Tom: Yep, that may be an insurmountable problem.
Rocket scientist John Cooper explained:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John W. Cooper <
john.w.cooper@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Sep 12, 2007 4:41 PM
Subject: Re: Salt water as fuel? Whew Who!
To: TVTom <
televisionthomas@xxxxxxxxx>
[my work account isn't on the ECO list, so I respond to you]
I don't think this will fit in a Star Trek episode. The RF is
separating hydrogen out of the salt water. the energy required to do
that (through radiant RF) is more than the energy you get from
"burning" the hydrogen. Burning essentially binds the hydrogen back to
oxygen atoms, releasing heat and light equal to the amount of radiant
energy that happened to split the molecules in the first place. There
is no extra potential energy being stored or released (such as the
thousands of years of solar power at work behind oil before you burn
gasoline, or the millions of years of star fusion behind uranium before
you fission it). Good luck trying to beat the the conservation of
energy law. Better find those dilithium crystals (direct products of
the Big Bang [TM]).
This reminds me of the compressed air car engine scheme. People need to
remember that in this universe energy is never free, and simply
transferring from one kind of energy to another does not ever give you
more -- in fact usually there is a lot of residual energy lost in the
transference.
:-j