Salt water as fuel?

[Little Conqueror]

http://green.yahoo.com/index.php?q=node/1570

Exciting news. While they haven't actually determined if salt water can be used as a fuel for automobiles or such, the mere possibility of earth's most abundant and easily created resource being used as a power source is enough to excite me.

[tpz]

Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6yRn4IAsrU .

This guy was actually poisoned.

[Kennerado]

Didn't some guy invent a water powered car years ago? Then he got a mystery illness and died.

Edit: Ahh that will tell me to re-fresh before I post.

[Sang]

Then he got a mystery illness and died.

he was murdered by teh governmentz :tinyted:

[LiquiD]

I can't believe how controversial it is to try to do something good for the world. Everyone would benefit from water fueled technology. Its just the greedy ******s who have their oil and petrol greed and want to protect it. Its obvious this guy didn't die from an "illness".

I always thought it required more energy to split the atom than what it was worth as hydrogen and oxigen...?

Something someone said which I want to know is if they did make this technology then can't they create turbines that use the water in the ocean to make electricity?

[peoplessi]

http://green.yahoo.com/index.php?q=node/1570

Exciting news. While they haven't actually determined if salt water can be used as a fuel for automobiles or such, the mere possibility of earth's most abundant and easily created resource being used as a power source is enough to excite me.

As in which way? It might a basis for something, but as is, it is no use in anywhere. Since the energyamount needed for the radiofrequences is too high for the energy gained.

[Jiminator]

I was going to post that, but I found that the story had been posted 3 months ago (ie: http://donklephant.com/2007/05/28/turning-salt-water-into-fuel/ )
and so it is looking somewhat like a hoax. I would think that it would have advanced in 3 months time, rather than only being picked up by new outlets.

[Dave-ros]

I think the problem to consider here is that seawater isn't just water with sodium chloride dissolved in it -- it's got all sorts of other minerals in solution, not to mention all sorts of biological stuff suspended in it. Would be a shame if this plan were scuppered by the need to filter and purify the water first :(

[Phait]

My first impressions are: great, another natural resource even more important than oil, to pillage and eventually run dry!

But it wouldn't happen in my lifetime, so whatever.

[wayskobfssae]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6vSxR6UKFM&NR=1

"Inventor John Kanzius, says that if some big company wants to buy up his salt water fuel invention, that's ok, he wants to use all the money to finish his quest to find the cure for cancer."

Well so much for that. F'ing Texaco will just buy it and bury it. This guy had better be careful who he sells this stuff too. He's sitting on a cure for a disease just as bad for our species as cancer is. If he simply throws that to the wolves to pursue a cure that he may never find, then he's a complete fool.

Not saying that he shouldn't go after cancer, but if the wrong company gets their hands on this then it's adios to yet another solution to oil dependancy... AGAIN.

[wayskobfssae]

I think the problem to consider here is that seawater isn't just water with sodium chloride dissolved in it -- it's got all sorts of other minerals in solution, not to mention all sorts of biological stuff suspended in it. Would be a shame if this plan were scuppered by the need to filter and purify the water first :(

I don't think it matters. Impurities in the water would probably just be ignored by the radio waves and they would then be dumped from the reservoir once all the hydrogen was extracted.

[Jiminator]

in theory the technology could have lots of uses. The main issue appears to be if breaking the bonds (H2O + NaCl) takes more energy than the resulting compounds produce. Im no chemist, but its obvious that H2O cannot be part of the end result, as that would be no gain, anyway it would have been nice to see the resulting compounds (maybe NaOH + HCl but that then results in NaCl + H2O ...)

[Black Yeti]

I saw this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6vSxR6UKFM) some while ago and was quite excited about it. But then I had some doubts about how much energy his radio-frequency generator would need to run. Somehow I have the feeling that you have to put much more energy into the device than you get out of the combustion.

Think about it: If it wouldn't be that way you could simply use the energy gained from the combustion to power the radio-frequency generator. The result would be free energy and that would violate a few physical laws...

I hope I'm wrong but I don't think this technology will ever be used to power a car or to generate electricity.

[Jiminator]

no, there is not necessarily any violation. gaining energy is accomplished by breaking down compounds into simpler compounds. Just with H2O & NaCl - I don't think you can get any simpler than that.

[Rider]

*Hopes the common man will someday use this technology if it's indeed as effective as suggested

Please don't let some big-moneyed company buy this for a few extra bucks!

[LeadBullet]

Somehow I have the feeling that you have to put much more energy into the device than you get out of the combustion.

I was mainly curious about that too, and wondered how much energy the radiowave stuff took to get the reaction and how effective solar plants could be where they used solar energy to create liquid fuel.

[wayskobfssae]

I was mainly curious about that too, and wondered how much energy the radiowave stuff took to get the reaction and how effective solar plants could be where they used solar energy to create liquid fuel.Same thoughts here. It looks and sounds like a huge energy hog but is also not at all optimized. Lots of the waves were being wasted. Depending on the volume of water you'd need to get the necessary heat output, the wave generator could possibly be a lot smaller.

[wayskobfssae]

.....

[wayskobfssae]

Moderator..... please delete these 2, was testing a forum glitch issue.

[DudeMiester]

I'm all but certain that the radio wave generator takes more energy than is produced by combustion. Still, it does have merit in the simple sense of chemical manipulation. For example, you could use it for energy recovery in systems that already waste a lot of radio waves.

[8IronBob]

What, and pump H2O from the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Great Salt Lake, and into gas pumps across the US?
Get with it, not gonna happen...

[wayskobfssae]

What, and pump H2O from the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and Great Salt Lake, and into gas pumps across the US?
Get with it, not gonna happen...

Umm... how to you think oil gets around? So our tanker trucks (pipelines too but you'd be surprised, VERY little U.S. oil is transported via pipes) are hauling sea water instead of gasoline, what's the issue?

[8IronBob]

Umm... how to you think oil gets around? So our tanker trucks (pipelines too but you'd be surprised, VERY little U.S. oil is transported via pipes) are hauling sea water instead of gasoline, what's the issue?
Yeah, I know, but I mean, I think that Ethanol will be the method of choice instead of salt water, tho, as far as alternative fuels in the upcoming years. I'm wondering if that would affect the price of rationized consumer corn, tho?

[wayskobfssae]

Yeah, I know, but I mean, I think that Ethanol will be the method of choice instead of salt water, tho, as far as alternative fuels in the upcoming years. I'm wondering if that would affect the price of rationized consumer corn, tho?

Depends on which develops faster. IF the salt water concept actually works, it would be a lot less trouble to harvest than corn and thereby a lot cheaper. Ethanol is just as much of a pain as any agriculture, but would demand thousands times more of it than what we produce for food now. What it would do to the price of corn I dunno. It really might not change because the "fuel farms" will be handling it quite differently. Local farms not interested in industrializing themselves up the wazoo will still sell corn locally. No reason for them to charge an arm and a leg for it.

The Ethanol idea is interesting, particularly if it pans out because its much more than just an alternative fuel source, because the U.S. has the some of the best land for growing corn in the entire world, and a TON of it.

Fields of Gold vs. Fields of Black. :D

[thefly]

What it would do to the price of corn I dunno. It really might not change because the "fuel farms" will be handling it quite differently. Local farms not interested in industrializing themselves up the wazoo will still sell corn locally. No reason for them to charge an arm and a leg for it.

You are pretty late in the terms of fact gathering on this subject, friend.

[wayskobfssae]

You are pretty late in the terms of fact gathering on this subject, friend.

Considering Ethanol hasn't even taken hold, there aren't any "facts" on that.

[Jiminator]

yay for growing corn to power up our huge SUVs whereas in other parts of the world people are starving with no food to eat.... :woot:

[Little Conqueror]

yay for growing corn to power up our huge SUVs whereas in other parts of the world people are starving with no food to eat.... :woot:

Not to sound like a dick, but so what?

Cutting down on pollution and possibly extending the lifespan of our species and planet as a whole, as well as eliminating one major source of warfare in the world, trumps that concern considerably.

Corn is easy to grow, replenishes itself, and is pretty prevalent. So you're saying we should continue to ravage the earth and pollute the environment just so that not an ear of corn doesn't go to some hungry mouth?

I mean, it's not like there's a corn shortage or anything. Maybe in those countries, yeah, but there's plenty of food we can give them besides corn that's even easier to attain in huge numbers. :doh:

[Dave-ros]

Or they could grow their own -- people in the Third World don't want to live on hand-outs, as that Oxfam advert used to say :p

[wayskobfssae]

yay for growing corn to power up our huge SUVs whereas in other parts of the world people are starving with no food to eat.... :woot:

Umm... heh... big oil adds to poverty, so, your point?

[Commando Nukem]

Umm... heh... big oil adds to poverty, so, your point?

Remember, we're not suppose to police the world and get rid of the scumbags that keep their populance in poverty whilst they sit in huge palaces.

Let me put this in less politically agressive terms.

Third world POVERTY (general population) has NOTHING to do with western civilisations fuel choices. Corn, Cow Dung, Oil, Water.

Im really hoping for a steam/electric/solar energy combination. Using solar cels to recharge electronic circuts and the electric engine using water to drive.

[Cipher]

This concept, like so many other "free energy" inventions, is doomed to failure. The only way that the salt water could be burned is if the Hydrogen and Oxygen within the water have their chemical bonds broken. The Hydrogen would be then free to burn. However, burning is just another chemical reaction that reforms the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen. You are taking the reactants from a more stable state to a less stable state, then back to their original state. The only way to extract energy from this process is if, as mentioned previously, the energy used to split the water molecules would have gone to waste.

Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

[Dave-ros]

It could work as a means of making energy "portable" if you have a near-inexhaustible supply somewhere that otherwise can't be transmitted -- e.g. fuel cells for cars, manufactured at a static geothermal plant.

Bit of an old thread to resurrect :p