Happy Atheist Forum

Has anyone seen this video regarding an inventor who created a machine using low frequency radio waves to use salt water as an alternative fuel?  Very promising!
[youtube:wbcoxpk3]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiKa4nOkHLw[/youtube:wbcoxpk3]

The same guy may have an effective treatment for cancer using the same basic technology.
[youtube:wbcoxpk3]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux5QG0eqFqQ[/youtube:wbcoxpk3]

Pretty cool DennisK.  

BUT,

What's going on in the first video is really neat, but you have to look at the energy input required to produce the ionization of water that's feeding the flame.  If you are putting as much energy in to produce the radio waves as is liberated by the salt water, it's still not going to be a free source of energy.  This is the problem with all the hydrogen technologies we have available.  Anytime you want to use hydrogen, you have to look at it as an energy carrier, not an energy source.  There are a lot of cool ways to produce hydrogen, most of them require an energy input.  Linking up some sort of electrolysis to produce hydrogen to solar or wind power might be handy, because then instead of using batteries that may contain dangerous or expensive compounds to store energy, you can use hydrogen as your carrier.  This is a pretty cool reaction and it might have some kind of application in a hydrogen economy, but it's not really free fuel.

The second video is cool, and it looks like it has a lot of promise and he has researchers backing him.  The problem to get around with his technology would be how to get the cancer cells to take up the metal compound without having other healthy cells do the same.  This where you get into some pretty complicated stuff involving cell markers, endocytosis and all the biochemistry in between.  If you have a cancer that hasn't metastized, then you could inject the stuff into the tumour site, but otherwise you still have to get the cancer cells to take the material up.  And you would have to look at the toxicity of the metallic compound. I would defer to McQ on the whole cancer subject though.  It looks a lot preferable to radiation therapy though.

Pretty cool. The guy is genuine, and really wants to do some good for people. That's wonderful, really. I don't know if he's discovered anything truly new though, but possibly just another method to do something that people have already done. As far as the cancer research goes, his method would have a long, long way to go before the stuff that Leslie Stahl gushed about can be verified (especially the "no side effects" thing). Long way to go. But, heating cancer cells is useful. It's actually been known for well over 15 years that heating cancer cells can both make them easier to kill or kill them. This type of method has been tested and used in prostate cancer.

I have no issues with this guy or what he's trying to do. It's great, and he has the backing of some of the best cancer research institutions available. I just don't think it's all that new. I was puzzled that 60 minutes would go so ga-ga over this, yet ignore that past 20 years of research that has been done here. They really did treat it like no one had ever thought of it before, when, in fact, others already have. This guy's approach is different, but it is the same principle.

Different parts of the EM Spectrum have been looked at for this, but I have to say that this may be one of the least costly methods, and potentially least harmful. Although radio waves and X-Rays are all part of the same spectrum, radio waves are far less energetic and less dangerous. But it also may mean less efficacious. We'll see. At least it is being looked into in a fresh way.

Neat!  And goes to show that people are still trying to create.  Nothing impresses me since the air car though.  Knowing that it exists just makes me upset that it's not materializing.  http://www.mdi.lu/english/

You know, there is already the technology around for us to stop relying on our current energy sources.  Makes me jealous every time I lose power and my mom is still doing just fine.  Their place is totally off the grid, solar powered electricty, composting toilet, a propane fridge (okay, she needs fuel for that) but no utility bills!     That's what she looks like while living it up with her electricity talking on her HAMM radio.

Electromagnetic radiation has long been known to enhance electrolysis and chemical conversion.  The benefit is that this guy isn't lying to you outright.  You really can burn the hydrogen that you get from separating the elements of water.  But the energy required to do it is greater than that put off by the flame.  Used as a mass production method to create hydrogen for consumption at large, it could possibly work, but why use the hydrogen when you could more efficiently use whatever method you used to power the separation assembly?  Indeed, charging a battery by that method and using that instead would be far more efficient.

So, while this is curious and a fun fact, it fails to be practical as a means of creating energy.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science ... 71398.html (http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4271398.html)
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/951/ (http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/951/)
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory: ... adio_Waves (http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:John_Kanzius_Produces_Hydrogen_from_Salt_Water_Using_Radio_Waves)

Quote from: "PipeBox"So, while this is curious and a fun fact, it fails to be practical as a means of creating energy.

It wasn't presented as a means of creating energy, was it?

Quote from: "VanReal"You know, there is already the technology around for us to stop relying on our current energy sources. .

Ther technology is there
Its been there for a while! watch "who killed the electric car" if you can. It shows a lot. I think you can find it in google videos?