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To: RC one
What I read indicated that they had figured out how to use solar energy to break the H2O covalent bonds which seems reasonable.

Those would be hydrogen bonds. Using solar energy for splitting of water is not a new idea.

What is new here, however, is the idea of transmuting oxygen into hydrogen. Normally hydrogen is far more apt to go in the other direction, just as we saw it in explosions of hydrogen bombs. You'd need to apply some comparable energy to put the toothpaste back into the tube :-) Our Sun happily survives on simply fusing hydrogen into helium. Imagine the cost of splitting O into many H's :-) Humans can do some of such things, but only to individual atoms, and only on huge particle accelerators.

37 posted on 08/26/2014 12:02:17 AM PDT by Greysard
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To: Greysard
the bond that holds the H2 to the O is technically a covalent bond (with ionic properties)and it is easily broken into H2 and O2 via elctrolysis which requires an input of energy. :-)

there is insufficient information to deduce the actual process by which the H2 is generated but I did not immediately gather that the process specifically relies on "transmutation" of one element to another given that they are starting with H20 molecules. Given their name, it seems reasonable to assume that they are using solar energy to conduct electrolysis.

If they are indeed discussing an energy efficient transmutation of oxygen into hydrogen via the rearrangement of subatomic particles, that would certainly be quite different and game changing if true which seems doubtful.

as unlikely as that seems however, it does seem equally inevitable that we will one day manufacture our elements rather than mine them.

70 posted on 08/26/2014 7:28:21 AM PDT by RC one (Militarized law enforcement is just a nice way of saying martial law enforcement.)
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To: Greysard

Can we do the base-metals into gold thing, now?


81 posted on 08/26/2014 8:26:07 AM PDT by mike70
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