>>> # So one test was run for 1.5 times as long as the other. Converting to hours.
>>> testlenH=[x/3600 for x in testlength]
>>> testlenH
[1.0000155243541944, 1.5000038080960565]
>>> # Reconcile the "volume per watt" with testlength and earlier FlowPWatt
>>> checkvol=[a*b/60 for (a,b) in zip(FlowPWatt, testlength)]
>>> checkvol
[1277.9552715654952, 316.27553924979446]

The 404% in the last row is a comparison between the power in a test run for an hour to one run for 90 minutes. They should have been claiming a 606% improvement.

www.pseudoscience.gov

2004-08-19T07:45:00.000-07:00

Advocates for impossible devices and schemes are keen on getting government support and recognition, the impossible hydrogen generating device crowd included. Getting the DOE to link to a perpetual motion machine scam is not too hard. People frequently present impossible schemes to local governments. Santa Cruz County records (warning, pdf) a 2003-February presentation by a representitive of World Improvement Technologies and our own Xogen on perpetual motion earth movers, anti-gravity bikes, water powered cars, and anti-aging technology.

In one over-the-top case of official glamour applied to a scam, Xogen's web page included a videotaped message from Alberta Premier Ralph Klien that included

As premier of the province of Alberta, I am very proud of the many emerging technologies which have been developed by Alberta companies. Companies such as Xogen Power Incorporated are fine examples of the talent and expertise which exist here in our province. The Alberta advantage refers to the business environment the province offers to a wide spectrum of industrial technologies. While the province is home to a vibrant oil and gas economy, companies such as Xogen Power Incorporated are exploring and developing a much needed alternative source of energy. These emerging technologies may soon lead us into a new and exciting era, as we enter the new millennium. I wish all those involved with Xogen every success in the future.

The Wayback indicates this was part of the Xogen.com site from 2000-June to 2001-March.

This was more than a year after Don Lancaster first said of Xogen that Boy, a whole flock of 'em flew over that time. It's only a little surprising that the Premier Klien didn't have any advisors to tell him, in advance, that any endorsement of Xogen would be sure to embarrass him. But he aparently caught on sometime in early 2001. So how is it possible that after Xogen's false statements and misrepresentations have been exposed, and it's gone bankrupt, and investors have suffered millions in losses, that the government of Alberta has done nothing?

Explosive Results at Emergingtec

2004-08-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Emergingtec's 20040806 update indicates that they are still focusing on the (non-trivial) automotive adaptation problems, rather than on simple calorimetry that would show them that their perpetual motion machine in an energy sink. Not only is this a distraction, but they have found that it's also dangerous.

3. Late Saturday evening we had a very big bang indeed due to a malfunction of the injector (injector?) and a backfire that went backwards into the oxygen surge storage tank. . We just are not equipped to do this. Four of the our people were standing there and thank God only one of them got banged up pretty good although every ones head was ringing for quite a while. While that was very bad news it was a miracle that no one else got hurt.

The good news is that they seem to have learned a little from the explosion.

I can tell you that the big bang was a wake up call that told us working 14-16 hours a day and injecting hydrogen and oxygen under pressure into a combustion chamber is a dangerous combination.

We took ½ day off and everyone got some sleep and we have instituted some lock out procedures on the reserve tanks to (hopefully) prevent any problems as part of the team fiddles with it awaiting the engine guys to get started.

Sleep sounds good. But doesn't Missouri have trout that need looking after?

Emerging Tec Misdirection

2004-08-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

A good stage magician knows how to draw your eye away from critical portions of the performance. After all, if a lot of people are looking directly at the hand that pulls the card from in his sleeve, some of them would notice it, and it would take a lot out of the show. So he'll use his other hand to draw your eye away and hide the trick.

In a perpetual motion machine show, the performer needs to keep the investor's eye away from the central premise. If anyone actually measured how much energy is going into the machine and how much is coming out, they would see that the purported free energy device is really an energy sink, and cut off funding. So to distract the mark from the completely incorrect central premise of the perpetual motion machine, the performer finds other problems to visibly contend with. These can be political problems like Judge Penfield Jackson and Senator John Glenn blocking Joe Newman's patent application, the mining interests at the CDNX squashing Xogen, or the ever present men in black. A less confrontational (and for my taste, more artful) distraction is part of the invention itself. Automobiles are complex machines, and sometimes fail to work properly even when there is gas in the tank, so it's a time honored tradition to retrofit cars with perpetual motion machines to provide a plethora of reasons why "the car" needs more work.

We can see the misdirection in action in the 2004-08-02 update from Emerging Tec.

The hydrogen generator is still working just fine and the work does not seem to be showing any effect on the components – at least so far. We are running different models on different kinds of water and studying the run characteristics for peak efficiency and energy consumption.

Electrolysis has been working for almost two hundred years. I'm glad nothing has changed. Just what they need to be looking at is how much energy is consumed per unit volume of H2 produced. If it's more than 20 kJ per litre of H2, they need to find another hobby. If it's less than 13 kJ / litre of H2, they need to call Dupont to work out an agreement. If it's less than 11.8 kJ, they need to order their tuxedos and learn to say "please pass the salt" in Swedish.

1. The generator works just fine
2. It is capable of powering anything that does not consume more than 3/10 liter of hydrogen per second without the use of additional units.

Great. Supposing there are no measurement errors, 0.3 litres of H2 per second is about 3.5 kW. So how much power are they drawing to generate this?

3. We have successfully applied it to a small engine and it works just fine WHEN RUN AT A STEADY SPEED AND THIS IS THE PROBLEM!!!!!!!

Uh oh. Nothing about the power. And ALL CAPS ALREADY. Instead, we have a problem with the tuning of a small engine. Did that engine even run right on gasoline? Why not first check the power required to get 300 ml / sec of H2?

4. We are attempting to adapt it to an automobile that is capable of going down the street in a reasonable manner without excess storage of hydrogen. If we suddenly accelerate we do not have responsiveness to sudden need without a surge tank or other storage device, which we flatly do not want to do. In case you haven’t noticed no one is saying a car cannot run on hydrogen – or propane or methane - hybrid cars are doing just that - are they not.

Since nobody is saying that cars can't run on H2, what point is Emerging Tec trying to make by retrofitting a car to run on H2? Why not first verify the perpetual motion claim? By the way, hybrid cars run on gasoline, not H2.

5. A suitable gas that is cheap to produce, burns clean, and is abundantly available - that is the problem. Quite frankly if it was magnetic flux or strategic alignment of the planets or zero point energy, the same people would be throwing stones and the same talking heads would be wagging. All the ones that believe that we will forever be enslaved to the tyranny of a huge infrastructure from which we must obtain, on bended knee, with hat in hand - our daily energy allowance.

Yes, generally, the same critics who say you can't run on a car on water would say that you can't do it with zero point energy, with nothing but magnets, or by altering orbits of nearby planets. But why not take out the meter and figure out how much power it's taking to get 300 ml / sec of H2 before we try attaching rockets to Mars to move cars on Earth?

6. In the face of all this we are saying that we can go get that hydrogen directly from water at the rate of 3/10 liter per second and we believe it is possible to adapt that device to an automobile. Will we – we believe so with all our heart and soul and we are working on it – we do not have an answer yet but we are attempting to get that answer in our target window.

How hard can those guys really be working if they still haven't managed to measure how much electricity they are using?

7. Everyone is finally stateside even if missing a lot of gear, which we are now reproducing.

I don't think they ever had the gear. They want Bill Alexander to buy them gear.

8. Will we make a 100 days – we certainly believe so or we would not have said it – and yes we still want to put one on an Indy car. The problems of sudden acceleration will be solved – when – as soon as it is solved, is all we can say. Remember this has not been done before and we gave or best estimate and a stiff challenge to the engineers.

Why an Indy car? Why not something more pedestrian like a Delorian or a 1955 Licoln Futura?

9. Now, with this fresh ammunition all you nay sayers and all the combatants can all gang up and say whatever you want – this information is for those who truly wish to see oil freedom – we are boldly stating something and we believe it sincerely. Are we God? – no. Can we predict the future? – no. Do we have the privilege of second guessing what others do? – no. Unfortunately when you are the one doing it instead of the one talking about it you do not have these luxuries.

G-d wouldn't need to take any meters out to figure out how much electrical power the electrolysis unit is drawing. Bill Alexander does need to, but he doesn't do it.

10. Time will tell is all we can say – but we believe strongly enough that we have bet the ranch on it – unlike those that merely talk about it who have absolutely nothing to lose either way.

Too bad about the ranch.

11. One thing that no one can take away from us is that we are producing a lot of hydrogen for very little energy and we are doing it from virtually any kind of water.

What nobody can take from me is my Olympic gold medal for the long jump, my world chess championship, my victory as the lead of an Iditarod champion dog team, my tripple crown.

12. OF COURSE if we can only produce a car that runs with a lag time between rapid acceleration we will have failed as a commercial endeavor as it is not likely people will want to wait 1 1/2 to 2 seconds or more after hitting the accelerator to get the responsiveness they expect. Does that mean that a car cannot run on water – no – it does mean that if we want to sell a lot of them we must fix the acceleration problem and we believe we will. Of course others have fixed this through battery banks and hybrid drives – but – we do not want to do that. We want to do just what we said we believed is possible and we will continue on that path until we solve the acceleration issue and will fight a hybrid device until it is proven that it cannot be done any other way.

Why not just demonstrate the perpetual motion machine and leave it to actual automotive engineers to work on the details?

13. Now that we have a full team some will be working on stationary engines and generation of electricity from a hydrogen driven generator while we continue to work on the acceleration problem.
14. Freedom from oil does not depend on a viable performance from a car but if all we solve is stationary engines we will not have made a fraction of the impact we believe is possible. A car that runs on water is no longer a question – the question is - can it be made commercially viable to the extent that the driving public is satisfied with its performance and is weaned away from gasoline.

Where did that question get answered?

Lastly, do not send me any emails wasting your time or mine by telling us we are crazy, crooks, charlatans or poor bumbling misguided souls. I have those already and have squandered enough time trying to explain, in as reasonable a manner as possible what the challenge is. We are not writing a scientific paper or trying to get a University Building named after us or trying to become famous. We certainly are not trying to convince any one of anything. We are trying to adapt a hydrogen generator that generates 3/10 liter of hydrogen per second to obtain reasonable performance in a variety of applications including cars, truck, busses, boats and stationary engines without excess storage of “ on board “ hydrogen and at a cost that makes it the energy of choice for the next 50 years. Only that and nothing more!

That's the point exactly! Since they don't want to change any minds, it's important not to take any power measurements. Bill Alexander is already convinced enough to keep funding them to work out the issues with "the car", so they just need to keep him away from any electrical meters. Well done.

Emerging Technologies

2004-07-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

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

2004-07-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

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

2004-07-17T09:07:00.000-07:00

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

2004-07-15T13:37:00.001-07:00

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

2004-07-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

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

2004-07-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

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

2004-07-12T16:48:00.000-07:00

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

2004-07-09T17:38:00.000-07:00

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

2004-07-07T13:56:00.000-07:00

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

2004-07-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

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

2004-07-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Hydrogen from Perpetual Motion

2004-06-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

A booming segment of the Perpetual Motion Machine industry is capitalizing on the hype over the "Hydrogen Economy" with claims to produce Hydrogen for impossibly low cost. This is a resource for discussing them.