Stanley Meyer (Stanley Allen Meyer) was born August 24, 1940, and was one of two twin boys. His twin brother is Stephen Meyer. He briefly attended Ohio State University and joined the military. "We were always building something," Stephen Meyer recalled of their youth. "We went out and created our toys." His focus on water as fuel began in 1975, a year after the end of the Arab oil embargo, which had triggered high gas prices, gas-pump lines and anxiety. "It became imperative that we must try to bring in an alternative fuel source and do it very quickly," Meyer says in his documentary. This led to Meyer developing what he patented as the "water fuel cell". Meyer claimed that an automobile retrofitted with the device could use water as fuel instead of gasoline. The water fuel cell purportedly split water into its component elements, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen was then burned to generate energy, a process that reconstituted the water molecules. According to Meyer, the device required less energy to perform electrolysis than the minimum energy requirement predicted or measured by conventional science. Eye-witness accounts suggest that US inventor Stanley Meyer had developed an electric cell which split ordinary tap water into hydrogen and oxygen with far less energy than that required by a normal electrolytic cell. Meyer made a demonstration before Professor Michael Laughton, Dean of Engineering at Mary College, London, Admiral Sir Anthony Griffin, a former controller of the British Navy, and Dr Keith Hindley, a UK research chemist. They all agreed that Meyer's cell, developed at the inventor's home in Grove City Ohio, produced far more hydrogen/oxygen mixture than could have been expected by simple electrolysis. Stanley Meyer claimed that his invention could do what physicists say is impossible -- turn water into hydrogen fuel efficiently enough to drive his dune buggy cross-country on 20 gallons straight from the tap.
Since the advent of the automobile, manufacturers have designed different engines to limit the environmental impact posed by the millions of pounds of carbon emissions cars generate annually. Among these are ethanol, natural gas, electricity, and even propane. But perhaps the least-known of these is the car that was said to run on water. And that may be because its inventor, Stanley Meyer, was murdered shortly after he patented his breakthrough.
Meyer’s invention promised a revolution in the automotive industry. It worked through an electric water fuel cell, which divided any kind of water — including salt water — into its fundamental elements of hydrogen and oxygen, by utilizing a process far simpler than the electrolysis method.
Despite skepticism about the legitimacy of a car that runs on water, Meyer was able to patent his invention under Section 101 of the Subject Matter Eligibility Index, meaning he proved to a patent review board that his invention worked reliably.
Meyer’s water-powered engine was the result of 20 years of research and dedication, and he claimed it was capable of converting tap water into enough hydrogen fuel to drive his car from one end of the country to the other. His invention was mind-boggling and promised a future of non-polluting vehicles that could be refueled with a garden hose.