It is often claimed that Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations were originally written in terms of quaternions. Once returned to that form and treated with left and right hand operators as in the mathematics of P. M. Jack, a new seventh scalar electromagnetic field component emerges with possible relations to clean energy extraction and gravitation. It is the purpose here to examine this approach afresh and see how it might link up with other fairly recent, but little known, work in the field. Again, as with the usual form of Maxwell’s equations, a new scalar wave equation is derived but, on this occasion, due to the presence of the scalar component of the quaternion, that equation exhibits a wave speed greater than the speed of light. Historical and present uses within military and humanitarian contexts are considered briefly.