Fred McConahay fuels his truck with the most abundant element in the universe.

Using hydrogen, the Ripon-based mechanical engineer-turned-inventor says he doubles his fuel efficiency. He uses diesel, too, but since about 1½ years ago, he’s injected hydrogen into his truck engine using a simple device that he’s trying to get certified by state and federal air regulators. He calls it the “Revolution 22.”

Together with three business partners, he plans to someday soon manufacture the primitive machine in Tracy under the auspices of his newly formed company, Go Go Green LLC.

The stainless steel cylinder — what the company markets as a “hydrogen fuel and emission reduction system” — is electrically wired to McConahay’s truck in a way that allows it to breathe hydrogen into the engine’s intake manifold. From there, it quickens the flame spread during combustion, igniting more of the vaporized fuel and dramatically reducing carbon emissions. What comes out the tailpipe is a clean, faintly white vapor that smells similar to soap.

“Isn’t that great?” asked McConahay’s electrician friend and business partner John Dupree, kneeling down by the tailpipe after just inhaling the vapor to prove its cleanness. “You can barely see it.”

The mechanism is actually nothing new. Backyard inventors have for decades tinkered with similar aftermarket add-ons. The innovative part is inside the cylinder — the chemical mixture that separates water into oxygen and hydrogen. Normally, hydrogen fuel generators use electricity, or a “brute force” reaction, to divide molecules. Using a chemical instead of electrical reaction uses less energy.

The chemical mixture was created by Modesto-based molecular chemist Jonathan Knudsen, who in 2001 graduated with a doctorate degree in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For now, it’s his patent-pending intellectual property.

The company — based at the Tracy Municipal Airport — can’t sell the device in the U.S. until it is certified by the California Air Resource Board and the Environmental Protection Agency. But it can legally market the product internationally through its Web site.

Thanks to Richard Ortenheim, owner of Tracy’s Skyview Aviation and finance officer for Go Go Green, the company already has an international contact. Orenheim’s father, Bjorn Ortenheim is a 67-year-old Swedish scientist who has for decades studied hydrogen fuel and renewable energy. He boasts 17 patents to his name and agreed to help market the product overseas.

Go Go Green has set up shop at the Tracy airport, where McConahay and Dupree fine-tune their creation while they wait for the go-ahead from state and federal regulators to get their business off the ground.

The men said they’re depending on investors to keep the company afloat through the permitting ordeal, which can cost up to $1.3 million.

After that, it’s all downhill, Dupree said.

“That’s when we can bring jobs to Tracy,” he said from his space at the airport. “We can easily open a huge warehouse, employ hundreds of people. That’s how big this is.”

• Contact Tracy Press reporter Jennifer Wadsworth at 830-4225 or jwadsworth@tracypress.com.