PopSci.com: Device Sets Saltwater On Fire

Oh no. Here we go again.....

Ditto

Sea water is already a fuel and atmosphere for marine life ,but burning like fuel......It will be more dangereous than nuclear weapons.....atleast somebody has pointed out correctly you require more energy to feed what you get at out put . atleast not a free energy device .cost of installation and infrastructure and maintaining will put such technologies out

One (of several things) I find irksome about this is that Popular Science should, at least, not be adding to the confusion by including a "How it works" section that concludes with : "The resulting heat powers a simple engine."

A Stirling engine can be powered by the heat of a hand or coffee cup. Including that reference (the trick was shown on video) makes the suggestion that you can get useful (net) power out of this reaction -- but there is nothing in the demonstration that suggests that you can. Admittedly, Popular Science is not the place to look for good science writing, but can't we hope for more balanced reporting?

Another example: "A match lights ignites the hydrogen, generating an intense flame." Intense? What might that mean? To me it looks like a match flame. If it is described as intense, then I'd want to know how many calories are produced -- it would make far more sense to heat a beaker of water, and measure dT.

Perhaps this article should have included these Kansius quotes from Peswiki (hardly a robust source, but no one seems to be denying that these quotes came from Kanzius).

First:

July 1 2007: "I am in the process of redesigning the electronics for the saltwater as to see what efficiency we can achieve."

Then:

July 6, 2007: "Since it appears we now have now achieved more than unity, I am going to do an embargo on releasing all further information."

(For any folks unaware of the science involved: "over unity" means more energy out than energy in. If this were shown to be possible then many laws of physics would need to be re written. This is and extraordinary claim, demanding extraordinary proof, not cloudy hype.)

If one wanted to obscure the energy balance, running an "engine" would be one way to do so. (The suggestion is the you "just" burn saltwater, run an engine, and generate electricity.) If one wanted to show what is really happening, (in other words to do real science) then he would measure the energy input to the RF generator, and the calorie output of the flame. Simple, yes?

If his claim that he just wants to cure cancer is valid, than why the secrecy around this process? File a provisional, then hand it over to scientists, if you don't have the time to pursue it.

Perhaps Kanzius has stumbled on a method for more efficiencly splitting water. In ordinary science, that would be easy to replicate and verify. When it is reported in a quasi scientific magazine which adds to the spin but offers nothing new in the way of the science, science suffers.