better living through energy chemistry, bullshit, the new cold fusion, or what?

[solarbird]

My default position, of course, is that this pegs the bullshit metre, but still - da hell? Radio waves and salt as a catalyst breaking covalent bonds in water and producing raw hydrogen and oxygen, and then igniting it? Um, what?

Anyway, much of this article is as semi-incoherent as you'd expect, but despite that, I want a lot of analysis on this, please. If it's not a complete fraud, somebody needs to get some EROI numbers on this stat. Also semi-incoherent video story here, and a wiki discussion on the topic here.

Sunday's miles: 2.2
Monday's miles: 5.4 (all walking)
Tuesday's miles: 2.6
Wednesday's miles: 2.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1749.2
Miles out of Rivendell: 1292.2
Miles out of Lothlórien: 837.2
Miles past Rauros Falls: 420.3
Miles to Isengard: 47.4

Comments

[janne.livejournal.com]

I used to joke that my father is so bad at cooking he could even burn water. Maybe I should tell him to put his chemistry doctorate to good use and really try to burn some next time :D

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Strictly speaking, the Laws of Thermodynamics are not truly laws, since they haven't been mathematically proven. However, they've checked out every time they've been tested, so I'd count on them holding here, too.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

It has to take more energy to break the bond between hydrogen and oxygen in water than you get by recombining the hydrogen and oxygen. Having said that, it is of course possible to get energy from the reaction if there is an external source of energy breaking the bonds -- that's how a solar-powered hydrogen fuel cell works, for instance.

[solarbird]

I know! Hence needing to get EROI numbers on it to see what's going on. The implication in these (all but useless, extremely annoying) news reports is that you could get energy out of this. And setting aside the fact that local TV news reporters are all but definitionally morons (with a capital MOR), I've been trying to figure out how you even could conceivably get more energy out than in, and all I can come up with is some sort of bizarro-world resonance fusion effect(!), in which case somebody needs to have one of these things in front of a neutron detector right now.

(But man, wouldn't that be cool and freaky with a capital freak? You've got this happy little water molecule sitting around with its two H and one O and suddenly it's got HI I'M HELIUM and everything goes ZOMGWTF and all these hydrogen and oxygen atoms go flying off ready to burn. Damn that would be cool.)

[epawtows.livejournal.com]

May not be very useful for creating alternate energy, but being able to set a patch of ocean on fire at range strikes me as interesting in a variety of ways. I'll have to set the players in my supers RPG against someone who can do that.

[solarbird]

being able to set a patch of ocean on fire at range strikes me as interesting in a variety of ways.
Yeah, that was Kirby's thought too. O HAI I SET YOUR OCEAN ON FIREZ SORRY ABOUT YR NAVY

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

having some time to kill, i looked at the various videos of this thing. i'm pretty sure it ain't fire, whatever it is. hydrogen burns in oxygen in the near uv, ie invisibly. the presence of salt should produce the classic yellow sodium d lines. the "flame" is too red for that, unless the cameras have severe (and apparently identical) color problems.

a spectrum would sort it out quickly.