Fill ’Er Up With That Garden Hose
Tapping water to make hydrogen to double mileage in any old car
 Timothy Small Photos
|
(8/28/2008) The windows were open, the top was down, and the sun was shining. Tony Ruiz was taking his four-door 2008 Jeep Wrangler X Unlimited for a ride through Springs. The engine was strangely quiet.
Mr. Ruiz paid close attention to four numbers that flashed every three seconds on a monitor set above his dashboard. The numbers were direct readings from his car’s computer.
“Accelerating, I’m in the 20s,” he said to a passenger. “As the hydrogen warms up, it will get better and better. . . . At 24 miles to the gallon, I’m doubling. . . . Now I’m in the 30s. Now I’m in the 40s . . . 33.7 going uphill . . . 36 uphill . . . 42 miles to the gallon, uphill, at the speed limit . . . 46 . . . 47.”
That’s 47 miles to the gallon at a slight incline near Parsons Place and Springs- Fireplace Road, traveling at 40 miles per hour, at around 2 p.m. on Tuesday.
According to Chrysler, Mr. Ruiz’s Jeep gets 15 miles per gallon around town and 19 on the highway, although his driving style had yielded an average of 12 around town and 17 on the highway. So how was he able to more than double his car’s fuel efficiency?
His car was running partially on gasoline and partially on water. Before he left, Mr. Ruiz poured a bottle of Poland Spring into a seven-inch Env-E para-hydrogen hybrid retrofit generator. The generator, installed near the car’s engine, breaks that water into hydrogen and oxygen, or para-hydrogen, and then ports that mixture directly to the combustion chamber, where it replaces a part of the air that is brought in through the air intake.
“So the very air in your engine is combustible,” Mr. Ruiz said. “Therefore, you need less gasoline to get the same amount of power.”
The Env-E system (which stands for environmentally enhanced) is a product of Mr. Ruiz’s company, Simple Energy Solutions, which is based in Sag Harbor. He has partners: Ted and Fran Schiavoni of G.F. Schiavoni Plumbing and Heating, and James Swinkin. Simple Energy Solutions manufactures alternative energy products, such as Env-E, and FUL Formula C, a fuel additive that increases mileage per gallon by 14 to 32 percent. The additive is sold in more than 100 stores on Long Island.
Mr. Ruiz, who is 41 and lives in Sag Harbor, first developed the Env-E system with his partners about three years ago. “It started out with experiments,” Mr. Ruiz said. “We were saying, ‘Let’s see what we can do with hydrogen.’ Then we came out with the first generation. I had it on my ‘89 Jeep, and my lawnmower, and I was like, ‘Wow, this really works, but I think it could work better.’ “
The first generation had a lot fewer controls and no safety features, he said; “it was bare bones.” It did increase the car’s peppiness (because hydrogen has more power than gasoline), reduce emissions by 50 to 60 percent, and increase fuel efficiency by 20 to 35 percent, at least on the small number of vehicles that were tested. However, it had a high instance of failure.
Fast-forward to today. “It’s a much different looking unit,” Mr. Ruiz said. “It’s much more rugged. It’s got more safety features, a better control system, and it’s much easier to install and maintain. This system is ready for you to have in your car.”
“There have been various systems that take hydrogen from water since the early 1800s,” he said. “What we’re doing that is new is taking electrolysis and putting it under the hood of every car.”
In terms of miles per gallon, “on that entire trip around town, I did better than 100 percent of what Chrysler says that Jeep gets on the highway. We were in the 30s and 40s for most of that trip, and some of those were high 40s.” Mr. Ruiz won’t guarantee that the generation 3.0 Env-E will produce a 100-percent increase in fuel efficiency all the time, but said he consistently sees at least an 80-percent increase.
In addition to turning “$4.13 gas into $2.07 gas,” the Env-E has two other major benefits. It is believed to reduce emissions by 40 to 70 percent — depending on the vehicle, on what kind of gas is used, where and when that gas is purchased, and how the car is being driven — and it improves performance.
Because para-hydrogen is not stored — it is produced on demand through water — there are no known safety issues with the system, Mr. Ruiz said. “First of all, hydrogen dissipates almost instantly. As we are making it, it is being used. I would much rather be around a gallon of hydrogen than a gallon of gas.”
 Tony Ruiz, an owner of Simple Alternative Solutions in Sag Harbor, poured water into an Env-E para-hydrogen hybrid retrofit generator, which allows a car to run partially on gasoline and partially on para-hydrogen.
|
The water tank on Mr. Ruiz’s Jeep holds about half a gallon of water, and each system can be tweaked to use more or less para-hydrogen. “Every morning, before I leave, I fill my water tank,” he said. “I just do it right with my garden hose,” though distilled water is recommended. Most cars can be set so that they are using half-gasoline, half-water.
“The system does not harm any part of a car’s engine,” Mr. Ruiz added. “Having it installed does not affect a car’s warrantee.”
There are three kinds of people to whom the Env-E appeals, Mr. Ruiz said. “The motor-heads like it because they get power and their cars last longer — it cleans the engine. They love that. It’s great.”
“Then you have the mom and dad who are like, ‘I’m so happy I’m saving money on gas.’ ”
“Then you have the green guys who are saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m reducing my emissions by 40 to 70 percent. That’s sick.’ ”
Mr. Ruiz and his partners put the development of the Env-E on hold for a year or two to work on FUL Formula C. They returned their focus to the para-hydrogen generator more recently, and three months ago were ready to look for a shop that could install their product.
Mr. Ruiz had installed the system in the entire fleet of vehicles of the McMaster Brothers tree service in East Hampton. “Then, Bruce McMaster wanted me to install the Env-E in his Jeep, but there was one part I didn’t have with me that day, so I said, ‘I’ll just come back.’ He says, ‘No, I’ll just have it made. I know a guy who has a shop right around the corner.’ ”
The shop was Fireplace Auto in East Hampton. And to Mr. Ruiz’s surprise, the piece was a perfect fit. What was an even bigger surprise was who had made the piece: Dave Wisner, who owns the shop along with Steve Obraitis. Mr. Wisner’s father, Ken Wisner, was Mr. Ruiz’s mentor when he worked as an Imagineer for the Walt Disney Corporation.
“It was a pure coincidence,” he said. “Dave made the part so well that I took the heel of my hand, and pushed it [the generator], and it fit perfectly.”
Mr. Wisner and Mr. Obraitis are now the authorized installers of the Env-E. They can do so in three or four hours in any car, gas or diesel. About 100 have been installed worldwide, although not by them.
“I was just as blown away as you are when I first saw this,” Mr. Obraitis said, standing in front of a para-hydrogen hybrid Range Rover.
What makes the Env-E unique compared to other para-hydrogen systems is that it is a retrofit, meaning it can be installed into any car. “What this is doing is taking the 270 million cars in America that are on the road right now, and turning them into hybrids,” Mr. Ruiz said.
Electric hybrids are the wave of the future, but “people aren’t going to put those 270 million cars in a landfill,” he said. “I love the idea of a Prius. I’m an environmentalist. I’m a scientist. I love that idea. However, I don’t like the Prius.”
“This gives you an option. Typically, a hybrid version of a car is $8,000 to $10,000 more than the nonhybrid version. For a couple of grand or less, you can do it with any car.”
To have the Env-E system installed costs anywhere from $1,200 to $1,800, Mr. Obraitis said. “We could charge a lot more as manufacturers,” Mr. Ruiz said, “but we want this in every car. We live on an island. I want my kids to not have to wear water wings to get to school. I don’t know if global warming is true or not, but I don’t want to find out.”
Mr. Ruiz was thinking about environmental projects long before he had children. He spent part of his childhood on an organic plantation in the Bahamas with no electricity or running water.
“And in certain ways, they were so much more advanced there than we are here,” he said. “Their gardens looked better, they were happier, they worked less hours a week, and they weren’t polluting.”
“My whole take on it was: How do you live the lifestyle that we want today with all the benefits of the organic life? And the answer is through efficient use of technology, and not technology for technology’s sake. Just because you can make a fish glow does not mean you should.”
Mr. Ruiz and his partners were invited to participate in a fuel-efficiency challenge at a Specialty Equipment Market Association show in Las Vegas in November. It is the largest automotive specialty equipment trade show in the world. As part of the challenge, a seven-inch Env-E system will be tested on a Dodge Charger, and the results will be presented at the show.
The next generation will not need a catalyst, as the current one does, which occasionally requires the addition of an electrolyte to water.
The ultimate goal is to power a car on straight para-hydrogen, Mr. Ruiz said. “Ideally, it would need no gasoline.”