Possible Energy Source: Burning Seawater
FILE - In this Jan. 16, 2010 file photo, former President George W. Bush listens as President Barack Obama speaks in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington. President Barack Obama frequently blames President George W. Bush for America's shaky economy, high unemployment and foreign policy woes. But he's sure to change his tune on Thursday when Bush comes back to the White House in a rare limelight moment, The man who led the country for eight tumultuous years will have his portrait hung and Obama will be there applauding. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File) / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.
John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies it would burn.
The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.
Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.
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.
The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," Roy said.
"This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Roy said. "Seeing it burn gives me the chills."
Roy will meet this week with officials from the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to try to obtain research funding.
The scientists want to find out whether the energy output from the burning hydrogen - which reached a heat of more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit - would be enough to power a car or other heavy machinery.
"We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads," Roy said. "The potential is huge."
© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies it would burn.
The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.
Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.
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.
The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," Roy said.
"This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Roy said. "Seeing it burn gives me the chills."
Roy will meet this week with officials from the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to try to obtain research funding.
The scientists want to find out whether the energy output from the burning hydrogen - which reached a heat of more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit - would be enough to power a car or other heavy machinery.
"We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads," Roy said. "The potential is huge."
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Each year some other idiot comes up with another perpetual motion machine, a way to burn water in cars, a battery that never needs recharging, ....
Not one of them has ever actually worked and none ever will.
You should refrain from running idiotic stories such as this one. Get some proper scientific advice before making fools of yourselves.
You ask "has no one...?" Many of us have. But the suggestion is not politically correct. Neither are the observations that sea level was close to 5 meters higher than now, a mere 115 thousand years ago, and that there were no SUVs or coal powered generating stations back then. Nor even Exxon-Mobil!
I wish that the name actornaught gave me (Captain Obvious) were even slightly appropriate. Unfortunately, there seem to be many people (in addition to the reporter and at least two editors) who are ready to believe that sea water might be a fuel whose chemical energy can be released by microwave irradiation.
There are far more posts to this article by Major Credulous than by Captain Obvious!
A few month ago I read an account of a person in California that was quite proud of the fact that their new automobile was powered from a tank of liquified hydrogen at 4000 or more psi and about 300 to 400 degrees below 0, all located in the truck of their car.
Unfortunately while it was parked in their garage underneath their home it was setting off the homes hydrogen detectors. Tank was breaking apart!
Solution - Park it in the street & increase home owners coverage. Nothing like sitting on a Hydrogen Bomb.