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Thread: saltwater as a fuel source
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09-11-2007, 08:04 PM #1
saltwater as a fuel source
they are calling it the biggest water related discovery of the century...when hit with radio waves, saltwater ignites! could the world finally have an answer to it's renewable energy conundrum?!
http://green.yahoo.com/index.php?q=node/1570
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09-11-2007, 08:07 PM #2
Now Big Oil CEO's a struggling to find out a way to desalinate the worlds oceans.
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09-11-2007, 08:10 PM #3
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09-11-2007, 08:13 PM #4
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09-11-2007, 08:18 PM #5
details details.
but no seriously...just imagine if this pans out and is economically feasible. saltwater energy plants up and down the east and west coast as well as the gulf of mexico could put a serious dent in the burning of coal and natural gas for electricity. and who knows what they could do with the technology if they could find a way to make it heat homes in the wintertime! the nation could potentially get away from burning a huge percentage of fossil fuels and other non-renewable fuel sources.
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09-11-2007, 08:20 PM #6
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09-11-2007, 09:34 PM #7
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09-11-2007, 10:14 PM #8
or try to buy the oceans so they can sell the saltwater
but that is pretty cool, i hope they can finger something out quick as to putting it to use
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09-12-2007, 04:11 AM #9
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Green- 94 Camaro 3.4
.............
As nice as it sounds, that article is retarded.
First off, Hydrogen is not anywhere near a new idea when it comes to fuel. Um, hello, Fuel cell cars anybody? Secondly, all this really is is a fancy new way to extract hydrogen from water. Has nobody ever done the electralisis science project in school? Its not like we don't have a way to do it.
Its a completely unfeasable idea for use in motors, since the article would suggest injecting salt water instead of fuel... which, has a few merits, considering it would supply its own oxygen for the burning, however, the one ITSY BITSY drawback(aside from the lack of energy produced by the reaction overall) is that theres other things then hydrogen and oxygen in salt water. Like, in its PURE form, just the salt. Ocean water however, has about 8 billion other things in it as well. The salt flats anybody? Imagine THAT coating the inside of your engine. It would fail within 10 minutes of running, tops. Plus, keeping an optimum running tempature would become impossible, further speeding the process of gernading any engine this was attempted on.
Cliff notes: This idea fails. Miserably.
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09-12-2007, 05:21 AM #10
i don't think it's retarded whatsoever. i think it's unexplored. obviously we know that hydrogen burns but this is the first time that it has been found that saltwater burns when hit with radio waves. that's a whole different approach to the idea of water as a combustible fuel source.
i don't see in there them saying anything about injecting saltwater into some sort of an internal combustion engine. quite the contrary it sounds more like these radio waves hit the salt water as it sat in an open container of some sort not an enclosed area such as an engine cylinder.
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09-12-2007, 05:52 AM #11
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Yea... but what applicable use could that possibly serve? In order for it to be taken advantage of, it needs to function inside of some sort of IC motor. Unless you are going to suggest we revert back to steam engines?
And in order for it to function inside an IC motor, you would have to remove the impurities, IE: The salt that makes it work.
Its a cool idea that must have some interesting application somewhere... it is, however, not as a major fuel source alternitive.
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09-12-2007, 05:56 AM #12
gonna need me some "high salt" salt water for my ls1
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09-12-2007, 05:57 AM #13
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09-12-2007, 06:09 AM #14
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Man, please, my shit is IODIZED!!!
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09-12-2007, 06:23 AM #15
kosher all the way baby....
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09-12-2007, 06:33 AM #16
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Blackety Black- 35th Anniversary SS
This discovery is not claiming that it is going to replace gas in cars. Of course we would have to come up with some other type of vehicle that would work with this process. The idea that it's unexplored is good. It's just a discovery that needs to be researched a bit. Maybe they will use it to generate electricity, maybe for transportation. There maybe a few draw backs with this like what's left over after the chemical reaction takes place. And it used a radio wave generator-How much power does it take to generate the radiowaves to how much power is produced by the hydrogen burning. Is is efficient? This new discovery probably won't have any affect on the world for many years if indeed it ever will.
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09-12-2007, 06:39 AM #17
There's way more to it than you suggest. It's pretty close-minded to think that they couldn't clean up the water first before using it in any type of application. Obviously the salt would still have to be in the water. It isn't that hard to believe that you could rid the saltwater of any impurities beforehand, and still have the salt left over.
All of this is premature anyway. I highly doubt you'd be injecting saltwater into your engine.
It's a good topic, and any ideas/opinions on things like these are always good.
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09-12-2007, 06:40 AM #18
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09-12-2007, 09:31 AM #19
like i said we've known for a long time that hydrogen burns...but again this is the first time that they have found that radio waves can ignite salt water. not just tap water or purified water or fresh water but salt water...there is a big difference there. perhaps the chemical composition of the salt interacts in such a way as a flux to lower the ignition point of the hydrogen held within the chemical bonds of the water to release the hydrogen and make it burn. i'm no chemist but this could be a possibility.
perhaps a new engine design or combustion design will come out in response to this discovery to take advantage of it. if that is an update of the steam engine and it works efficiently, well..what's wrong with that? nothing. if it works, if it's efficient, and if it helps to cut the burning of fossil fuels then there is nothing wrong with that. that wouldn't be a step backward but a huge leap forward. and we certainly aren't talking about injecting salt water into an engine. there is nothing in that article that states that.
if you want to talk about engines then talk about how they wanted to develop an efficient electrolysis method to store hydrogen on cars for fuel source as opposed to petrol. the only issue there being that if you did the electrolysis beforehand you would have to store hydrogen in a tank on the vehicle which would be a catastrophe in a crash and the feasibility to operate electrolysis quickly enough and efficiently enough on a vehicle to produce hydrogen for combustion just couldn't break through. i don't think that this new research is about motorized transport at this time so much as it's about producing power for homes and businesses on a plugged in power grid.
like fasstchevys said...maybe this technology is 10 years down the road...but every great idea has started small. the wright brothers didn't just build the sr-71 blackbird in their garage...they built a motorized glider that could fly on it's own for 100 feet.
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09-12-2007, 12:29 PM #20
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