EEStor's Ultracapacitor That Isn't (Just Yet?)

I'll start with this January, 2007 piece at MIT's Technology Review that breathlessly announced EEStor's ultracapacitor; there was recently an AP piece about U.S. Patent 7,033,406, which claimed to cover the thing. The big advance claimed is a huge increase in permittivity even in cold weather and at high voltages, something others in the field say has not been done with years of research invested. Now it looks like they're delaying product shipment until 2008. Hm...

Salt Water As Fuel?

Oncology researcher John Kanzius pointed a microwave at salt water and got a whole mess of hydrogen:

Mr. Kanzius' discovery was an accident.

He developed the RF generator as a novel cancer treatment. His research in targeting cancer cells with metallic nanoparticles then destroying them with radio-frequency is proceeding at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and at the University of Texas' MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Manuscripts updating the cancer research are in preparation for publication in coming months, Mr. Kanzius said.

While Mr. Kanzius was demonstrating how his generator heated nanoparticles, someone noted condensation inside the test tube and suggested he try using his equipment to desalinate water.

So, Mr. Kanzius said, he put sea water in a test tube, then trained his machine on it, producing an unexpected spark. In time he and laboratory owners struck a match and ignited the water, which continued burning as long as it remained in the radio-frequency field.

During several trials, heat from burning hydrogen grew hot enough to melt the test tube, he said. Dr. Roy's tests on the machine last week provided further evidence that the process is releasing and burning hydrogen from the water. Tests on different water solutions and concentrations produced various temperatures and flame colors.

Almost certainly this is an energetic dead end; you don't get something for nothing in this universe, and what I suspect they'll find is that energy in from the microwave source equals energy out in H₂ and O₂ gas.

More On Thorium Fission Reactors

New Energy And Fuel (that's two links in two days!) has an interesting article that links to a piece at Accelerating Future discussing a potential energy source with some promise, thorium fission reactors. Thorium's benefits as an energy source over uranium are manifold: it's more plentiful and thus should be expected to be cheap when mined in quantity, and absent a source of neutrons, won't go supercritical on its own. Of course, that's also a significant drawback, as the real problem with thorium is that its decay chain doesn't produce neutrons, and so the reaction has to be constantly pumped. Nevertheless, an interesting idea.

Bussard Gets Another Round Of Funding?

I'm not sure what to make of this thread at talk-polywell.org citing an August 23 post at Power And Control indicating that Robert Bussard's inertial containment Polywell fusion device has been funded; that post itself points to a lengthier New Energy And Fuel post with more details. I'm hopeful but Bussard has himself confessed to misleading people before for the purpose of getting more money for other projects he feels promising. Nevertheless, since this is his pony (and there's talk he's in failing health), it's pretty certain he's going to ride this one. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Pointing And Laughing Time: Electron Power Systems

Not for real. Check out also the creation timestamp on the page (05/05/2003 07:49:52 AM) versus the current date at the top of the page, generated thanks to your local clock on your client. Sneaky. At least they're cheap scamsters: they only want $2 million for their seed money...