Well, if it worked the other way, they'd have a perpetual motion machine. ;)
Imagine how safe this is, though--if there's an accident or an explosion, the source of the radio signal snaps off, and suddenly the combustion just...stops. Awesome!
My point was more along the lines of this: Imagine if you had to burn 2 gallons of gas in order to ignite the one gallon of gas in your car's tank? If you need to invest more energy from the radio emitter than you're getting from burning the hydrogen, why not just use the energy that you're spending on the radio emitter to do the work?
Yeah, it's a fair point. I mean, almost anything will burn if you throw enough power at it--that doesn't mean just anything makes a good fuel though. My assumption is that if it took too much power to ignite the water, the scienists wouldn't be as excited--it'd be a novelty more than a breakthrough.
Heh. A loooong time ago, when Jimmy Carter was President and we were having some sort of fuel shortage, I wrote a letter to him suggesting we find some way to fuel cars with sea water -- we could extract the minerals and have fresh water too. I still have the postcard he sent back thanking me for my suggestion. This isn't exactly what I proposed, but close enough to give me a chuckle today!
"During several trials, heat from burning hydrogen grew hot enough to melt the test tube, he said."
Now, I don't know *exactly* how much energy it takes to run an RF generator, but I don't think it's as much as it takes to melt a tempered glass test tube.
My biggest concern off the top of my head is, what's left after the process is complete? I never did well in chemistry. Also, is the RF field potentially harmful? What freq. range is required, what containment is required, things like that.
I can't wait to see what the results are. I'd love to be in on the research on something like this.
Oh, and if the process is safe and feasible, I already know how you power a car with an open, non-explosive flame. Because I've built one. Mine ran on propane.
Comments 13
Reply
Imagine how safe this is, though--if there's an accident or an explosion, the source of the radio signal snaps off, and suddenly the combustion just...stops. Awesome!
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
"During several trials, heat from burning hydrogen grew hot enough to melt the test tube, he said."
Now, I don't know *exactly* how much energy it takes to run an RF generator, but I don't think it's as much as it takes to melt a tempered glass test tube.
My biggest concern off the top of my head is, what's left after the process is complete? I never did well in chemistry. Also, is the RF field potentially harmful? What freq. range is required, what containment is required, things like that.
I can't wait to see what the results are. I'd love to be in on the research on something like this.
Oh, and if the process is safe and feasible, I already know how you power a car with an open, non-explosive flame. Because I've built one. Mine ran on propane.
Steam engine, baby.
Reply
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/19128/
Reply
Leave a comment