Reader comments
Gas saver? Bluffdale man says invention increases mileage, aids engine performance

An invention that "cuts mileage". Who would want to cut their mileage?

He didn't invent this though he may be trying to perfect it. This concept has been around for a long time.

I wonder if certain vehicles computers re-adjust to the hyro-capacitor and limit savings? I' glad people like Jared are trying to invent things that are neeeded instead of just complaining about them.

Great headline! Who wants to "cut mileage"? Writer must have been "cutting sleep" when they wrote this one!

Sounds to me like "improved power to the motor and improved gas mileage" are outcomes that we do know. For AAA spokesperson Fairclough to dismiss it with comments like "we don't know the specifics but we do know these things can be harmful" and "it doesn't make sense when we don't know the outcomes" is very disingenuous. Which is it, AAA? Do we know the outcomes are harmful, and if so, where is the documentation? Or is it "we don't know the outcomes" in which case your comments are very misleading and perhaps a bit dishonest. What is AAA's agenda in knocking something that seems to be working, albeit on a small scale. AAA, Big Oil, and the auto manufacturers have certainly not produced any positive alternatives to the status quo. I hope Peterson's invention is successful.

Wait a minute, you can't write, and publish, a story like this about a potentially bogus, and possibly dangerous, engine modification without running the whole concept past some respected automotive engineers. A Triple A spokesperson hardly qualifies as someone to evaluate this contraption.

Check the science behind it. It violates the law of entropy - you can't get more energy out of a system than you put into it.

That's why none of the HHO/Brown's Gas/OxyHydrogen proponents has EVER produced a scientifically regulated test (closed loop or dynamometer test) that shows that it increases mileage. Ask them for proof and they'll tell you their story.

It's this year's rage. Remember the fuel pill from last year?

Kudos to the inventor and the buyers! Certainly over the last 50 years there have been many ingenious devices created by inspired inventors that the motor vechicle industry tries to squash as it threatens their stranglehold on gasoline engines. Wouldn't it be great if these inventions could be evaluated, improved, tested and produced? I believe that there is a wealth of ingenuity that has no easy way to be tapped for mass distribution. Over the years I have heard about numerous devices that would minimize gasoline consumption that never can be sold. The only buyers are American motor companies who are interested in preserving the status quo.

RE Just another HHO scam

Energy is also expended as heat. The article did say the engine ran cooler thereby saving energy.

There needs to be better regulation and laws controling promotion and sale to the public including proof of truth and guarantee of results. This should include material products as well as intangables such as MLMs, religion, etc. Scams and brain washing are becoming major american enterprises, especially in utah. It is harmful to a healthy society and prosperous communities.

OK, let's evaluate your paranoia. GM and Ford recently announced massive cuts in their engine programs due to higher CAFE standards. There's even a possibility that the US may be left without a V8 powered Corvette or Mustang, the flagship cars for both corporations. In short, the new CAFE standards are going to cost automakers (particularly US automakers) BILLIONS of dollars.

Don't you think that, if such a simple and relatively inexpensive device actually worked, the automakers would prefer to use it and not lose billions of dollars?

Hog . . . wash ! But . . . I have invented a pill that will make you live longer and cooler and smarter and run faster, jump higher and it only requires theconsumption of junk food and . . . .

well it cost a small fortune and I will soon be able to quit my day job as well. Anyone want to sign up ?

Here it is as a simple analogy- Let's take a windmill to produce energy and hook up an electrical fan to drive the windmill. If I give the fan a little boost, it should start turning the windmill, which will produce electricity to run the fan, which will turn the windmill....

Nope, it doesn't work. Why not? Because there is energy lost as waste at every stage of the process. Some of the energy input into the windmill is turned into heat (lost energy). A small amount of the electrical transmission is lost as heat. Some of the electricity used to turn the fan motor is lost as heat. Not all of the wind energy produced by the fan can be captured by the windmill.

In an HHO system, the hydrogen is electrolyzed from water by electricity, a process that is at best about 80% efficient (20% loss). That gas is then burned in an internal combustion engine at 35% efficiency (even running cooler, you'd be lucky to gain 1% efficiency) which then turns an alternator at 55% efficiency which then produces HHO....

Sorry, no perpetual motion here.

1.21 jigawatts! Got to get me one of them there flux capacitors!

I read the Des News for two reasons: 1) to get caught up on Cougar football, 2) to occasionally be entertained by the funny things that happen in Utah. Thanks for the laugh!

What's funny about this is not that this contraption is being peddled in Utah, or that gullible Utahns are buying it. What's funny is that the Des News wrote a serious article about it. Has no one on the editorial staff ever taken a college-level physics class? If so, the article could have been newsworthy and easily debunked this. Apparently, however, the Des News is willing help perpetrate this fraud, and now permit this guy's friends to write all kinds of silly comments re how society isn't fair and doesn't respect the garage inventor and conspiracy theories about how AAA wants us to remain in fuel inefficient cars?

Don't worry, our nation and society keep moving forward. In this election year, I pause to contemplate that the fact that a lot of people don't vote is what saves us.

"...and the auto manufacturers have certainly not produced any positive alternatives to the status quo."

Hybrid cars?

Note to DesNews editors:
These goobers inventing some fuel saving device come out on a regular basis. Instead of giving them attention, perhaps you could use the occasions to promote the teaching of basic science (including physics and chemistry, please) in our public schools.

AAA says, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Beware, beware!" Everyone calm down!

Go to water4fuel dot com or go to You Tube and type in HHO, water4fuel, etc. and see for yourelf how to make one of these. What he's done is not new.

AAA should keep their mouths shut about stating that "they know" that these can be harmful to a vehicle without stating where we can go to read about the tests they've done.

I'm looking forward to his website to find out his results. $500??? Or making it myself??? Either way I'd put it on my 93' Corolla just to see.

Another way to decrease our fuel consumption: walk! Yes if we would walk a lot more (for those who can) I think that might just help a little bit. Gee do ya think?

That tv commercial where the mom drives her kid from their house to the next door neighbor's hits pretty close to home. I've seen very similar actions (although not quite that ridiculous) in my own 'hood. Parents driving their kids to the high school which is 300 feet from our neighborhood (or kids driving themselves, I guess so they can conserve energy to run around egging cars and TP'ing houses at night); neighbors driving to another neighbor's six or seven houses away (no heavy packages or other stuff to deliver either); active healthy people driving to the church that is right inside our neighborhood when it's a beautiful Sunday.

Hey, and when you are "forced" to walk (like in a mall) try to pick up the pace a bit, ok? I see many walking so slowly in the mall it's like they're afraid they might burn some calories. Same goes for crossing the street, although they get kudos for walking.

I don't know if this invention really works, but I do know that some of the greatest American inventions have come from garages and bicycle shops.

Flight: Wright Brothers - invented the airplane while running a bicycle shop.

Television: Philo Farnsworth - a farmboy from Idaho invented the television. He got his initial ideas while plowing a field.

Personal Computers: several prominent computer firms began in garages.

If this guy's invention really works, then he should approach some venture capital firms to get some funding for product development, production, and marketing.

RE: Just another HHO scam

I also took basic chemistry as well as a couple of Thermodynamics courses in my mechanical engineering undergraduate coursework and so I'm "familiar" with the term entropy that you like to use. To assume that the combustible engine is completely efficient and cannot be improved is to err. There are methods and means of improving the amount of energy that is converted into motion, that's what being an inventor/engineer is all about. The story doesn't say that the inventor is claiming to create energy from nothing. Of course some efficiency gaining techniques can actually decrease the longevity of the motor. In the long run, which solution will incur the greater cost/risk?