This is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, 8th Edition (2008), by Dr. Walt Brown. It is designed to be read online.
Copyright © 1995–2008, Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
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Energy Available
What provided the needed 1.7 × 1037 ergs of energy? Notice that the energy released by each of the first three sources described below is huge, but each is small compared to 1.7 × 1037 ergs. Nevertheless, each of these three sources would trigger the next source. Finally, the size of the fourth source (nuclear energy) was clearly sufficient. As will be explained, it generated at least 1038 ergs of energy!
Before proceeding further, carefully consider:
- the dozens of evidences presented on pages 266–318 showing that meteorites and the particles that merged to become comets and asteroids came from Earth and that the standard explanations for those bodies are, in so many ways, unworkable.
- the many evidences in “The Origin of Earth’s Radioactivity”2 chapter showing that powerful pressure cycles from the fluttering crust [see “What Is Flutter?” on page 281] generated, via the piezoelectric effect, extreme voltages that exceeded electrical breakdown voltages within rock. The resulting electrical surges (akin to bolts of lightning passing through rock and highly conductive salt water) rapidly produced Earth’s radioactivity and what would, at today’s rates, be billions of years’ worth of daughter products. As this chapter explains and calculations and experiments show, this is much more realistic than and far superior to the standard, vague explanation for the origin of Earth’s radioactivity—an explanation without experimental support.
What were the four sources of energy?
Tidal Pumping. Twice a day, tides in the subterranean chamber compressed and stretched the pillars. As pillars were heated, the water’s temperature rose.7 Quartz, which occupies about 27% of granite by volume, readily dissolves in hot water. Consequently, more and more quartz dissolved as temperatures rose, so the pillars and lower crust increasingly looked like sponges and weakened. Hot, salty—and, therefore, electrically conducting—supercritical water (SCW) filled these interconnected pockets that once held quartz crystals. That SCW would later remove staggering amounts of nuclear energy that would be generated in the lower crust over a period of weeks. [See page 118.]
Burning.8 There may also have been fire in the subterranean water. SCW at high pressures and temperatures will release oxygen and, if a fuel is present, spontaneously burn (oxidize). We cannot say what suitable fuels were present, although the great dissolving ability of SCW and the large volume of spongelike rock in contact with SCW open up many possibilities.9
The products of combustion in the SCW may have produced Earth’s ores, such as iron ore. Those ores would have been swept up to the Earth’s surface with the escaping flood water.
Figure 187: Burning in Supercritical Water. You are looking through a thick, sapphire window at combustion in supercritical water (SCW) at 450°C (842°F) and 1,000 bars (14,500 psi). The tube at 6 o’clock is injecting oxygen into the SCW at 3 mm3/sec. Oxygen unites with methane (CH4) that is dissolved in the SCW and releases heat which, in turn, releases more oxygen in the water (H2O --> H + OH --> 2 H + O). The resulting spontaneous combustion produces CO2 and excess heat as long as fuel (in this case, carbon) is available.10
At slightly higher temperatures, Russian scientists have duplicated the above without injecting oxygen and have shown how SCW, in the presence of fuel, readily explodes from the chamber.11 Sudden jumps of 670°C (1,238°F) in temperature and 210 bars (3,000 psi) in pressure were measured.
After the Earth’s crust ruptured, a similar, but vastly larger, long-duration explosion occurred for days in the subterranean chamber as the fluttering crust settled to the chamber floor. Most of the energy came not from chemical energy (as described above) but from nuclear energy—atomic nuclei that quickly decayed and released their binding energy. Those who ignore the flood will falsely conclude that all Earth’s products of radioactive decay must have accumulated at the very slow rate they do today, so the Earth must be billions of years old.
Potential Energy. The preflood granite crust had an average thickness, t, and a density, rg. It lay above a water layer of density, rw, and volume, V. This gave the crust a potential energy, Ep, of
Ep = t V g (rg - rw)
where g is the acceleration due to gravity. During the flood, that huge energy was released as the hydroplates sank and the subterranean waters violently escaped upward. If
t = 1.6 × 106 cm V = 7.15 × 1023 cm3
rg = 2.8 grams/cm3 g = 980 cm/sec2
rw= 1.14 grams/cm3, then
Ep = 1.6 × 106 × 7.15 × 1023 × 980 (2.8-1.14) = 1.86 × 1033 ergs
(At the high pressures in the subterranean chamber, liquid water has a density of 1.14 grams/cm3.)
Nuclear Energy. Thermal energy from tidal pumping and burning (if fuel was present) increased the pressure in the subterranean chamber and weakened the pillars and crust. Once the crust ruptured, the potential energy was released, the subterranean water erupted, and dramatic electrical events occurred that are described in “The Origin of Earth’s Radioactivity.”2 For reasons explained in that chapter and as demonstrated by experiment, new, superheavy radioisotopes rapidly formed and quickly fissioned and decayed. In the process, gigantic amounts of heat were released in the SCW.
Various nuclear reactions produced fast neutrons. How much of that nuclear energy was absorbed by the subterranean water? Our oceans have 1.43 × 1024 grams of water. For every 18 grams of water (1 mole) there are 6.022 × 1023 (Avogadro’s number) water molecules—each with 2 hydrogen atoms. One out of every 6,400 hydrogen atoms in our oceans is heavy hydrogen. Each fast neutron that was thermalized by the water delivered about 1 MeV of energy. (1 MeV = 1.602 × 10-6 ergs) A hydrogen atom (1H) that absorbed a fast neutron released 2.225 MeV of binding energy and became heavy hydrogen (2H), also called deuterium. The comet chapter (pages 266–297) explains why earth’s heavy hydrogen was concentrated in the subterranean chamber as the flood began. Therefore, the amount of nuclear energy that was added to the subterranean water over several weeks was:
Other products of nuclear decay would have added additional energy to the subterranean water, and much water was expelled from earth, so the above is a conservative estimate of the nuclear energy that was added to the subterranean water in weeks.
Those who try to estimate the total energy that has been released by radioactive decay on Earth often make two errors. Some assume that most geothermal energy flowing up to the Earth’s surface is from nuclear decay over billions of years. As the radioactivity chapter explains, relatively little geothermal heat is from slow nuclear decay. Most geothermal heat is due to electrical surges and rapid nuclear decay at the beginning of the flood and tectonics at the end of the flood. [The tectonic events are explained on pages 146–168.] A second error is assuming that the total heat released by accelerated decay equaled the annual radioactive heat generated in the Earth’s crust today multiplied by hundreds of millions of years.
Of course, many uncertainties exist that make exact calculations impossible. What were the initial and final temperatures in the subterranean chamber? What was its actual volume and depth below the Earth’s surface? What were the sizes, shapes, and numbers of the pillars? How much combustion occurred in the SCW? How much energy was supplied to the escaping subterranean water by all nuclear reactions, including fissions, captures, and gamma, alpha, and beta decay? Further research should narrow these uncertainties. Nevertheless, the energy released was clearly sufficient.