Gasoline pill

Last updated

The gasoline pill or gasoline powder is claimed to turn water into gasoline, which can be used to run a combustion engine. The gasoline pill is one of several claims of suppressed inventions that circulate as urban legends. Usually these urban legends allege a conspiracy theory that the oil industry seeks to suppress the technology that turns water to gasoline.

Contents

Guido Franch

In the United States, the best known claim to have created a gasoline pill was the work of one Guido Franch, who was active from the 1950s through the 1970s. Franch called the resulting liquid Mota fuel

Guido Franch was a blue collar worker who lived in Livingston, Illinois. His invention was a green powder that was added to water, which he claimed had actually been invented by a fictitious German scientist named Dr. Alexander Kraft. Franch took money from a number of small investors who read about his claims in the National Tattler or a similar[ clarification needed ] tabloid publication. In what became a frequent motif, he claimed that the water-into-gasoline powder formula could not be disclosed for fear that the oil industry would have it suppressed. Franch, when pressed into providing samples of his transmutation powder, produced samples of green food coloring.

As a result of his activities, Franch was prosecuted several times for fraud. His first trial in 1954 resulted in his acquittal when a prosecution witness admitted that it might be possible that "mota fuel" worked. His second trial in 1979 resulted in his conviction. [1]

Other water-to-gasoline "inventors"

In 1916, Louis Enricht claimed to have a water-to-gasoline pill. Enricht was convicted of fraud in a related case, claiming to have a method for extracting gasoline from peat, and served time in Sing Sing prison. (The Fischer–Tropsch process, which can accomplish this, had not been invented yet.) In 1917, John Andrews pitched a water-to-gasoline powder to the United States Navy. Andrews disappeared after making his pitch, but it turned out that he had returned to Canada, where he was serving in the Royal Canadian Navy. [2]

In 1996, Ramar Pillai from South India (Tamil Nadu) claimed to be able to transmute water to gasoline by a herbal formula that he claimed was the result of a miraculous bush Boswellia ovalifoliolata . Pillai obtained 20 acres (81,000 m2) of land to cultivate his bush, [3] but in fact it turned out that he was using sleight of hand to substitute kerosene for the liquid he claimed to have derived from the bush. In October 2016 Pillai and an associate were convicted of fraud and sentenced to 3 years of rigorous imprisonment. [4]

In 1983, Wang Hongcheng announced his Hongcheng Magic Liquid, which purportedly turned regular water into fuel with just a few drops. His announcement was widely covered by Chinese media and he was even given public funding for a company that never released a product. Years later, in 1994, the Chinese government declared that superstition and pseudoscience was rising in China and that it would start efforts to stop it. One of those efforts was to publish an article critical of Hongcheng in Science and Technology Daily , thus turning the tide of public opinion against him. Hongcheng was investigated, put on trial, and imprisoned [5] for fraud and deceit.

Between 1992 and 2007 a businessman called Tim Johnston managed to garner over $100 million from investors, principally in Australia and New Zealand, for the promotion of a "magic pill that cut emission and made fuel last longer". Registered in the Virgin Islands, his company Firepower International finally collapsed. No assets could be retrieved and no evidence could be found of the efficacy of the much-vaunted fuel tablet. Despite the illusory nature of the product, the company had attracted high-profile promoters and investors from the Australian government, armed forces, sport and show business. [6]

Chemical impossibility

A gasoline pill is chemically impossible. Gasoline is a hydrocarbon fuel; this means it consists of a mixture of molecules made up of carbon and hydrogen (e.g. Octane C8H18). Water on the other hand consists of hydrogen and oxygen (H2O). It would be necessary to introduce 8 parts carbon for every 9 parts of water to make any conversion of the form

9 H2O + X → C8H18 + 9/2 O2

work, where X is the gasoline pill. The claims discussed here do not address the source of carbon needed to make up the balance, and instead propose that just a small amount of X would suffice, which is impossible due to conservation of mass. Also note that nuclear processes only found inside stars would be necessary to transmute hydrogen into carbon.

The simplest stoichiometry of such a "pill" would be the hydrocarbon C8H9 which, if it existed, would be a fuel in its own right.

Gasoline pills in fiction

The storyline of the 1943 Laurel and Hardy film, Jitterbugs , revolves around a con man (Bob Bailey) selling gas pills during the fuel rationing days of WWII.

In the 1949 motion picture Free For All, Robert Cummings starred as a scientist who claimed to have invented a pill that turned water into gasoline.

The 1940s television/radio show People Are Funny performed a stunt in which an unsuspecting crowd at Hollywood and Vine were sold "Atom Pills" at a quarter apiece. A "scientist" claimed that one pill could do the work of a hundred gallons of gasoline. When the stunt was revealed, few of the dozens who had fought to buy the pills came up to get their money back. [7]

In the television sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies , Jethro Bodine claimed to have devised a water to gasoline pill that ran the Clampetts' old truck on water.

In an episode of the 1960s American sitcom The Munsters , The Sleeping Cutie, Grandpa invents a gasoline pill.

A season three episode of the 1950s American television show, Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond , "Where Are They?", which originally aired 13 December 1960, presented a story about a man calling himself Charles Elton. Elton allegedly demonstrated to government representatives in 1917 a pill that costs 2 cents that can turn 10 gallons of water into a fuel that can power an auto engine. After his successful exhibition, Elton vanishes.

In E.L. Doctorow's historical novel Ragtime , Henry Ford must deal with a man claiming to have invented a water-to-gasoline pill; possibly a reference to Louis Enricht.

In episode 254 of The Simpsons , "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes," Homer is trapped on a mysterious island with, among others, a Number 27 who is trapped there because she knows how to turn water into gasoline.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liquid hydrogen</span> Liquid state of the element hydrogen

Liquid hydrogen (H2(l)) is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecular H2 form.

Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natural gas will condense to a liquid state if the temperature is reduced to below the hydrocarbon dew point temperature at a set pressure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liquid fuel</span> Liquids that can be used to create energy

Liquid fuels are combustible or energy-generating molecules that can be harnessed to create mechanical energy, usually producing kinetic energy; they also must take the shape of their container. It is the fumes of liquid fuels that are flammable instead of the fluid. Most liquid fuels in widespread use are derived from fossil fuels; however, there are several types, such as hydrogen fuel, ethanol, and biodiesel, which are also categorized as a liquid fuel. Many liquid fuels play a primary role in transportation and the economy.

Louis Enricht was a US inventor who claimed that he had invented a substitute for gasoline.

The water fuel cell is a non-functional design for a "perpetual motion machine" created by Stanley Allen Meyer. Meyer claimed that a car retrofitted with the device could use water as fuel instead of gasoline. Meyer's claims about his "Water Fuel Cell" and the car that it powered were found to be fraudulent by an Ohio court in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Methanol economy</span>

The methanol economy is a suggested future economy in which methanol and dimethyl ether replace fossil fuels as a means of energy storage, ground transportation fuel, and raw material for synthetic hydrocarbons and their products. It offers an alternative to the proposed hydrogen economy or ethanol economy, although these concepts are not exclusive. Methanol can be produced from a variety of sources including fossil fuels as well as agricultural products and municipal waste, wood and varied biomass. It can also be made from chemical recycling of carbon dioxide.

Coal liquefaction is a process of converting coal into liquid hydrocarbons: liquid fuels and petrochemicals. This process is often known as "Coal to X" or "Carbon to X", where X can be many different hydrocarbon-based products. However, the most common process chain is "Coal to Liquid Fuels" (CTL).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Synthetic fuel</span> Fuel from carbon monoxide and hydrogen

Synthetic fuel or synfuel is a liquid fuel, or sometimes gaseous fuel, obtained from syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, in which the syngas was derived from gasification of solid feedstocks such as coal or biomass or by reforming of natural gas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gas to liquids</span> Conversion of natural gas to liquid petroleum products

Gas to liquids (GTL) is a refinery process to convert natural gas or other gaseous hydrocarbons into longer-chain hydrocarbons, such as gasoline or diesel fuel. Methane-rich gases are converted into liquid synthetic fuels. Two general strategies exist: (i) direct partial combustion of methane to methanol and (ii) Fischer–Tropsch-like processes that convert carbon monoxide and hydrogen into hydrocarbons. Strategy ii is followed by diverse methods to convert the hydrogen-carbon monoxide mixtures to liquids. Direct partial combustion has been demonstrated in nature but not replicated commercially. Technologies reliant on partial combustion have been commercialized mainly in regions where natural gas is inexpensive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bergius process</span>

The Bergius process is a method of production of liquid hydrocarbons for use as synthetic fuel by hydrogenation of high-volatile bituminous coal at high temperature and pressure. It was first developed by Friedrich Bergius in 1913. In 1931 Bergius was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of high-pressure chemistry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Industrial gas</span> Gaseous materials produced for use in industry

Industrial gases are the gaseous materials that are manufactured for use in industry. The principal gases provided are nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, hydrogen, helium and acetylene, although many other gases and mixtures are also available in gas cylinders. The industry producing these gases is also known as industrial gas, which is seen as also encompassing the supply of equipment and technology to produce and use the gases. Their production is a part of the wider chemical Industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bivalent (engine)</span>

A bivalent engine is an engine that can use two different types of fuel. Examples are petroleum/CNG and petroleum/LPG engines, which are widely available in the European passenger vehicle aftermarket.

A water-fuelled car is an automobile that hypothetically derives its energy directly from water. Water-fuelled cars have been the subject of numerous international patents, newspaper and popular science magazine articles, local television news coverage, and websites. The claims for these devices have been found to be pseudoscience and some were found to be tied to investment frauds. These vehicles may be claimed to produce fuel from water on board with no other energy input, or may be a hybrid claiming to derive some of its energy from water in addition to a conventional source.

Firepower International was a fraudulent company that advertised as a Hong Kong-based company owned and operated by Global Fuel Technologies Ltd, specializing in technology purporting to reduce the fuel consumption and environmental impact of petrol-operated vehicles. There were other offices in Sydney, China, Rhodes, Athens and Papua New Guinea, according to the now-defunct official company website. However, "in reality it was a handful of people in an industrial estate in Perth", who were conducting a complex of fraudulent operations. The original entity—Firepower Operations Pty Ltd—was a A$1 company, first registered in December 2004, owned by Firepower Holdings Group Ltd, a company with an address in the British Virgin Islands.

The Hongcheng Magic Liquid incident was a scam in China where Wang Hongcheng, a bus driver from Harbin with no scientific education, claimed in 1983 that he could turn regular water into a fuel as flammable as petrol by simply dissolving a few drops of his liquid in it. He founded the Hongcheng Magic Liquid company with funds from Chinese governmental agencies and other supporters, raising a total of 300 million yuan, but no product was ever released.

John Joseph Mooney was an American chemical engineer who was co-inventor of the three-way catalytic converter, which has played a dramatic role in reducing pollution from motor vehicles since their introduction in the mid-1970s.

Carbon Recycling International (CRI) is an Icelandic limited liability company which has developed a technology designed to produce renewable methanol from carbon dioxide and hydrogen, using water electrolysis or, alternatively, hydrogen captured from industrial waste gases. The technology is trademarked by CRI as Emissions-to-Liquids (ETL) and the renewable methanol produced by CRI is trademarked as Vulcanol. In 2011 CRI became the first company to produce and sell liquid renewable transport fuel produced using only carbon dioxide, water and electricity from renewable sources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carbon-neutral fuel</span> Type of fuel which have no net greenhouse gas emissions

Carbon-neutral fuel is fuel which produces no net-greenhouse gas emissions or carbon footprint. In practice, this usually means fuels that are made using carbon dioxide (CO2) as a feedstock. Proposed carbon-neutral fuels can broadly be grouped into synthetic fuels, which are made by chemically hydrogenating carbon dioxide, and biofuels, which are produced using natural CO2-consuming processes like photosynthesis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internal combustion engine</span> Engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber

An internal combustion engine is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high-pressure gases produced by combustion applies direct force to some component of the engine. The force is typically applied to pistons, turbine blades, a rotor, or a nozzle. This force moves the component over a distance, transforming chemical energy into kinetic energy which is used to propel, move or power whatever the engine is attached to.

References

  1. ↑ "Is there a pill that can turn water into gasoline?" at The Straight Dope
  2. ↑ FOCUS, Volume 1, Number 10 (December 31, 1985)
  3. ↑ Ball, Philip (September 14, 2007). "Burning water and other myths". Nature News. doi: 10.1038/news070910-13 . S2CID   129704116 . Retrieved December 8, 2008.
  4. ↑ "Remember herbal fuel man Ramar Pillai? 20 years later he gets convicted for that fraud". The News Minute. Retrieved July 5, 2018.
  5. ↑ Xianghong Wu (1995). Paranormal in China. Skeptical Briefs newsletter, March 1995. Retrieved 18 July 2021
  6. ↑ Smoking out Firepower, at "Sydney Morning Herald" (January 30th 2010).
  7. ↑ Linkletter, Art (1960). ""People Are Funny"". People are Funny. Pocket Books. pp. 13–14.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.