Radio Frequencies Help Burn Salt Water

[K-Mac]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8...;show_article=1

[Steve D'Ippolito]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8...;show_article=1

Fascinating. The Big Question is, does burning the saltwater release more energy than was needed to break it up this way? (I strongly suspect not, but if so, this is a cool way to carry your fuel in your hydrogen burning car). Smaller questions: what happens to the salt in the salt water? Is it unaffected, or does this process release chlorine and sodium as well? That would be a not-insignificant issue to deal with; both are nasty in their uncombined state. Sodium in particular will "burn" in water.

[Capitalism Forever]

The Big Question is, does burning the saltwater release more energy than was needed to break it up this way?

I was just about to ask that question but noticed on preview that you'd beaten me to it. It's a rather obvious question to ask, isn't it? I suppose the reporter is so used to it being evaded with regard to all "alternative energy solutions" that he didn't even think of it.

Note, though, that this is not your conventional alternative energy source. If it happens to turn out to be viable, environmentalists will hate it like they've never hated anything before. What else would you expect of people who want us to avoid flushing toilets in order to save water?

Edited September 11, 2007 by Capitalism Forever
Grammar

[K-Mac]

I almost put something in my post to the effect of, of course enviros will hate this because we would be burning the homes of the little fishes!

[Steve D'Ippolito]

I almost put something in my post to the effect of, of course enviros will hate this because we would be burning the homes of the little fishes!

Well, then, just to make them happy we need to pump the salt water out of those vast stretches of ocean where nothing lives. (never mind the fact that it all comes out of the same basin regardless.)

Or we could tell the Viros to f*** off.

(As an exercise to the student, which one of these options do you think I prefer?)

I suppose the reporter is so used to it being evaded with regard to all "alternative energy solutions" that he didn't even think of it.

Alas, it's more likely the reporter was too ignorant to think of the question.

[Robert J. Kolker]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8...;show_article=1

Water is "burned" hydrogen. How does one oxidize NACL?

I have my doubts about this.

Bob Kolker

[DavidOdden]

The wierdos admit that it uses more energy that it produces. Here's a vid.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

The wierdos admit that it uses more energy that it produces. Here's a vid.

Then, at best, it's merely a more efficient method of producing hydrogen than any other method previously known.

The "hydrogen economy" has a lot of appeal (after all, the combustion product is water, and it burns quite energetically) until one realizes that hydrogen (for combustion) will never be a source of energy (short of importing it from Jupiter). Thus, you must generate energy some other way, use it to create the hydrogen, transport the hydrogen somewhere else where you need portable energy, then either burn it or use it in a fuel cell.

The enthusiasm declines further when it turns out that hydrogen is hard to store and transport economically in the amounts we'd need to put it in our cars' gas tanks to burn it (or use it in a fuel cell). For one thing the "gas tank" would have to be constructed in a way that doesn't let the hydrogen leak out--and even an airtight tank is not necessarily hydrogen tight. The hydrogen molecule is *really* small and can slip through things air won't. Even a seamless metal wall will often leak.

[JMeganSnow]

Geez, I think I remember hearing stuff like this years and years ago when they were talking about the difficulties of creating liquid hydrogen. It's been so long that I barely remember it, just something about the fact that the hydrogen won't stay liquid even under enormous pressure. They were talking about figuring some way to convert all the hydrogen molecules to tritium which stays put a little bit better. Unfortunately this turned out to be a huge pain in the ass as well.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Geez, I think I remember hearing stuff like this years and years ago when they were talking about the difficulties of creating liquid hydrogen. It's been so long that I barely remember it, just something about the fact that the hydrogen won't stay liquid even under enormous pressure. They were talking about figuring some way to convert all the hydrogen molecules to tritium which stays put a little bit better. Unfortunately this turned out to be a huge pain in the ass as well.

Actually it's helium that will not liquefy except under pressure. Hydrogen liquifies fine--you just have to get it very cold. Liquid hydrogen (and liquid oxygen) are the fuels used by the shuttle orbiter when the shuttle boosts to orbit--and I guarantee you it's not under a lot of pressure--a pressure tank that size (basically half of the external tank, and that's the big brown thing the orbiter and solid boosters are attached to) would be too heavy to get to orbit.

(nevertheless--liquid hydrogen would be impractical for car fuel--it would warm up and vaporize before you could burn the whole tankful, unless you want your car to have a big refrigeration system in it.... Rockets, of course, burn their entire load in just a few minutes.)

Tritium would be a nightmare, and I don't believe your recollection could be correct. It is highly radioactive, for one, (12 year half life) and has to be artificially produced through a nuclear reaction, which is *expensive*. Prohibitively so in quantities you'd want to have to burn in a car engine. We are talking national debt money here. And you wouldn't want to burn it even if it was free, because the water vapor would be highly radioactive.

I suggest your memory is faulty, either in what you remember or the context you remember it in.

[Capitalism Forever]

wierdos

I hate to criticize your spelling ... but ...

[-archimedes-]

I've often heard similar gruff about realistic/practical hydrogen powered applications (as has been the case with similarly, "allegedly" impossible power generation sources), only to have someone come along after all of the nay sayers have had their, uh, say... and do exactly what everyone else has been running around claiming couldn't be done, e.g., http://cars.uk.msn.com/Reviews/article.asp...umentid=1284786

[Steve D'Ippolito]

I've often heard similar gruff about realistic/practical hydrogen powered applications (as has been the case with similarly, "allegedly" impossible power generation sources), only to have someone come along after all of the nay sayers have had their, uh, say... and do exactly what everyone else has been running around claiming couldn't be done, e.g., http://cars.uk.msn.com/Reviews/article.asp...umentid=1284786

The thing to remember, though, even if all the engineering issues can be solved is that burning hydrogen or using it in a fuel cell will not be a source of energy but only a way of storing it. Make it one place, bottle it or pipeline it or both, then burn or fuel-cell it somewhere else. The reason for this is that it must first be made and it takes as much energy, or more (due to losses) to make it as you get from burning it. Now the hydrogen can be made via whatever energy source is most convenient and plentiful, nukes (if you are rational) or solar panels windmills and other "environmentally friendly" and "sustainable" means (if you aren't). But it must be made. (All bets are off, of course, if we develop practical nuclear fusion--then hydrogen becomes an awesome energy source.) So it gives us a way to turn a large supply of energy into fuel, but it is not itself that large supply of energy.

The practical difficulties are still legion (one demo car doesn't change that). That car needs a cryogenic tank to hold its fuel, because the hydrogen has to be liquefied. Expensive. Heavy. Bulky. Another option, theoretically, is use palladium as a sponge to soak up hydrogen. Have you priced palladium lately? It's about half as expensive as gold right now. In any case, you can obviously build a hydrogen burning car. It was done back in the 70s. Can you build it cheaply enough to be worthwhile? I don't believe it has been done yet. I do hope that it will be. At least in this article they've made it capable of burning both H2 and gasoline so that gets around the chicken and egg.

Hydrogen would probably work better in the niches natural gas fills now--gas in a pipe coming to your home so you can burn it in your furnace and stove. Even there, there is a problem. The molecules are so small that a pipe that holds natural gas without leaking will leak hydrogen like a sieve. This includes the pipelines and gas mains. And it's odorless. (Now someone is going to tell me that natural gas is too, and they add a chemical to give it a smell, but that odorant itself has larger molecules and won't come out of the pipes through holes small enough to leak hydrogen.)

I actually like the idea of methanol better. It's already a liquid, hence more convenient than hydrogen. It can easily be made from methane, and less easily be made from carbon dioxide and water. We could put methanol in our vehicles and when natural gas becomes scarce, we use nukes, if necessary, to supply the energy to make it out of CO2 and H2O. (At that point, of course the Viros have to find something else to bitch about because we won't be putting any new CO2 into the air, just recycling what's already there. Bonus!) The biggest practical problem with it is that cars with rubber parts (i.e., just about all of them, today) won't tolerate it; apparently it eats those sorts of materials. So cars would have to be built a bit differently; but that is true of hydrogen as well.

[-archimedes-]

Admittedly, the auto manufacturer may have gone about the entire process with technology drawn from conventional wisdom on the matter, essentially over-engineering it in the process, when it is actually a quite simple process called "electrolysis". http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/projects/split_h2o.html/ (a simple overview)

A more in-depth review of the subject matter as it relates to the current topic: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase...o/electrol.html

The point here is that the entire problem with this technology's practical implementation may merely be the individual's inability to conceive of it as something actually that simple to induce, after all, it was once believed that it took some 32 or more moving parts in order to operate a handgun/gun and now there's MetalStorm (http://www.metalstorm.com/) with but one (1) moving part, the bullet itself.

The point here is that the designers my be merely over-engineering a relatively simple process of but one form of an alternative, renewable fuel source in their enthusiasm over their ingenuity.

[John McVey]

In any case, you can obviously build a hydrogen burning car. It was done back in the 70s. Can you build it cheaply enough to be worthwhile? I don't believe it has been done yet. I do hope that it will be.

Don't hold your breath. If markets were free I highly doubt that hydrogen production would be anything other than a feedstock generated onsite for immediate use in industrial production of other fuels. At the moment that is precisely what is done for the generation of ammonia, producing several million tons of hydrogen per year. All we will see is an expansion of this kind of infrastructure while vehicles use synthetic hydrocarbon fuels (see below).

Hydrogen would probably work better in the niches natural gas fills now

I disagree. In reference to natural gas, hydrogen would instead be used to generate more natural gas from coal and thereby keep the natural gas usage niche open as it is. Ergo, use existing distribution systems and just have synthesisers at the refinery points, so people get to keep their existing gas cookers and space heaters etc.

I actually like the idea of methanol better.

Once you start talking about using nuclear power to generate liquid fuels for vehicles you needn't go into corrosive materials like methanol. There are various reactions that lead solely from water and carbon dioxide to the generation of synthetic hydrocarbon fuels of various sizes (Fischer-Tropsch, Sabatier, water gas shift, Bosch), plus additional reactions for other cycles for specific hydrocarbons (eg calcium carbide + water = lime + acetylene). These are all well-established technologies, can use coal as a feedstock (of which there is enough for over 1000 years even if we continue to use it in power stations instead of nuclear), and just need an energy source (ie nuclear).

(At that point, of course the Viros have to find something else to bitch about because we won't be putting any new CO2 into the air, just recycling what's already there. Bonus!)

The extreme viros will bitch about anything that allows human beings to continue to exist all. The moderate viros will bitch about anything that allows humans to exist on a lifestyle above that of the primitive hunter-gatherers we were 10,000 years ago. Either way, they wont switch bitching about cars to something else, but will continue to bitch about cars - and likely jack up their bloody volume - precisely because it means we can continue to live and improve our present industrial lifestyles without "harming the environment".

The biggest practical problem with it is that cars with rubber parts (i.e., just about all of them, today) won't tolerate it; apparently it eats those sorts of materials. So cars would have to be built a bit differently; but that is true of hydrogen as well.

And that is precisely why it is better just to synthesise ordinary liquid hydrocarbons and use existing tried and true combustion technology rather than mess around trying to solve corrosion problems like this.

JJM

Edit: added synthetic fuel link, tidied a bit.

Edited October 6, 2007 by John McVey