Erin Brockovich to show off emissions reducing magnets at SEMA
Famed environmental bulldog Erin Brockovich who also acts as vice president of environmental affairs at Save the World Air Inc. (STWA) will be showing off two of the company's emissions reducing and fuel saving product lines at this year's Specialty Equipment Market Association(SEMA) show.According to STWA's website, ECOChargR and MAGChargR both use STWA's Zero Emission Fuel Saver (ZEFS) technology which incorporates magnets to bring a molecular change in gasoline or diesel before combustion, facilitating a change in viscosity and surface tension. Using ZEFS, the engine is capable of producing a more efficient burn significantly lowering the emissions of HC, NOx and CO. The ECOChargR is designed to reduce harmful emissions while the MAGChargR maximizes fuel savings and performance when using ZEFS.
I hadn't heard of using magnets to reduce hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide until I read this press release, but apparently there's something to it. STWA claims that in certified laboratory testing, ZEFS has reduced air pollution by as much as 85 percent; improved power by 19 percent; and enhanced fuel efficiency up to 33 percent.
So far, STWA has received orders from Motorcycle Products Consulting Inc. and Golden Allied Enterprise Group, its exclusive distributor in China.
[Source: Save The World Air Inc. via Yahoo News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike 1:00PM (2/05/2008)
I hadn't heard of using magnets to reduce hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide until I read this press release, but apparently there's something to it.
Oh, c'mon, please don't tell me you believe this crap. "Magic magnets" is one of the oldest snake oil junk tricks in the book. Two-bit hucksters have been selling this kind of nonsense out of the JC Whitney catalog since (probably) before you (or I) were born.
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Mike 3:36PM (3/19/2009)
If magnets improved fuel economy on today's cars we would never see the results anyway. Most people don't realize the ECU of modern cars is factory set to give consistent fuel economy no matter what is done to pretreat or facilitate the burn of the fuel. This is why fuel economy products that work to more completely vaporize the burn of the fuel rarely show results even though many actually could work.
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LJ 12:41PM (4/04/2009)
Probably in cars, it may be difficult to test the fuel economy, but variuous test carried out on generators in Africa have proved that fuel Saver works.
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Jimmy 11:43AM (9/11/2006)
Both the EPA and Mythbusters (Episode 53) have tested fuel line magnets for fuel economy and found they do nothing. I will remain highly skeptical about anything claiming magic with magnets. Esp. when their press release mentions un-named "independent sources".
EPA "Gas-Saving" Products:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/autos/gasave.htm
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joefriday 12:21PM (9/11/2006)
I agree with Jimmy.
You are doing your readers a disservice by putting this kind of material in the blog without pointing out the research done on these sorts of things in the past. Erin may have done well in some areas but this is not one of them!
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Ian 1:23PM (9/11/2006)
It is sad to see Erin pimping snake oil. Someone send her a copy of the Mytbusters segment.
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gregger 3:20PM (9/11/2006)
Yeah, this theory has been around since at least World War II. Farmers and airforce mechanics put big cattle magnets on fuel lines of everything from tractors to fighter planes to get every last ounce of energy out of the fuel.
Most of the research shows that magnets, the cyclone vortex "air straighteners" and fuel additives do little good for your emissions or mileage.
I also think that E85 might do more harm than good... sure, you get better emissions, but you have to burn more fuel to go the same distance. Plus, is E85 the best use of farmland?
Speaking of free lunch, I wonder how these guys are getting along with their perpetual motion technology:
http://www.steorn.net/frontpage/default.aspx
TTFN
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Marc 5:43PM (9/11/2006)
One of the manufacturers of a fuel-line magnet submitted its "technology" to the EPA's Environmental Technology Verification program for testing (www.epa.gov/etv). The tests were performed at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, which is one of the finest heavy-duty engine test laboratories in the world.
Here are two quotations from the report:
"The Universal Fuel Cell is a high-density magnet with a field strength of at least 1000 gauss. The strength of the tested device ranged from 1,300 to 1,600 gauss (see Section 3.5). Fuel lines were fabricated by SwRI and approved by CCFT to mount the fuel cells along the fuel line after the engine’s secondary fuel filter and before the fuel injector gallery." (page 2)
"The emissions reductions for CO and NOx could not be distinguished from zero with 95% confidence for either the degreened or aged device. HC emissions could not be distinguished from zero with 95% confidence for the degreened device, but showed a small increase during the test of the aged device compared to baseline emissions. The PM emissions for both devices showed a small increase during the controlled tests compared to baseline emissions. However, it was noted that if the 95% confidence limits are calculated using only the hot-start data, but the same statistical procedures, the controlled emissions could not be distinguished from zero for any pollutant or device type. This alternate view of the data should be considered when using the results of this verification." (page 11)
Note that the manufacturer filed a comment after the report was released, complaining that the engine used at SWRI was malfunctioning. The comment is in the PDF linked to below.
Reference:
PDF report: http://www.epa.gov/etv/pdfs/vrvs/600etv06030/600etv06030.pdf
EPA's table of ETV Mobile Sources Devices: http://www.epa.gov/etv/verifications/vcenter5-5.html
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Guenther 8:55AM (9/12/2006)
Hold on one minute while I pick myself up, stop laughing, and collect myself....
....Ok I'm better now.
Marc- Nice work digging up the SWR report. I work for a major supplier in the emissions industry and would second that they are definitely one of the top labs in the field, especially when it comes to independnt testing.
to further illustrate the point, take a logical moment: If it were so simple as to outsource a relatively in-expensive component to ad to a vehicle, thereby improving emissions and fuel economy, the Manufacturers would do so, rather than investing Billions on R&D to meet the next upcoming guidelines. While there are some bits that CAN benefit fuel economy, none available to the consumer will improve emissions on new(ish) vehicles. And anything that improves economy will have certain trade-offs of be prohibitively expensive for a typical consumer.
GW
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steve 6:02PM (9/12/2006)
Someone felt the ned to mention e85, and emissions. Well e85 is in fact better for the environment as far as co emissions are concerned. 85% of the fuel is carbon neutral, the carbon came from a plant and will go back to a plant. for your emissions to be significantly worse your fuel economy weould have to 15%of what you would get running conventional gasoline.
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Eric 3:45PM (9/12/2006)
I seem to recall Popular Mechanics doing their own investigation into these types of devices as well and debunking all of them.
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ReNnIpSgib 9:59PM (10/20/2006)
Did myth busters test STWA products specificaly? It may have been attempted many times resulting in failure. But that doesnt mean that STWA has a bad product. You can put together cheese and macaroni but not make good macaroni and cheese. Understand?
STWAs products have passed some of the most vigorous testing thrown at them with flying colors. Please do more research before making such uneducated comments.
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Paul 10:26PM (1/22/2007)
After examining the numbers at the Save The World Air website here's what I found. There were three tests performed in Thailand, China, and Hong Kong.
The Thailand test had one of their devices tested with a Suzuki motorcycle on a dynamometer once without the device and again with the device. There were no drive cycles per Euro 3 specifications and no concluding baseline test. Without a complete A-B-A test it's impossible to determine whether the improvement is from the device or other factors. It's also important to note that the CO2 decreased from the first test to the second test by 8% while the fuel consumption improved by 24%. Fuel consumption improvements are directly proportional to CO2 emissions, so these two numbers should have been the same.
The Shanghai test consisted of two measurements of the device installed in a Chinese JL-125 motorcycle. No baseline tests were conducted. Without baseline tests it is impossible to determine if any improvements occurred at all, let alone if the device is even doing anything.
The Hong Kong test was the most extensive and consisted of 2 baselines with 7 tests of various configurations with two of STWA's products. The measurements between the two baseline test varied as much as 25%. The test that STWA used to promote the emissions improvements was performed twice. Depending on which test result and baseline test was compared, the device could have been shown to increase or decrease emissions. Guess which combination was chosen.
It doesn't look too promising for this magnet.
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CM 8:52PM (1/23/2007)
Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
Erin Brockovitch now shilling for a two bit scam operation. Oh, the shame!
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