You will not believe this
Remember the Hydrogen economy? We all had a good laugh with that one. The idea you could run your car on seawater, what a fantasy.
Until now. Like most great inventions this was an accident discovered when a former broadcast executive tried to discover a cure for cancer.
Meet John Kanzius.
August 6th, 2007 at 10:57 am
While this _might_ be a more efficient means of breaking the hydrogen-oxygen bonds in a water molecule, it is NOT a new source of energy. Energy still has to be provided to the system to run the RF generator and that will exceed the amount of _useful_ energy obtained from burning the hydrogen. (My thought is that nuclear power is probably the ideal source.)
Electrolysis is not exactly a new idea; it is also _not_ the critical element impeding the coming “hydrogen economy”. A very large amount of infrastructure is needed: energy source, production, storage, transport, sales, education, engine systems built to use it, …. (I’m quite sure the list is longer than anything I could come up with). Oil/gasoline has 100 plus year head start on it; it’ll take a while for hydrogen to catch up — and there is no guarantee that it will. Hydrogen not only has to be _better_ than oil, it has to be enough better to justify building the new infrastructure AND tearing down the old; it is not exactly obvious that it is (wishful thinking aside).
August 6th, 2007 at 11:01 am
One minor technical problem: How much energy is expended in creating the radio frequency field that releases the hydrogen from the saltwater?
If the energy used to extract the hydrogen from the water exceeds, or even is not significantly less, than the energy obtained from the burning hydrogen, then this is nothing more than an interesting phenomena.
I’m not saying that this CAN’T be an important discovery, only that it is a little premature to announce the beginning of the hydrogen age.
If the rf transmitter can be made efficient enough to release significantly more hydrogen power than the power required to create the field, this could be the most important invention since the internal combustion engine…maybe since fire itself.
Of course the professional doomsayers known as envirowhackos will find some reason to be against it. The extinction of some protected species of microbe that only lives in saltwater? The release of oxygen as exhaust would lower CO2 levels in the atmosphere and cause catastrophic global cooling? Who knows what they’ll come up with…anything to stand in the way of progress.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Problems aside, and the whole “but how much energy does it take to manufacture this in the first place” question pushed out of the way for a minute…
That’s really freakin’ cool.
August 6th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
How much energy is expended in creating the radio frequency field that releases the hydrogen from the saltwater?
Bravo, that is the first thing to look at. Is there a positive energy gain? We think alike.
Of course the professional doomsayers known as envirowhackos will find some reason to be against it.
Again, you are correct. I can hear it now, but if we use all the water in the ocean where will the fish live? Or global cooling. Or global warming. They are hell bent that we must ride bicycles to the store to shop for our vegan food stuffs. Reminds me of Neil on the Young Ones. Are the lentils done yet?
BTW, Anyone remember this movie?
August 6th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Yup. The energy balance equation is the question. They’re breaking the hydrogen/oxygen bond and then immediately recombining them back into water vapor. Does it take less RF energy to accomplish this (yielding a net energy gain) or more RF energy than you get back as heat?
I’m willing to bet that you’re looking at an energy sink, not a source. Perpetual motion machines don’t exist.
That being said, if the conversion is very efficient, then using a nuke plant to run this process for desalinization and using the waste heat for a steam-cycle could be an excellent engineering application.
August 6th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Apparently he is using a 1000 watt radio source to make that hydrogen. So the energy is not free.
Currently, the only ways to get H2 for fuel are either chemically, or through electrolysis. This looks like it might be more efficient than mere electrolysis.
A more efficient way to store energy by making H2 is a good thing.
August 6th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
The radio frequency generator is essentially the same as your microwave oven. Wikipedia says typical microwave ovens are 64% efficient. Lets be generous and say 70%. If the efficiency of the electrolysis is also 70%, and then you capture 90% of the energy when burning the H2, then you have a net efficiency of about 45%. You would do better just to use the electricity that originally powered the radio frequency generator.
August 6th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
According to this site, “More energy is consumed by the radio frequency device than is produced for burning.” Of course, we all knew that. TANSTAAFL.
If it can be produced cheaply using energy generated by a nuclear or hydro plant, hydrogen might be useful as an energy storage medium. It could be used where it’s produced to supply peak power, or it could be transported elsewhere if special pipelines are built. Protytype hydrogen powered vehicles, using either fuel cells or internal comubstion engines, have been built. But you ain’t never gonna run your car on water.
August 6th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Yes, simply using the electricity to move the vehicle is more efficient, but you have to get the electricity into the vehicle. Current batteries have problems with weight and cost.
As for moving the hydrogen … it would be easier to convert it into methane ( CH4 ), which can be done with catalysts at nearly zero cost, and move and use the Methane for fuel, as the infrastructure and automobile tech is already established.
August 6th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Methane is great for stationary engines, but it isn’t that much better for vehicles than hydrogen because it doesn’t compress well. The infrastructure and automobile tech we have is for propane. Automobile conversions for methane are also more complex because methane is nominally equivalent to 120 octane. The sewage treatment plants and such which use it for fuel run spark-ignition converted diesels.
August 6th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
“Apparently he is using a 1000 watt radio source to make that hydrogen. So the energy is not free.”
So; 1KW in (assuming 100% efficiency in the RF generator) and around 0.2KW out. Oooh, I’m all a-twitter!
What got to me most was that each and every single one of the mind-numbed, lemming newsies failed to ask any pertinent questions. Hey newsies, we’ve known about cracking water into hydrogen and oxygen now for generations. This is new to you? My son’s jr. high school class studied that last year, and we did it in my high school class back in about 1974.
But we get the explanation in the last seconds of the vid, during fadeout: GOVERNMENT GRANTS. If the geniuses in the DOE are as fucking retarded as the newsies reporting the story, there’s a half-billion dollars in this for some schlub in public universtiy somewhere.
When it utterly fails to go anywhere, we can always blame it on the BIG OIL companies supressing the technology.
August 6th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Hydrogen is not an energy source. Its a conveyance and storage meduim, and not a great one at that. Think of it as you would batteries. Batteries with a crappy shelf life. What it has going for it is its abundance, but that can be said of dirt, or dense TV news reporters– maybe we could burn them for fuel…
I’m holding out for that “Mr Fusion” thingy they had in the movie Back to the Future. Then I’ll be impressed. Oh, remember Ponds and Fleischman? Remember the fawning, orgasming news coverage those two douche-bags got? Those two have this salt water thing beat all to hell.
August 6th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Oh, remember Ponds and Fleischman? Remember the fawning, orgasming news coverage those two douche-bags got? Those two have this salt water thing beat all to hell.
The cold fusion boys. That was a great scam.
I doubt we will do anything until the oil is used up. Except for shale oil in Canada, and some steam techniques to recover oil in deep wells, why would we use anything other than oil?
What hippies don’t get is that we want the cheapest power with the highest BTUs. While nuclear power plants and electric cars would work, the hippies don’t want the nuclear power plants. What they want is to bitch about both sides. Nuclear power is too dangerous. We need solar and wind. Except of course neither provides the BTUs at anywhere near an acceptable dollar per BTU.
Their solution is for everyone to live in little apartments, condos, and maybe very small homes. Ride your bike and eat your vegetables. That car had better be electric.
Liberals are the new Luddites.