PDA

View Full Version : Scientist 'burns' saltwater...Silver Age boiling oceans plot to follow


moebius
09-11-2007, 05:29 PM
Radio Frequencies Help Burn Salt Water

By David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

ERIE, Pa. - An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.

John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.

The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.

Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.

The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said.

The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," Roy said.

"This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Roy said. "Seeing it burn gives me the chills."

Roy will meet this week with officials from the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to try to obtain research funding.

The scientists want to find out whether the energy output from the burning hydrogen — which reached a heat of more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit — would be enough to power a car or other heavy machinery.

"We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads," Roy said. "The potential is huge."

If true, this is quite something in its potential implications as a source of energy.

On the other hand, since this is Lake Erie, for all we know there's some sort of accelerant or fuel already in the water affecting driving the chemical reaction. Upstate NY, Pennsylvania and Ohio are, after all, the Land of Burning Rivers

sehthan
09-11-2007, 06:06 PM
The water! The water! The water's on fire! We don't need no... uhm...

Serik
09-11-2007, 06:11 PM
Ok, let me get this straight.

He used radio waves to break the chemical bonds connecting the hydrogen to the sodium chloride and oxygen.

Maybe I'm missing something, but there's no energy gain here. The energy yield =energy input required to break the chemical bonds. In fact, due to entropy, there'd actually be a net energy loss; you can't get out what you put in.

If they used a "renewable" source like solar power to separate the hydrogen...but then you run into the inherent problems with using hydrogen as a fuel source.

Jack Zodiac
09-11-2007, 06:12 PM
Erie's a freshwater lake, but if they could burn it, I wouldn't be surprised.

Radio waves and saltwater. Radio waves being so commonplace in science today, and saltwater being the most abundant thing on the planet, this is kick ass news. Especially considering the Greenland icecap's recently started sloughing off into the sea at a much faster rate than estimated before, we could potentially solve two problems at once. Science kicks fucking ass.

moebius
09-11-2007, 06:32 PM
Erie's a freshwater lake, but if they could burn it, I wouldn't be surprised.


D'OH! Of course you're right. Still, maybe they took water from Lake Erie, and added salt. Probably cheaper than shipping it from the Atlantic.

Jack Zodiac
09-11-2007, 06:36 PM
Well, if this saltwater energy doesn't work out, when the next little ice age hits, we'll at least be able to set the Ohio River and Lake Erie on fire to keep warm, eh?

FunkyGreenJerusalem
09-11-2007, 08:15 PM
"We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads,"

And that's why science is awesome.

Valmore
09-11-2007, 08:20 PM
Lake Erie? Can that even be called "water" anymore?

mgs
09-11-2007, 09:09 PM
I thought we already invented the steam engine? But maybe that's just me.

EmeraldCity
09-11-2007, 09:14 PM
Oil company hit squads on the move!

But really this could be huge!

Jack Zodiac
09-11-2007, 09:37 PM
I thought we already invented the steam engine? But maybe that's just me.

Steam engines require a combustable source of energy for the heat itself, like wood or coal, which requires foresting or mining. This uses radio waves to seperate the water's components and allows one to combust just the hydrogen, and theoretically, with something like solar power to generate the radio waves themselves, this would be the cleanest, cheapest source of energy next to the sun itself.