Can water be a fuel?

Plain definition

The plain answer: water is what is left after hydrogen burns

When hydrogen burns, it combines with oxygen and makes water. Water is the ash. Its chemical bonds are strong, so energy is needed to break them, and no further chemical energy is left to release.

This is the law of conservation of energy: energy is not created from nothing. A reference summary puts it this way: there is no way to extract chemical energy from water alone that agrees with the laws of physics.

Plain definition

Electrolysis: you can split water, but it costs energy

Electrolysis uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The US Department of Energy describes it this way. The hydrogen can then be burned or used in a fuel cell to give back energy.

But splitting water takes at least as much energy as you get back, and in practice more. As of 2022, commercial electrolysis used about 53 kilowatt-hours of electricity to make one kilogram of hydrogen that holds about 39.4 kilowatt-hours of energy. So hydrogen from water is a way to store energy, not a way to make it.

Plain definition

What water can do in an engine

Water can help an engine without being the fuel. Water injection cools the combustion chamber and can reduce knock. A steam engine uses water as the fluid that carries heat, not as a fuel.

The Embry-Riddle thesis points to this kind of effect. It says a steam thermal regeneration cycle (using exhaust heat to make steam) is a well-established way to recover waste heat, and that water injection has shown benefits in independent research.

Inventor claim

The inventor’s claim: water as an atomic fuel

Malcolm Bendall describes his device as “a proprietary plasmoid-induced and controlled atomic energy release process which allows water to be used as an atomic fuel.” This is his own summary, as quoted by Skeptoid.

In his model, plasmoids are designed to release energy from the hydrogen in water. A 2023 Strike Foundation document by Bendall, as cited in the thesis, is titled “The ‘Thunderstorm Generator’ — Atomic Energy From Water Plasmoid Protium Power.” Protium is ordinary hydrogen. A fuller explanation is in our protium page.

This is a claim from the inventor’s model. It is not accepted physics, and this site does not present it as fact.

Measured

What the test measured

The Embry-Riddle thesis did not show water acting as a fuel. The engines in its tests ran on gasoline, and the fuel measured was the gasoline weighed or timed on each run. The thesis did not test the plasmoid or atomic-energy explanation and says those claims are outside its scope.

What it did find was a modest fuel gain: a 9.67% lower fuel-use rate on a small generator. The thesis ties that gain to heat recovery and water vapor, not to water burning as fuel. It also says the results did not conclusively validate the inventor’s own numbers.

Outside commentary

What outside writers say

Brian Dunning (Skeptoid, 2025) writes that water is not a fuel, because it is in a low-energy state with no extractable chemical energy. He says that in a device like this the engine keeps running on its gasoline, and the extra water vapor passes through it.

Wikipedia’s article on water-fuelled cars says the first law of thermodynamics means the energy needed to split water equals the energy released when the gases recombine (ignoring losses), so a split-and-burn loop cannot make net energy.

Plain definition

A quick check for any water-fuel claim

Ask three things. Where does the energy come from? Was the fuel in measured, with a baseline run for comparison? Could the gain come from heat recovery, water vapor, or a leaner mix?

A claim that answers those with a measurement is worth a look. A claim that answers with a theory alone is still a claim.