Anyone who actually developed a radically new way of creating energy, especially if it's something where they can build a prototype themselves, will be utterly unsuppressable. The excuses we are constantly fed by these inventors make no sense.

Hypothetically, assume I actually came up with a real way to power a car on pure water using normal mechanical and chemical elements (not something like antimatter or crystallized hydrogen). I build a cheap prototype, and it works. So far, I'm exactly where all these inventors claim to be. All of them claim to have a working model, don't they?

This is what would happen:

I could try to get a patent. Maybe I'd succeed. Maybe I wouldn't. If not, or if I don't want to wait for the process, I go to the next step.

I would invite every damn scientist I could find to look at the thing, and if possible, make more prototypes for them to carry away with them. Someone with a real discovery isn't shy about showing it off to experts, and doesn't come up with a lot of silly excuses to avoid detailed examination.

Any REAL engineering/physics concept is reproducable. Over and over again. A real inventor WANTS people to check his work. He's PROUD.

The examination process could be easily heavily documented and recorded by third parties--no way could one of them swipe the idea and claim it for his own, and frankly, the more publicity, the better. If I can't get rich, by God I can get the credit.

The scientists will come back to me offering me their first born children. I collect enthusiastic endorsements, and start talking to car companies. There are a LOT of car companies around the world, and they make money selling cars, not gasoline. Even if one company gets "bribed" by the oil companies, the persistent myth, that leaves dozens of others. All I need is one, but I would probably have better luck in the wrong one with a non-exclusive license.

If I were the paranoid sort, I'd make arrangements to spread the news if something happened to me. You'd be amazed how easy this is in the age of the internet. The second my corpse gets discovered stuffed into an oil pipeline, about sixty mirror sites pop up with Everything You Need To Know To Build A Water Car. The licensees will fume like hell, but what the hell, now they can build the cars without paying anyone, and every damn car company on the planet will start popping them out.

Naturally, I'd advertise this fact ahead of time.

If nobody knocks me off, it would be very difficult not to get rich, even if everyone for some bizarre reason simply starts making the cars without licensing them (places like China probably would anyway). Not sure what the motivation would be--my license fee would be lost in the noise as far as profit is concerned. But even if they did, everyone would know who came up with it, and I suspect I could make a pretty good living doing exclusive consulting for somebody.

You want to know the truth, if I came up with something to create free energy for the world, I couldn't care less if I made a nickel off it. I LIKE cushy Western civilization, and wouldn't mind doing something to preserve it and give the whole planet a shot at it. Something that could run a car on water could run a generator the same way. It's just scale.

This is what would happen in the real world.

If it isn't happening, I recommend skepticism.

Anybody who's still wailing about not getting anywhere with his magic invention after 20 years is shoveling bullshit.