Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.
Energy Available
What provided the needed 2.2× 1038 ergs of energy? Notice that the energy released by each of the first three sources described below is huge but small compared to 2.2 × 1038 ergs. Nevertheless, each would trigger the next source. Finally, the size of the fourth source (nuclear energy) appears to have been sufficient. As explained in Endnote 89 on page 434 (and repeated below), just the production of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) in Earth’s oceans released 7.72 × 1037 ergs of energy (one-third of the needed energy)! Many other isotopes were produced which would have released additional energy.
Before proceeding further, carefully consider:
- the dozens of evidences on pages 303–385 showing that the rocks and water launched into space became meteorites, comets, asteroids, and TNOs—and how flawed the standard explanations for those objects are.
- the many evidences in “The Origin of Earth’s Radioactivity” chapter (pages 387–441) showing that the fluttering crust generated, via the piezoelectric effect, extreme voltages that exceeded electrical breakdown voltages within rock. The resulting electrical surges (much like bolts of lightning passing through rock) rapidly produced Earth’s radioactivity and what would be, at today’s rates, billions of years’ worth of daughter products. As that 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.4
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 by tidal pumping, the water’s supercritical temperature, that was quickly established during the creation week, was maintained—with heat left over to evaporate ground water that condensed each morning as heavy dew and watered the entire earth.5
[To understand the heating during creation week, see Figure 237 on page 486.] Quartz, which occupies about 27% of granite by volume, readily dissolves in hot water. Consequently, as temperatures rose during the creation week, the lower crust increasingly became as porous as a sponge. Hot, salty—and electrically conducting—supercritical water (SCW) filled these interconnected pockets that once held quartz crystals.
That SCW later absorbed staggering amounts of nuclear energy that were generated in the lower crust during the early weeks of the flood, thus powering all the fountains of the great deep. [See page 124 and pages 613–614.]
Burning.5 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), releasing CO2 (carbon dioxide), CH4 (methane), and heat.6 We cannot say what fuels were present, although the great dissolving ability of SCW and the large volume of spongelike rock in contact with SCW raise many possibilities.7 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 264: 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.8
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.9 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 energy release occurred for weeks 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 trapped 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 = 9.6 × 106 cm V = 7.15 × 1023 cm3
rg = 2.8 grams/cm3 g = 980 cm/sec2
rw= 1.14 grams/cm3, then
Ep = 9.6 × 106 × 7.15 × 1023 × 980 (2.8-1.14) = 1.1 × 1034 ergs
At the high pressures in the subterranean chamber, water’s density is 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.” As explained in that chapter and 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.
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 produced by the various nuclear reactions delivered at least 1 MeV of energy as it was thermalized (slowed down) by water. (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 303–338) 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—just due to the production of deuterium—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 accelerated nuclear decay at the beginning of the flood and tectonics at the end of the flood. [The tectonic events are explained on pages 155–192.] A second error is assuming 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. For example, What were the initial and final temperatures in the subterranean chamber and what was its volume? 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.