There's an alternative energy story that I've been trying to follow closely as it's been developing, and it's beginning to look quite promising at this point.

The Kanzius Effect, is what it's now being called. It's been getting quite a bit more press lately as university researchers have confirmed it and repeated it in the lab. In short, Mr. Kanzius lives down here in Florida, he researches cancer cures out of his house, and one night he thought he had a breakthrough. In the end, he ended up collecting some salt water from the local canal, put it in a test tube, directed high energy radio waves at it, and when a paper towel "wick" was put in it and lit, it continued to burn, without burning up the paper towel itself. Obviously it wasn't exactly what he was expecting, and so he put out some feelers to the scientific community to explore what was going on.

So, how did this happen? That's the source of some debate, but it seems as though the radio waves are somehow destabilizing the water itself, releasing hydrogen, which is then burning. Of course, hydrogen being the future alternative energy source that most people are focusing on, this has gotten some attention in the scientific community. One scientist remarked that the breakthrough is, "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years."

Theories on how it's actually destabilizing the water go in a few directions. Some believe the radio waves are actually mimicking platinum, basically replacing the platinum catalyst in a hydrogen fuel cell. If true, fuel cells would suddenly be extremely cheap, to the point of fuel cell cars probably becoming cheaper than traditional gas powered cars.

Some believe it's even simpler than that. Perhaps, the sodium in the salt water is being superheated by the radio waves, much like metal in a microwave, and that energy is basically tearing apart the water and releasing the hydrogen.

I've also read the suggestion that it's basically twisting of the hydrogen molecules in the water, making it easier to release the hydrogen.

Many people also think that it's simply microwave plasma, and the entire thing is going to turn out to be fake in the end. However, Mr. Kanzius has shown that, contrary to that, the effect continues for some number of seconds after the radio waves are turned off, which wouldn't be possible if it were simply a plasma formed directly by the radio waves.

It is possible someday that this technique might be used to take large quantities of salt water, and make them burn hydrogen efficiently. In a sense, to equate to what we have today, a tub of salt water could more or less function as a battery, storing energy, or even as a replacement for the gas tank in your car. It's possible that someday they will get more energy out of burning the hydrogen fuel taken out of salt water than they will need to put into making the radio waves, if it can be improved to the point of only needing the radio waves as a sort of ignition source, which can then be turned off. Currently, that's not been reported to be true, despite some insinuations that it has.

Using plain old electricity to split off hydrogen from water is, of course, possible. It's called electrolysis. However, it's terribly inefficient, thus, the fact that we can't use hydrogen as a viable, large scale energy source. However, even after just a couple of months of tinkering, reports are that this is over three times more efficient already. Suddenly, the idea of using hydrogen in daily life seems far more possible.

Of course, the end point being, that as of now, it requires more energy put in than you get out in the end, otherwise it would be "free energy" which is probably not going to happen. I'd like to avoid an extensive, exhaustive look at all of the possible pathways and what each would be in terms of energy in and out. We simply don't know enough about what is happening at this point to really look at it that closely.

However, it's obviously a major step forward in the generation of hydrogen, and could very well lead to many discoveries in the future. As a completely unknown process as of just a few months ago, it's gotten to the point now where it's approaching getting the same amount of energy out, in hydrogen, as you put into making the radio waves in the first place.

This is how all major discoveries start, and it seems to be well on its way to making it into our everyday lives.