EPA Jons HHO Detractors On NBC's Flawed 'Dateline' Show

Debunking Dennis Lee
- and NBC's Dateline!
April 6, 2009 - The EPA has weighed in on Dateline NBC's report on Dennis Lee's Hydrogen Assist Fuel Cell, giving a statement to the show that is rather coy, since the EPA hasn't tested any onboard hydrogen generators since 1991, when the technology was in its infancy. In fact, I couldn't find any hydrogen kits tested in a 20-minute search of the database (there must have been some). And the EPA didn't test anything at all from 1999 to 2005, when it tested two magnets (which reduced fuel efficiency by 1 MPG).

Here's the statement:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency oversees a program to evaluate aftermarket devices and fuel additives for cars and light duty trucks that are intended to improve fuel economy or reduce emissions. A manufacturer may contact us if they wish to participate in this voluntary program. EPA has tested a number of these aftermarket devices over the years. And, to date, have found they generally do not work. EPA has does have proven tips to help motorists improve their fuel economy.
While no one can trust a news organization that has recently run more than 400 ads for ExxonMobil's "onboard hydrogen generator" (used to reform gasoline instead of water) to fairly discuss onboard hydrogen generators created by others, it did show the enormous gall and greed of Dennis Lee's Dutchman Enterprises, Inc., and did make the point that "a hydrogen-powered car is a legitimate dream" - which will be news to GM, which produces one.
One user of Lee's device who appeared in Dateline, Nir Kronenberg of Queens, N.Y., suggested that problem was with Lee's kit, not HHO generators in general. "These devices - I've seen them work before, not this one, but there's another device that my friend Dana has been using for a long time. And most of it seems plausible to me, the whole theory of it," he said.

There are a lot of other questions about the Dateline show, including what kind of EFIE was used, since there are vast differences between them today. Some need dual EFIEs, and a few newer cars need wideband EFIE's for multiple O2 and other sensors. In one segment, Leo Brancato, a science teacher, "It may have worked for a little while, but the computer overrides it in my car, so I never got a sustained 45 miles-plus in my car... They've got a lot of work to do on the electronics... ."

What shocked us the most was the $300,000 Dennis Lee apparently charged distributors for rights to sell the HAFC kits. I couldn't tell from the segment whether the tape they showed of him promising 50% mileage gains was from this decade or the last - it looked ancient, and so did his clothing - since they were undated, but the show said they taped the part about his $300,000 buy-in on Sept. 13, 2008.

But the real problem is not just with Dateline NBC's reporting, since they may not have known any better, but with Lee's claims, which are fanciful at best. We know of no other developer of onboard hydrogen generators except ExxonMobil makes claims of that kind - an 80% improvement - for their technology on MSNBC, CNBC and other cable shows - the norm is 20% to 40%. During the show, Lee called Hansen "a lackey for oil companies," a charge Hansen called "outrageous."

Dateline NBC is unlikely to expose ExxonMobil, its advertiser, but they could have at least looked at some modern kits, not from a convicted felon like Dennis Lee, and used an expert other than Mike Allen of Popular Mechanics, who has railed against this industry for years and couldn't be fair if he tried. Popular Mechanics, of course, is the magazine that introduced the AirCar to America, and told us on Feb. 22, 2009, that "Company officials want to make the first air-powered car to hit U.S. roads a $17,800, 75-hp equivalent, six-seat modified version of MDI’s CityCAT (pictured above) that, thanks to an even more radical engine, is said to travel as far as 1000 miles at up to 96 mph with each tiny fill-up." Sure.

One of Lee's victims, Dr. Michelle Hemingway, got thoroughly ripped off, paying $2,000 for an installation by her own mechanic - the standard installation rate is $150 or less!

Eric Krieg, the skeptical electrical engineer featured on the show, has corresponded with us and renewed his offer yesterday to pay $10,000 to anyone who can show substantial improvements in mileage using hydrogen kits. But does he have $10,000 in a trust account to make that claim? Krieg says he is the person who caused the show to run: "I got the Dateline show to air - I've gotten a number of newspaper articles run on free energy scams. If I believed H2 boost really worked, I would gladly get attention for that. I have had many people in the last 5 years tell me they would show me some kind of H2 mileage boost - they never come through and always have excuses. Could you help me find someone getting at least a 25% boost in the Greater Philadelphia area? If I find it to work, I will get you good media so the world can know it works and start taking advantage of it in a big way. Or I can keep on exposing the scams," he said in a note to us yesterday. His Website had not been updated on the topic for more than 8 years when he began producing new material from the Lee case, but he seems more poorly informed than deliberately malicious.

Even Dr. Bob Park, 85, a James Cromwell-look-alike described as an author and physics professor - he's a research professor who doesn't teach - from the University of Maryland, is quoted out of context talking about "conservation of energy" with respect to Lee's claims about perpetual motion machines, not hydrogen kits. According to the UM Website, Park's last notable publication was "Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud," in 2000.

Dr. Park makes a living debunking claims like the divinity of Jesus and the value of acupuncture, and called Lee "a swindler from the start," which is probably true. Park spent 5 years, he said, trying to get two states to prosecute Lee - so he's obviously objective.

But Dr. Park was very wary of Chris Hansen's efforts to get him to say that hydrogen generators don't work, which is something that other physics professors would dispute, and Park never said they didn't.

In his April 3 column "What's New,", however, he intimates in an item titled "BS ABOUT BMS - IS NORTH KOREA FUELING A BALLISTIC MISSILE?" that North Korea isn't building a ballistic missile. "They're sure trying to make people think they are. They do this every so often to wring concessions out of the West," he writes. The launch on April 4 may have changed his mind.

But it's clear that if hydrogen can send the Space Shuttle into orbit, as it does regularly, it can and does propel a car, whether as an additive or with pure hydrogen. The question the show raises indirectly, by saying the kits "don't produce enough hydrogen to make a difference," is what volume of hydrogen will make a difference? Bob Boyce's kit, known only as "The Cell," displayed at the HHO Games & Exposition in Bradenton, Fla., last Feb. 7-9, produced 21 liters per minute. It looked like Lee's kit was very small, and likely produced a half-liter or less.

And why are so many trucking fleets - unhampered by O2, MAF and MAP sensors and other mileage-limiting devices - now installing them, as demonstrated in DieselPower magazine's February cover story on the topic?

Dateline NBC, the son of General Electric with its vast array of nuclear and electric devices, funded in part by ExxonMobil's ads, was not interested in the truth, as Dennis Lee said. Unfortunately, neither was he. We'll be interested in the next installment of his court battle with the FTC, which the agency said will continue.

Meanwhile, we fell sorry that Chris Hansen, whom we admire for his "To Catch a Predator" work, was the patsy in this set-up-knock-down journalistic disgrace. He keeps asking Mike Allen, what did we get for our $1,900?" "Taken," says Allen. Kits sold at HHO Express are priced from $150 to $425, but IHHOI Foundation secretary Dr. Tim Finfrock and his partner Jerry Watkins get $10,000 for some of their kits, Watkins told us. Dateline got off cheap.

You can see a video presentation of this Update on Ustream.com or HHO-INFO.org, as well as YouTube