| Author | Message | ||
     Paulxb12r |
If you run out of gas just go the nearest beach. I know its not cold fusion but their half way their. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6vSxR6UKFM&feature =related | ||
| Barker |
But how much energy does it take to power his rf machine? | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
I guess the real question is how intense must the RF be to ignite the water. If he is breaking the oxygen/hydrogen bond, is the oxygen sufficient to provide combustion? I'm assuming it is. You are just "unzipping" the bond and then bonding the elements back together again. Would this mean that we wouldn't need air in the preignition mixture? I think the RF generator would be the difficult piece of the puzzle. | ||
| Etennuly |
It probably takes a thousand kw per minute to operate it. | ||
| Old_man |
It probably takes more energy than it makes. There is no such thing as a free lunch. | ||
| Unibear12r |
I've seen a small blurb about this in a science newsletter I get and again on national TV on the Science channel. It is claimed the microwave is specifically tuned to do what FB states above and uses only about a quarter of the energy liberated. However I've seen both of the projects mentioned in the above link being worked on by other people. Also the last time I saw this, part of the liberated energy came from a fair amount of gas pressure, not merely a small flame at the end of a test tube. I'll not buy into it until I see more, but it is interesting. Old man echoed my first thoughts... no free lunch. | ||
| Unibear12r |
Also, kind of on the same lines, a guy has invented a microwave system that busts hydrocarbon bonds to separate rubber and plastics down to a small amount of ash and a liquid that is mostly kerosene and diesel. Whole tires in one end with some steel, ash and liquid fuel out the other. And it too also makes more energy than it consumes, he gets a pay check from the utility. He's now testing a similar version to gasify coal to try to produce a clean fuel without greenhouse emission. The next five to ten years might be interesting. But it'll take a lot to prove to me that there is a free lunch. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
I don't see it as a free lunch, I see it like being given a bike then finding a key that fits it. | ||
| Thumper74 |
Grump, that's you find someone with the specialty of making the 'key' | ||
| Paulxb12r |
Right now it’s just a cool toy but one day maybe they can make something of it. The first batteries weren’t much either. | ||
| Oldog |
like the first battery or the first steam turbine | ||
| Old_man |
When hydrogen bonds with oxygen an amount of energy is released. If you want to break that bond, at least, the same amount of energy must be used... In this case, "There is no free lunch" This is not to belittle what the man found. It can be very useful by converting inexpensive energy that is not easily portable into a useful form. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Thats if it works and if its true. All we have to go from so far is a lot of equipment drawing a lot of power making a little flame, and promises that what we didn't see is even better. It rocks if he came across something, there is lots we don't understand. But if it really worked and was really doing what he says it is doing, there would be a multi-bazzilion dollar company commercializing it by now. | ||
| Bake |
Everyone seems more concerned with the energy losses or gains.... Just think he may have a cure for cancer here folks! | ||
| M2statz |
RF generators or RF amps are every day things. How many of you have them attached to your mp3 players to play it over your radio in your garage or car? RF is used in many different ways for many different things, good, bad or otherwise. Most notably is in MRI machines. The diagnostic abilities of these machines far out weighs any side effects. Granted this guy never says what kind or strength his RF has to be, however one would think to break the bond of Oxygen, Hydrogen and Sodium would have to be huge, when does it become harmful to the Hydrogen atoms in the human body? Is it more or less than an MRI uses to bombard Hydrogen atoms in the human body to cause them to release enough energy to be read by gradient computers in bore of MRI scanner? What is the debate or question here...fuel sorce...cure for cancer...where is this gonna go? | ||
| Reepicheep |
 I'll take either From what I understand about it, the cancer medication aspects are far more credible. It's kind of a primitive nanotech. Not a slam dunk or universal cure, but a valuable path of research. | ||
| Azxb9r |
I wonder what kind of "accident" made him realize that he could ignite saltwater.  | ||
| Badlionsfan |
I wonder what kind of "accident" made him realize that he could ignite saltwater someone thought that his possible cancer cure/treatment theory could desalinate salt water. they tried it and it lit up. | ||
| Stretchman |
No more tossing your cig butts into the ocean. Might be good to refine and bottle. Otherwise, you'd have lot's of stray rf, and probably couldn't use your cellphone while driving. | ||
| Captpete |
you'd have lot's of stray rf, and probably couldn't use your cellphone while driving. Perfect! | ||
| Oldog |
I froze the play back the RF output is rather high several hundred watts. how big is the rest of the machine? I dig the cancer thing just lost a friend to it not too long ago. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Good spot Jim! With several hundred watts, I can probably get more then enough hydrogen from water to maintain a flame with no problem and no voodoo. Simple electrolysis. In fact my Dad gave my kids a hydrogen powered rocket for Christmas. Very cool thing. The launcher runs off 6 D cells, and can produce enough hydrogen to pop a light little rocket up about 6 stories high in about 5 minutes. I think Hydrogen could be the perfect future fuel (though it would probably be more accurate to think of it as a battery). Lots of details to work out, and lots of things to make more efficient (think the difference between a 1910 internal combustion engine, and a 2008 internal combustion engine), but no show stoppers. Now somebody go genetically engineer some little algae to do a better job of making hydrogen... Then we have a usable solar power. | ||
| Rex |
how long before we use up all of the oceans....? rex | ||
| Sgthigg |
Or how about this? I took these at the Mazda plant in Hiroshima 2 months ago.      Hydrogen and gas rotary engine in a rx8 | ||
| Reepicheep |
When you "burn" hydrogen, the result is water. So thats why I say it is more like a battery. Start with water. Add lots of energy. The water breaks apart into two hydrogen and one oxygen molecule. This consumes X amount of power. Now take that hydrogen, put it in your car, and "burn" it in a fuel cell, and the output is water (and some heat, and some electricity). This produces a little less then X amount of power. There is an efficiency loss along the line, I don't know how bad it is. So the rub is where you get the energy to initially crack the water into hydrogen and oxygen. Here is a good FAQ that a google search scared up... http://www.hydrogennow.org/Facts/FAQs.htm Thats why the million dollar question (literally) about the RF process above is how much energy is being pumped into the saltwater to produce the hydrogen. If the guy found some magic harmonic that somehow causes the two hydrogen atoms to jump away from the oxygen atom with less power then they will produce when you feed them into the fuel cell, then we have discovered a perpetual motion machine. (which is why the more scientific you are, the more likely you are to be skeptical of the guys claims). I'm all for more cancer treatments though! Ironically, petroleum is not really that much different. Petroleum or coal is long chains of carbon with some hydrogen (hydrocarbons). You burn it, it releases energy, absorbs oxygen, and releases carbon dioxide. BUT! Carbon dioxide is just plant food. Plants take carbon dioxide and sunlight, and convert it to more or less hydrocarbons. They give off oxygen in the process. The "mass" of a tree trunk does not come from dirt or the ground, it comes from the carbon in carbon dioxide. So gasoline is really just a battery also. Its really just solar power. But its a free ride for a while... as the oil and coal we are burning today was formed over millions of years in prehistoric jungles (or created in place and pre-aged for my young earth creationist friends ). Coal and Oil are renewable resources, and ultimately solar power. They just are not renewable at the rate we are consuming them. Just like I would have to have a solar panel charging my car for a month to gather enough power to drive to work, one drive to work will consume about a months growth of ancient tropical rain forest that is now oil. It would consume about a months worth of corn converted to ethanol as well if I wanted to go that route. (note: I made up the month part, I don't know how long it would be, but its probably a good guess). This occured to me driving to work through rural Warren county, Ohio. I was looking at a soybean field as far as the eye could see. Green everywhere, stacked green on top of green, over square miles. In terms of surface area, it was a solar collector to die for. And in terms of manufacturing costs, it was incredibly cheap. Plant a soybeen or corn seed in spring, and walk away. Bingo, a little solar power "plant" appears in a month, complete with power storage facility (the plant itself), ready to be harvested in the fall. Nuclear power is really the only non solar power source (actually, being a nuclear reaction, solar power is really just nuclear power... just generated from a relatively safe distance where there isn't much federal regulation ;) ). It takes power already stored in the nuclear bonds of different elements, and releases it. It's a one shot deal (unlike our current renewable approaches). But it's crazy efficient... a brick of uranium stores an awful lot of nuclear power. That begs an interesting question (which is where my sulking creationist friends can perk back up)... where did that energy that is stored in these nuclear bonds initially come from? The big bang? OK, sure. Where did that come from then? At some point, something came from nothing. | ||
| Damnut |
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/951/ | ||
| Old_man |
Always was and always will be. Just in different forms. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
You ninny Reep it came from..... DOG ,the dyslexic deity. sorry, did you not know?  |
