Originally Posted by RawAlex

Gator, unless they can run the thing on seawater, there would be a distinct shortage of water for fuel pretty much everywhere in the world. Safe drinking water still isn't available to a significant percentage of the population.

Do you have any clear idea how many gallons of fuel are used each day in the US? Do you have any idea what that type of volume of use would do to most lakes and reservoirs? Too many places (such as SoCal) barely get enough water as it is - making another 777 million gallons a day out of that would create a significant problem.

Further, if they are using seawater, they are going to need to find some way to get rid of all the excess salt. You can't dump it inland, because it would pollute the lands and pretty much kill off everything. You can't dump it into the drain, because it would end up salinizing lakes and rivers with the runoff. Not a good scenerio.

Let's go a little further. The other part of this deal is "beads of an aluminum-gallium alloy". I wonder what the power requirements are to create that alloy? Aluminum (and most metals) have to be heated to very high temperatures to be melted to be formed, which requires a fair bit of energy. That doesn't even consider the concepts of digging it out of the ground or transporting it to the smelter. It's sort of like ethanol / methanol: The total energy spent to create is more than the actual energy in the end product.