Energy Crisis Solved?

[fresnosmokey]

Originally Posted by mcgee84

You ever look into where we get most of our hydrogen from?

Yep, I know where most of the CURRENT hydrogen comes from. I also know that when gasoline was cheap, it wasn't cost competitive to use hydrogen as an alternative for gas. However, now with crude oil/refined gasoline costs spiraling out of control I think it's probably much more competitive, if not outright cheaper. What would be needed for a switch to hydrogen as a different fuel source would be not just an infrastructure for delivery (that's easy), but a better and more comprehensive infrastructure for production. This would mean more nuclear and solar power plants. Not fossil fuel based as you have to put more energy in than you would get out of it, discounting the pollution which would negate the whole process anyway. Some of these power plants would need to be for hydrogen production exclusively.

OMG, OMG what about nuclear waste? Well, we could keep burying it, like we do now. The earth is not pristine and radiation free, you know. We could also put the waste on ICBM's and shoot 'em off into the sun, thus solving two problems at once. That's probably "pie in the sky", but it's a nice thought.

Hydrogen may or may not be "THE" solution that we need to our energy/pollution problems, but right now it "looks like" our best alternative. I think we should go for it, because I think we need to do something now and stop pussyfooting around. The longer we wait, the more it's going to cost and the more resistance (public and political) because of the cost.

As an aside, anyone see those "clean coal" commercials. I laughed my rear end off. "Clean" coal my arse.

[Edwidget]

I heard in passing at one time about a car a man built that utilizes a certain radio wave (or some such thing) run through salt water that makes the salt water act as a fuelof some sort. I do not have a clue about any of the details, and it could very easily be nonsense. Don't bother trying to debunk this idea, as I am not saying it is viable, only that I -heard- about it. If anyone knows what I am talking about I would love to find out if there is anything to it, at which point the debunking process may begin.

[Rizob]

John Kanzius was the guy that invented it. Had a 60mins episode on the guy since he had invented a potential cure for cancer using radiowaves and nanoparticles. The underlying principle is that RF waves heat metal--so make nanoparticles target cancer cells by tagging the particles with cancer cell-specific antibodies and then hit a person with radio waves to heat up the particles and kill the cells (normal cells dont get hurt).

According to the wiki article, he was trying to desalinate water and it ended up producing a flame from hydrogen electrolyzed from salt water (i'm not very sure on the exact mechanism). It works and some news organizations that covered it liked to suggest it could solve energy needs and run cars but they failed to mention that running the RF wave generator requires more energy input than energy generated.
excerpt from wiki:
"Kanzius admits that this process could not be considered an energy source, as more energy is used to produce the RF signal than can be obtained from the burning gas and stated in July 2007 that he never claimed his discovery would replace oil, asserting only that his discovery was "thought provoking."