I recently saw a commercial about energy and there was a guy who had what looked like a mini-marshmallow, on fire, in the palm of his hand. Stating, "This is the energy of the future..."
What, pray tell, was that substance he was holding and does it has a potential?

Helium 3 is the reason China, India, Russia, and the United States are all going to the moon. The sun blows out enough Helium 3 each hour to power the earth for decades. Our atmosphere blocks it but scientist say the moon is saturated with it and there is enough readily available to power the earth for 10,000 thousand years. It is much safer than hydrogen and nuke power and will run a reactor much like nuke power. As far as the commercial you saw... don't know.

It's available on the moon? He must have had a sample created here on Earth. Is it costly to be produced? I can't see a ton of PCV pipes running all the way to the big cheese... Isn't somebody on this?

They will strap huge tanks to the shuttle and exchange them with full ones. There hasn't been any reason to go back to the moon until we had the vehicle to go get it. Still a bit shaky but I think they have new technology to replace the exploding shuttle system. Don't know exactly how they will extract it. They got most of their first samples from the moon rocks brought back when we went. They are completely saturated with it, the whole moon is. I think the space station has been collecting it also.
Hey, it beats burning marsmallows for heat!

We need to know how to maintain controlled fusion reactions before we can take advantage of He-3. There's several million tonnes of it in the Earth's mantle, and quite a bit of it in the Earth's atmosphere too. But the moon is probably the easiest source of it to get to.

I haven't seen the ad in question, but he may have been showing a way to store hydrogen in a form that would work well in a hydrogen-powered car. One of the main technical issues in adopting hydrogen as a fuel for cars is how to store it on board in a safe and efficient manner. Unlike propane or natural gas hydrogen is hard to compress in a pressure tank to a density suffiecient enough to provide enough range for the car. One leading technology that is getting a lot of attention is the use of metal hydrides that can capture and hold hydrogen molecules in its interstices, and then release it when heated. Here are a couple of wikipedia article on hydrogen cars and hydrogen storage:

Hydrogen vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle)
Hydrogen storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage)

The total amount of helium-3 in the mantle may be in the range of 100 thousand to a million tonnes. However, this mantle helium is not directly accessible. Some of it leaks up through deep-sourced hotspot volcanoes such as those of the Hawaiian islands, but only 300 grams per year is emitted to the atmosphere.

Wikipedia
Helium-3 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3)

But the moon is probably the easiest source of it to get to.
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We need to know how to maintain controlled fusion reactions before we can take advantage of He-3. There's several million tonnes of it in the Earth's mantle, and quite a bit of it in the Earth's atmosphere too. But the moon is probably the easiest source of it to get to.
Sorry, man. How much is "several million tonnes" to someone who is far more familiar with other means of measure. What will a single ton be capable of, eventually..

This might be part of the reason why this technology is not being, in my opinion, more "public." Too many times I get stifled by the varacity of terminolgy. Can we keep this in laymans terms?

A tonne is 1000 kg. I thought it was rather common language, apologies if you don't agree. It's not very much, really. Something like 50kg of He-3 would be able to fuel a power station outputting the same amount as an average powerstation would for a year. As magprob said, the mantle is very hard to get to, it's tens of km straight down, and a temperature of over 900 deg Celsius.

The reason that it is not more public, is the need for controlled fusion reactions to be developed. So far, they have not. The longest controlled fusion reaction has been for a few seconds.

Hey, I'm not offended. Common for some is totally foreign to others. The planet we live on and take for granted has more sub-cultures today than ever. I'm a professional auto tech and I can leave teckno-babble. My interest was in something I haven''t had any contact with. It seems interesting and I wondered where this is going. Forward, I hope!

I recently saw a commercial about energy and there was a guy who had what looked like a mini-marshmallow, on fire, in the palm of his hand. Stating, "This is the energy of the future..."
What, pray tell, was that substance he was holding and does it has a potential??
The future of energy is in bio-mass, solar, geothermal, hydrogen and other alternatives. You can search BTR Network.com for more info on all the alternative energy sources...

The future of energy is in bio-mass, solar, geothermal, hydrogen and other alternatives. You can search BTR Network.com for more info on all the alternative energy sources...
Hello and welcome
Thank you for your response. I've heard of these before, but He-3 is new to me.

I recently saw a commercial about energy and there was a guy who had what looked like a mini-marshmallow, on fire, in the palm of his hand. Stating, "This is the energy of the future..."
What, pray tell, was that substance he was holding and does it has a potential??
It is some form of methane, it is from the deep ocean

Speaking of hydrogen, check this out!

YouTube - Saltwater Burns - John Kanzius (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6vSxR6UKFM)

Tim

Errrrm, what's he using to power his radio source, then?

Remember, this is in the infant stages. Just discovered by accident. But, if it has the capibility producing a flame over 2000 degrees F, it should be able to generate enough powerer to run a radio frequency transmitter as well.

Tim

As far as I can see, he's separating the water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis and then combusting it which gives back energy and water.

It ain't going to break unity.

On further thought, I still can't see how it would solve any energy crisis. But it could be an efficient way to desalinate water using only a little fuel.

His radio freqency generator isn't running off that discovery nor the overhead lights. I'd need to see application before getting too excited.

Yes precisely, the saltwater isn't even really acting as "fuel", the only energy being harvested is the energy from the radio waves.

True, and that little Sterling engine is turning without a load. If he wanted to demonstrate power generation, perhaps he should have powered a plasma TV or something relevant.

But I do think it could be an efficient way to desalinate water. I wonder how powerful the radio source is and if it could be powered by a generator, with the energy from burning the hydrogen being fed back into powering the generator, so that it requires little fuel. It could be very useful in 3rd world countries.

The fresh water would be a byproduct of the combustion.

And if they could harness the heat by-product, they could light and/or heat buildings and homes...

I think it would be more efficient to just use a generator for that.. You're just losing energy through the desalination

I finally got a chance to see the video in question. Seems like these reporters are being taken in, and don't seem to notice that the energy being produced by the flame must be less than the energy the radio transmitter uses. This must be the case - otherwise he'd have a perpetual motion machine, which is impossible. I see this as a neat demonstration of a technique to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. Could be of use as companies such as BMW look at possibly building hydrogen powered cars. If it's more efficient than the standard method of electrolysis that would be great, but none of the reporters asks that question.