Wow - you should be ashamed of yourself - expending 500 pounds of valuable and expensive resources to prove the obvious. Yes; quicklime when mixed with water gives off heat - not exactly earth-shattering news. Yawn.

How much energy was consumed producing the 500 pounds of quicklime? How big of hole was left in its' place from which it was mined? Where are you going to dump it? How much fuel was consumed transporting the quicklime? How much energy was consumed to initially heat the water? How many SUV's were involved (looks like several from the video clip).

All for what, a photo op and a insignificant article that holds very little interest?

Give me a break. We are taking much more from the earth than that is sustainable, and this certainly does not help.

The point of the experiment was to demonstrate this principle on a large scale. While it is a valuable resource, having fun with it once won't hurt the environment. Its not like he's telling everyone to try this, thats what the video is for, or suggesting a step up to industrial scale. If we didn't try crazy things like this the world would be, a) a lot more boring, and b) a lot less advanced. People make discoveries by doing off the wall things.
Stop being so serious and go blow something up, it will do you good.

While extensive damage was not done from this so-called experiment it certainly did not help the environment either.

Yes if a little bit of quicklime heats your soup then logic supports that a lot of it could heat a pool. Any competent 3rd grader should be able to figure that out. Hell, if you had enough you could even boil off our oceans.

My point is if we want to survive as a species we need to stop wasting resources on pointless or trivial uses.

I think an article describing how to build a solar concentrator to heat his tub would have held a great deal more interest and would have been actually usable for future uses versus just dumping everything when the photo op was shot.

@3DTopo (using your own words)

Wow - you should be ashamed of yourself - expending millions of valuable and expensive electrons to state the obvious. Yes; producing and transporting quicklime requires energy - not exactly earth-shattering news. Yawn.

How much energy was consumed producing the computer you used? How big of hole was left in the place from which the raw materials for your computer were mined? Where are you going to dump it when you are finished using it? How much fuel was consumed transporting the computer to your home? How much energy was consumed to power the computer and deliver the internet connection to your home? How many miles per year to you put in via public or private transportation (both of which consume fossil fuels)?

All for what, a pointless comment and a insignificant opinion that holds very little interest?

Give me a break. We are are an inquisitive people and we learn things by doing experiments. Through 'silly' or 'wasteful' things like this, ideas are hatched. Ideas that may reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, save lives, increase productivity, or who knows what. Your insipid comments certainly do not help.

Leave the author alone. He is doing an interesting (even if only to himself, although I found it cool too) experiment that was so small as to be well below 'insignificant' in terms of its global impact.

You said in your second post that any competent 3rd grader should be able to figure this out. And 50 years ago, any competent 3rd grader would have told you that it was IMPOSSIBLE for people to travel to the moon. 100 years ago, any competent 3rd grader would have told you that if you traveled 500 miles per hour you would DIE! These 'facts' have been shattered by knowledge gained from people who did experiments, frequently ones that their peers of the day thought were 'pointless' or 'trivial'. I'm sure there were lots of people who complained to the queen when she 'wasted valuable resourses' on that lunatic Chris Columbus and his 'pointless' attempt to sail to Asia. I'm sure glad she didn't listen to the nay-sayers like you.

Thanks,

- James

Tex scrawled:
__How much energy was consumed producing the computer you used?__

Tex - the difference is my computer is actually useful, and I actually use it 12-16 hours per day, 365 days a year. My computer serves as a virtual office for two successful businesses. Considering it is two businesses, it leaves a tiny carbon footprint compared to say 2 mcdonalds or whatever.

This article on the other hand provides no tangible benefit to anyone.

BTW: I think Columbus was a greedy lunatic who spearheaded the genocide of People of an entire continent. He did not discover anything, natives beat him to by more than 20,000 years.

Take your political agenda, ranting, raving and otherwise useless prattle elsewhere. Its 500 pounds a quicklime, it isnt going to kill us.

Or are you one of those Ted Turner types? Will we all be cannibals because of an 8 degree increase?

By the way, have you checked how big the Earth is lately? How about how little 500 pounds of quicklime matters?

Headfoot wrote:
__By the way, have you checked how big the Earth is lately? How about how little 500 pounds of quicklime matters?__

Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to produce 500 pounds of quicklime?

The concrete industry uses an astounding 10% of the entire production of energy and only accounts for only 0.1% of the Gross National Income (GNI). The main use of that enormous amount of energy goes into production of quicklime and the energy use to income is grossly disproportionate to our entire economy.

500 pounds of quicklime would be enough for my concrete slab for my home that will be useful shelter for generations or it can used for heating a tub for a one time use for a photo op.

My only point is that this sort of behavior is very wasteful, and given the state of the environment, we cannot afford to waste anything. In addition the fact that everyone else commenting thinks it is not a big deal is exactly why I think this article is damaging.

Telling me to go elsewhere is not going to work - I am just entitled to post my point of view as you are. If you can't stand the heat then get out of the kitchen.

Thats not dangerous at all... Unless there is a leak, then he's screwed. What would you rather take, electricity heating your water, or chemicles that burn you when leaking....

Do you have any idea how much energy it takes to post comments complaining about other people?

How big is your "carbon footprint"? Do you drive an SUV or a Prius? Do you have solar panels on your house or are you still sucking everything from the grid? Do you drink bottled water or tap water? Do you have a compost pile or do you send everything to the landfill? Do you eat beef or are you a vegetarian? Do you have AC in your house or do you suffer through the heat? Do you use CFLs or do you use incandescents? Do you recycle all your aluminum cans or do you throw them out the window as you drive? Do you sit in front of your computer complaining about everyone else or do you actually practice what you preach?

Chemistry is fun, trying different things is what makes us human. Maybe you can try being human and try a different attitude.
Why don't you go complain about China, I'm sure they would set up a city-size quicklime water heating plant just to tick you off.

AGAIN, Stop being so serious and go blow something up, it will do you good.

No I don't have a SUV, my home is heated by geothermal (I have 155F water coming out of the ground) and I am working on a system to power my entire home and office from geothermal (and produce distilled water as a bonus), I don't use running water, I use a composting toilet, I have a compost pile, I have been raised as a vegetarian (and very rarely eat meat), I use LEDs, I recycle all my aluminum and glass on-site (in fact I bring home aluminum, copper and glass from the local dump) by a waste-vegetable powered furnace, I usually only work in front of my computer but this article upset me.

I am not perfect, but I do the best that I can.