Grab Your Energy Calculators

I'll take that bet. No.

I believe Mr. Kanzius is a decent, sincere man trying to achieve something significant in the time left him. This does not seem to be a hoax in the way many of these "discoveries" are. Nonetheless, it smacks of bad science.

An afternoon spent playing three card monte (find the lady in Britain) on 8th Avenue in New York should be enough to convince everyone not to believe what they think they see.

Here's what I find suspicious:

A man who owns radio stations gets cancer and decides RF might kill cancer. That's not unreasonable. Believe me that when the doctor opens that pathology report and says "Yep, you've got cancer." you start to take stock of your life and ask whether there is something worth doing that you've now got an opportunity for. That doesn't make you an oncologist.

So you then find a scientist/physician to do some research, presumably on a small animal or a Petri dish and you get results that are not definitive, but may warrant further work. But, somebody notices some condensation and says "Eureka! This should be good for desalination." How do you make that leap? I see condensation all the time and never think of desalination.

In the process of trying out the desalination procedure, the results of which don't seem to be available yet, someone says "Oh, I think I'll go see if I can set fire to that water." Again, what in the world leads you to suppose that might work?

So you take this to a chemist who is coincidently most known for alternative science and who is conveniently emeritus (i.e., doesn't have to answer to the Dean very much). This chemist says the water isn't burning per se, but points out that water is the most abundant ELEMENT (emphasis mine) on earth. He then discusses the Faraday Theoretical Limit. Quick, everybody who knows what that is, raise your hands.

I know I'm gonna come across like a naysayer. I'm not. But bad science drives out good science and there is currently too doggoned much of that in the US anymore.

So, my bet is no and you don't have to show me the queen.

Tom

TVP45,

I don't quite see a "bad science" situation here, maybe a case of overly excited people who think they may have struck gold, which seems to me more like they simply found another way to extract hydrogen from water in a manner that may or may not be very efficient.

I do wonder about your interpretation of the article linked in bhankii'is post. I read it and think you may be overly suspicious. For instance:But, somebody notices some condensation and says "Eureka! This should be good for desalination." How do you make that leap? I see condensation all the time and never think of desalination. I work in a predominately academic research lab with a bunch of scientists, post docs, and grad students and I don't find it the least bit odd that someone might, upon noticing the condensing water, think, "hmm...this would be an interesting way to purify water". There are many, many little discoveries made where people have found a phenomenon and wondered "what can I do with this?".

Then you question how they make the leap from condensation to "Oh, I think I'll go see if I can set fire to that water." According to the article they came to the idea because they noticed sparks in a test tube while testing out a desalinization process. They then determined the sparks were due to the ignition of hydrogen being generated in the desal process. Not too much of a leap, if you ask me, to then wonder how much hydrogen you can generate with this process.

You go on paraphrasing and thereby misrepresenting the scientist's statement with, This chemist says the water isn't burning per se, but points out that water is the most abundant ELEMENT (emphasis mine) on earth. In the article he doesn't he refers to water as being "the most abundant material" (emphasis mine) on earth. I don't know if water is truly the most abundant material( I kind of doubt it) but he seems more like a crackpot if he was to incorrectly refer to water as an element.

He is quoted as saying, "This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Dr. Roy said of salt water. "Seeing it burn gives me chills." But I suspect that is more of a misquote by the Post-Gazette that a mis-statement on Dr. Roy's part as it follows a paragraph concerning hydrogen.

I know there are a lot of crackpots out there, folks who think if they get just the right shape to their aluminum foil hat they can power their television for free. On the other hand just because some guy is a little crunchy-granola-ish doesn't mean he is off base. I think the bigger problem is not the work these guys are doing it's the way the journalist sensationalizes the concept. I mean, "salt-water as fuel" sounds a lot more interesting to lay people than "RF energy used to generate hydrogen".

As for my bet? I would guess the energy used for the whole RF process exceeds that gained from the hydrogen, though maybe the RF/water input energy is less. I don't know. Seems like it could be figured out pretty easily from how much juice it takes to do basic electrolysis hydrogen generation.

Gid

Gid,

Thanks for the well-reasoned reply.

I agree that the Post-Gazette may have misquoted Dr. Roy. The Post-Gazette is no New York Times and the reporter on this story is, I believe, the same one who did the cancer story two years ago. The Tribune-Review just carried the AP pickup which sounded as if it came from the Post-Gazette.

As for the suspicion, I too have spent some time in a research setting and it has been my experience that any deviation from a very strict testing protocol brings down the IRB and the grant auditors like a ton of bricks falling on you. I don't know anything about Dr. Geller but I believe he would have thought the same thing.

Here are some more of what raises my eyebrows: you've got Buckyballs (present in half the half-baked schemes in the world), Senators Santorum and Specter (he of the single-bullet theory), a couple hundred thousand dollars in upfunding, no mention of NIH or FDA, and (I believe) no peer-reviewed papers.

Furthermore, I've watched the video in which Mr. Kanzius states that this uses RF not radiation. Huh?

As to why I think this is bad science rather than just the unfounded dream of an ill man, it's the fact that all sorts of people grab hold of this as a panacea to our looming energy crisis. We are either just past or fast approaching peak oil. Coal production has almost exhausted all the easy stuff and we're destroying great parts of the environment to get the rest (fly over SW West Virginia and you'll not believe it). Russia is trying to control Europe with energy. China and India are starting to drive up energy prices as they industrialize. And we have the makings of a regional war in the Middle East.

And large numbers of Americans believe that:

you can burn water;

there is a pill that turns water into gas but the oil companies won't let us have it;

the core of the earth is full of oil rather than iron and nickel;

climate change is not happening;

pro wrestling is real (OK, they can have that one);

man has not been to the moon;

there are dozens of diseases that be cured with adult stem cells;

cell phones are killing honey bees.

And, the list goes on. We can't hope to fix our problems if we can't face them honestly. I truly believe Mr. Kanzius is not trying to deceive anyone; he is simply wrong.

As for me, I close with a quote from that rosy ole optimist Damon Runyon:

"One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to come up to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not bet this man, for as sure as you are standing there, you are going to end up with an earful of cider."

Rant over,

Tom

Oh, no. Not again...........<groan>.

Bad breakfast?

Why not, PWSlack?

The concept of perpetuum mobile is also turning on and on like a... perpetuum mobile.

So let these guys be happy with their dreams. The energy bills always will wake them up!

Cheers

I'm guessing you didn't read the article. No one is claiming perpetual motion. The claim is simply that RF energy releases the hydrogen from sea water. The question is how efficient is the process, and does burning the hydrogen produce more, or less, energy than it takes to release it from the sea water.

I would do some more research on Dr. Roy.

You're right: THIS article is not claiming over-unity efficiency - but Kanzius did before being wisely advised not to.

Don't believe in my negativity on this subject - just take a bite of comments from other forums:

js57 05-27-2007, 5:46 AM

Sorry for the negative comment but - come on! This isn't an invention, it's a waste of electricity. How many watts of electricity does it take to produce that flame? Until Newton is proven wrong it will always take much more energy to separate hydrogen from water than you will get from the hydrogen. Its is proven in this very news clip by showing the tiny motor that flame would could power. The amount of energy IN to his radio wave machine would probably power a motor 100 times the size as that little motor.

JoeNBC 05-30-2007, 10:30 PM .A warning to all local news teams: Beware of anyone claiming to go from curing cancer to replacing fossil fuels. Journalism requires skepticism people!

For me there is no question if all this story is a scam or not. The only thing I'm doing now is watching the proportion of it. You have no idea what some research labs leaders (no ofence to the decent ones) are able to do when they are in lack of projects or inspiration. For them, guys like Kanzius are gold mines!

So take a look at WHO is talking about Kanzius' "discovery". You'll be very surprised.

I'm still waiting to see someone best the conservation of energy with efficiency high enough to be practical.

then the banks will not lend you money (not in their best interest). venture capital takes a big bite (their money their risk).

Possible, Maybe. Probable?