Tata invests $15 million to turn water into fuel

Chairman of Tata Motors, Ratan Tata has reportedly invested $15 million on a research project, which aims at assessing the feasibility of water as fuel.

An unnamed professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts, Boston has reportedly stated that he can split water directly into its components, hydrogen and oxygen. If this is true then water will have no problem in running our cars in the near future.

Tata has given $15 million to fund the research being conducted by MIT professor Daniel Nocera on using water as auto fuel. The project involves generating hydrogen by splitting water and storing it in a safe can to drive an automobile, scientist C.N.R. Rao was quoted as saying by the aforementioned source.

As it is Tata's dream to run his cars on water ultimately, he is funding the project so that he will have control on the innovative technology. He will also be associated with the start-up to develop the prototype, which will have a catalyst to warm up the water and create hydrogen as a fuel.

Just like in Nano's case, the goal of the project is to develop an affordable solution that would be able to replace fuel completely and thus provide cheaper maintenance costs than any other vehicle currently on the market.

The challenge is to develop an eco-friendly and efficient energy at low-cost as an alternative to depleting fossil fuels. Water and hydrogen as an alternative source of energy can help us in reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, Rao concluded.

While several people have attempted water-powered cars in the past, those attempts haven't found mainstream acceptance because it takes more energy to release hydrogen from water than the hydrogen that is eventually released.

Critics also say that filling a gas tank with water diminishes the potential fuel economy of the car, because of the added weight being dragged around. But given that water is easily available and doesn't produce any CO2 emissions - we're in full support of more research into using it as an alternative fuel source.