http://www.aardvark.co.nz/hho.shtml - The great "run your car on water" scam, May 2008
I must agree in part that this topic has grown in a direction that is absurd if taken too seriously without further investigation. But that's the catch. Further investigation can yield remarkable results if you take this topic far enough. So, let's put together a scenario that's more realistic...
Stan got burned in the past so he learned not to divulge all of his more cherished secrets anymore to anyone; not even the inner circle among his many admirers. So anyone expecting to take him literally is downright foolish.
Like any good inventor, his later patents begin to take on the characteristic of patent-speak: saying one thing and meaning something else.
Example: non-combustible gases in later patents equates to nitrogen in his earlier patents. I have Aaron Murakami's analysis to thank for this.
http://waterfuelsecrets.com/
So let's see what special properties does nitrogen possess?
If, for some reason, positively charged nitrogen ions were to be fed into an internal combustion engine and allowed to unite to form dinitrogen molecules, N2 - their natural state in our atmosphere, then a huge energy release could indeed herald a whole new wave of energy for automotive design. These nitrogen ions must be completely stripped of any valence electrons by their having been subjected to a very high positive voltage ionization - possibly on the order of 70,000 volts or more.
If we were to do something similar with hydrogen coming out of a water electrolyzer - or voltralysis method of splitting water with little current but high voltage, namely: ionize hydrogen using a very high voltage of positive charge, but do this in hydrogen's own chamber or inlet port separate from that of air's ionization chamber or inlet port, and then mix the two within a third chamber, and then burn this blend of ammonium and hydrogen ions outside of any ionization field but inside of the internal combustion engine, the effect of nitrogen ions (liberated by the combustion of ammonium ions in the presence of hydrogen and more air) slapping against other nitrogen ions into a triple-bonding relationship will be a conversion of the high voltage used to split the N2 in the first place into a mechanical force requisite to drive the pistons in the engine. Without the participation of nitrogen, hydrogen alone does not add up to any degree of adequacy of accelerating a car or truck up a hill or speeding up while entering traffic on a freeway.
As an aside, nitrous oxide (if I have my story straight, second hand) is already used as a carrier of nitrogen added to race cars to boost their performance. This is the purpose of the ammonium ion: to act as a carrier of nitrogen. For once the single bonds of hydrogen and nitrogen are broken within an ammonium ion during their ignition from neighboring hydrogen ions and their subsequent oxidation, the force of the reformation of the triple bonds of nitrogen will be so great as to equal in close measure the characteristics of gasoline without using a drop of that petroleum fuel.
So, Stan was a fraud; but a clever fraud at that. For he surmised that we never consider air as a fuel for good reason: nitrogen does not burn. And the release of energy upon the oxidation of hydrogen or ammonia is not the focus of this analysis. It is after their combustion that the real magic occurs when Nature has the opportunity to "put things back together the way they exist in their ambient state on Earth." Yet, if we lived on the moon, he wouldn't have gotten away with leaving out air as his energy source. It would have been too obvious.
It's too bad he's not here to defend himself. So, I'll let the electron configuration of dinitrogen speak for him instead.
http://tinyurl.com/nitrogen3bond
Thank you for your critical analysis.
PS-Whether or not Herman Anderson was aware of this viewpoint or not, he is another example of someone who succeeded where many others have failed.
PPS-I feel the same way about spam as you do.