Salt Water Burns

So energy is added to water which breaks it down into oxygen and hydrogen. Then the hydrogen is burned making the flame, etc. No surprise here. The first principle of thermodynamics (not to mention the second) comes to mind. How much energy is used to generate the radio waves? How much energy is produced by burning the hydrogen? I'll bet that more energy is used to generate the radio waves than what is obtained from the reburning of the hydrogen and oxygen.

KG - good questions.. I would think that it wouldn't take much energy at all to produce the radio waves... I bet a regular car battery would do. The story reported that the flame burned at 1500 degrees.. that's pretty warm! ...and yeah I guess it's just simple physics to some but it's funny that no one has done it before...

I wasn't exactly asking questions. I was pointing out questions one, who should be skeptical about such claims, should ask. The first principle of thermodynamics basically says that the energy output of a system can not be more than the energy input. The second principle says not only that, but one can not even break even. Output is always less than input (thermodynamic inefficiency - entropy). In this example in the video, energy is added to break the hydrogen-oxygen bonds in the water molecule producing hydrogen gas and oxygen gas, and then the hydrogen and oxygen is recombined to form water again. The energy released by forming the bonds is exactly the energy required to break the bonds.

The small flame in the video is well within the energy output capabilities of car batteries. A flame temperature of 1500^o may sound impressive, but not so much when one considers the flame temperature of just all combustion is at least that much. Flame temperature is the temp. inside the flame, not of the surrounding air or of the gases above the flame. The flame temperature of an ordinary candle is about that much. The flame temp. of the flame on a gas stove (methane or propane) is greater than that.

For this video to claim what it implies contradicts a very basic and fundamental principle of physics. History is full of examples where a new idea ran against science conventions at the time and where the new ideas were eventually shown to be correct; however, the burden of prove is on the claimant. Until there is hard, quantitative proof, I remain extremely skeptical that this is a viable, cheap energy source.

Anyway, all this video showed was a novel way of producing elemental hydrogen. Using hydrogen as a fuel is not a new idea. The reason it is not more frequently used as a fuel is that it is difficult to get in sufficient quantities at present.

Perhaps I got a bit carried away. I was objecting to the implications of the way the news media reported it, not to J.Kanzius. He didn't say anything bizarre, I agree.

Being a cancer survivor myself, his idea for cancer treatment is of very personal interest. A way of destroying cancer cells without damaging good tissue would be great.

Using electrolysis to produce O2, and H, is one of the systems we use in the jewelery business. The power supplies range from 117volt AC, 12volt DC, and solar. The flame produces an active flame heat of 6300*, sufficient to actively solder silver. Propane produces 6300*, acetylene produces 6800*.
I like the hydrogen flame for soldering gold, and retipping diamonds. It is clean. No carbon deposits.
The only drawback to hydrogen is storage.
Remember the Hindenburg.

Using electrolosis to produce hydrogen as a "replacement" for petroleum is fundamentally flawed and counter-efficient at best.

Because of the inherent inefficiencies of converting electricity to hydrogen, the process uses more energy than the hydrogen produces when it burns so you are actually running a net energy deficit. The same thing goes for most forms of ethanol production, another so called petroleum alternative which stills essentially relies on petroleum based fuels to produce. In fact, running a car on ethanol to be all environmentally resposible, well it produces a larger net carbon footprint per mile than burning good ol' 89 octane, go figure...