"US Navy reveals 'game changing' fuel created from water" Topic

"The US Navy has developed a radical new fuel made from seawater.
They say it could change the way we produce fuel – and allow warships to stay at sea for years at a time.

Navy scientists have spent several years developing the process to take seawater and use it as fuel, and have now used the 'game changing' fuel to power a radio controlled plane in the first test…"
Full article here
link

If this is true, it's the biggest news for this year!.

Amicalement
Armand

Heating, electricity, which means you need an outside source of power to perform the conversion. The question is what is the input/output ratio for the fuel ? If you need a 100 MW to produce 50 MW worth of fuel, you might be better off trying something else.

No dependence on middle east oil. Now that is game changing.

Hmm so those nuclear reactors at sea were a waste of time?

Lots of spare power there..

The article is probably a bit misleading UNLESS they are able to get more energy from the water then it takes to process…

Where this can come in very handy is nuclear aircraft carriers, the ship could make the needed jet fuel on board rather then relying on tankers. With a projected date at least a decade away it may prove totally unworkable though.

I call total BS on this.
HYDROCARBONS from sea water?
Even to get hydrogen from sea water requires far more energy put into it than you get out, and you would need nukes for that.

Deriving fuel from sea water is a classic violation of the Laws of Thermodynamics. Total nonsense.

Nah, they use solar power to get the hydrogen, you know, from huge magnifying glasses.

Weird bug. I typed a long response and the post was "2nd crooked dice" something I never wrote.

Anyway…

The article is terribly written but the process is described in it and it's completely straightforward and rather basic chemistry. There's no violation of Thermodynamics. There's no claim that this process creates energy. Rather it's a conversion of sea water into a hydrocarbon fuel that uses both the hydrogen present in water molecules and the carbon dioxides dissolved in sea water to create those longer molecular chains. This is what plants (those green leafy things) do all over the planet.

It's clear when you read the process that they're adding energy to the system and that efficiency is likely the biggest issue. The goal however isn't energy creation, it's fuel creation: fuel that can power jet aircraft and the like. Put a seawater to jet fuel generation plant on a nuclear powered carrier and you've extended it's operational time by quite a bit. Heck, if the system is efficient enough you might even be able to support the support ship's fuel needs with it.

Don't confuse this with research into technologies such as nuclear fusion and the like. The goal isn't energy creation or alternative energy. It's jet fuel and the like without returning to port or having to rely on tender ships.

IIRC this was news about 5 years ago (suggestions that in extremis a US carrier could generate fuel for its escorts) . Good to see that its finally getting somewhere.

You still have to re supply with munitions and provisions.

Hmm so those nuclear reactors at sea were a waste of time?

Lots of spare power there..

Not really. 220MW reactor plant and all of ~10MW electrical generation on an Ohio-class sub. Propulsion eats an obscene amount of power.

And there's a much more interesting idea for biofuel: There is a strain of algae that converts human sewage to diesel fuel. This would be an excellent idea for carriers or the big gator-freighters, though you'd still need to resupply with weapons and other consumables.