[johnmyster]

The "perpetual motion" comments come from the fact that ideally, the splitting of water creates hydrogen. Then, the "burning" of hydrogen creates water. A bunch of stoopids.

I put gas in my tank, and after burning it, the combustion products are water, CO2, etc. The final product is different than the initial product. The oxidative decomposition of hydrocarbons into these lower state molecules releases energy. My engine harvests this energy by capturing the thermal expansion of gasses heated by the process. If you add up the total energy states of all of the products, it is lower than that of the products. (heats of formation, etc., etc.)

I eat hot dogs and I poop something else. The decomposition of the initial product into something else (with a lower energy state) allows my body to harvest the released energy of the decomposition.

Water flows from behind a dam, through a turbine, to a river below. The water moves from a high potential energy state to a low one. The difference between the two states is the maximum amount of energy that can be harvested.

See, the point is that these systems have a lower energy final state. You can only get energy by taking it away from your reactants and producing a lower energy product.

In the HHO system, your starting state is water. You create hydrogen. You pretend that the hydrogen does not recombine with the available hydroxide as soon as it forms. The hydrogen (supposedly) burns, activated by the heat of the combustion process, and releasing energy as it turns back into water. Problem is that the final state is the same as the initial state. Water. No energy can ever be released if the gross reaction has the same products as reactants.

That's the first law of thermodynamics. That's the reason people call this a "perpetual motion" process. If you gave me a tank of hydrogen, then sure, I could run it in my motor to increase mileage. Or, I could use electricity from my house (cheaper than gasoline) to create it, and burn it in my vehicle. IE, the hydrogen economy. However, I cannot use energy from my vehicle to create the hydrogen, and expect to get a return upon burning the hydrogen in the same vehicle.