http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070910/ap_on_sc/burning_seawater;_ylt=Av81mhR.d0xILMzR95tlwKsDW7oF

Looks like we might be getting off of oil after all....

WOW, and it will work perfectly with the coming meltdown of the polar ice caps...there's gonna be a whole shitload more saltwater in the future.

WOW, and it will work perfectly with the coming meltdown of the polar ice caps...there's gonna be a whole shitload more saltwater in the future.

For the most part the Polar Ice Caps are fresh water:

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-02/982120143.Es.r.html


Worst case scenario if the caps melt the overall salinity of the oceans will decrease.


Cheers,

It's certainly an interesting result, and I hope it pans out, but I haven't seen any information on whether energy output exceeds energy input.

Its pretty cool. This was on episode on this on Beyond Invention with a few other different options for power sources that aren't quite proven or backed with enough funding yet.

Its a great show if you ever get the chance to see it or dvr it.

And, if we do find it feasible to start using sea/salt water for fuel, how will that resource be replaced?

It may not be a renewable resource, but depending on how fast it gets used, it might buy us some more time to find a better one.

Or, perhaps it won't be a general solution to energy problems, but it might help with specific ones. Imagine if boats no longer needed to carry fuel, for example.

Who owns the water though? I would bet Russia owns it all.

They planted a flag, after all, in the water!

It's certainly an interesting result, and I hope it pans out, but I haven't seen any information on whether energy output exceeds energy input.
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.
That makes it sound like the input needed to sustain the reaction is very low.

Run out of water?

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question157.htm

We have 326 million, trillion gallons of water on the planet right now.
I'm pretty sure it would take us a long time to work our way through all of it.

Thats what they thought about our oil reserves and on top of it our planet depends more on the oceans than we depend on oil to "survive".

Even so, the planet has an immense amount of water; it'd take...an incredibly long time to run through a significant portion of it, even assuming the process doesn't allow its renewal.

Besides, everything in the oceans will be dead in 10 or 20 years, so environmental problems will be minimal. ;)

Thor, I'm betting we have more water, than oil on this planet.
The only resource I think we have more of is Nitrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen

Nitrogen is a chemical element which has the symbol N and atomic number 7. Elemental nitrogen is a colourless, odourless, tasteless and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.1% by volume of Earth's atmosphere.

Well yes, more water than oil is a certainty, by several orders of magnitude.

Thor, I'm betting we have more water, than oil on this planet.
The only resource I think we have more of is Nitrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen

Don't forget Salt, we also need salt to do this. I heard the oceans contain enough salt to cover the continents with 500 feet of it.

Even so, the planet has an immense amount of water; it'd take...an incredibly long time to run through.
Besides, everything in the oceans will be dead in 10 or 20 years, so environmental problems will be minimal. ;)

Is anyone else thinking of Mars, and wondering how long it took their oceans to dry up? Oceans affect the climate to a large extent, remember.

Also, knowing the nature of people, it would be inevitable that if this were to become a realistic alternative to fossil fuels, we would have even more using transportation and using the fuels, thinking we had an endless supply. This entire fuel crisis comes down to a question of are we looking to make our lives better with cheaper fuel sources, or are we looking long term at the next several generations to follow and the varied impacts on their lives and home. Anything we come up with now needs to be looked at in terms of the next couple centuries' effects, or it is purely selfish.

The reason Mars' oceans dried up, is because it lacks the gravitational pull (mass) to hold much water on the surface.
Also, it is further from the sun, so any water would be ice, at best.
If we have to do a cost/benefit analysis with the scope being the next several centuries, we should just all stop breathing, now.
Do you think that cavemen did a cost/benefit analysis after fire was discovered?

The reason Mars' oceans dried up, is because it lacks the gravitational pull (mass) to hold much water on the surface.

Although that is one plausable (and a very good one at that) reason for Mars loosing the marjority of its water its not the only theory. I couldn't beleive the best article I could find on this subject was from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/aprilholladay/2006-03-06-mars-water_x.htm

Also, it is further from the sun, so any water would be ice, at best.

Distance from the Sun is not the only factor that descides if water will exist as only ice on a planetary/moon body.

Atmostphere plays a big part in determining if water can exist as a solid or liquid. For example, Mars at one time may have had an atmosphere that produced enough pressure to keep molucles from ejecting into space, this atmosphere would also serve to keep in heat from the sun that would increase the mean temp of the planet allowing water to exist as a liquid.

Mars is still a complete mystery, but we are receiving an incredible amount of data from probes on and around the planet and soon, if it can land successfully, the Phoenix (http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/) mission will perform actual labratory grade analysis on Mars soil close to the Northern polar cap.

Of course the hardest most risky part of any Mars mission is getting the probe safely to the planet. Once in orbit or safely landed on the planet all of the probes have performed flawlessly.

Today, the Mars rover Opportunity (http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20070911a.html) took its first tentative steps into Victoria crater to study exposed layers of ancient lava in its continuing search for past life on Mars.


Cheers,

Wow. Did everyone skip science class in middle school? The salt water must have a different density or property and thus is affected by the radio waves and the water is broken down into H2 and O2 (2xH2O => H2 + 2xO2). Then ... hydrogen is flammable when near a source of oxygen. (2xH2+O2 => 2xH2O) How can you run out of water when the product of the combustion is water?

The salt never bonds with the water, it dissolves into it and still remains as salt throughout the entire process. I don't think the Sodium or the Chlorine ever enter into the equation because they are very VERY tightly held together through their chemical bonds. Thats why when you eat salt your head doesn't explode or poison you (as sodium would when in contact with water, or chlorine gas would on its own)

How can you run out of water when the product of the combustion is water?

Revisit your middle school chemistry, there was a chapter on thermodynamics :>

Without any real information on the process (completely absent from the article, and I haven't seen a formal paper) I'm going to have to file this with cold fusion as one of those nifty ideas that isn't actually energy efficient, but if they can find a way to reliably do the h2o -> h2 o2 it may help solve the fuel cell problem -- still not energy efficient, but safe storage for nuclear energy as the catalyst for a local combustion engine.

Also, Mr Wizard, in the real world you have other oxidants (nitrogen, chlorine, carbon, etc) in the mix as well and results in large amount of the combustion products not being water vapor.

I'm not sure how the chemistry of the equation is wrong.

I never suggested it was energy efficient. There isn't anything that is energy efficient 100% and certainly nothing more than 100%. It probably takes more energy to produce the radio waves than can be captured in the combustion process - regardless of the fact that my equation was correct :)

But why does it have to be energy efficient? Is oil? Certainly having to have something live for ~20 years, then die, then have their organic matter decompose over a few thousand years, then have to find it, dig it up, refine it, and ship it to the car isn't very efficient - is it? But we do it, because its the best we've got. If we can find a way *more* efficient, then lets go for it. Especially if it doesn't have any harmful polution byproducts (CO2 from hydrocarbons, for example).

And then later down the line someone will figure out how to tap into the sun's energy in a greater method than burning or consuming organics that use chlorophyll to trap its energy or via solar panels. Until then - lets keep looking for something better instead of just something best?

As for your edit, that doesn't have to be the case. They could very easily have this reaction happen in an engine that doesn't allow air in and out.

It is impossible to extract energy from a reaction (or a series of reactions) where the input is identical to the output.

After my first "wow" reaction, I had to wonder how useful this would really be in a vehicle. It seems like energy content won't be very dense at all. The hydrogen would be a small fraction of the actual volume of "fuel".

Maybe this could be used to provide plentiful, cheap power to charge electric car batteries though?

The volumetric energy difference is the real problem; since not only is molecular water mostly oxygen by mass and you'd need twice as much hydrogen as oxygen to sustain the reaction, so all the of dozen or so extremely common radicals and molecules that are aggressively soluble to water will eat up oxygen and produce waste material to further retard the reaction that is already an energy sink.

Hydrogen is actually a lot more energy dense by mass that gasoline (about 3x by memory) but something like 4000x less dense at 1 atmosphere of pressure. This is the classic problem with using hydrogen as a fuel source -- sufficiently compressed hydrogen is extremely dangerous to store and transport. I don't know what the hydrogen density of water is off the top of my head, but it can't be that good.

I was also wondering how much water you would need to extract the Hydrogen. If you have a 3:1 ratio of water to Hydrogen, then it wouldn't be very practical for Aircraft.
Still, if it could be used on Marine vessels, you'd never run out of fuel....

Of course, only for sea vessels.

Who owns the water though? I would bet Russia owns it all.


I believe 80% of all lakes are in in Canada (or some absurd amount)..... we may want to extend that secret corridor deep into Canada so the Mexicans can mine the water and do the jobs that Canadians won't do....

I believe 80% of all lakes are in in Canada (or some absurd amount).

Your estimate of 80% is "absurd". Here is an article outlining some "down-to-earth" numbers:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/water/

But what does the number of lakes in Canada have to do with the conversation. A lake by definition contains fresh water, not salt water. Sure there are some salinated lakes around the world but they are an extremly small subset of their fresh water companions.

we may want to extend that secret corridor deep into Canada so the Mexicans can mine the water and do the jobs that Canadians won't do

There are not too many jobs Canadians "won't" do and when we find a shortfall we tend to legally allow immigrants to come to our country to fill those positions instead of alienating large swaths of human population.

Americans seem to have no problem doing the "mining" work from the Great Lakes Basin:

http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/mn/102504_great_lakes.htm

The states bordering the Great Lakes Basin account for 60% of the waters use compared to 30% by Ontario and Quebec combined.

Great Lake Basin water diversion is also a very big concern up here:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/water/greatlakes.html



Cheers,

The states bordering the Great Lakes Basin account for 60% of the waters use compared to 30% by Ontario and Quebec combined.

It would be interesting to see the differences between both population using that water and industry density. We'd also have to settle on what you mean by "use" of the water.

National Grid power, for example, provides power to a huge section of upstate NY by diverting a portion of the Niagra river into its turbines- but the water is returned back into the river downstream of the falls. This most likely counts as "use" of the water, but it isn't consumption of the water.

Your estimate of 80% is "absurd". Here is an article outlining some "down-to-earth" numbers:

Cut me some slack.... I get most of my information from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader's ...............

Ontario - 12,753,702 ( 2007 est )
Quebec - 7,546,131 ( 2006 est )
Total - 20,299,833

Metro Chicago - 9,725,317 ( 2006 est )
Metro Detroit - 5,410,014 ( 2006 est )
Greater Cleveland/NE Ohio - 2,917,801 ( 2006 est )
Metro Milwaukee -1,706,077 ( 2006 est )
St. Paul/Minneapolis - 3,502,891 ( 2006 est )
Total - 23,262,100

That's the entire provinces vs. the larger cities that sit on the lakes ( or in the case of St Paul/Minneapolis, sit slightly down stream ), and we haven't even looked at the state of Pennsylvania or the Buffalo and Rochester metro areas ( indeed, anything bordering Lake Ontario in the United States ).

Not saying it isn't a concern, but the way your 60% vs 30% was presented was a bit misleading.