Scientists Burn Salt Water for Fuel

If there is anything more abundant than carbon - the substance found in all organic material, and much of the inorganic material on and inside Earth - it is the salt water found in the World's oceans.

Carbon-based substances are what mankind has used as energy for as long as we have been able to produce fire-from dry wood to jet fuel. But now, John Kanzius can burn salt water.

Kanzius, a scientist from Eerie, Pennsylvania, discovered that salt water burns when he was attempting to desalinate the undrinkable liquid with a machine he first built to treat cancer.

The machine, a radio frequency generator, breaks apart the bonds that create salt water. Sodium chloride, oxygen, and hydrogen are broken apart, allowing the hydrogen to ignite and burn continuously for as long as there is hydrogen to burn, and radio frequencies enough to burn it, and at temperatures topping 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

With enough money to fund research, and time to find results, the radio frequencies used to literally shake apart the molecular structure of salt water and burn the hydrogen inside, could yield results as enormous as the oceans themselves. The energy released by burning salt water is tremendous, but the questions scientists have about the procedure revolve around whether or not it can be efficient enough to drive a car, a ship, an airplane, or a spacecraft.

If it can, mankind won't ever have to worry about energy again. There is enough water in the oceans to run every power grid, every vehicle, and ever lawn mower across the face of the Earth indefinitely. That means, not only won't we run out of this new energy source, but it'll always be cheap and easily gotten. No more ruining natural habitats for oil reserves, no more seventy dollar barrels of oil, or three dollar gallons of gas.

And it's no hoax, either. Dr. Rustum Roy, a chemist at Penn State University has successfully reproduced Kanzius's salt water experiments, and calls discovery "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years."

But we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. If it takes more energy to burn water, on a large scale, than the amount of energy created, the entire idea goes out the window-a lot like alchemists trying to turn lead into gold.

Kanzius was even able to power a Sterling engine with his salt water fuel, but that's not exactly a Buick or a Leer Jet. And there are other problems with burning salt water. Bio fuels such as soy and corn haven't been able to get to your car mainly because of the oil industry's strong hold on the market. It may be that no new type of energy can take the place of fossil fuel until fossil fuel is, well, extinct, and that could be thirty, forty, or fifty years from now-if not longer. The timing may be excellent; salt water research may not be finished for decades, but it has a chance to produce workable results sooner than later, depending on how much time, effort, and money goes into the project.

The other problem is whether or not burning salt water will pollute the atmosphere. The affects of fossil fuels on the environment weren't found until large enough concentrations of burned fuels were already floating in the sky. If saltwater pollutes, we won't know until it does so.

But for now, it looks like it'll be a cheaper, and safer, alternative fuel.