Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

The process, as described, used 1.5v. That can be produced by a common solar panel. Thus we can scale it. And spread it across a small amount of time.

Did you and everyone think I was proposing to use gigawatts and electrolyse 1% of ocean water in a few seconds? O_o



You can produce 100,000v by a common solar panel as well if you want. Voltage is completely irrelevant, what counts is energy.

> Thus we can scale it.

I don't follow. What does voltage have to do with anything?

> Did you and everyone think I was proposing to use gigawatts and electrolyse 1% of ocean water in a few seconds? O_o

Um, yes. Do you have the slightest idea how much energy it would take to electrolyze 1% of the ocean? I did some math for you: you need 1.752×10^26 joules. If you had a gigawatt available to you it would take 5,552,000,000 years.


I thought voltage, at a certain amperage, was a way of describing energy. Sorry for my confusion.


You're not wrong, voltage times amperage does describe the energy, but voltage alone means very little.

In this case energy is what counts not voltage.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: