Posted on 09/14/2007 10:32:35 AM PDT by ckilmer
If you are interested in solar energy, you can let mother nature concentrate it for you as captured in biomass, wind or hydro power.
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in terms of cost—photovoltaics is going into fast forward. ie price/power is falling as fast —or faster than computer chips. Its no coincidence that they’re both made in the same kinds of industrial plants—and the process for making them is similiar and they both are made from silicon. (there are new ways of making photovoltaics that don’t come from silicon.)
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I don’t think anyone is ever going to find an “over unity” solution to our energy problems. That having been said there are higher energy levels to be found than those we can produce by chemical means. If you look at the energy in an ounce of uranium or plutonium from fission it would appear to be way over unity.
We don’t want to jump to conclusions one way or another. This mans claim is that he can break down water. When we distill crude oil into gasoline we don’t have “over unity” energy produced we simply condition the fuel. I know nothing about this process but is is possible that by “conditioning” the fuel (water) with radio waves we can get it ready to burn and get more energy out of the water than the energy it takes to condition it? The energy was already put into the water when the hydrogen and oxygen combined to make it in the first place. Exposing water to RF does not put usable energy into it it simply liberates the fuel, at least that is what I understand from what little information we have seen.
What I would like to see is 15 or twenty test-tubes placed in front of the radio transmitter and see how much flame he can get from the same source.
They are still inefficient and extraordinarilly expensive compared to the grid.
Mass produced cells are barely over 10% efficient and still cost tens of thousands of dollars when purchased in the kilowatt range needed by a single house. Plus the cost of storage and electronics.
In addition to the original outlay, they require regular maintanance and suffer degradation over time.
I am quite aware of quantum dot and some of the metalic versions of the solar cell but they are either very expensive or too inefficient at this time for commercial use.
God made solar perfect for plants but it’s like mining the ocean water for gold, it’s there alright but too diffuse for commercial applications.
More information ping.......
This is somewhat off the seawater subject, but put a 1/2 pint of diluent lithium grease in each tank of gas or diesel and wach your mpg go up, plus a cleaner engine.
The problem is that water is “ash”
“Heating one atom of hydrogy to 3000 degrees would take very little energy.
Heating Iran to 3000 degrees takes alot more energy.”
Fixed it for ya!
The useful question is whether this bit of scientific nonsense is due to the journalist, or the promoter.
That's the wrong question. The correct question is,
"If this method ran on solar radiation, would it be the most cost-effective way of getting useful energy from it?"
"Is the most efficient way of getting chemical or electrical energy from solar radiation more cost effective than other ways of getting this energy? (And if not presently, when?)"
It seems that it is actually quite difficult to do good calorimetry, as attested by the Pons & Fleischman fiasco.
I think the calorimetry was easy, measuring input energy was the snag.
I just realized,
Light to solar panel to electricity to wire to magic radio box to unknown physical process to hydrogen to flame to heat.
vs
Light to light absorbant panel to heat.
The second has the same endpoint without the Rube Goldberg effects.
Just like petroleum, uranium is energy stored from some time in the distant past. The energy released when it is used is no more than the energy that contributed to its original creation.
The article describes nothing of interest regarding the energy contained in water, because the water which is separated into hydrogen and oxygen is immediately "burned" to re-create that very water.
The net result is that RF energy is converted into heat. The microwave oven has already been invented. The article is phenomenal nonsense.
I baked a potato in my microwave oven the other day. I deserve a Nobel prize because I didn't place any electrodes in the potato.
That’s an interesting concept. I agree with your comments and would love to see testing along similar and variant lines. Perhaps the shape of the emitter could be varried, say an orb vs a rod.
If there were someone to root for, it would certainly be the person who came up with this rather than the naysayers.
Still, picture me overal skeptical until more is known. I will be following this.
Thanks for the comments.
But I really want this to be true! Lets elect Democrats so we can change the so-called "Laws of Nature" that keep people poor and without free healthcare! /s
Sunlight may be free, but the PV panel to convert the sunlight into electricity so it can drive the RF generator is NOT free.
So it doesn’t matter whether the electricity is coming from sunlight or nuclear or geothermal or windmills. You still want the cheapest source of electricity to run the RF machine.
If the point is to generate hydrogen from salt water by RF, then the only important question is whether the RF method is more efficient than electrolysis. Electrolysis of salt water into hydrogen and oxygen is 72% efficient. If the RF method is more efficient than that, then it is worth pursuing. Although, even then it might not be worth the additional capital cost for an RF setup as compared to a simple electrolysis setup.
The primary value of this invention is that it produces hydrogen gas from water without electrodes. Electrodes need replacement, thus the invention is a lower maintenance approach. Perhaps it will be commercialized in high temperature torches.
It would be interesting to see if the H2 can be separated from the O2. That way the H2 could be fed into a fuel cell and then you could see what efficiency the extraction process would have. Even if it where not very great, it may be a cheaper way of getting H2 than we now have. You can never tell.
Unless there is someway to seperate the hydrogen and oxygen and keep from combusting, this is just a fancy tiki torch.
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