Fuel from Sea Water

[D Tibbets]

This article hints at creating fuel from sea water. This has been discussed before, but this public blurb may indicate some optimism. The article doesn't say much other than using dissolved CO2 and hydrogen in sea water and building hydrocarbens.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-navy-game-chan ... .html?vp=1

This second article is much more informative. The hydrogen comes from electrolysis of water and is a endothermic process. It takes energy. While useful for building subsequent hydrocarbons you need a power source.

http://www.gizmag.com/jet-fuel-seawater/24287/

Most Fischer-Tropsch reduction processes work because the raw material is itself a fuel. To make fuel from coal, you burn coal to run the process. The same goes for natural gas, biomass and other examples. With the NRL process, the raw material is seawater, so what is running the machinery? The jet fuel produced is only an energy storage medium, not an energy source. To use that is like trying to lift yourself off the ground by yanking on your belt. Until that question is answered, a vital piece of the puzzle is still missing.

That this is being mentioned at all may merely be due to improvements in the chemical process and not have any real application at sea. But, wild speculation would suggest that some in the Navy are optimistic that a power source might be in the works. The only real options would be nuclear- fission or fusion. Polywell is the obvious solution, at least for those interested in this forum.

Dan Tibbets

[Stubby]

Might be the idea behind the Navy's Polywell research.

A lot of people are treating this as some sort of 'free energy'. Please don't tell A. Rossi.
Nothing to see people, move along, move along.