“Can saltwater be burned as fuel?”
This is cool, amazing, and fucking hilarious.
I mean, if it turns out to be an efficient source of energy… it’s the biggest damn joke on humanity, ever. I mean, seriously. That ocean thing? Mmm, made of batteries!
Brainwaves of Sken
The why-is-its of a video editor, photographer, designer, convention-runner.
My initial suspension is that you can get the reaction, but it’s not a net gain in energy. The same problem dogged cold fusion for quite awhile: It was easy to repeat the experiment; it just cost more energy than it produced. Since cold fusion seems to be repeatable with a net gain, perhaps this effect will prove ultimately fruitful, too.
I don’t know how much energy it costs to push radio waves of the optimal frequency, but the article says it’s hot enough to totally melt the test tubes, and it’s clearly enough to push the heat-transfer motor in the video.
Oh, sure; but so is an arc welder. This has to produce more heat energy than it uses up in electrical energy. At least, the fuel is inexpensive to harvest.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the energy efficiencies bite this one in the butt; I did a high-school project on hydrogen fuel, and never got my energy output (from burning) to come anywhere near close to energy input (electrolysis) before literally blowing up the apparatus and giving it all up as a bad idea.
— Steve’d love to be wrong on this, but has seen a lot of interesting effects turn out to be no more than interesting.
Yeah, that’s the difference between a new source of energy and a high school science project. I sure hope this one has a net gain, even if a small one.
That is awesome!!