Saltwater? If the world is 70percent water, then ...?

Question

From a enviromental view point , Cant cars be run on saltwater, Has anybody looked at saltwaters properties and tried to make energy from saltwater? It would solve alot of problems to do with oil, and money and wars , Wouldnt it be great if we got saltwater as fuel and its free too.. I can only dream cant I ?

Answer 1

In a few cities some are already extracting H from saltwater. The saltwater is also desalinated and used for irrigation. The salt is also harvested. In this process some of the water is returned to keep a balance of ecology.
So far it has been a success, H, Fresh Water and Salt are the products. The H can be used to power many things. But federal funding is to Petroleum Industry not Alternative Sources.
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/108697/index.php
http://tampabay.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2005/12/19/daily12.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2002/04/08/daily40.html
http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/em/igcc_plant62001.html
There arte still many Corporations that oppose this technolgy and they have the $ to squash it.
Good question

Answer 2

Of course people have tried to do this. It's one of those easier said than done things. You might just as easily say that our homes are surrounded by air. Hasn't anyone tried to make energy from the air to run our homes one? The answer is yes. The problem is that it is simply not economically feasible to harvest the energy with current technology. It's still cheaper to burn dinosaurs or split atoms.

To get the energy from water you need to split the atoms into hydrogen and oxygen and either remove or make use of the other constituents of the solution. Although the laws of thermodynamics tell us that it will take more energy to split up the water than the energy we get when it re-combines (to run an internal combustion engine or a hydrogen fuel cell) there have been several who claim to have high efficiency methods of doing this that overcome this limitation. However, the world has yet to se a viable commercial application.

Answer 3

Just to clarify - the world's surface, if presumed to be without lumps is 70% water. For the world itself to be 70% water, now that would be a soggy mess indeed!

Salinity is also an issue, as there are variations in the salt content of seawater around the world.

Best method of using water is to electrolyse hydrogen (hydrolysis) and then burn it - this produces water which can be hydrolysed again and, you guessed it, burned - true perpetual fuel source. The only problem with thi is the energy required to initiate the reaction in the first place.

Nice dream, though!

Answer 4

You're dream isn't as far from reality as you may think!!
I've read about an experiment that was carried out, claiming to make a battery work with air and saltwater.
Instead of me trying to explain it to you and us both being here for the next 10 hours, here's the actual experiment text. Makes for an interesting read, so enjoy....!

Procedure:

Remove the plastic insulation of about one inch from both ends of the wires.
Loosen the screw on both contacts of the bulb holder. Place one end of the red wire under one screw, make a loop and then tighten the screw. Place one end of the black wire under the other screw, make a loop and then tighten the screw.
Pass the open end of the red wire through the arm of the red alligator clip and secure it under the screw.
Pass the open end of the black wire through the arm of the black alligator clip and secure it under the screw.
Screw the light bulb on the miniature base.
Connect the red alligator clip to the iron electrode and secure it on one side of the plastic container or the cup.
Connect the black alligator clip to the magnesium electrode and secure it on the opposite side of the container. (You may need to hold them by hand or use a small tape to hold them in place on the side of the container.
In another pitcher, prepare some strong, warm salt water. Add enough salt so at the end some salt will be left at the bottom of the pitcher.
Transfer the salt water from the pitcher to the container.
At this time, if all the connections are secure and the electrodes are large enough, you should get a light.

You can read the full experiment and the results on this site...
ScienceProject.com.

Answer 5

There was a big hoo-ha a couple of years ago about two scientist who claimed they could make "clean" energy from water. Cold fusion I think was the term. Turns out it was all a hoax though.

I suppose the closest we have come to generating energy from the sea is by wave farming. The have some wave farms up here in Scotland but I think that they produce minimal energy outputs compared to other renewable energy sources.

I think the best way to reduce the enviromental imact is still the good old fashioned ways of cycling, turning of electrical items at nights etc.

Answer 6

The only way I can see to get useful energy from seawater would be to concentrate the heavy water(Deuterium) from it to run a fusion reactor, but freshwater might be less corrosive to work with. The heavy hydrogen atoms have to be heated into a plasma contained by huge superconducting magnets. this process has so far only been sustained for about half a second, but an experimental full size reactor will soon be under construction. If it works it will give the world unlimited non polluting energy. To run a car though you would need to make hydrogen from water by electricity generation and electrolysis.

Answer 7

Hello buds. There's this Filipino mechanical engineer that was featured in the discovery channel, maybe five or six years ago, claiming that he built/designed an engine that runs on water fuel, fresh water. I was so excited to see it last time but I don't know what happened why it didn't came out on the market. The engine was a little bit bigger compare to a gasoline engines, but he claimed it works.

Maybe four or five years ago, another group of scientist claimed that they cracked the cold fusion dilemma. Mind you they were working individually, so there were four of them, not only one, that have been experimenting and claimed it works. But these discoveries were just buried and forgotten. Isn't that sucks.

My theory is that a lot of giant money making companies plus the government thought that they won't be able to line up their pockets with money, that's why they're trying to kill any discoveries like these ones. Until they can't find a way to make money out of these designs, we won't see them in fruition. If only I have the finances to finance these types of discoveries, I will.

I wish we could start something that'll help these type of discoveries.

Answer 8

It would be great to get fuel from saltwater and in theory it's sort of possible. You just need your own adapted nuclear power station.

Energy we use as power usually comes from burning something (oil, coal, gas etc). Renewables use the energy contained in a something without affecting the source of energy (air, water, waves etc) to drive a turbine to create power. Nuclear is slightly different as it releases energy trapped in atoms.

Saltwater can cause chemical reactions which give off energy but the amount of energy released is minute - it wouldn't even move a toy car.

Answer 9

I am sure that many people have tried it, however it has never really amounted to anything.
You can do something called Hydrolisys which is the splitting of water molecules into Hydrogen and oxygen. This however requires that you pass a strong electric current through the water. You could burn the hydrogen oxygen mixture but the energy you get out isn't very much compared to what you have to put in to split the water.

Answer 10

nothing kicks out burn energy like hydrocarbons. thats why we use fossil fuels. saltwater can be used as an energy source, but it requires an enormous amount of water for even minimal energy output. electricity is the best alternative to combustion engines.