The Water Powered Car that Ultimately Destroyed Stanley Meyer

Stanley Allen Meyer (August 24, 1940 – March 20, 1998) was an inventor who gained notoriety for his claims about a revolutionary invention known as the "Water Fuel Cell." Let's delve into the details:Show more

1. The Water Fuel Cell:
- Meyer asserted that he had developed a device capable of using water as fuel instead of gasoline. He called it the "Water Fuel Cell."
- According to his claims, this device could split water into its component elements: hydrogen and oxygen.
- The hydrogen gas produced would then be burned to generate energy, effectively reconstituting the water molecules.
- Meyer contended that his invention required less energy for electrolysis than conventional science predicted or measured.
- The mechanism supposedly involved a mixture called "Brown's gas," which had the same composition as liquid water (a 2:1 ratio of oxyhydrogen).
- If the device worked as specified, it would defy the first and second laws of thermodynamics, essentially operating as a perpetual motion machine.

2. Media Coverage:
- Meyer demonstrated a dune buggy retrofitted with his water fuel cell on an Ohio TV station.
- He claimed that this vehicle required only 22 US gallons of water to travel from Los Angeles to New York.
- Meyer also asserted that he had replaced spark plugs with "injectors" that introduced the hydrogen/oxygen mixture into the engine cylinders.
- The water was subjected to an electrical resonance, breaking it down into its atomic components.
- The water fuel cell would split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, which would then be combusted back into water vapor in a conventional internal combustion engine, producing net energy.

Stanley Meyer's bizarre death at age 57 ended work that, if proved valid, could have ended reliance on fossil fuels. People who knew him say his work drew worldwide attention: mysterious visitors from overseas, government spying and lucrative buyout offers.

Today, Stanley Meyer is featured on numerous Internet sites. A significant portion of the 1995 documentary It Runs on Water, narrated by science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke and aired on the BBC, focuses on his "water fuel cell" invention.

Meyer was born and lived on Columbus' East Side before moving to Grandview Heights, where he finished high school. He briefly attended Ohio State University and joined the military.

"We were always building something," Stephen Meyer recalled of their youth. "We went out and created our toys."

At 6 feet 3 and with a booming voice, Stanley Meyer was charismatic and persuasive, equally conversant with physicists and bricklayers. He was also eccentric. His favorite phrase was "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition," friends said.

He once called Grove City police to his home and laboratory on Broadway to report a suspicious package. The Columbus bomb squad detonated the parcel, only to discover it was equipment that he had ordered.

His focus on water as a fuel began in earnest in 1975, a year after the end of the Arab oil embargo, which had triggered high gas prices, gas-pump lines and anxiety.

"It became imperative that we must try to bring in an alternative fuel source and do it very quickly," Meyer says in the documentary.