According to a recent article on the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a businessman and inventor named Mario de Quinqua has offered to help solve the worsening air conditions in the city with a device he invented. Such device reportedly makes use of technology which allows cars to run on water. Accompanying the article is a photo of Baguio City Mayor Mauricio Domogan testing the so-called "water reactor" on a government vehicle.
I say this is pure nonsense. Everything about the inventor and his invention is shady. He reminds me of another quack inventor named Daniel Dingel. Dingel is a Filipino engineer who claimed to have invented a "hydrogen reactor", one that can power a water-fuelled-car. He was of course exposed as nothing but a fraud. He was convicted of estafa and sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison. He was found guilty of taking $410,000 from a foreign investor as research and development funds.
According to the Inquirer article, De Quinqua has "donated his technology to the city government and has piloted his “water reactor” using a vehicle of the city general services office and driven by its chief, Romeo Concio. De Quinqua had promised to design and manufacture another device for the Baguio police. If it is successful, Concio said the city government may outfit the fleet of Baguio vehicles with the device that would cost about P30,000 each."
According to the Inquirer article, De Quinqua has "donated his technology to the city government and has piloted his “water reactor” using a vehicle of the city general services office and driven by its chief, Romeo Concio. De Quinqua had promised to design and manufacture another device for the Baguio police. If it is successful, Concio said the city government may outfit the fleet of Baguio vehicles with the device that would cost about P30,000 each."
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| Domogan testing the "water reactor". Photo by Vincent Cabreza/Inquirer Northern Luzon. |
Are the officials of Baguio City that gullible to take this man seriously? Can they not see the red flags here? Here are the reasons why I'm not buying into this man's so-called invention?
1) Water-fuelled cars are still hypothetical. Claims about cars running on water have been around for decades but it has never been conclusively done. When De Quinqua tested his invention at the City Hall, he configured a car to run on "70 percent gasoline, and 30 percent water". So it's a hybrid. But then again, such devices have never been conclusively tested to be efficient and realistic.
2) De Quinqua says he has invented the device. And that he has invented the technology to make it work. The same technology that he says he donated to the city government. Does he have the papers and documents (patents, etc.) to prove these claims? As you can surmise from this Wikipedia page about water-fuelled cars, there are tons of claimed inventions of devices and technologies related to the matter. It's possible that De Quinqua simply derived his claimed invention from any of these.
3) Why is De Quinqua so secretive about his work? De Quinqua isn't even his real surname. And from the same Inquirer article, he "provided little details about his work, except to stress that he has been working on this invention since the 1960s."
4) The device would cost about Php30,000 apiece. This alone smells fishy all over.
5) If De Quinqua's claims are true, then he would have done what thousands of engineers and scientists from all over the world weren't able to do. I just can't find his claims believable. If he can truly make a car run on water, then he would totally turn the fossil fuel industry upside down. He'll change the world forever. But as we have found out in previous years and decades, water-fueled car claims have been mostly frauds and hoaxes. Daniel Dingel of course comes to mind.
So to the Baguio City officials, you better be using your common sense when dealing with energy claims like these. I'm not saying that De Quinqua is a fraud, his claims are just too good to be true. And City Hall should've put De Quinqua's claims to test via reliable channels like the Department of Science and Technology or other institutions that are knowledgeable about these things. They should've tested the technology and device thoroughly before doing a foolish demonstration at the City Hall grounds in front of the media.
