This short clip makes no mention of the power required to get the salt-water to burn. The question is, does this process produce more energy than it uses? Probably not. If it does not, then it is not a new energy source.
lagunatic, Your point is a good one but unlocking how to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water with just radio waves is amazing. Radio waves are very efficient, for example, A cell tower that covers 10 miles of distance on requires 24 volts DC at about 400 watts. More than likely we wouldn't put the water in the car but have a plant that on an efficient large scale would produce hydrogen fuel cells for the cars. If you look at Cold Fusion and the poor results on that great theory, this is way more promising.
Wow, I live in Erie and the local paper has been covering this guys cancer treatment, it's very promising. I had no idea it did this too. Somebody needs to snatch this up and vet it as an energy source.
The problem we have is not finding new fuels, we have tons of different fuels. It's finding a way to efficiently capture the energy. All major power planets, (oil, gas, nuclear) capture the energy all in the same way. Boiling water and producing steam to spin a turbine. We should try finding ways to more efficiently capture energy to convert it to electricity.
It seems with a large enough RF generator you could potentially cook your enemy's navy right on the water with no other weapon - kind of like an attack barge....
Sadly, I would imagine this will be seen as some sort of potential terrorist threat and be moth balled from the get go - despite the enormous potential in the energy fields.
Let me spell this out. You don't get something for nothing during a chemical reaction. It's called the First Law of Thermodynamics. All you do is increase entropy. This "demonstration" has NO "enormous potential" for generating energy. He is disassociating the components of seawater using an RF generator, then re-combining them by combustion. There is NO WAY that he is getting more energy out (heat) than he is putting in (electricity to power the RF generator).
Remember...once the Earth was flat, the sun and stars orbited around our Earth, disease was caused by supernatural powers and we were all victims of a Social Order. Periodically, a courageous thinker rebelled against the "wisdom" of the clergy and fellow scientists to provide opportunity and comfort for many. We never know what another great mind will build upon a "crackpot" theory and create a revolution in our thinking.
Nice party trick. Show fire to the primates and listen to the hoots.
When you all settle down, those of you who skipped Thermodynamics, please go check out my perpetual motion machine on YouTube.
And WE REMAIN VICTIMS of a SOCIAL ORDER. Take a look around, damn it. What sappy propaganda have you been lapping up? Or are you one of jerks with a BMW?
This isn't even a new discovery. I used worked as a microwave engineer back in the mid 70's. Some of us were farting around with a klystron and found that we could burn water right out of the old Pacific by applying a few kilowatts RF. (We were on an island, so we had plenty of raw materials.) We figured that we were jucing the water into H O2 then some impurity in the water was heated to the point that it ignited the Hydrogen and Oxygen. The result of which is .... WATER!!!.
It was neat but we didn't get terribly excited since we were cranking about 3KW into the klystron and the piddily little flame wasn't even close producing that kind of energy.
The result is salt water a little saltier. Yes you could separate the combusion products and get clean water but that ain't real efficient. No nasty emissions, no secret weapon to cook enemy battleships and certainly NO ENERGY GAIN.
"jandalofdoom 5 days ago Take it away from the USA. Take it to a country that isn't controlled by Oil companies, and run by a president who made his fortune from oil. "
That is stupid. How about another country invent something themselves for once? instead of taking an invention from the USA and making it their own?
2H2O-----> O2 2H2
An electric charge or RF frequency provides the energy to split the bonds in water and the oxygen can then be used in a combustion reaction.
As far as one comment on the fomation of HCl, it wont happen.
Another commented on not knowing if you will get more emergy out than you put in. Well that never happens or else we would have perpetual motion or energy. You NEVER get more energy out. Energy(like matter) is neither created or destroyed it merely changes forms.(Law of conservation of energy/matter. So in other words one form of energy is transormed into another. The amount of energy is always equal. We use Rf signals in the home and it is easy to do and not expensive.
Oil pumped from the ground and refined into gas takes electricity/energy to make. Gas puts out pollution.
Water changed to hydrogen fuel cells takes electricity/energy to make. The Emissions are water.
Oil is mostly in the middle east and water is every where.
We could use a Nuclear Power plant, which the US and other countries already have, and use the energy to make hydrogen fuel cells.
Like testubemike said "one form of energy is transformed into another"
The reason why we don't have hydrogen fueled powered cars is how hard it is too make hydrogen. The whole reason this break through is important is because he has found an easy way to do it!
"actionjoe We should try finding ways to more efficiently capture energy to convert it to electricity."
We have all the electricity we need but using it to power a vehicle is the problem. Hydrogen works much better and can be refueled quickly.
Sounds like the same idea from the BATMAN BEGINS 2005 movie where they used that device to heat up the city water..... military could definitely use this idea if they don't know about it already!!! Anyone remember that part of the movie????
So what is the missing link? Is it that it takes more electric power to continually generate the radio waves to cause what amounts to a very unstable combustion? If I put sea water in my microwave will it catch fire? If I take one of those radio wave concentrator devices to the Pacific Ocean and use it as a spark device. Can I then blow away the western hemisphere turning it into a charred wasteland?
Of course I'm being somewhat sarcastic but at the same time it is very fascinating. I hope something comes of it.
There's a guy (I forget his name now) in Reno who's been running cars from a 50% water solution for over 15 years now. The City of Reno was running a percentage of their city vehicles using this guy's invention but then I heard nothing more about it.
I DO hope that if he does sell the technology to a big company it is NOT an oil company or auto maker who will just bury it so that they can contnue to make money in the ways they are accustomed to.
I agree that we need to know the amount of energy he's using to produce the flame. However, what about the possibility of placing this in a place that already produces radio waves? Perhaps we could mount generators of this type to radio towers to supplement the power they'd be using anyway. Would the energy created justify the interference that might be caused by such a device?
Let's not forget the original intention, to cure cancer. If this is a successful method for curing cancer, without the harmful side effects of Kemotheopy, surgery, or other invasive methods, the importance would be much greater the it being a fuel source. And the cost to power such a device vs. the health benifit would not even be the concern.
However, I'm sure that it won't take long for someone to make this method fuel source economical. Even if it's only a 1% gain. When the stocks of the fossal fuel companies fall thru the floor, we will know that someone has made a saltwater fired generator work profitably.
Have you seen http://hytechapps.com? This guys Aquygen HHO gas generator can increase car performance by 50%. This guy seems a nano second from a major discovery as well.
oh, and I love one of their mottos:
"The Person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doint it."
My favourite perpetual motion machine design had a ballbearing which rolled up a track towards a big magnet, but just before it got to the magnet, it fell through a hole in the track and rolled back to the start again. There was another machine with weights and sponges on a wheel in a bucket of water, the sponges on one side dipped into the water, soaked up water, got heavy and the wheel started to turn, then as the sponges on the other side lifted out of the water, the weights squeezed the water out of them. If you strap buttered toast to the back of a cat, and throw it in the air, it will hover and spin because cats always land on their feet and toast always lands butter side down. None of these wonderful inventions have seen the light of day because of a global conspiracy by oil companies. They have their agents in every country on earth holding back all the wannabe millionaires who might otherwise develop the technology. Otherwise we would be crossing oceans on sponge powered ocean liners and commuting on magnetic trains hovering on cats and buttered toast. Seriously people, get real. On planet earth hydrogen isn't a fuel, anymore than batteries are.
I'm not a scientist, but I am creative and imaginative. This man's theory seems very workable to me. I watched this same man on TV demonstrating his process. He also altered a car, filled it with his water solution and drove it. As "whynot" quoted, "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." And what if this process is like the story of David and Goliath and it becomes the slayer of the oil magnets? He'd be doing the world a great service by helping control the warming of our planet and lessening our costs. Then, with the income from this invention, could continue his work on a cancer cure and slay two giants at one time. Congratulations and good luck to Mr. Zanius on his endeavors.
Thermodynamics. It's not just a good idea, it's the Law. I read these comments and realize that basic science education and common sense have left the building. But good luck with your conspiracies, urban legends and creativity!
I would have to agree with your comment about the general science knowledge base of people. The new tv show "Are you Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" has proven repeatedly that people remember very little of the information they were given in school, and what they4 remember is more like trivia than usable knowledge.
Unfortunately I don't see anything happening with this idea until it either becomes a political issue and part of someone's campaign or until there is a serious enough shortage of oil to make any other possibility of producing energy acceptable.
Americans such as several of those who have commented here and those of the big money always want to get more out of new, not just equal, or better for you. Americans are addicted to more and stubbornly resist change. Those who would be happy to accept the same or even less (if it meant healthier) are quiet and passive and generally believe that their voice doesn't count so they don't speak up, don't voice an opinion and pray that someone else will make the difference they so desperately wish would happen. For such a rich, educated, "free" and enlightened society... a large number of our citizens appear to feel totally dis-empowered. Too Bad, as a united nation we have accomplished some real changes in the world... some of them good and some not so good. But it still holds true... "United we stand, divided we fall."
Watching this film brought to mind all the current "HooHa" about the harm to people from mobile phones and wireless computers that is being talked about. If that sucker is powerful enough to do that to salt water but is apparently harmless to humans (as demonstrated by the guy putting his hand in the damn thing) then who is talking bollocks? The guy in the film or the scientists who scaremonger about mobiles etc.
Actually this could work. We all have seen in highschool physics that running an electrical current through water breaks it in to Hydrogen and Oxygen. The Hydrogen will collect at the negative terminal and the Oxygen at the positive terminal. move the two into a combustion chamber, apply a spark and you have combustion. This would work very nicely in a car in either a closed or an exhausted system.
The amount of electricity needed to split the water and ignite it would be generated from a battery that can be charged by air turbines built into the body of the car, (the marine industry uses similar turbines on sail boats) and by running an alternator as we do with a gasolene powered engine.
This could be done, but there will never be any money put into making it a reality because, well the fuel would be pretty cheap, and if you used a closed system, the steam produced by the combustion processed could be routed through a radiator/cooler and condensed back into water.
It could work, but it won't happen. Not in this country. Oil and Big Auto will never allow it.
Great stuff. Better keep it away from a gov't agency man, they'll want more big bucks from this. As for energy output vs. energy input, in this case, input is bigger, but only because the electricity put into the RF generator is not produced from saltwater combustion. Had the electricity come from saltwater combustion energy, this would have had major energy output in the end. That's why this invention is promising.
Billp, Supermariofj: Like other people have said the water and radio waves will make no energy whatsoever. It takes exactly as much energy to split the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen as you get by sticking the hydrogen and oxygen back together again to make water. There will be losses generating electricity from the burning hydrogen, and losses in the machinery, so if you try and get the whole system running itself without mains electricity it will grind to a halt. This is the flaw with all perpetual motion machines.
If you put air turbines onto the car, they will create drag equal to the energy they generate. So you can't power the car that way either. Perpetual motion machines are a scam, and not even a very original one, they've been around for centuries. As energy becomes more of an issue we'll see more of them. If there really was a water powered car, the big water monopolies would have put it on the market by now. Coal barons never stopped oil.
Let's see, build an atomic bomb, load it on a plane, fly it high in the sky and then drop it. I think the energy you get out is a lot more than the energy you put in
This must be a news bit from April fools day. The cancer cure thing is cool, but splitting water with RF is nothing special, and would certainly take more energy to achieve than you could get out of burning it.
Is this your own private Back Yard Fuel Station? Use electric power to produce hydrogen at home from salt and tap water. I don’t know if it works, or understand the energy in > energy out equation,,, but if it’s close to cost effective, the US has greater potential to make electricity ( from Coal, Oil Shale, or Nuclear ) cheaper than oil . So , at the worst, it's a shift in energy supply for cars,,, from an expensive undependable energy source ( oil) to a less costly more dependable energy source ( whatever) . Wouldn’t this energy supply option result in a shift in the energy supply system.? That way the International Oil Cartel looses control of car gas. ( It would be more "dependable" to fill up at home rather than at the pump. )
And how could Big Oil stop it? If it works, the technology appears relatively simple, and so will be available; hydrogen tankage and combustion systems are pretty well developed; and Big Electric would seem to have the clout to make the electricity needed.
Does anyone remember the electric car? Probably not. General Moters reclaimed the majority of them because of pressure from "big oil". This idea will definitely work, maybe not in a straight forward approach but with the possibility of hybrid/electric technology. But according to the negative scientist wannabes in this post, we should not think progressively. We should all just give up to the big oil companies. But what happens in 75 years when there is no more oil production?
Proton LED Engineer from Lyons GA says: the problem with electrolysis is the electrodes erode quickly and it splits water slowly. This RF process splits water fast enough to sustain combustion and actually do some work.
No peer-reviewed and published experiment has disproved the first law of thermodynamics. Ok, now read that sentence again. Please, if you don't remember this from your high school physics class (or from your college thermo course), at least check out Wikipedia (no, not an oil company-sponsored mouthpiece) before passing on this hoax to people who paid attention in school.
As a former chemical engineer and current chemistry teacher, it's startling how little understanding the general population has of the concept of energy. To be honest, I thought these types of misconceptions were a fairly *recent* product of public education, but based on the resurgence of the perpetual motion debate, I'm starting to think otherwise.
Science teachers: we have a lot of work to do to help prevent our students from looking like complete idiots such as these “inventors”! Time to get busy!
The relevant question is not whether this works. It does. It also will consume more energy than it generates.
The relevant economic question is - what is the final cost of the energy (and equipment, etc.) required to split the water into oxygen and hydrogen, after deducting the economic gain from the energy obtained from the combustion?
If the final cost is less than the cost of an equivalent energy content of gasoline (or other energy sources) it may have some potential as an energy source.
My guess is that it will be more expensive. Splitting water is a time honored tradition, which has never been economic.
PBS aired a show not long ago that described how Iceland (or was it Greenland) is harnessing geothermal energy to create electricty that is then used to separate the oxygen from the hydrogen in water. The Hydrogen is then dispensed into a hyrdrogen auto. All they have done is convernt geothermal energy into available hydrogen energy. Their goal is to provide massive quantities of hydrogen to be exported around the world and to become the new "Middle East of Hydrogen." Imagine the big oil companies of America converting their gas stations into Hydrogen stations. The PBS reported showed a small hydrogen generating plant creating hydrogen on site from available water and nearby geothermal energy. In the United States we can harness geothermal energy from places such as Yellowstone and convert it to electricity which can be transported via the energy grid to hydrogen plants in a location near you. With some investment and effort we can all be running on hydrogen soon enough. After all about 100 years ago most people weren't driving gasoline powered cars, they were riding horses. The much villified energy companies and auto companies changed all that. Government didn't. It was free enterprise entrepreneurs who brought us gasoline and gasoline powered autos. It will be free enterprise entrepreneurs who will most likely make hydrogen and hydrogen powered cars the answer for the "energy crisis" and the "global warming crisis" (if you actually believe people and their actions cause global warming). Heaven forbid we find there is some other reason for global warming and that we solved the wrong problem (or that we're actually headed for an ice age as the scientists were telling us in the 70's).
I think this is really about resources, not the equations of, or simplistically, one energy input equals or exceeds the output of another. We have a lot of salt water; we have a lot of oil. Which reserve is greater? I would say salt water. We need comment from economists who can say, one way or the other, what the economic feasibility is of developing this re-introduced technology. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is always in play. This economic rule must be evaluated with all other rules whether they are scientific or economic. This evaluation is required...as it always has been. It’s the marriage of science and economics. Which, as everyone remembers, is the product of philosophy from which all specialties are derived…
Most Everyone is Missing the point.
Number one problem in energy, regardless of how you generate it or how much work goes into making it, is HOW TO STORE IT and use it as needed?
Trees and vegetable matter are the primary source of man used stored energy from the sun. Whether it is ancient stores of fossil fuel or bio-fuel from vegetable crops or a simple log on the fire.
The last two entries by "Reason" and "bobbussey" summarize the real value to be considered. Pretty cool video to watch.
My first question was obviously also how much energy had to be expended to make that amount of H2 and O2 (and what frequency was he using). But, the process still fasicinated me because you unlike electrolysis, you do not need an expensive platinum cathode or anode to erode away. I like the arguments about the Laws of Thermaldynamics, but the value is not getting more for less, just simpler. That's why geothermal heat coversion to 02 and H2 gas is significant. From my point of view, since wind, water, sun power, do not cost me, then the energy source cost is less important than efficient storage. A 12 volt, DC battery and the like is not an exciting method of stored power; try cooling your house with a windmill verus a hydrogen powered gernerator. But, a more streamlined, efficient step toward storing that power is much more important.
This is not a new form of energy or resource, just perhap a more efficient method of energy storage. We do not have a shortage of energy in the world. We have a shortage of STORED Energy. Oil and gas are successful for the ability to control and distribute through the economy as a stored energy that is consumable and has a lot of energy per weight. Plus, it is always more expensive for any new technology to ramp up and replace common place institutions. Many generations fight change and cost associated with it. But, at least hydrogen base power is compatible with our current consumption system and combustion engines (well with some modifications).
Yet, People get excited about electric cars: You swap combustible pollution from the exhaust pipe to the power stations' smoke stack (usually fossil fuels).
Hybrid Cars: Greater fuel efficiency at the cost of Toxic batteries, more environmental disposal consequences, let alone the simple cost benefit analysis of how money does one actually save in gas savings versus the premium paid for the hybrid system... PS how much is gonna cost you to replace those battieries.
I am a fan of making technologies using natural models....our best solution will be creating a method of making hydro-carbon chains like trees and plants. Essentially man made wood or coal. A stable, storage of energy, tradeable, transportable, and able to be used as needed. Pulling excessive amounts of CO2 out of the air and stabilizing our global emissions. And, potentially being able to manage levels. This last comment is a pipe dream, but perhaps a smarter dreamer can make it a reality.
Actually there is a large mechanism for pulling CO2 from the air. It is the ocean. Unfortunately if it pulls in too much it will undergo a chemical change that will destroy most life on earth. Just like the Permian extinction.
And I agree, all of the electric cars have a greater CO signature than a gasoline engine. Lets face it 100 years of intensive engineering that created the internal combustion engine has made it very very efficient. It will be difficult to replace.
The conversion to hydrogen will be necessary, although it is much less efficient, just to save the planet.
FINALLY! Facilitator has raised the most crucial issue about ANY new energy source (although I don't agree with his solution). We MUST consider the other effects of that new source of energy. If we can/have found a more efficient way of producing a combustable, portable fuel that does not produce greenhouse gases as a byproduct of its combustion and whose production creates less greenhouse gases than the original fuel source it is replacing released through it's production and consumption AND that can be made economically viable, so that it can compete in the marketplace, THEN we have found a viable alternative fuel. And it is important that we do so, because a large percentage of our petroleum consumption is in the form of chemical component in other products such as plastics, medicines, etc. The sooner we can switch to an a responsible alternative fuel for transportation and energy uses, the sooner we can leave the remaining petroleum for those applications that will be significantly more difficult to replace.
That's an interesting use of radio waves, but the energy that does all the work is the electricity used to generate the radio waves. This is a great example of how broadcasters gush at the wrong conclusions, in this case the idea of "burning" water. Then the inventor weighs in by saying that water is a plentiful "fuel," but water is not the fuel. The researchers in the clip were impressed by this use of radio waves, but none of them commented on the burning of water as a fuel. This really uses electricity to make radio waves so that some of those waves split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen burns - no surprise there, and it burns at its usual combustion temperature of 1500 degrees.
I like that this innovation may have genuine industrial uses, but not as a power source. As the inventor ought to know, this process wastes a lot of energy compared to alternatives. Waste heat is generated in making the radio waves, much of which get scattered. Many of the remaining waves do not participate in splitting the water. Ultimately, you'd have to supply MUCH more electricity to do this than to power an electric car directly.
It bothers me that the media treat these stories like entertaining little magic shows. If they treated them critically, instead of misleading people, they would never air most of these stories. But it bothers me more that Americans are so poorly educated in science as to be easily misled in the first place. After reading the vast majority of comments on this story, it would be easy to guess at the gullibility of our uneducated masses. It's obvious that most people don't even know where to begin a critical discussion of such things.
Exactly. It begins with the Latte sucking morons at the News desk. They cannot even be bothered to check with a chemical engineer, or their own science editor to get the real facts. This makes the US look like a bunch of morons to the rest of the world.
But hey, maybe we are. More Americans know more about Paris Hilton, than they know about Richard Feynman.
A lot of you keep mentioning perpetual motion and I guess assume that the hydrogen/heat created by the RF generator needs to be used to power the RF generator. There is no reason that the RF generator can't be powered by another clean source (wind, water, solar, etc) to seperate the hydrogen and store it for use elsewhere (a car perhaps). Using a non-fossil or nuclear fuel negates the argument about how much energy it takes to power the RF generator.
The RF generator could be further optimized with waveguides/reflectors to concentrate the RF energy and not waste it. The whole point would be to produce a cleaner, portable fuel source to replace fossil fules.
Think RF Generator/Hydrogen seperator attached to the back of one of the newer wind-powered generators. Self-contained and producing clean hydrogen for vehicles. Not a drop of hydrogen is wasted in powering the reaction. Just converting wind to stored hydrogen.
instead of perpetual motion maybe splitting the salt into sodium and chlorine is making the energy and you can burn the hydrogen to get your watter back the only thing missing is the salt and as long as we have salt we have a fuel
Let's see, build an atomic bomb, load it on a plane, fly it high in the sky and then drop it. I think the energy you get out is a lot more than the energy you put in.
Actually there is the loss of energy in the transport of the bomb, and then there is the energy released by radioactive decay, which was energy stored in the strong nuclear force, so there is no energy gain here either, just transformation.
it dose = out the energy u used to lift the plane up is added to the energy in the atomic bomb so the energy you put in dose equal the energy you get out if it were that simple we would have had perpetual motion by now
Come on you people!! Of course we get more energy out then WE put in. The extra energy needed to balance is put in by nature. I do not know if this burning water produces more energy than we put it but it is no stretch to get more energy out then WE put in. After all, gasoline does that. The extra energy we get out in that case is from solar power. I do agree the issue is not generation of power, its storage. And its easy enought to make hydrogen from water using solar panels, but storing, shipping and using the resultant hydrogen has a lot of economic hurdles as compared to gasoline. Mostly because gasoline does not pay for its full cost, it is massively subsidied.
And regarding hybrid cars and toxic batteries, the batteries last 10 years and can be recycled. Lets not invent problems to support a position, I am sure there are sufficient facts to use instead.
And one more thing. We do have, for practial purposes, perpetual motion. We call it the solar system. I kinda think that a system that will run without human input for several billion years is close enough to perpetual motion. Again, the question is not input vs output. Its human input vs usable output.
Did I miss something? I was under the impression he was consuming Salt-water. I understand the product of burning Hydrogen is Water (Which would be yes like perpetual motion....) but what about the salts in the water? Aren't some of those oxidized as well? Aren't we gaining the positive energy from burning them? Is this the difference from plain H2O?
God I get so sick of hearing people and their "Big Oil" theories. Big oil is "Big" because everyone uses it every day, oil companies are not godless, souless companies out to take your everlasting soul. They do a pretty amazing thing by finding oil, pumping it out of the ground, refining it, transporting it, and getting it to us, the consumer, so we can use it in so many ways every day, for about as much as a gallon of milk costs, oh my god, "Big Milk" is in cahoots with "Big Oil". If this or something like it works, who will we be targeting next as the boogeyman, "Big Water".
Check out the flame color guys. That is not a Hydrogen flame. As I mentioned earlier...I think the salts are somehow burning (in addition to the Hydrogen) and that could be where we could get a surplus of energy. Is that a Calcium flame? I would like to see this with regular seawater as morton's salt (clearly seen in video) is not the same. Even if its not the same if we had to add mortons to the water in order to get it to work i'm guessing it would be cheaper than oil or coal.
I think you guys are missing a key component. If the hydrogen reaction produces more energy then it takes to spit the parts, they you have a virtually unlimited supply of energy without breaking the laws of thermodynamics. Virtually, of course meaning the supply of salt water.
Think of it as wood combustion, the chemical releases enough energy for to sustain burning until the wood is spent. Same idea here except when the salt water is spent.
There are some interesting comments here, a few have hit the nail square on the head whilst other comment miss the point entirely.
The only truly "free" form of energy comes about from the combination of gravity and fusion... AKA the SUN.
#1. Fossil fuels are dead organic matter that once grew via the sun, then compressed by gravity. #2. Yes, the electrical power (by any known method, including electrolysis OR radio wave stimulation can at best be less than or nearly equal to the energy required to initiate the separation of the molecules.
HENCE: It is not "free energy," it is simply ENERGY CONVERSION.
IF that "energy conversion" is efficient enough, combustion engines can use the PRODUCT (hydrogen and oxygen) to operate effeciently, but only via a source of electrical power. --Burning wood is a form of energy conversion via combustion. What powered the wood to grow? THE SUN. The same conclusion can be drawn from the combustion of fossil fuels. --Wind turbines can generate electricity via use of the WEATHER. What causes the weather? Heat and cooling of the earth as it rotates via THE SUN. --Solar panels directly use the photoelectric power of THE SUN. --HydroElectric power plants use rivers and streams, plus gravity, to greate energy. That is because water evaporates from the ground and collect and falls from the clouds. What causes the evaporation? THE SUN. --Fisson (nuclear power) converts energy from very heavy elements, leaving behind lighter elements. Why do those elements exist? Gravity, the same force that causes fusion in THE SUN.
This IS a valuable discovery because it is a more efficient way to convert electricity into combustable materials (O2 and H.)
However, this energy is not "Free." Instead, it is an excellent idea to redistribute resources... the SALTWATER is only the TOOL by which the conversion takes place. Compressed Hydrogen and Compressed Oxygen are much easier to move around than storage cells (as of today.) Hence, the real issue here is the same as it always has been, just a more efficient way to do it. Mention of "Perpetual Motion" machines is a very silly way of looking at it, and a very basic one. Those above who claim to be so educated in chemistry and physics should not be so narrowly minded to dismiss it as "perpetual motion."
Do you really think that this guy hasn't heard of that idea before? I doubt it.
So it's a good idea, but the energy has to come from somewhere eventually, and the only real free source is the sun. And if the sun is gone, so are we, so we might as well be finding more efficient ways of harnessing those energies than dilly-dallying over resources. Our best resource is the mind.
Note that an example above cited geothermal springs as an energy source. This is entirely plausible, because gravitational pressure causes this.
I was amazed that no one mentioned the first law of thermodynamics, but I see NeilHoskins did.
What is happening goes something like this:
RF_energy H20--->H2 O2--->H20 heat
If you look at this equation, you'll see that chemically no conversion has occurred (you started with water and ended up with water), therefore, no energy was generated from the chemical bonds in seawater.
All you've done is convert radiofrequency energy into heat energy - which can also be done by simply inserting a piece of metal into the machine, the point of his idea for curing cancer.
It IS pretty cool that radio waves can break down water. This could be an exciting way of generating hydrogen I suppose. But I doubt it's really efficient. To be useful it would have to be at least as efficient as electrolysis (another method of making hydrogen from seawater).
Truthfully, a good high school chemistry student should understand that this is not "burning seawater". Sometimes I wonder if we are slipping backwards as a nation in our science education.
I understand your point, but you're also forgetting SALT is involved. unless you really know the input used to produced the rf vs the output of electricity used to produced distilled water, you're really don't know if it's VIRTUALLY LIKE burning water.
btw, I'm not a chemist nor do I claim to be, and I'm just guessing at the possibility. I'd clearly understand if we got heat and salt water at the end. Perhaps the salt makes the hydroden and oxyen bonds easier to break. Maybe "burning" isn't a clear comparison, but I'm sure you know what I'm getting at.
one more thing. I was actually, thinking the break up of salt water didn't result in just hydrogen oxygen salt, but rather hydrogen something other possibilities.
It may never amount to anything but I think its sad how pessimistic most of you are. Do you really think the college professors who taught you knew everything? Chemistry is based on theory. The "facts" that we know today will quickly go down the tubes when someone figures out a new, better, more encompassing theory. Isn't that what happened when Einstein came out with his??? Someday in the future people will laugh at the "facts" we know today just as we laugh at some of the ideas from the past. Education becomes a liability when you let it restrict your thinking.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.... Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world...
Albert Einstein
We’ll undoubtedly find a clean, renewable source of energy someday, (providing we last that long), but It won’t come from anyone fond of using words like can’t and impossible.
Who knows? Maybe this idea can work or be modified to work. At least this guy didn’t come out of his thermodynamics class thinking how impossible everything is.
OK.. someone said there is no free lunch.
Well, I just had one :)
One of you mentioned something about salt cause to burn more hotter?
Now that's really cool.... because for years I had no idea why the driftwood (dried) I picked up at the Pacific ocean beaches burn hot as hell.
These wood pieces were sooo dry and white in color. The weight of these driftwood were so light (weight) that I that it was hollow. What's that got to do with the story?
Lets see; If by some means the salt adds extra energy output as some of you concurred one way or another, then it explains why the wood I burned in the fireplace gave out huge amount of heat from a few little pieces of branches. Then it proceeded to burn, or glow nearly all night and give out more heat then any other firewood I burned.
Why don't you try it.
If you live near the ocean and find small driftwood branches that's been on the beach for a while. Complettly dried and light weight.
Burn it.
I am still amazed by the amount of heat it produced.
Sooooo, bottom line is ; piece of wood of same size as beach wood burns fast and produce little heat.
; Piece of wood from beach full of salt and dry as bone.... produce about 10X more heat overall.
I have no problem with this theory and my experiment; add salt.
We have plenty of that.
If I may, I'd like to quote one of you here; ".... people who says can't be done don't interrupt the people who is doing it..."
Yup, I done it.
Now you do it and see that it works.
We've been teased with this sort of stuff before - check out http://www.blacklightpower.com - a bit more technical and far-out (bends laws of known physics), but still a "promise that has never come to fruition".
Does anybody else ever look up at that huge burning thing in the sky(whatever it is) and wonder why we haven't found a better way to harvest the energy of something that will be around for another 5 billion years or so?
As for the driftwood, I suspect it burns extremely well due to the wormholes in the wood which allow it to burn far more rapidly thus more
intensely. Also, the resin/sap which moderates the combustion is mostly removed. This is an area of physics which is breaking new ground. I don't think anyone can say for sure that this won't advance science and the
quality of our lives by a quantum leap. Starwalker may have been playing around with a klystron but that is not what is was designed for
and is not a good example of the energy required for this process to occur. I suspect it will become evident that this process requires far
less energy to split the molecule that has ever been known before. It may be a true gain in efficiency that can be harnessed. We have to
know more about the physics involved here to see if we can refine the process and reduce the amount of RF energy required to do this. The
video showed a giant machine but we don't know the relative energy required to get this to happen. Go back and look up the history of radar
and the cavitron. Radar was very weak until it was discovered that it could be amplified many times over using a cavitron which works like a
whistle does to amplify a certain frequency of sound. Until that discovery, radar with enough power couldn't be carried in an airplane. The
atomic bomb ended WW2 but radar and the cavitron whistle actually allowed us to win that war! We don't know everything about all the details of physics. A lot of discoveries have yet to be made to improve our lives. We might find that we don't need to split hydrogen and go on a hydrogen economy. It might be enough to simply carry the water and split it
on demand as an engine requires it. It sounds like the ignition is instant but it would be nice if they could find a way to split the
molecule without igniting it so that it could be stored. It may only take some fiddling with the frequency or complexity of the radio wave
to cause that to occur as desired. It sounds like the principle combuster is the hydro/oxy but the salt might also be burning in the process
and perhaps it is causing an acidic byproduct. This might require some additional technology such as a catalyst or a change to RF as I
already said, or preventing combustion and save the hydrogen until it can be burned in a clean area. OR better yet, to put it into a fuel
cell and get electricity directly and probably with very good efficiency. It maybe a trade off in some costs to produce a clean fuelcell or
go burn it directly for some yet to be invented thermal-to-mechanical drive process that you can put in a car. Don't say a steam engine.
That is still very inefficient and dangerous in a car. As long as we talk about this technology and demand to see it moved forward, the government won't supress it. I am sure big oil will do
whatever it can to delay the inevitable demise of the petroleum economy but IT WILL HAPPEN. Go back in history and see how England's economy
started with wood, then coal, and now petroleum. Big changes DO happen. In the 1970's, when we decided we didn't want to breathe lead, we
DID force big oil to remove it. We have been better off ever since. We should be exploring this discovery as fast as possible. It could very
well be the key to saving much of the life on this planet. It also has the potential of saving many human lives. Both in starving countries as well as our own service men and women. No more oil spills! Lower prices on everything that used to require oil for material extraction,
creation and product distribution. Great improvements in the quality of all our lives is finally in sight. Demand to see it happen.
This is another good reason not to bring a radio in the bathroom. In addition to electrocution, you don't want to be peeing and have it burst into flames either!
Uranium and Plutonium are both essentially stored energy. Their nuclear instabilities are exploited by mining, concentrating and purifying the raw dispersed material. When the purified material is amassed in a quantity and placed in proximity to develop critical mass, sustainable fission occurs or bombs of comparative power go off. Our cost to do these things is a relative expense.
Consider the expense of mining, concentrating and containing the fission in a mechanism that transforms the released nuclear power into transmittable electricity, plus the expense of dealing with all the resultant wastes. Is that expense less or greater than the equivalent processes requires to convert coal into distributed electricity. Also, consider the rate of invention that is improving the conversion of nuclear fuel, Dollar for Dollar, into distributed power and you have a way to ascertain whether or not there is a bright and economically viable future for nuclear power vs. coal, etc., politics and public fears notwithstanding.
Water, sea water being much more abundant than fresh water, is also stored energy. However, the extractable deuterium in sea water is probably more valuable, relatively speaking, than the fuel value of plain sea water shown burning above.
What burns coming out of your auto's tank? Gasoline or water? That's because it is cheaper to go through all of the incredibly complex technologies that deliver a gallon of combustible gasoline to your car to make it go 30 miles, than it is to put a powerplant that can generate the wattage necessary to convert sea water into RF created steam power in your back seat.
The day you can show that the relative costs (including the cost of containment of wastes) can be reversed is the day you will see the alternate technology take hold.
Bush has called for intensively applied American imagination to the problems of developing a hydrogen based economy vs. running a cleaner hydrocarbon based economy. Meanwhile, advanced research continues in the development of much cleaner fission and sustainable fusion.
For now, the efficient use of hydrocarbons offers the best avenue until the new technologies can come forth. Sea water may be used as a source of hydrogen. But, the relative cost of the electricity needed to release it from the molecular bond and deliver it for your use will be the hurdle. I say it won't happen because of the obvious inefficiencies, even though a test tube of burning sea water is an amazing thing to see.
The appropriate use of this 'new' method for creating a 1500 degree flame is to use
1. Solar energy in the sunbelt states (solar IS free fuel and Can run around the clock since Boeing holds the patent for Thermal molten salts so that
heat can be stored for night and occasional cloudy days.)
2. can be used to run standard steam turbines that generate electricity
3. that can be used to power radio wave transmitters
4. that can be used to split out the Hydrogen
5. that can be STORED and then transported around our country to our
Hydro-Stations to power our cars.
That solves all our oil problems and since the driving energy source for this
is free our cost per mile of driving should go down (all other factors remaining equal like transportation cost, infrastructure cost of solar plants
etc.)
It's funny how pseudo-scientific some of you nay-sayers are. Clearly, none of you have any real experience in engineering.
Anything that can possibly release energy is a form of fuel. In other words, all solid matter in the universe.
Now as far as something you would power a combustion engine with, you can use anything that burns as fuel: hydrogen, chicken fat, pig farts ( I'm not joking, these have all been done).
The only question is: can we produce a combustible fuel from saltwater with a higher efficiency of thoroughput than we can produce legacy combustibles like petrol and alcohol?
The answer is... I don't know. Nobody does. That's why this is interesting.
Ok, I was reading all the first posts and thinking, "Am I taking crazy pills here? The point is that the saltwater is a fuel and the energy is from the matter." Maxx finally said this. I have an MS in electrical engineering and some research experience in more physics-related stuff, but when talking about fuels I'm more of an amateur. Maxx hit it on the head. It's fuel! Matter and energy are conserved, and a fuel is matter that gets converted to energy. Right? I think so. So, saying that this won't amount to anything because of conservation of energy is like saying that gasoline engines won't produce any more energy than what the car battery puts into the equation via sparks to get the reaction going. Others already said that, I think.
Wow! I really feel like I am watching the inquisition of Galileo. Without anyone here having any direct knowledge of the energy inputs and outputs vs. current technologies the war has begun. Skepticism is good, however blanket statements along the line of what I am reading here is a bit bizarre. Let's see what happens. In a very short time this will be tested and we will find out if this is a viable energy transportation method. If not, this news story will die a quiet death, but if... Two words that can change the world.
Hey at 1,500 Centigrade, I wonder if that is hot enough to cause the Nitrogen in the air to bond with the Hydrogen. If so, you would have to keep outside air from combining with the generated Hydrogen and Oxygen. Of course this is all predicated on the premise that energy output is higher than the input. If not the discuss is moot, which is something that has already been mentioned a thousand times.
That is a fact, what we strive for is efficiency. There is no doubt that he is putting in more energy then what he is getting out, my only point is whether this could be more efficient than electrolysis. Assuming he is running the RF Generator off a 120V outlet, he probably has a minimum input power range up to your standard hairdryer. That would be about 1500 Watts. Watch the video again.
You can see him turn his dial to what would probably be an input wattage around 400 Watts. His Sterling engine running of the test tube flame can't be producing anymore than about 10 Watts max. I'd say he is somewhere under 5% efficiency, where as most electrolysis power plants operate around 35%. Still I am only assuming and am curious to find out his actual input power. Either way I have to run ...
*jumps in time machine*
well, firstly a hello to my fellow ignorants and slightly agnostic companions in this venture into fairy-tale lands with magic 'energy' that just 'burns' as well as incredibly well-thought arguments that have absolutely no boundaries as to which defiance of logic it strivs to beset next upon the readers of these comments.
Next up i believe something is missing clarification: the fact that this man is able to burn salt water is not something that should be seen as an incredible feat, as it has been stated many times before here, this is nothing new...
however, the frequency and tune of the radiowave frequencies may prove to hold vastly greater consequences than the puny flames it produces in the end... see, the great thing about this discovery is really the fact that molecular entertwinings, as i like to call them, of electrons can be disrupted by radiowaves with the right setup!
now, this seems to hold great value in the fields of curing cancer by the means of nanoconstructed gold-salt-oxygen specially layered molecules, as well as when it comes to producing the fuel we'll be depending on the next thousand years or so while i work out how to make that darn sun reveal its secrets 'bout fusion as t'is best:burning for bilions of years from a relatively small starting mass. However, this discovery, i believe, may hold even greater value within other fields of science today and in the future; total freedom in the conversion of one type of mass to any other, and freedom in the conversion of one form of energy to the other(note: i'll clarify about energy later on).
Imagine a machine, where in one end you insert cans, dead people, plastic bags, glass, batteries, anything you can think of really that has mass and isn't usable anymore. Then you have a nice fat air-intake, as to filter through enough air to obtain the precious CO2 which will then be stacked and strained into nanotubes simply by the laws of physics and chemistry combined, these nanotubes folded by designed bacteria or systems of cells into 'logs' which are then burnt to power the radiowave generator which then nukes all of the chemical bindings in all the matter on the conveyor belt, turning it into whichever basic mass you need; excess energy being stored in cells of hydrogen for use in later conversions which require more energy input. the end result being you have a 'wonder-oven' which basically eats whichever kind of crap you feed it, and shits out gold, hairspray, oxygen, hydrogen, fishscales, you name it, it makes it; even unstable nuclei should be possible to create artificially with the right combinations of technologies when we get a tiny bit further in the developement.. (glad i'm only 21.. i plan to live waaaay long)
So... whats this 'energy' size y'guys are mumbling and ranting about? is that 'power up the shields scotty - we dont have the energy captain!', is it 'man... i just dont have energy to have sex AGAIN tonight honey...' or what... why can't man get it through his skull that there's no such thing as a currency called 'energy' in this universe. there is, however, a WIDE variety of redistributable electrons in processes that ALL transform one kind of matter into another in the process of transforming one kind of matter into the other(one being the 'cost' and one being the 'produce') - this is the basics of running a car(fuel->exhaust simply put), as well a cell (can you say Photosynthesis? - Sun burns, emits lightwaves/particles, is trapped by a certain chemical, which then 'hands on' the extra electron to another molecule, ATP, which has a LOT of sub-procedures in order to 'lever' the whole system as to make ATP, a weaker binding molecule, accept the extra electron from the stronger bound one.)
so... there is no energy - there is a transfer of electrons, THATS IT.. electrons are NOT energy themselves, energy is a term of which mankind has learned to easily designate anything that makes stuff happen easier than it really should according to the laws of physics and chemistry, for instance shaving: you can burn ATP by using your own arm-muscles and finger-muscles to clutch and move the razor, shaving yourself, OR, you can have someone else burn coal, oil, nuke 'ya up some juice, send it through the electrical network as electrons which then serve to power the electric engine in your shaving machine and then you basically just have to move that and endure the noise and electric bill... there is no energy, no mana, no 'life power!' involved here; there's changing and transferral of matter, and transferral of particles... the interesting part is when we develop ways of changing particles! someone email me when that guy figures that out! ;P
now, if i've offended anyone, i'm sorry as it is never an intention of mine; you're free to email me if you're startled or curious about what i write, 'cuz i am a nutbag.. i know!
also.. i must apologize for my poor english; i'm young, i'm restless, and i've just gotten off a 10-hour shift at a technical support-phoneline, so i'm tired!
As a Microwave engineer I have to say that without knowing how much energy is put into the radio wave generator, any conclusions about the effiency of the conversion is speculative. I will say that early microwave ovens were refered to as radarwave ovens and the confusion as to whether we were cooking with radar, microwaves, or radio waves. Ifyou look at the electromagnetic spectrum they are closely related. Microwave ovens operate @ 2.5 gigahertz, (Radio waves), They vibrate the molecules in the food by absorbtion. ....And it is the "Radio waves" heating the food not the food releasing its own energy. So what you have here is Electromagnetic energy bieng transformed from one form to and other form of energy...and probably at great loss. What ever happened to the scientific Method in this country. Every good Juarnalist should know this concept.
Typicaly a Microwave oven Magnitron consumes 700 watts people. I gaurantee that little flame is not going to generate enough hydrogen to yield even clos to that.
I am not a physicist or engineer, and I certainly believe that energy is conserved. My question for all you scientists out there is what does it take to release stored energy? A match will release the energy stored in wood. An enzyme will release the energy stored in a molecule. The cost is not great. Is there anything that will release the energy in a hydrogen bond or an ionic bond? I read that Tesla was able to shake Manhattan using a small device by using a resonant frequency. Is a resonant RF able to cause the release of bonding energy in the same way that a spark plug releases the energy in gasoline? Water has a lot of unique properties. See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1598503208400404583 for example. Perhaps we don't know everything just yet.
I was just wondering.
i think u guys misunderstood me when i said energy in equals energy out i ment the energy stored in the watter and salt and the rf is equal to the fire made
if you get watter and hydrogen out of it then maby the fire is made of the energy in the salt
i know that salt cant be broken down but certen waves in the electro magnetic spetrom can effect eletrons in certen energy levels so maby this wave the guy is using is effecting the salt and cossing it to react
for gerryw, and anybody else who never took chemistry in school. i did some calculations. the enthalpy of combusion of hydrogen and oxygen is 286 kJ. the energy needed to get to H2 1/2 O2 gas (from liquid water) is 327 kJ. Therefore, you need to INPUT about 41 kJ of energy to get to the H2 and 1/2 O2 gas states from liquid water. everybody should be required to take thermodynamics, otherwise you get a handful of people that believe anything they hear on the news. another thing, the reason you need salt water not regular water, is because without electrolytes to transport electrons in the water, electrolysis would never occur. the gibbs free energy for electrolysis w/o electrolytes is about 474 kJ. WITH electrolytes, like Na and Cl- the free energy decreases incredibly. (in fact, with any /- electrolytes, the free energy drops. so we could do the same experiment with potassium and bromine ions, etc..)
by the way, that 41 kJ of energy needed to get to H2 1/2 O2 gas from liquid water, ignores the fact that the RF loses energy through resistors as heat, and through the wires due to resistance. although, i am sure, this process is efficient. it would definitely work at home, if you could hand crank a generator that would power the RF. otherwise...no.
Well, czerwony, and the other esteemed commenters, you're all certainly not wrong, but may i point out that the laws of thermodynamics are an unfinished book. What's different, and so interesting here, is the effect of harmonics in the process. Sodium has a resonant frequency. Radio waves are tunable. Without the presence of sodium to influence the harmonic frequency of the compound, no reaction. Unlike electrolysis, which "cracks" loose the H, (and we have the scientific numbers on electrolysis), this harmonic approach seems to "shake" loose the H, shortcutting electrolysis. Harmonics can act as a multiplier, and this process is certainly different/new, and bears real scientific analysis.
Im sick of hearing from so called science teachers and scietists who usurp themselves and think of us as naive and dumb as 5th graders. Quit straw manning us and stick to the point. No one is claimng free energy! What we are INTERESTED in is the fact that getting hydrogen from water now take LESS energy using pulsed radio waves than the old method of electolysis which ate up alot more current. That said, it is quite feasable to use solar, hydro, or windmills to create the electricity to make the raiowaves needed to split the hydrogen. This would be great for a small stand alone generator for someones cabin to keep it warm. I agree with jakeonline...good point.
Kanzius has achieved electrolysis of seawater by means of radio wave energy, whereas conventional electrolysis breaks the molecular bonds of H2O by means of direct electric current supplied to physical electrodes immersed in the salt water.
Electrolysis of seawater liberates molecular hydrogen (H2) and atomic oxygen (O). All well and good. However, the fly in the ointment of the Kanzius process is the liberation of the chloride ion as deadly chlorine gas (Cl2).
As everyone knows, seawater is salty, very salty. Much of the salt in seawater is NaCl and other chloride salts. Electrolysis of an aqueous solution of table salt (NaCl, or sodium chloride) or seawater produces aqueous sodium hydroxide and chlorine, although usually only in minute amounts. NaCl (aq) can be reliably electrolysed to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen gas will be seen to bubble up at the cathode (negative), and chlorine gas will bubble at the anode (anode).
How would you contain the liberation of dangerous, highly poisonous chlorine gas in a "Kanzius engine"? It could be done, but at what cost? If a car were running on a Kanzius power engine, imagine the lawsuits pursuant to a chlorine-induced disaster. Little wonder Kanzius wants immediately to sell his discovery for a price.
I think it isn't a matter of free energy... we seem to have come to that conclusion already by what I have seen here. I think it is more a matter of "portability/transf-erability" and "store-ability" of this energy source.
I'll explain just a bit here... And keep this question in mind (I don't mind exposing my ignorance if I have the opportunity to learn).... HOW can an electric car be cost effective? The energy had to be created somewhere... a hydroelectric dam or a nuke plant or a coal plant. It took a certain amount of energy to make that fuel source (coal, water moving over turbines or nuke plants)… and then that energy is transferred over electrical lines at a considerable loss… finally makes it’s way to the car where it drives some inefficient motors. I’m not questioning the motors at this point… but I do know a bit about electricity and I know there is tremendous loss of energy along the transmission lines. So, gas (to me in my uneducated perspective) seems pretty decent because we can refine it, store it and use it. It stores well, is easily portable… so a pretty decent source of energy. Ok, I know about the waste produced. Let’s not go there for now. And I know it is a dwindling source. The waste (pollution) and the dwindling source is what makes it a poor source presently. But, it’s “port-ability/transfer-ability” and it’s “store-ability” make it a GREAT source.
It would seem to me that this salt water is of the same type of fuel soruce as gasolene then. Easy to store and move.
Electrical cars with the solar cells are probably the most economically friendly (unless making those little cells make some sort of incredible deadly waste), but not very “store-able”… if the sun is out, if the travel has to be at night… so true solar propulsion is out. BUT… to use SOLAR power to drive the RF generator at home to fill hydrogen tanks.. or to charge a car with a 24 VDC generator to create the heat to drive the car (the car could be heat/steam or hydrogen I guess)….
It seems like a really good deal.
Of course… keep in mine, the GOVERNMENT will put the same tax on this as there is on gasoline… you will probably have to report you mileage each month/year and you will be charged $$$ per mile. The government won’t give up on it’s income that it gets from you at the pump.
I would be a lot more optimistic if they would discuss effeciency. I wish they would tell us how much power the radiowave generator consumes. If this works than energy is free and ever one can retire.
Well I looked at the video a bit more closely.. Did anyone happen to catch the tube light fluorescing when he placed it between the RF emitters. That’s an indication that there is an excess then 200Watts of RF there. That flame is not more than 20 Watts. Lets all wait and see what happens.
Speaking as a flesh and bone scientist, this is truly an interesting phenomenon. Unfortunately as it's demonstrated here it does not present a viable fuel source. Start to finish the trick itself does not release any of the chemical energy stored in the salt water. The salt water simply "absorbs" the RF then immediately releases it again. And anyone in fields that work with RF systems such as the one shown here knows they require far more energy than the small amount converted in this stunning reaction.
I'm rather disappointed in the titling of this news clip as "water into fuel." Numerous misleading buzz articles like this are created without providing the detailed explanation on the mechanism governing the reaction. As a result people tend to jump up and down screaming conspiracy when they don't see these products hit the market. If you know nothing about it, things like fuel cell techonology (recombination of hydrogen and oxygen into water) sound like the wave of the future. Then you read a bit more and find there are very obvious and practical reasons why these things find no wide-spread use. (Hydrogen and oxygen form water because it's lower energy. For practical use one must separate water by electrolysis to get the fuel for a fuel cell. And gasses aren't exactly efficient to store, either.)
Cheers to the numerous intelligent remarks on here. I don't mean to be up on a high horse about this, but I wish people would first inquire more before asking why we aren't having our scientific community drop everything to attend to this interesting effect.
All that said, I say again that he presents a brilliant application of a known effect. That in itself begs the question of whether it can be engineered into a useful fueling device. To that I say: Not likely. But not unlikely enough that it's not worth some thought... Just seeing this has me kicking around some novel ideas of my own. And don't doubt that if any scientist worked it out with certainty that they wouldn't put their life on the line to see that it saw the light of day!
Here is a system that is currently being used to generate commercial grade electricity in the high kilowatt range and is quickly moving towards mega watt production.
The above has some good potential, but is just one of many alternatives being looked at today.
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We should simply look at hydrogen as a transportable fuel source, much in the same way that gasoline, bio-diesel, plutonium pellets, or liquefied coal are a transportable energy sources.
We cannot transport wind, rivers, geysers, and/or other varied natural energy sources in a container but we can use these to create portable energy.
Also, with the varied alternative energy sources coming from naturally kinetic processes, hydrogen becomes the portable fuel source for our transportation needs, and should never be seen as an alternative fuel source behind a power plant.
Also how to best separate hydrogen from water, is an ongoing contest currently being measured by amounts produced vs. lifecycle cost. As for mass production, if a truly viable solution is found in 5-10 years you will see hydrogen-fueling stations quickly replacing gasoline pumps.
How long did it take the market to phase out Regular Gasoline with/ Unleaded.... or for something younger people might remember DVD's replacing Video Tapes.
If it makes money the free enterprise market will find a way, but first it has to make money or cost less then the current process.
That's all we need... to burn through yet another natural resource. Besides there's no way that oil companies and the powers that be would allow this. That may be the reason most of us haven't heard about this man.
Same with the cure for cancer... I've never heard of using radio waves to cure cancer. This man hasnt recieved any news coverage here.
All these conspiracy theorists! Ability to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen has existed for many years - nuclear submarines folks? Water doesn't burn - radio waves heat water, that's how microwaves work. Just need lots of electricity for either method! Coal or nuclear perhaps?
Oops, the aliens are contacting me via my fillings! Gotta go!
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