Why is 'water as fuel' considered Over Unity?

[send_to_nice]

Hey everyone. I'm not sure where this post belongs but I can't think of a better place than this. There is a lot of development happening at the moment on plasma arc explosion of water and on-demand electrolysis and a frequent topic on it is the strive to achieve OU. I'm not a scientist. I took physics and chemistry until I finished high school but since then have done nothing, so it's possible in my naivety I have missed something.

However, it is becoming apparent that water has a lot more potential than people once thought. The perception once held (and still is by the majority) is that there is no energy in water - after all, you pour it on a combustion reaction (eg wood burning) in order to stop the energy-releasing reaction from taking place so why would it have energy? However, as many here have proven, you can explode water by exposing it to a plasma arc. This releases energy which (well so I'm told) is greater than the energy required to produce the arc. But we're doing it with water which has no energy, therefore is it overunity?

Well, how is it any different than using petroleum to power an engine? The engine produces enough energy to power the ignition process, as well as the alternator and all on-board systems, and still enough to do work with the transmission. But this isn't overunity as petroleum has chemical potential energy and we don't see more than about 15% of it back from the engine when it is combusted.

The way I see it, the only difference between petroleum as a fuel and water as a fuel (from an overunity perspective) is that one is unanimously agreed to have chemical potential energy whereas the other does not. Who says the classifications of 'energy' are absolute and non-negotiable? We've got things like gravitational potential, elastic potential, chemical potential, heat, kinetic, sound etc already defined, but maybe water just has a form of energy that isn't yet defined? To unleash this energy requires some energy, but such is the case with all potential energies.

I'm just wondering if overunity is just a distraction. You mean a water-powered car isn't cool enough on it's own? To me, any powerplant that that 'uses up' water isn't overunity. It's just using fuel like any other powerplant. I'm not saying that's bad. I just hope people don't think they have failed if they build a water-powered energy system that doesn't achieve overunity!

Richard

[BEP]

I am certain you are correct on the water for fuel vs. gasoline. Fuel is fuel.
The part I disagree with is water having no energy. As water, unto itself, sure.
Separate the component parts though. Those parts when combined a diffferent way have plenty of energy to burn.

Water for fuel isn't overunity - neither is overunity 

Overunity is just another way of saying you don't know where the energy is coming from or you aren't accounting for it.

Water doesn't burn? Ever throw any on a magnesium fire or onto metal near its melting point? You don't get steam. You get a flame burst

[send_to_nice]

I am certain you are correct on the water for fuel vs. gasoline. Fuel is fuel.
The part I disagree with is water having no energy. As water, unto itself, sure.
Separate the component parts though. Those parts when combined a diffferent way have plenty of energy to burn.

Yeah I was referring to traditional science where it seems the general feeling is still that it takes energy in order to get any energy out of water (electrolysis)

Overunity is just another way of saying you don't know where the energy is coming from or you aren't accounting for it.

Yup. The more I think about it, the stronger my opinion becomes that water for fuel is not overunity. If nothing is being used up, how come we have to keep adding water to the fuel cell?

Water doesn't burn? Ever throw any on a magnesium fire or onto metal near its melting point? You don't get steam. You get a flame burst

I was using the 'putting out a wood fire with water' example to highlight the 'generic' view of water as a neutral substance. Sure, put any reactive metal in it and what you have is certainly not 'neutral'.

[greendoor]

Is there even a definition of what over-unity really means?  IMO heat pumps are clearly overunity by a factor of >3.  But then people will bring up the difference between Coefficient of Performance as opposed to Efficiency.  Semanitics really.  I guess there will never be a price awarded for overunity, because whenever a COP >1 is found, it will be discarded as being invalid for overunity.

A black-box radiant energy device would probably qualify for overunity.  But then why isn't an ordinary photocell considered overunity?  Solar is radiant energy - just a part of the spectrum that gets blocked by earth's shadow on a regular basis. 

I expect "over-unity" is a word like "magic".  Once we know how it's done, it ceases to be magic. 

But getting back to water plasma energy ENOUGH with the misinformation.

Water plasma energy is NOTHING to do with disassociating water into hydrogen & oxygen and burning them as fuel.  We know that takes as much energy as it liberates - and therefore is not over-unity.

Water plasma energy is a low temperature effect that comes from the mechanical tearing of water into tiny droplets.  Water vapour has greater vapour pressure (kinetic energy) than liquid water.  Where does this energy come from?  It comes from the hydrogen bonds in the liquid water.  This is known as Latent Heat energy - and it would appear that the main source of this energy is ambiant heat, and therefore indirectly SOLAR energy. 

If we rip water apart with a plasma spark, and avoid wasting too much energy (i.e. FORGET disassociation or high temperature effects) then we can liberate this latent energy that already exists in water.

I guess this will never win the overunity prize - beacause we now know this is indirect solar energy.

KILL THE OIL COMPANIES AND SOLVE GLOBAL WARMING IN ONE HIT PEOPLE!

[greendoor]

Using water for fuel is superior to burning hydrocarbon fuels.  Because the byproducts of burning hydrocarbon fuel is primarily water and carbon dioxide.  (Most people forget that water is the primary by-product of combusion - as evidence by jet trails in the sky.  Steam is normally invisible - which is why we don't see it coming from car exhaust unless it's very cold). 

Carbon dioxide is not a great problem - provided we grow sufficient green photosynthesising stuff.  The sea is full of algae that photosynthesis.  (Actually rainforests are fairly useless - they would work better if they were bulldozed and replaced with fresh new green growth - but don't tell the Greenies that). 

But if we "burn" water - whether disassociating into H & O at great cost, or vaporising it to release stored heat energy - the input and output is just water.  We even purify the water in the process.

No wonder the oil companies are scared.