B u r s t i n g     The Hydrogen Bubble –

At least putting it into Perspective as “the” solution to

Global Warming and our Energy Crisis

A three-part dialogue on the subject of Hydrogen as a significant solution to the world’s energy needs and the crisis with carbon emissions, global warming and our increasingly- intolerable dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

DW Foreign Policy Editor, Dusty Schoch, begins with a commentary on recent news articles concerning one man’s claims to have discovered a means of producing hydrogen and oxygen gas from common sea water, followed by comments from Dr. Leonard Carrier (DW In-house Historian and Philosopher) and Patrick Morgan, DW Environmental and scientific advisor and contributor on the same, along with views the larger issues on our global climate and energy crises.  The 3-part dialogue is addended by comments from DW contributor, Michael Murphy and a news flash from Bobby Dees about the “carboHydrate” consideration.

THE KANZIUS HYDROGEN MACHINE STORY

When I received the e-mail article from my brother, my initial impression was pretty much on the money- it was far too good to be true. The story, out of Sanibel Island, Florida was about a radio broadcaster who several years ago began experimenting with the use of radio waves to cure cancer.  The details of the story can be found on several versions of the story, including one on the following link:http://www.wpbf.com/health/11125485/detail.html

In essence, 63-year old John Kanzius, himself suffering from cancer, invented a machine four years ago to treat a rare form of leukemia. Instead of X-ays, Kanzius used broadcasting radio waves and proposed using a solution of nanoparticles to bond with cancer cells and later become targets for selective destruction by radio wave bombardment (as heat was created in the process that would theoretically kill the cancer cells and leave healthy tissue undamaged.)

In the process of experiments, Kanzius found that bombarding salt water (sea water in fact) with radio waves somehow freed both hydrogen and oxygen gases from the salt water such that both could be united (burning in effect) , thus producing only heat energy and pure water (H2O).

When the article appeared, there was speculation voiced all over the globe that this previously undiscovered means of isolating Hydrogen and Oxygen from sea water might be the solution to the  world’s energy needs and its globally-warming carbon emissions problems…all at once.

But as said before, a little research proved my initial intuitive instincts were in fact valid skepticism. Accordingly, I wrote the following letter to my brother, Arch, who had sent me the news clip on Kanzius, and received from Len Carrier and Patrick Morgan the comments that trail my now open letter on the subject:

Arch,

I love the fact that people are trying hard to get to the Hydrogen, because burning it creates no greenhouse gas, only water and heat.  But so far it’s a pipe dream like cold fusion.  We don’t have magnets powerful enough on earth to do fusion yet, but someday maybe. Our petro-allied government has never granted squat to research fusion on earth.

The sad feature with Hydrogen is that where it mostly is (water) there’s no stored energy. Getting it out of other molecules has proved cost ineffective.  There’s energy in elementary Hydrogen, but water molecules take in energy in their process of formation.  The radio waves (RF) do something (as yet unexplained) to free the Oxygen and Hydrogen in water, but the energy created in the burning of the product is only about 75 percent of the energy that is expended to create the radio waves that do the work.

Right now that’s good in one sense and insignificant in another. Good: Conceivably we could create the electricity that creates the RF in a coal burning generator (as most our electrical energy in the U.S. is created) using scrubbers and reburners so we create minimal particulate pollution…but there’s no way to limit the fact we’re creating the most dangerous greenhouse gas (CO2) in the process. Insignificant: So the net result of powering the car with hydrogen produced by coal-created hydrogen (with zero greenhouse gas) is a net increase (via Duke Power’s coal plant) of 25% CO2.

This cancer-research guy discovered the RF- hydrogen phenomenon 4 years ago, and nothing serious has come of his discovery. I’m afraid it’s because it is, energy-wise, a fairly naïve concept. The biggest hope for the discovery may be that it (the process) provides a way to burn H in the presence of Oxygen without having to separate and store either (expensive and dangerous) And so, one day, the process may provide a safer way to power vehicles, which (like the Hindenburg) are like nitro-glycerine in motion.

 I stopped my research into the matter when I confirmed what the consensus is (net loss in terms of energy in and out, and net neutral or negative in re greenhouse gas).

We need a Manhattan-type project on creating means of more cheaply creating energy from wind and sun. These are wasted energy sources (and by nature renewable without effort or expense). Right now, with either windmills or solar panels, we have to use them 20 to 30 years to recoup capital outlay. We should do it anyway and could if the government would offer us a tax break on the investment, but that won’t happen until the day comes Exxon/Mobile doesn’t own Congress. The dollar rules.

ALTERNATIVES:

 In the long run, all nuclear power will wind up costing us more and killing us in the end.  I think the long-term salvation of earth will have to be a revolution to reduce human  population to under a billion. We can tolerate (and afford) what 1 billion people do; but not 8. In the meantime, if we got as serious about using wind and sun as we got when we were worried about the Nazi’s and the Nip’s, we could probably save our bacon, and maybe the world.  But how do you get  people so rich and powerful that $12/gal gasoline can’t scare them out of either their SUV’s or their 10,000 sq ft houses? These are the people who for the most part rule the world by controlling the media and its spin on everything.

As much as I love the idea of our being saved by the earth’s wind and fire (sun), I think it’s going to take a social revolution to steer us away from Armageddon (global warming).  It’ll only make you and me uncomfortable. The thing I hate is, it’ll make life for our grandchildren…impossible.

Sorry for the gloomy perspective, but trust me—I’m still working on the revolution.

Thanks for the sharing. I appreciate enthusiasm and hope, however short-lived they turn out to be. Communicate enough sound and fury regarding our threatened survival, and who knows— Another Einstein might just pop up…and this time with something in mind other than a doomsday formula for fission.

Len Carrier’s Comments:

Dusty,

    Thanks for your take on a “hydrogen economy.”  When I was an undergraduate, we had a physics professor who touted hydrogen as the fuel of the future. However, for the reasons you mention, I don’t think that hydrogen alone should be expected to fill all our energy needs (although Iceland is striving to fill its energy needs through hydrogen).

    I’m of the opinion that hydrogen-powered fuel cells can be part of the solution to our demand for energy, along with wind, solar, nuclear, and vegetable oils. In other words, I think at this point that no one source of energy should be emphasized to the detriment of the others. They should all be tested.  In the end,  I think the winner in the energy race will be the source of power that proves itself to be more efficient than all the others–just as AC current won out over DC, despite Thomas Edison’s support of the latter.

PATRICK MORGAN’S CONCLUSIONS

Nanotechnology may be the answer here. Clearly this inventor is bathing the process with entirely too large a field of radio waves. Researchers in Canada (Montreal, I think) have developed transistors as small as 50 nanometers wide and capable of counting individual electrons. It should be relatively easy to build a “sparkplug” radio generator that could separate the hydrogen and oxygen inside the firing chamber of the engine. This process would also eliminate a great deal of extra hardware needed for a hydrogen engine.

Like with anything that happens inside a greedy government driven by a mad Oil Baron, for America to survive I think reasonable folks will have to circumvent the government. This is not revolution, but political evolution. In other words, despite what the government might be doing or approving, we the people will have to do the right things “around” their official lines of political non-solutions.

 Every intelligent being in the universe is capable of knowing right from wrong. We, the thinkers, must now realize that we will have to start doing the right things, whether the government is on our bandwagon or not. If the entire human race becomes extinct, it would not matter whether the greedy, non-thinkers of our time capitulated or not. If, however, we begin a way of living where we constantly practice doing the right things, then we may even out-live such mental midgets.

There’s really nothing preventing people from doing the right things, making the right decisions in regards to saving energy or making a smaller carbon imprint on the planet. Of course, if we wait for our elected idiots to make the right decisions for us then it will be too late!

 I once worked with the ideas of complete and utter revolution in the country. In my final analysis, there could never be enough people willing to escape their PC games and iPods (now iPhones) to mobilize an effective revolution. This is sadly true whether you’re talking political revolution or otherwise. The People are far too placated.

Dear Dusty, et al.:

The “revolution” in which ”hippies” and other counter-culture types of that now by-gone era intended never came to full fruition but what it did achieve in improving race relations, ending a stupid war, improving the lot of women in society, etc. did have enormous social and economic impact on the U.S. and by extension and addition, the rest of the western world.

I would not easily dismiss the power of a relatively new idea whose time may have already arrived to galvanize a new and large segment of society to take on new issues — global warming, addressing religious fundamentalism — if only the propulsion mechanism to transform those ideas into results can be worked out and the people galvanized.

With global warming, everyday seems to bring a new idea or initiative that underscores the global peril we are now in but at the same time shows the way to address certain aspects of the problem.  Powerful states like California are willing to take on the federal government over greenhouse gas emissions, etc., and even cities such as San Francisco are taking initiatives such as banning the use of bottled water in city offices and mandating the use of tap water.  People are statring to get it I think.

I see a ray of hope here but, perhaps, its already too late for that ray to grow into a fire to convert the masses but I think that if only that propulsion mechanism can be found people will join together to take on the issue of global warming, etc.

Best Regards,

/s/

Mike

*Mr. Michael Kevin Murphy is an attorney in Virginia, and a B.E.A. correspondent  of long standing. Mike served with the U.S. Army in Viet Nam during the period which straddled the 1968 Tet Offensive. He was commanding officer of an infantry rifle company in the Mecong River delta and  his badges and decorations  include the U. S. Parachutist Badge, the U.S. Combat Infantryman’s Badge, the Vietnam Ranger Badge (Biet Dong Quan), the U.S. Bronze Star Medal, thirteen Air Medals, and the Vietnam Gallantry Cross.

Bobby Dees’ Suggests the important “H”

In the energy Equation might be carboHydrates:

This just in from YaleGolbal: