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.

[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.

[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.