Is there anyway to make the process of making salt water burn more efficient?

Question

Did you know that a scientist set fire to salt-water and has possibly found way a to end the energy crisis?
Check out these articles below.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hyn9z4vKcZI
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/11/14/saltwater.fire/index.html

Has that process ever had money towards research put into it? Salt water is the most abundant resource on the planet. This could end the oil crisis.Has it been fully researched? Do microwaves really require that much energy? Would it be possible to do with a home microwave and an internal source of ignition? I know the method mentioned is a recent discovery according to the article but, I learned through a previous question this method has been around for years. Someone mentioned that the process required more initial energy than it produced, but if it also produces drinkable water, would the combined benefits on the world scale outweigh the increased drain on energy resources?

Answer 1

There's nothing magic or unusual about this. You can use electricity in many ways to break water into hydrogen and oxygen. People plan to do this to fuel hydrogen cars.

It always takes the same amount of energy to do that, it's a matter of breaking chemical bonds which have a known amount of energy.

It's showy to do it using microwaves instead of wires to carry the electricity, but it's hard to see how it could be "more efficient". There are some basic chemical principals involved here.

Answer 2

He hasn't found the solution to the energy crisis because it takes more energy to burn salt water than you can get out of burning it.

There's no getting around that fact.

For getting drinkable water I suspect that a conventional desalinaisation plant would be a more efficient use of energy.

Answer 3

This is just another one like perpetual motion machines and the "cold fusion" fuss some years ago. The energy used to break water down to hydrogen and oxygen is going to be far greater than the energy produced by any machine using it as a fuel. Go back to your basic physics class.

Answer 4

The claim is bullshit. Water is the product of combustion, not the reactant. You will always have to put more energy into it (to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen) than get out of it when the hydrogen burns.

Answer 5

* To the best of my knowledge, salt water will PUT OUT a fire because IT WON'T BURN. Smarten up, Gullible.