Stanley Allen Meyer's idea for fueling his dune buggy with water may have been crazy, but the strange occurrences of his life and death will ensure his cult status and inspiration for individualistic inventors and story lovers.
A recent article from the Columbus Dispatch gives a summary of Meyer's research, his claim of a dune buggy that could cross the US on 22 gallons of water, and his mysterious death nine years ago.
Meyer, his twin brother Stephen, and two Belgian investors were celebrating Meyer's creation of a dune buggy that could turn water into hydrogen fuel efficiently enough to power the vehicle in lieu of fossil fuels. It was March 20, 1998, in a Cracker Barrel in Grove City, Ohio. After a sip of cranberry juice, Meyer clutched his throat, ran outside, vomited profusely, and died. According to his brother, his last words were: "They poisoned me."
Stephen was confused at the sudden death of his 56-year-old brother. But when he told the Belgian investors the next day that his brother had died, their complete silence and lack of sympathy aroused his suspicions. Local police investigated the death for three years, but in the end, the coroner's report listed the cause of death as a brain aneurysm.
Meyer's water fuel cellThe idea behind Meyer's innovation is the simple process of electrolysis. By passing an electrical current through water, the bonded hydrogen and oxygen can be separated and burned to power a car engine. Electrolysis has been known since at least the 1800s, and is used today to create a small amount of hydrogen in power plants, to produce certain elements, and to produce the oxygen breathed by astronauts in space.
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