There Are STILL No Free Lunches

As a followup to my article explaining why water is not a fuel, but can seem like it to a layperson in certain applications, I thought I’d showcase two arguments I got into with water car conspiracy guys on Twitter recently. Not because anybody who has spent any significant time on the internet is unfamiliar with this common genre of dude, but because of what their arguments reveal about their mindset, and shortcomings of US public education.

It all started with this seemingly innocuous meme, capturing the essence of conservative attitudes towards EVs. This is to say, poor conservatives. Wealthy conservatives usually know better. Many of them own Teslas, or will now that Elon Musk appears to have joined their ranks. Conservatives at the lower end of the pay scale however are enamored with the idea that leftists are actually the real dummies. That we’re “fake smart” and haven’t thought through our proposed climate solutions. You’ve likely seen “Liberals think electricity simply comes from the wall outlet” more than once.

You may also have seen political cartoons depicting electric cars plugged into coal power plants, though they cannot tell you what percentage of grid power comes from coal, never having checked. They just assume, per a sort of folksy logic, that “it all evens out”, so no improvement to the status quo is possible.

Above, you can see one of her white knights object to fact checkers affirming that the picture was deceptively misrepresented or at least misunderstood, and his insistence that in fact she wasn’t wrong about the contents of the image. In point of fact the company who provides this service can be Googled, and it can be independently confirmed that the trailer is indeed a battery bank, not a diesel generator. The vehicle pulling it is gas powered though, so it is sort of a moot point.

Above, you’ll see the first stop in this crazy train and a typical trajectory for arguments of this type: Wrong conservative assumptions about how much coal is actually on the modern US electrical grid. Some of this effect is because Rupert Murdoch owned media outlets are in the pocket of fossil fuel interests, so their target audience never hears information contrary to the coal and oil industry’s preferred narrative.

There is also a prevailing cynicism in this tribe which assumes the worst of any new alternative to the status quo. That is sort of the fundamental essence of conservatism, so I don’t begrudge it on principle. It’s the primordial purpose of conservatism, or should be anyway; to restrain our enthusiasm, to have us thoroughly explore new solutions for shortcomings that aren’t apparent at the surface so that we don’t mindlessly sally forth into disaster. For example, replacing all bulbs in government buildings with CFLs at great expense to taxpayers a few years before LED bulbs became available. Remember CFLs? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Problem is, they never check whether their cynical assumptions are actually true, because they’re lazy and overly confident in their assumptions. They think “What’s the point of an EV I can’t afford anyway if it just charges from fossil fuels, when cars can already run directly on fossil fuels?” Figuring, cynically and carelessly, that the grid must not only be entirely fossil fueled (or nearly so) but the worst, dirtiest form of fossil fuel.

They only don’t assume like that if they’ve already learned differently, and remember that information. If they don’t know differently, a gap exists in their knowledge of the topic, and they tend to fill gaps with assumptions that serve their politics.

Here’s where it really goes off the rails, though. Water powered cars often come up in alt energy arguments with conservatives. Because they want a cleaner environment too. They are not intentionally wicked, they love nature very much, as they tend to be more outdoorsy people than city dwelling leftists. But they don’t want a cleaner environment if it happens by way of liberal solutions. Priority one is always owning the libs, so we can’t be right about anything. There needs to be a cheaper, superior, non-liberal solution.

Enter alt-energy scams like the permanent magnetic motor, basically just a motor that spins an alternator at a 6 to 1 gear reduction. If it works in their head, they cannot be persuaded it’s not legit. They do not account for the possibility that their understanding of physics is incomplete, and that thought experiments are not a reliable way of testing.

Enter also the water fuel car, a very old and still recurring investment scam appealing to the sort of guy who, again, recognizes the need for cleaner transportation but doesn’t want electric cars because they’re expensive and liberals like them. This partisan resentment requires a solution that is 1. cheap, 2. non-liberal, and 3. based on principles they understand.

That means electrolysis, which is about as far into chemistry as these guys get before dropping out of highschool. A simple electrolysis setup can be built in their garage with $12 worth of stuff from Home Depot, and the principles of chemistry are still confusing enough that they do not understand why they are wrong, so they won’t believe it. Some guys of this type will spend the rest of their lives believing the concept is workable, but they simply built it wrong.

The argument concludes below, where he at last comes to realize that, in fact, he has fundamentally misunderstood what combustion is. Not knowing it isn’t the annihilation of a fuel but a chemical reaction which turns it into byproducts, he at various points asks me very revealing (and to be fair, insightful) questions about how I know all of this, and how I can be so sure.

I can be so sure because of a good education including courses on physics. If you lack that education, then you won’t know the reasons why water cars are not possible. So, someone claiming to know for sure they’re not possible will simply seem pretentious to you, indefensibly certain of something they (from your perspective) cannot actually be sure of.

To put this more simply, if your reasoning goes A->B->C->D and the other guy doesn’t know B or C, then to him, your reasoning appears to have an unjustifiable leap from A to D. That leap isn’t happening in reality, but seems to be from the POV of someone who is unaware of gaps in their knowledge, or who assumes gaps in their own knowledge are in fact things nobody knows. Or even perhaps that they are fundamentally unknowable in principle.

I don’t intend any of this as mockery, though I admit it’s frustrating that instead of simply asking me questions to learn more about the topic, he framed them as challenges to a stubborn/wily opponent. Perhaps that helped him learn new things while avoiding ego injury. I am also self aware enough to know that this information is not common knowledge, though it should be, and can seem to be if you were raised by an engineer.

Realistically most people don’t need to understand these concepts in order to make productive contributions to this country. To work in a factory, to drive a delivery truck, to operate a modern industrial farm and so on. Decent honorable important work requiring only specialized knowledge of what that job entails. The reason I still feel propagating this knowledge is important is because, as explained earlier, these misconceptions about alt-energy impede political support for electric vehicles and solar energy.

Here’s the fellow’s Twitter profile. I beg you not to harass him, my only observation I’d like to make by sharing it is that he’s a Christian, which factors heavily into this topic. Christians are, without their foreknowledge, deliberately stunted in their intellectual growth. They are never taught by the church to critically evaluate the credibility of claims. They are never taught how to investigate information from a perspective which is conscious of potential bias.

This is for the simple reason that these are precisely the skills that would lead them to think their way out of the church. The church is hardly going to intentionally equip children with the tools they need to cut through their own mental chains and leave the fold. Often they do the opposite, teaching against critical thinking, which purportedly makes us Satan’s slaves. Sabotaging the ability of still-developing child brains to sort fact from fiction, and to reliably arrive at true conclusions more often than not.

I raise the religion issue also because the second interesting fellow featured herein is also a Christian, albeit of a more esoteric, conspiracy focused variety. People like this are great fun to talk to as their beliefs are very entertaining, I think because if you grow up assuming accurate discernment of truth is impossible, you are then free to believe whatever sounds coolest. And you’re liable to assume that’s what everybody else also does, whether or not they admit to it.

Here you once again see the confidently wrong Christian in his natural habitat, the comments section, compensating for feelings of economic or educational inadequacy by proclaiming misinformation loudly and proudly as hidden truths only he is wise enough to know about. A big part of the appeal of conspiracy theories is that they let simple people feel intelligent without having to understand anything difficult, simply by virtue of believing that the conspiracy claim is hidden/off-limits information known only to the enlightened few.

Internet Argument 101: Refer to anybody, even adults nearing 40 as “kid” if you’re even marginally older as posturing establishes simian dominance and thus makes you correct. Since as we all know, argumentation is a contest of egos, not dialectic pursuant to improved mutual understanding. “Learn how to research” is also a rich joke, considering that what he means by research is a Youtube conspiracy video.

Below, I attempt to cause him to revisit his own thought experiment. Pointing out that if water is the fuel, but also the exhaust, then logically you should be able to redirect exhaust vapor back into the “fuel” tank where it will re-condense into liquid water and is then ready to be reused indefinitely. Which of course violates the law of conservation.

I have discovered this is the one approach which sometimes changes their mind. Because they are socialized by the church not to trust smart people, that a smart person with different politics is “fake smart”. Assuming that nobody can reliably discern truth from falsehood just because they personally can’t, and they assume this limitation is universal. So, they only trust conclusions they arrive at themselves, which make sense according to their own reasoning.

If you can make water powered cars or perpetual magnetic motors stop working in their head, you may change their mind. That didn’t happen here as you see above. Sometimes they just dig in their heels. Their ego takes the reigns as it becomes a simian chest thumping contest with their manhood at stake.

As an autist I have no theory of mind so I can only speculate about their motivation, but it seems possible this regression into shit flinging happens because I have illuminated for them problems with their reasoning they were unaware of until that moment, and the insults are sort of cover fire for their retreat. I may be wrong about this of course.

What these examples highlight to me, as someone who has seen countless dudes from this genre popping up in comments sections asking why no smarty pants librul scientists thought to simply attach an always-on alternator to the wheels of an electric car so it can charge itself while it drives:

…is that there exist catastrophic deficits in US public education where critical thinking and basic principles of physics are concerned. As I confessed already this may seem trivial next to topics like personal finance, how to do taxes and other daily life skills, but American physics illiteracy is provably driving partisan opposition to real, workable alternative energy solutions.

Water cars and perpetual motion generators are fool’s gold, which I speculate are signal boosted by social media algorithms precisely because they distract from and sap support away from solar and other renewables, as well as diminishing support for the electrification of transport. They do this by selling the fantasy that cheaper alternatives exist with zero downsides, but that the government holds them back from us.

You often see this sentiment in the comments of videos about “free energy devices”, the modern form of the venerable perpetual motion machine investment scam dating back to the 1800s. These guys often insist the reason these devices aren’t in common use is because the government kills anybody who tries to sell them. It makes for a cool story and probably is mind blowing to simpletons already inclined to mistrust a government which refuses to teach flat earth or creationism in public schools.

And yet, somehow we’re permitted to own solar panels and home batteries, even though a solar roof paired with a power wall does exactly what free energy devices are supposed to: Provide functionally limitless energy with no fuel cost. Only this approach actually works, as the system receives a constant influx of outside energy in the form of sunshine.

Likewise, somehow we’re being sold electric cars which can charge for free from rooftop solar panels, as mine does, and the government doesn’t send anybody to kill us for it. What gives? They have no answer for this except to insist that home solar and EVs are too expensive on purpose and that a water fueled car / free energy device for home power is superior because it works on cloudy days and is dirt cheap to build. Compelling arguments to someone who drives a semi truck or forklift for a living, for whom solar panels and EVs may as well not exist given how financially out of reach they are.

This is why they often “allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good”. Or more precisely, prefer a quixotic, unworkable pipe dream to an inferior but workable solution because they’re enamored with how great the fantasy device would be if it actually did work as described. Discontent with shades of grey, or incremental improvements, they pick at nits like lithium sourcing and a not yet clean grid as show stoppers for electric cars, even though the math proves they’re cleaner overall and dramatically more efficient in their use of energy, regardless of its source.

I would compare this “distract and divert” strategy to the “medbed” conspiracy theory which also serves as a tantalizing mirage, a blind alley oligarchs can divert sickly, desperate Americans down, so that they will not agitate for affordable single payer healthcare. If you can convince them a totally perfect alternative exists with zero downsides that will be free of cost, and that it’s merely being concealed by the government, it serves a twofold purpose.

The first, as explored already, is to string them along in a state of suspended hope during which time they won’t push for solutions that require tax increases for billionaires, because they’re chasing after illusions. The second purpose is to further villainize the government, enemy to billionaire industrial tycoons not fond of paying taxes in support of public health.

The sitting government is also the enemy of Americans desiring that their race or religion be officially privileged above all others, and for this reason, people of that persuasion are the most prolific promulgators of anti-government conspiracy theories.

In antiquity, kings often targeted seers for assassination. This is because their prophecies often involved the downfall of said kings. Prophecies of a political nature were essentially just strategic story telling, painting a picture of a better world what would become possible under new leadership. A picture beautiful enough to persuade the masses to unite against the current power structure.

The modern equivalent of this is Qanon, but I digress. That’s a big topic best saved for a future article. The first takeaway from this one should be that physics and critical thinking literacy are in fact essential to America’s energy future, without which uninformed voters will push back against vital technologies because they were promised non-existent superior alternatives by charlatans.

The second takeaway is that there exist recognizable trends in the mindsets of people whose discernment was intentionally stunted by a church which did not want them to reason their way out of it, and identifying situations where this mindset is causing barriers to understanding and supporting clean energy allows us to specialize our persuasion approach for this sort of person.

People from this tribe recoil from complexity and nuance. They’re attracted to simple, absolute explanations with no exceptions. This generally doesn’t exist in day to day life, but it does in the world of physics. It can be made to appeal to them by providing them with the intellectual anchor they seek. Absolute principles with no, or few, exceptions.

For example, TANSTAAFL, or “There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch”, Robert Heinlein’s paraphrasing of the law of conservation. More simply put, physics is a casino where you can never win, nor can you break even. Nobody comes out with more cash (energy) than they went in with, and if they tell you they did, they’re a liar about to solicit investment capital from you.

As a parting note, I think a component of the solution is simply better marketing. That’s much more reachable in the near term than an across the board improvement to US education. Oil companies have done an impressive job making electric cars and solar panels seem unmanly because they’re clean and quiet, and manliness is a primary concern of overweight balding white Christian Americans with goatees, wearing punisher T-shirts and oakleys, driving gigantic trucks with bumper stickers advertising their alpha male status.

You know what’s manly? Power. Electric sports cars routinely smoke gas ones. Electric trucks on the market now tow as much as, or more than, gas equivalents. You know what’s manly? Efficiency, and simplicity. Electric trucks in particular should be an easy sell to the thin blue line bumper sticker crowd, because they’re powerful, efficient and simple.

There’s a beautiful purity in that, and potentially a strong appeal to people wanting life to be simpler. What is simpler or more elegant than solar panels on your roof putting power made from sunlight into your house batteries? What’s simpler than a drivetrain consisting of charger, battery, BMS and motor controller? If you can find some way to “own the libs” in your ads, all the better.