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Future Energy eNews
IntegrityResearchInstitute.org Aug.
6, 2006
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1) A Fuel
Tank Full of Water - Cars that run on water now
possible with boron
2) Zero-Point Energy Casimir
Based Device – Dr. Pinto’s Casimir
force Transcaver(TM)
3) Nano Refrigerator - Same idea that may be used
to rectify nonthermal fluctuations from ZPE
4) G-8
Energy Focus is on Oil - Renewable energy still not impacting the big eight
5) Free
Power for Cars - Thermoelectrics can power cars. Tech
Review says, "Why not now?"
6) Top Scientist Make
Climate Plea
- More money for "new energy technologies" urged on BBC
7) Ford
Abandons Pledge on Hybrid Production - Choosing other options
including E85 fuel
8) IRI Confirms Dr. Pinto for COFE2 - Zero point energy pioneer
will keynote conference
1) A Fuel Tank Full of Water
David Adam, New
Scientist Print Edition, 01 August 2006, http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/mg19125621.200.html
Zero-emission
transport system
Forget cars
fuelled by alcohol and vegetable oil. Before long, you might be able to run
your car with nothing more than water in its fuel tank. It would be the
ultimate zero-emissions vehicle.
While water,
plain old H2O, is not at first sight an obvious power source, it has
a key virtue: it is an abundant source of hydrogen, the element widely touted
as the green fuel of the future. If that hydrogen could be liberated on demand,
it would overcome many of the obstacles that till now have prevented the dream
of a hydrogen-powered car becoming reality. Producing hydrogen by conventional
industrial means is expensive, inefficient and often polluting. Then there are
the problems of storing and transporting hydrogen. The pressure tanks required
to hold usable quantities of the fuel are heavy and cumbersome, which restricts
the car's performance and range.
Tareq
Abu-Hamed, now at the University of Minnesota, and colleagues
at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, have
devised a scheme that gets round these problems. By reacting water with the
element boron, their system produces hydrogen that can be burnt in an
internal combustion engine or fed to a fuel cell to generate electricity.
"The aim is to produce the hydrogen on-board at a rate matching the demand
of the car engine," says Abu-Hamed. "We want to use the boron to save
transporting and storing the hydrogen." The only by-product is boron
oxide, which can be removed from the car, turned back into boron, and used
again. What's more, Abu-Hamed envisages doing this in a solar-powered plant that
is completely emission-free.
Simple
chemistry
The team
calculates that a car would have to carry just 18 kilograms of boron and 45
litres of water to produce 5 kilograms of hydrogen, which has the same energy
content as a 40-litre tank of conventional fuel. An Israeli company has begun
designing a prototype engine that works in the same way, and the Japanese
company Samsung has built a prototype scooter based on a
similar idea.
The
hydrogen-on-demand approach is based on some simple high-school chemistry.
Elements like sodium and potassium are well known for their violent reactions
with water, tearing hydrogen from its stable union with oxygen. Boron does the
same, but at a more manageable pace. It requires no special containment, and
atom for atom it's a light material. When all the boron is used up, the boron
oxide that remains can be reprocessed and recycled.
Abu-Hamed and
his team are not the first to investigate hydrogen-on-demand vehicles. The car
giant DaimlerChrysler built a concept vehicle called Natrium
(after the Latin word for sodium, from which the element's Na symbol is drawn),
which used slightly more sophisticated chemistry to generate its hydrogen.
Instead of pure water as the source of the gas, it used a solution of the
hydrogen-heavy compound sodium borohydride. When passed over a
precious-metal catalyst such as ruthenium, the compound reacts with water to
liberate hydrogen that can be fed to a fuel cell. It was enough to give the
Natrium a top speed of 130 kilometres per hour and a respectable range of 500
kilometres, but DaimlerChrysler axed the project in 2003 because of
difficulties in providing the necessary infrastructure to support the car in an
efficient, environmentally friendly way.
Engineuity,
an Israeli start-up company run by Amnon Yogev, a former Weizmann Institute
scientist, is working on a similar strategy, but using the reaction between
aluminium wire and water to generate hydrogen. In Engineuity's design, the tip
of the metal wire is ignited and dipped into water to begin splitting the water
molecules. The liberated hydrogen is piped into the engine alongside the
resulting steam, where it is mixed with air and burnt. Engineuity is looking
for investors to pay for a prototype, and claims it will be able to
commercialise its idea "in a few years' time". The US company PowerBall
Technologies envisages a hydrogen-on-demand engine containing plastic
balls filled with sodium hydride powder that are split to dump the contents
into water, where it reacts to produce hydrogen.
Abu-Hamed says the
generation of hydrogen for his team's engine would be regulated by controlling
the flow of water into a series of tanks containing powdered boron. To
kick-start the reaction, the water has to be supplied as vapour heated to
several hundred degrees, so the car will still require some start-up power,
possibly from a battery. Once the engine is running, the heat generated by the
highly exothermic oxidation reaction between boron and water could be used to
warm the incoming water, Abu-Hamed says. Alternatively, small amounts of
hydrogen could be diverted from the engine and stored for use as the start-up
fuel. Water produced when the hydrogen is burnt in an internal combustion
engine or reacted in a fuel cell could be captured and cycled back to the
vehicle's tank, making the whole on-board system truly zero-emission.
Hydrogen-on-demand,
whether from water or another source, could address two of the big problems
still holding back the wider use of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel: how to store
the flammable gas, and how to transport it safely. Today's hydrogen-fuelled
cars rely on stocks of gas produced in centralised plants and distributed via
refuelling stations in either liquefied or compressed form. Neither is ideal.
The liquefaction process eats up to 40 per cent of the energy content of the
stored hydrogen, while the energy density of the gas, even when compressed, is
so low it is hard to see how it can ever be used to fuel a normal car.
Hydrogen-on-demand
would not only remove the need for costly hydrogen pipelines and distribution
infrastructure, it would also make hydrogen vehicles safer. "The
theoretical advantage of on-board generation is that you don't have to muck
about with hydrogen storage," says Mike Millikin, who monitors
developments in alternative fuels for the Green Car Congress
website. A car that doesn't need to carry tanks of flammable, volatile liquid
or compressed gas would be much less vulnerable in an accident. "It also
potentially offsets the requirements for building up a massive hydrogen production
and distribution infrastructure," Millikin says.
There is a
potentially polluting step that has to be tackled. "You'll need an
infrastructure to produce and distribute whatever the key elements of the
generation system might be," Millikin warns. While Abu-Hamed's scheme
still requires a distribution network and reprocessing plant, he has devised an
ingenious plan that will allow the spent boron oxide to be converted back to
metallic boron in a pollution-free process that uses only solar energy (see
Diagram). Heating the oxide with magnesium powder recovers the boron, leaving
magnesium oxide as a by-product. The magnesium oxide can then be recycled by
first reacting it with chlorine gas to produce magnesium chloride, from which
the magnesium metal and chlorine can then be recovered by electrolysis.
Solar
source
The energy to
drive these processes would ultimately come from the sun. The team calculates
that a system of mirrors could concentrate enough sunlight to produce
electricity from solar cells with an efficiency of 35 per cent. Overall, they
say, their system could convert solar energy into work by the car's engine with
an efficiency of 11 per cent, similar to today's petrol engines.
Experts are
sceptical that we'll be seeing cars running on water any time soon. "It's
not the kind of thing you're going to see appearing in a car in five or even
ten years' time," says Jim Skea, research director at the UK Energy
Research Centre in London. For example, DaimlerChrysler is now focusing its efforts
on cars running on compressed hydrogen because filling stations that supply it
already exist in some places.
Proponents of
cars that run on water are banking that long term the idea will win out.
Engineuity's Yogev claims the running costs will be comparable to those of
today's petrol engines and expects to have a prototype built within three
years.
My other car
runs on water? Don't bet against it.
2) How Zero-Point Energy
Can be Utilized with a Casimir Force Based Device: A Smooth and Seamless
Explanation
By Fabrizio Pinto,
President and CEO of Interstellar Technologies Corp.
http://www.interstellartechcorp.com/phyTheoretical.html
Quantum-Electro-Dynamics
(QED)
By means of the Schrödinger equation, it is possible to determine all possible
states of the electron in the electric field of the proton in a hydrogen atom.
Such states are described by mathematical objects referred to as the wave
functions, which describe the probability of finding the electron at any
position in space. Despite further progress from the old quantum theory, we are
still unable to determine why the electron should transition from one state of
higher energy to one of lower energy.
In order to do so, we must
implement the rules of quantum physics not only in our description of the
electron, but also in that of the electromagnetic field itself. For as long as
we keep our description of the electromagnetic field classical, it is
impossible to show that the higher energy states of the hydrogen atom are
unstable and, in time, they will decay into the ground state with the emission
of one or more photons.
The theory that describes
not only matter, but all fields as well, by means of quantum principles is referred
to as quantum electrodynamics (QED). In its most complete form, it naturally
includes Einstein's special theory of relativity and it is therefore more
advanced than even the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation. In much the same
way as the position and momentum of a particle represent a pair of quantities
that cannot be both measured at the same time with infinite precision, so also
in QED the components of the electric field and of the magnetic field represent
such a pair in the sense given by the uncertainty principle.
Intuitively, this means
that, even in a state of vacuum (absence of all sources) in any volume of
space, the uncertainty principle, applied now to the electromagnetic field
itself, implies the existence of a "ground state" for such vacuum. In
other words, we must visualize the vacuum not as an absolutely empty region of
space, but as one where, in accordance with the uncertainty principle, the
electromagnetic field randomly changes form place to place. According to QED,
it is impossible to ever obtain a state "emptier" than such vacuum in
free space. Perhaps the most provocative concept about this quantum vacuum is
that, if we attempt to compute its total energy density, we obtain an infinite
number.
This shocking finding is
traditionally interpreted as meaning that, in order to extract information from
QED, we have to somehow eliminate, subtract, or renormalize our results so as
to avoid its infinities. Since the structure of the theory allows for this to
be done, the diverging energy density of the quantum vacuum has not represented
an insurmountable obstacle to use it in practice. However, this procedure of
course does not mean that this infinite energy simply does not exist and, in
fact, a long-standing debate has been taking place as to whether its appearance
is simply due to mathematical gadgetry or to its actual physical existence.
The Casimir Effect
Let us now once again consider our two parallel plates. In the QED framework,
any volume of empty space both within and without the gap between the plates
actually contains electromagnetic zero-point energy (ZPE) due to the electric
and magnetic fields fluctuating because of the uncertainty principle. Such
fluctuating fields correspond to photons that appear and disappear continuously.
Unlike photons we experience in our daily lives, referred to as real photons,
these photons cannot be directly detected nor can they exist for an infinitely
long time because their existence violates the principle of the conservation of
energy. They are referred to as virtual photons.
Because of the same
arguments we discussed in the case of the acoustic Casimir effect, the presence
of the two boundaries alters the energy density in the region between the two
surfaces. Although this number is infinite, it is possible to devise techniques
to subtract it from the energy density outside of the gap, which is also
infinite. The result so obtained is a finite value.
This important finding
shows that the presence of the two surfaces causes a change in the zero-point
energy of the system that depends on the distance between the plates: the
smaller the distance, the larger the change. This is the ultimate origin of the
Casimir force.
It is natural to wonder
whether it is possible to view the Casimir force in QED as a result of
radiation pressure, given the fact that, in this case, no real photon field
actually exists. The answer is affirmative, as it has been shown that the
Casimir effect can be explained as the result of radiation pressure of the
virtual photons upon the boundaries.
From the mathematical
standpoint, there is absolutely no difference between the SED and QED
treatments of the problem. Also, depending on the boundary conditions, the
Casimir force may be repulsive - as is the case for instance in the interaction
between a perfectly conducting and an infinitely magnetic plate.
Energy and the Casimir
Effect
In this section we shall carry out a type of experiment that is based
exclusively upon logical reasoning and not actual measurement. Of course such
thought (or gedanken) experiments, although they cannot produce new
experimental data, are extremely powerful, as they allow one to extract a
wealth of information from known physical laws.
Initially, let us restrict
ourselves to a Casimir system consisting of two perfectly conducting plates,
placed vertically one in front of the other at some relatively large, initial
distance (Fig. 1). In the case of perfectly conducting plates, the Casimir
force can be shown to be attractive at all distances. Our gedanken experiment
consists of attaching a string to the left of the two plates, which will be
free to move, while the plate on the right will be fixed in a permanent
position. The string will be stretched horizontally to a pulley and then run
down to a mass hanging in the gravitational field of the Earth.
Let us now slowly let the
two plates come together to a smaller, final distance (Fig. 2). As the Casimir
plates come together, the Casimir force increases. Therefore, in order to
maintain a state of quasi-equilibrium during this process, we must constantly
add extra mass in addition to what was attached to the string in the beginning.
The end result of this process will be that a total mass has been raised to a
distance equal to the change in separation between the two plates. What has
happened to the total energy of the system, including the plates, the mass, the
Earth, and the vacuum?
We know from basic
mechanics that, whenever a force moves its application point, it is said to
have done work. If the force is constant in magnitude and direction, the work
done by this force is simply the product of the component of the force along
the distance traveled multiplied by the force itself. In the case of the
Casimir force, however, the force is not a constant and this calculation is not
as trivial as carrying out a multiplication.
Regardless of mathematical
details, this work done by the Casimir force upon the total mass raised
manifests itself as an increased gravitational potential energy of the mass.
Potential energy is so called because it can "potentially" be
converted for instance into kinetic energy, or energy of motion, by dropping
the object back to its initial position above the ground. Therefore, as the
Casimir plates were drawing closer and closer, work was being done upon the
mass, and its potential energy increased. Where did this increased potential
energy come from?
Let us look at the total
zero-point energy between the two Casimir plates. Since the Casimir force in
this case is attractive, both the energy density and the total energy in such
volume are negative (of course we are counting such value from the infinite
offset of zero-point energy in free space). We also know that, as the plates
become closer, the energy density, and therefore the total energy, becomes
larger in magnitude while remaining negative in sign. Therefore, at the end of
the lifting process, the total energy in the gap volume is larger in magnitude
but still negative in sign than at the beginning. Mathematically, this means
the total zero-point energy is smaller than previously. Of course, as one would
expect, the increase in the gravitational potential energy of the mass exactly
equals the decrease of the zero-point energy in the gap volume. Therefore, the
total energy of the system is conserved.
Let us now imagine that we
want to continue such process and raise more mass from the initial to the final
height. In order to do so, we need to "reload" the Casimir system by
again pulling the plates apart to their initial separation. How can we do that?
The only way is to apply an outward force equal to or larger than the Casimir force
and pull the plates away from one another. Again as expected, in order to do so
we must provide exactly the same amount of energy as we obtained from the
Casimir force system to lift the mass in the first place -- for instance by
lowering the mass we just raised back to its initial position.
It is clear to see that, as
predicted by the laws of mechanics, the total energy of the system is always
rigorously conserved. However, it is also evident that this Casimir system does
not represent a useful engine to lift masses from the ground up as such masses
must then be lowered back down to reload the device. It rather resembles a car
engine whose pistons can move down but must be pulled back up by hand --
definitely not a desirable situation.
The Transvacer™
In order to design an idealized, yet physically admissible, engine able to
carry out a complete cycle, we need a process to manipulate the value of the
Casimir force at any given separation of the plates. This is similar to what
can be done, for instance, in the cylinders of a steam engine. If, for a fixed
position of the piston, we change the temperature of the gas contained in the
cylinder, the gas pressure will change. Likewise, again for a fixed position of
the piston, we can open a valve in the cylinder and let air in or out and again
change the gas pressure. This ability to modulate the force that is doing
mechanical work in an engine at constant volume is what permits the cycle to be
closed.
Can this be done in the
case of the Casimir force? The answer is affirmative, and it represents one of
the cornerstones of the applications we are pursuing at InterStellar
Technologies Corporation.
The critical concept at the
core of our idealized Casimir engine is the well-established fact that, in the
realistic case of a material that is not a perfect conductor, the magnitude of
the Casimir force at any distance between the plates depends on the detailed
optical properties of the boundaries. That is, any process that can alter the
reflectivity of the material, also affects the value of the Casimir force at
any distance. This can be achieved in a wide variety of ways.
Let us for instance
consider two plates made of a semiconducting material. The reflectivity of a
semiconductor at any given wavelength is determined by several factors,
including of course its lattice structure and its density of charge carriers,
such as for instance electrons. By altering the density of charge carriers, one
is effectively altering the reflectivity of the material in a range of
wavelengths and, consequently, of the Casimir force. In a semiconductor, the
density of charge carriers can be modified in any of several ways, such as by
illuminating the surface with a beam of light of appropriate wavelength or by
changing its absolute temperature.
The fact that the Casimir
force can be modulated by acting on the charge carrier density of a
semiconductor such as silicon is clearly predicted by available theories and
very precise calculations of such have been carried out at InterStellar
Technologies and have appeared in the refereed literature. Early experimental
evidence that such effect does indeed occur was produced independently almost
thirty years ago, although this finding was never used to implement any
technological applications and quantitative agreement with theory was lacking
because of the lack of precise computations.
With this important tool at
our disposal, we are now ready to describe a realistic Casimir engine cycle to
continuously raise mass from an initial to a final height.
At the beginning of the cycle, we shall assume that the Casimir force has been
set to its maximum value by, for instance, transferring heat to the two
surfaces from a large higher temperature heat reservoir thereby increasing
their own temperature (Fig. 3). This will increase the charge carrier density
and, in turn, the Casimir force. Let us again set the two plates at an initial
distance and connect the system to an appropriate mass to find a position of
quasi-equilibrium.
The first leg of the engine
cycle closely resembles what we have already discussed in the previous section.
However, once the mass has been raised to its final height
(Fig. 4), we now cause the Casimir force to decrease while the plates are kept
in a constant position, for instance by transferring heat from the plates to a
lower temperature heat reservoir thereby decreasing their temperature and
charge carrier concentration (Fig. 5). This induces a decrease of the Casimir
force intensity, which requires us to remove some mass brought to final height
in the first leg of the cycle. This process of decrease of the Casimir force at
constant volume of the space between the plates represents our second leg of
the cycle.
At this point, again
similarly to what was done in our initial example, we lower the remaining mass
attached to the string back down in quasi-equilibrium. However, the mass being moved
downward is now smaller than what was lifted, because of the overall decrease
of the Casimir force between the plates. This is the third leg of our cycle
(Fig. 6).
Finally, the cycle is
closed by again connecting the Casimir plates to the higher temperature heat
reservoir and by causing the Casimir force to increase. This requires us to
connect extra mass to the string to retain equilibrium at constant volume. At
the end of this fourth leg of the cycle, the system appears exactly as
initially, although a finite mass has been permanently raised to the final height
(Fig. 7).
In the case of the Casimir force-based
engine cycle just described, zero-point energy is transformed, for instance,
into mechanical energy. Of course variants are very numerous, in the way the
Casimir force is modulated as well as in the type energy into which the
zero-point energy is transformed. However, all such implementations have in
common the fact that energy associated with the zero-point field is transformed
into usable energy of some type. For this reason, the discoverer of the cycle,
Dr. Pinto, introduced the term Transvacer™, from the acronym of TRANSducer of
VACuum energy, to describe it.
The background provided in
this section therefore justifies the following general definition:
The Transvacer™ is a
Casimir force-based device designed to carry out a complete engine cycle to
convert a type of energy into another by appropriately modulating the
zero-point field.
The short-term
commercialization of an extremely broad variety of Transvacer™ applications, as
well as that of a host of advanced applications in zero-point field and Casimir
force manipulation, represent the central interest of InterStellar Technologies
Corporation. Furthermore, InterStellar Technologies Corporation investigates
possible regimes in which the zero-point field energy itself may become
available in addition to that exchanged with other sources during the engine
cycle. In such regimes, although all laws of thermodynamics can be satisfied,
the zero-point field (ZPF) becomes an energy resource from the standpoint of
the user.
For further information:
With Introductory Math: http://www.interstellartechcorp.com/phyMathintro.html
Advanced Math: http://www.interstellartechcorp.com/phyMathadvan.html
>>
Click to visit InterstellarTechCorp
3) Theorists devise world's
smallest fridge
Belle Dume, 12 June 2006, Physics Web and
IOP Nanotechweb http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/5/6/4?alert=1
Two theoretical physicists say it is possible to build a tiny refrigerator
that is powered by Brownian motion, the random movement of small particles
caused by collisions with surrounding molecules. The concept, which is
counterintuitive because such fluctuations normally hinder cooling, has been
proposed by Chris Van den Broeck from Hasselt University in Belgium and Ryoichi
Kawai of the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the US. If realised, the
molecular-sized device would be the world's smallest refrigerator and could be
used to cool down future nanoscale machines (Phys. Rev. Lett. 96
210601).
Van den Broeck and Kawai recently made a microscopic motor consisting of a
single chiral, or asymmetrical, molecule. When placed between two reservoirs at
different temperatures, this motor automatically moves in one direction to
"rectify" the thermal fluctuations. In this way, it transfers heat from
the high-temperature reservoir to the low-temperature one.
In their latest work, the researchers propose using an external force to
drive the Brownian motor in the opposite direction so that it does the reverse
- that is, causes heat to flow from the colder region to the warmer one and so
acts as a refrigerator. This is much the same way that a household heat pump
cools a room.
The researchers' theoretical model of the new fridge makes use of a chiral
rod - which has flat paddles (like those on a paddle-wheel boat) at one end and
wedge-shaped paddles at the other - piercing an insulating membrane. If the
molecules surrounding the wedges have more kinetic energy than those
surrounding the paddles the rod will spin, thereby moving heat from the warm side
of the device to the cooler side. If a force is then applied to the rod, the
motor runs "backwards" and moves heat in the opposite direction.
Such a fridge could, for example, be used to cool down semiconductor chips,
channelling energy away from the centre of a chip to a cooling port by applying
a torque to the molecules. It could also be used to cool down nanoscale
machines.
"Advances in nanotechnology will eventually bring machine sizes down to
the limit where thermal fluctuations dominate," states Kawai. "Our
Brownian machine magically exploits this random motion of molecules rather than
fighting against it."
4) From Group of 8, Energy Focus Is
on Oil
By ANDREW E. KRAMER, New
York Times, July 17, 2006, http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2006/07/17/world/europe/17summit.html&tntemail1=y
STRELNA,
Russia,
July 16 — The world leaders at a
Group of 8
summit meeting on Sunday issued a communiqué on energy policy that touched
lightly on alternatives to fossil fuels, like biomass and wind power, but
focused mostly on how to bring more oil to the market.
President Bush and the other leaders — from Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Britain,
Italy and Canada — produced statements on corruption, trade and protection for
copyrights and patents at a meeting that was overshadowed by the violence this
weekend in Lebanon, Israel and the Gaza Strip.
On energy, the Group of 8 leaders said they were addressing “high and
volatile” prices, with oil soaring above $75 a barrel last week, by endorsing
policies to encourage oil field investment and raise production. They said that
demand for oil, natural gas and coal would rise more than 50 percent above
current levels by 2030, and that these fossil fuels would constitute 80 percent
of the world’s energy supply by then.
Still, few concrete measures to control prices emerged from Sunday’s talks
in this town near St. Petersburg, reflecting the divergent interests of the
countries here.
The final statement called for “investment in all stages of energy
supply” and “transparency and good governance in the energy sector,” but
suggested no requirements on countries to make that happen.
A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, conceded that the language seemed
directed against Moscow’s consolidation of its oil and natural gas industry
under state control. Still, all countries, including Russia, agreed to the statement.
To dampen world oil prices, the Group of 8 members agreed to push
oil-producing countries to be more open with data on reserves, or how much oil
remains in the ground, an initiative put on the agenda by Russia.
The group endorsed efforts by the Paris-based International Energy Agency to
prepare for a possible world oil shock with a plan to coordinate the release of
the Group of 8 countries’ emergency reserves, like the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve in the United States.
On the environment, the statement praised the Kyoto Protocol as a tool to
discourage energy waste and greenhouse gas emissions — but only for those who
have ratified the document, an acknowledgment that the United States had
rejected the treaty.
“It is important to engage the private sector and other stakeholders in
achieving these ends,” the statement said, reflecting the Bush administration’s
preferred approach to climate change.
The Group of 8 leaders said countries producing oil and other fossil fuels
should open their energy industries to outside investment, crack down on
corruption and prevent waste such as burning natural gas at oil fields, a
practice called flaring that is widespread in Siberia.
The statement said the Group of 8 members “support the principles” of the
Energy Charter, a treaty intended to integrate the energy industry in former
Soviet countries with Europe. Russia has signed the document, but it has not
been ratified by Parliament, and the wording of the statement left unanswered
questions of access to Russia’s natural gas export pipelines for independent
companies or third countries.
Russia, acting as host of the Group of 8 for the first time, chose energy
security as a focus of the meeting, a nod to the oil-fueled economic comeback
here eight years after a severe economic crisis.
When Russia briefly placed an embargo on natural gas supplies to Ukraine in
January, however, European leaders and the International Energy Agency questioned
the security of Russia’s own supplies.
The leaders adopted separate statements condemning piracy of intellectual
property and counterfeiting of brand-name products, suggesting that each member
country set up a Web site with information for patent and trademark holders on
legal methods to defend their rights.
They issued a statement supporting the Doha round of trade talks, a largely
stalled effort by developing countries to level the playing field with rich
nations on trade by opening markets in agricultural goods.
The leaders also issued statements on education and infectious diseases,
especially avian flu.
On corruption, the Group of 8’s statement was a follow-up to an initiative
begun by the British prime minister, Tony Blair, to
encourage oil and mining companies to disclose to the public their royalty
payments to Third World governments — to help ensure that the money shows up
later in those countries’ budgets.
The program, called the Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative, has produced mixed results.
5) Free Power for Cars
Kevin Bullis, Technology
Review, Feb. 21, 2006 http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16402
Automakers look to thermoelectrics to help power
tomorrow's vehicles.
Converting heat directly into electricity is nothing new; it
has been possible since 1821. But thermoelectric materials have been too
inefficient to make them practical for anything but a few niche uses, such as
in deep space probes.
Recent advances using nanotechnology, however, have revived this moribund
field, and have car makers such as General Motors and BMW
taking notice, hoping to increase fuel efficiency and eventually
replace alternators and possibly even internal combustion engines with
thermoelectric generators.
"I think right now that thermoelectrics have a good chance of
succeeding," General Motors senior analyst Francis Stabler reported last
week at the Materials Research Society meeting in Boston.
As much as 70 percent of the fuel energy burned up in car engines doesn't go
toward moving the vehicle along or powering the CD player, he said. Instead,
it's dissipated as waste heat. Stabler says a new generation of thermoelectric
materials can convert heat to electricity well enough to be
used for taking the burden of electricity generation off the engine, thereby
saving fuel.
Researchers still need to find ways to make these materials cheaply and
consistently, however, before they can be widely deployed. But certain niche
uses could help the technology get established. Already, Amerigon,
a Deerborn, MI manufacturer, has sold well over a million car seat
heating and cooling units that use an older version of the technology. When
electricity is applied to thermoelectrics materials they transfer heat, cooling
an area or heating it depending on the direction of the current.
If the next generation of thermoelectric materials can be manufactured
inexpensively, they could be used in more demanding applications. Wrapped
around a car's exhaust pipe, for instance, they could harvest waste heat to
produce electricity. Initially, this electricity might be used to
supplement the electricity generated by the vehicle's alternator, making it
possible to run more electrical devices without adding more strain to the
engine.
If the technology proves to be reliable, Stabler says, it could eventually
replace alternators altogether and run electrical water and oil pumps,
relieving the extra work for the engine, boosting performance, and saving
fuel. John Fairbanks, technology development manager at the U.S. Department of
Energy, suggests that if all GM cars alone used this technology, it
would save roughly 100 million gallons of gas per year.
Thermoelectric materials, which are most often made of semiconductors, need
to conduct electricity well, allowing electrons to move away from a heat source
and thereby generate an electrical current. But the material also has to
conduct heat poorly, or else it will heat up and the temperature difference
that drives the electrons will disappear. The challenge is that when electrical
conductivity goes up, heat conductivity tends to go up as well.
The growing knowledge
of how to structure materials on a nanoscale could provide a solution. For
example, researchers have created materials with molecular lattices that
interrupt vibrations from heat, keeping the heat from thermally conducting,
while allowing electrons to move freely.
Stabler believes thermoelectric generators can beat out near-term
competitors for improving fuel efficiency, such as turbo-chargers and
turbo-generators, which also harvest energy from exhaust. "Thermoelectrics
is something that seems to give a better efficiency gain long term," he
says, adding that "there's always going to be waste heat."
According to the DOE's Fairbanks, there is an even chance that
thermoelectric generators could one day beat out internal combustion engines.
While GM's Stabler agrees this could happen, he cautions that it's a long
way off. A new technology has to be well-proven before it can be implemented in
essential systems like power generation. Even after researchers have succeeded
in making materials that can be manufactured, it could be an additional three
to eight years, he says, before the industry is willing to use them to
completely replace the alternator in production vehicles.
But don't be surprised if cars start appearing that have extra power skimmed
from exhaust heat. It'd be "environmentally friendly," Stabler says.
"Being able to generate some power from waste heat certainly will attract
some attention."
6) Top Scientist
Makes Climate Plea
BBC NEWS, Published: 2006/08/04, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5244240.stm
World leaders have been urged to put more money into
developing new energy technologies to tackle global warming.
Royal Society president Martin Rees wants a publicly funded international
research programme, he says in the US journal Science.
Lord Rees says a pledge to increase governments' investments in energy
technologies should have been made at the recent G8 summit in Russia.
He describes a "worrisome lack of determination" among world
leaders.
'Urgent challenge'
Lord Rees said: "Energy security was a key issue at the St Petersburg
summit of G8 leaders last month.
"Their joint communique included many important commitments, but it
omitted one crucial pledge - a significant increase in their governments'
investments in R&D (research and development) for energy
technologies."
|
|
None of the kinds of energy that we can produce now
routinely are going to really be sustainable in the long run at the scale we
need
Lord Rees
|
He said an "urgent challenge" was to meet global demand for
energy, while reducing the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on climate
change.
To do this, "more needs to be done to develop new energy technologies
that are currently far from market", he said.
Lord Rees suggests money for research could be raised through methods such
as carbon taxes, levied initially on the countries with the largest greenhouse
emissions.
Public funding for energy research has reduced around the world
Public funding for energy research across the world has halved in real terms
since 1980, and in the UK it is now one-tenth of what it used to be.
Lord Rees says the UK and US have taken some steps towards tackling the
problem but there is an urgent need to increase efforts in research and development.
He told BBC News: "If we look at what is happening worldwide, there is
a greater and greater demand for energy, especially in the developing world,
India and China in particular, and at the same time carbon dioxide is rising
very fast and it's clear that unless we can control the carbon dioxide then we
will run into a dangerous level of potential climate change 50 years from now.
"And that's why there's urgency, because if you want to meet the
expectations of the developing world, we need new kinds of energy.
"None of the kinds of energy that we can produce now routinely are
going to really be sustainable in the long run at the scale we need."
The International Energy Agency predicts that by 2030 global energy
demand will increase by 50%.
For further information
BBC Story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/5244240.stm
How the Greenhouse Effect Works: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/04/climate_change/html/climate.stm
KEY STORIES
Backing for 'hockey stick' graph
'Clear' human
impact on climate
Spacecraft seek
climate clarity
Air trends
'amplifying' warming
Blagging in the blogosphere
Climate news: A
load of hot air?
Earth is too
crowded for Utopia
Earth - melting in the heat?
Q&A:
Climate change
Q&A: The
Kyoto Protocol
Climate: What
science can tell us
The big
greenhouse gas emitters
Warming: The evidence
7)
Ford Abandons Pledge On Hybrid Production
Sholnn Freeman, Washington
Post Staff Writer, Friday, June 30, 2006; D01,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/29/AR2006062901911.html
Ford
Motor Co. has dropped a pledge to build 250,000 gas-electric hybrid cars
per year by the end of the decade, saying it will expand into other fuel-saving
technologies.
Environmentalists accused
the automaker of backpedaling, but industry analysts said the move underscored
the difficulty the industry is having in selling the technology to mainstream
car buyers.
Ford Chairman William C.
Ford Jr. outlined the decision in a letter to employees Wednesday. The company
made the letter public yesterday after details were reported in the Detroit
News. In the letter, Ford said the 250,000 goal was "too narrow" to
achieve substantial improvements in vehicle fuel economy or curb carbon dioxide
emissions. He said that the company shouldn't wed itself to a single technology
and that Ford will consider other options, including diesel, biodiesel and
ethanol fuel blend E85, as well as seek advances in engine and transmission
technology.
Building a lot more hybrids
and other fuel-efficient vehicles has been touted as a major component of the
No. 2 U.S. automaker's "Way Forward" turnaround plan. Like General
Motors Corp., Ford's North American business strategy has unraveled in the
past year as consumers have turned away from their highest-profit vehicles:
large cars and sport-utility vehicles.
William Ford made the original
hybrid pledge last fall in a speech to employees at the company's Dearborn,
Mich., headquarters. In the speech, Ford said the automaker was acting out of
concern for the environment and was working to combat a
"multidimensional" energy crisis afflicting the nation. Ford said
that he knew the goal was going to be tough to meet but that it was time to
"get on with it."
Ford and other Detroit
automakers are now touting another technology to counter national anxiety over
high gas prices, foreign dependence on oil and global warming: ethanol, a fuel
made from corn or, potentially, other agricultural products. In a joint letter
sent Wednesday to members of Congress, General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrsyler
AG announced a new promise to double annual production of vehicles that run on
alternative fuels, to 2 million per year.
Yesterday, the House
rejected an attempt led by Republican lawmakers to offer legislation to
increase the government's fuel-economy standards for new cars and trucks.
Automakers have resisted those increases and often pointed to their own
voluntary efforts to reduce oil consumption and curtail greenhouse gas
emissions.
Daniel Becker, the director
of the Sierra Club's global-warming program, said, "It's becoming clear
that Bill Ford himself is unable or unwilling to live up to his own commitments
on the environment." He complained that in 2003, Ford reneged on a promise
to improve the fuel economy of sport-utility vehicles by 25 percent over three
years.
Becker called Detroit's
growing emphasis on ethanol a scam, saying automakers are building flex-fuel
vehicles to qualify for government credits that would allow them to build even
more gas-guzzling vehicles. He said government reports show that fewer than 1
percent of ethanol-capable vehicles ever run on the fuel. There are 170,000 gas
stations in the United States but only about 700 with E85 pumps, according to
the auto companies.
Ford officials tried to
allay concerns with a conference call between environmentalists and high-level
company officials yesterday. The environmentalists pushed Ford to take a
stronger stance on public policy solutions for oil dependence and global
warming, including pushing the federal government to adopt higher vehicle
fuel-economy standards or endorse a national policy to cap greenhouse gases.
Industry analysts say the
hybrid market is proving to be more difficult to crack than automakers
initially expected. Anthony Pratt, a powertrain analyst at J.D. Power
Automotive Forecasting, said he wasn't surprised that Ford dropped its
commitment.
"We never really
forecast they would do 250,000," he said.
Pratt said that the Toyota
Prius is selling well but that most other hybrids in the market are barely
meeting expectations, including Ford's Escape and Mercury Mariner hybrid SUVs.
He said that Honda's Accord hybrid is struggling in the market and that Toyota
has had to add financing incentives to lift sales of the hybrid version of the
Highlander. Costs are still too high compared with traditional vehicles, Pratt
said.
"Consumers are willing
to accept hybrid technology, but they are not willing to accept a price premium
that can't be paid off over time by consuming less fuel," Pratt said.
"They want to see an economic break-even point."
Hybrid vehicles made up 1.2
percent of the overall U.S. new-vehicle market in 2005 and are projected to
reach 5 percent by 2013. "While it's significant growth, it's still a
relatively small percentage of the market," he said.
8) Former Jet Propulsion
Laboratory Scientist to Address COFE2
Thomas Valone, Integrity Research
Institute, August 4, 2006, http://users.erols.com/iri/cofe.html
Washington,
D.C. -- Integrity Research Institute confirmed last week that Dr. Fabrizio
Pinto has agreed to be the keynote speaker for the Second International
Conference on Future Energy, to be held in the Washington DC area September
22-24, 2006. Dr. Pinto is known for his work on the "Engine cycle of
an optically controlled vacuum energy transducer" while at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), published in the Physical Review journal in
1999. His thermodynamics analysis proved that a microlaser pulse could change
boundary conditions and the Casimir force sufficiently in a micron-sized
cantilever cavity in order to propel a few electrons during each cycle. At the
rate of 10 kHz, he predicted a power per unit area of about 1 kW/m2
from arrays of 100 micron-size cavities.
Upon
leaving JPL, Dr. Pinto founded Interstellar Technologies Corporation in
Monrovia, California and received several patents that capitalize on his
discoveries: "Method for Energy Extraction-I" US Patent #6,665,167,
"Method and Apparatus for Energy Extraction" #6,477,028, "Method
and Apparatus for Particle Acceleration" #6,593,566, and "Article
Comprising a Casimir Force Modulator and Methods Therefor" #6,650527. His
more recent work centers on a "Method and Apparatus for Controlling
Dispersion Forces" #6,661,576 and this year, an "Apparatus Comprising
of a Propulsion System" Patent Application Publication #2006/0027709
which discloses "a propulsion system that does not consume fuel."
Dr. Pinto has several physics articles posted on his
company's website www.InterstellarTechCorp.com
which help explain the theory and experimental design needed to implement his
discoveries (see FE eNews #2 article). There he also states, “Our mission is to develop the novel field of quantum vacuum
engineering to its full commercial potential including its applications to much
more efficient energy production, superfast nanoactuation, completely
revolutionary aerospace propulsion, and targeted nanosurgery you could only
dream about before.”
On May 21, 2002,
Company President and CEO, Dr. Fabrizio Pinto obtained an Honorable Mention
award from the Gravity Research Foundation for his research on the possibility
of measuring the Casimir stress caused by the gravitational field on a finite
object at the surface of the Earth. His essay is entitled, "Casimir Force
between a Gravitational Field and a Finite Object" and is also online. He
concludes that the compression from a gravitational field on an object will
modify the electromagnetic zero-point field and is probably measurable.
In communicating his COFE2 keynote speaker
acceptance, Dr. Pinto expressed this view about science and technology, “Our
position at InterStellar has always been that there is nothing controversial
about the laws of physics and their correct application to engineering solutions,
although, of course, such solutions may have a ‘controversial’ impact in the
minds of some from the standpoint of policy, politics, and finance. Our point
of view is that the world can be improved, and financial returns can be
generated, by just applying good science to engineering.”
As the need for new energy sources continues to
increase, Pinto’s work may soon fill the gap in government energy R&D
shortfalls and consumer demand for more commercial electricity supply.
More information about COFE2 is
available from http://users.erols.com/iri/cofe.html .
- Future Energy eNews
is provided as a public service by www.IntegrityResearchInstitute.org
-