Description
This first time synthesis by a
physician/scientist nullifies the 1910 Flexner Report charge of “irregular
science” against electromagnetism by explaining the basic principles of
electromagnetic control of cell function. Scheduled as a keynote presentation at
the prestigious 2008 IEEE sponsored meeting (www.icbbe.org) on bioinformatics to
be held in Shanghai, it lays to rest “you don’t know the mechanism” so often
leveled against this universal force. Linus Pauling preceded Stephen Hawking in
establishing electromagnetism’s control of chemical reactions, biologic
response, and life itself but the precise mechanism underlying that control had
not been defined until this paper. A new approach in the treatment of illness
and trauma awaits its wider understanding.
Newswise —
“Electromagnetism Controls All Chemical Reactions, All
Biological Response. Life
Itself”
-- Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time)
This report reflects 25 years of nanosecond pulsed electromagnetic field
(nPEMF) investigation, and an interdisciplinary synthesis based upon
experimental reports since the 1970s. Electromagnetic fields drive a classic
resonance system as forcers that are magneto-acoustically transduced (damped) by
paramagnetic-diamagnetic elements to create a phonon driven, non-linear
information system, which is iteratively processed by beta sub-units to prime
protein conformational adaptive response (folding) of alpha sub-units. This low
voltage information system sets the stage for the ATP power system to transport
ions and substrate through appropriate channels, regulates DNA, and enhances
protein enzyme activity in support of homeostasis. Cell function reflects dual
energy systems: 1) a low voltage information circuit guided by principles of
physics to control cell function, and 2) a power circuit driving chemical
outcomes to complete it.
Dipole forces generate phonons when paramagnetic and diamagnetic elements and
small molecules, e.g. amino acids, constrained within a protein matrix,
oscillate about their bond lengths to become magneto-acoustic transducers in
response to natural or artificial EM fields. When damped within physiologic
parameters such transductions conduct heat and sound through proteins in a
native (elementary) mode at the speed of sound. While sub-threshold in
themselves they achieve resonance with similar phonon harmonics from other
strategically self-assembled paramagnetic/diamagnetic constructs (PDCs) within
the protein to enhance signal intensity several magnitudes (Kruglikov and
Dertinger, 1994.) DNA, and other proteins posses a sophisticated capacity to
electively combine such harmonics with other “noise”, i.e. stochastic resonance,
to enhance their activity in support of cell function.
Dr. Gordon's paper, entitled “Protein Iteration and Cellular Response to
Extrinsic Electromagnetic Forces,” is available on the Web site of The 2nd
International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering at http://www.icbbe.org/icbbe2008submission/website/icbbe/keynoteSpeakers.htm
For More Information
Dr. Glen Gordon is President and CEO of EM-Probe Technologies, Inc. www.em-probe.com which has applied his
nanosecond pulsed EM field technology to inexpensive electrotherapy products
which really work. - Ed. Note
|
2) Solar Power Finance
& Investment Summit |
|
http://nci1.us/chandler/proxy.aspx?lid=5A969BAE-62FB-4176-82EF-50CD1BF28456&sid=045F9F1F-17EF-43A7-A821-41686EF8B09F
April 7-9, 2008 / San Diego, CA |
|
Click
Here To Download A Complete Conference Brochure
|
|
| OVERVIEW |
|
The Summit brings together leading utility-scale and
commercial/industrial rooftop project developers, investors, lenders,
solar technology companies and other key industry players to share their
perspectives on the latest innovations and developments in the solar power
project finance and investment market to discuss what it takes to profit
from the increasing flow of solar project deals.
These market players will provide the latest intelligence on the
current market environment for putting together solar power project
transactions and discuss what they are looking for when they get involved,
what future opportunities exist for partners and investors and how to
successfully get deals done in 2008 and beyond.
The Summit is taking a new step forward in 2008 by adding a day focused
on solar company financing. This portion of the Summit will bring together
solar companies, venture capitalists, private equity, investment bankers,
lenders and other financial players to explore the opportunities for solar
companies to fund their growth, research and development, and construction
of projects.
It will also explore such developments as going public and mergers and
acquisitions.
Solar Power Project Finance Pre-Conference Workshop
April 7, 2008
The pre-conference workshop will provide an excellent opportunity for
attendees to obtain step-by-step instruction on how to successfully
structure and finance solar projects in today’s marketplace.
|
| REGISTER |
|
Click
Here To Download A Complete Conference Brochure
|
3) Souped-Up Battery Prepares to Slay
the Gas Guzzlers
Mark
Anderson, New Scientist, 29
February 2008
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19726456.100-soupedup-battery-prepares-to-slay-the-gas-guzzlers.html
The
dream of climate-friendly, petroleum-free motoring is creeping closer - thanks
to a clutch of breakthroughs in nanotechnology. Several recently reported lab
findings promise to vastly improve the safety and performance of the
high-capacity batteries that electric cars will need, at last making them a
viable alternative to today's petroleum-powered vehicles.
Until
now the odds have been stacked against the electric car. A typical petrol-driven
car can run for some 500 kilometres on a tank of fuel and can be expected to
travel 150,000 kilometres (about 10 years' typical driving) without a major
overhaul. Today's electric cars don't come close on either
count.
Even
legislation to clamp down on gas guzzlers is not helping much, as the car
industry is responding by making petrol and diesel engines more fuel-efficient.
Competitions like the Automotive X-prize - which is offering
$10 million to the company that can develop a car able to travel 100 miles on a
US gallon of fuel (equivalent to 42.5 kilometres per litre) - are having the
same effect (New Scientist, 2 February, p 35). All in all, the internal
combustion engine shows no sign of conceding defeat any time
soon.
But
in the long term, the likely option is that cars' fuel tanks will be replaced by
scaled-up versions of the lithium ion batteries used in today's laptops and
cellphones. That's because these batteries pack far more energy into a small
package than any alternative.
Lithium
ion batteries have been with us for some time now - long enough to reveal their
major drawbacks. They have a relatively short lifespan and, in extreme
circumstances, can catch fire or even explode. These are hardly the attributes
needed to knock the internal combustion engine off its perch: battery engineers
still have a job on their hands to make lithium power an everyday
reality.
For
now, most electric vehicles get their power from two other types of battery:
lead-acid and nickel metal hydride (NiMH). Lead-acid cells are heavy and bulky
for the amount of energy they can hold, which means they are only useful when
the vehicle can make do with a limited range: golf carts and the UK's milk
floats are classic examples. The tiny G-Wiz runabout made by the Reva Electric
Car Company of Bangalore, India, also uses lead-acid
cells.
Today's
best-selling hybrid petrol-electric cars - notably the Toyota Prius and the
Honda Civic Hybrid - use NiMH batteries. "Nickel cells have less initial safety
issues than lithium batteries," says Spencer Quong, senior vehicles engineer at
the Union of Concerned Scientists in Berkeley, California. "The costs are known,
and they've got the production plants up and running."
Yet
where power is all-important, the advantages of lithium ion batteries can
already win out. The new Roadster made by Tesla Motors of San
Carlos, California, is an all-electric sports car with a chassis based on the
Lotus Elise. It boasts a 185-kilowatt engine powered by nearly 7000 finger-sized
lithium ion batteries packed into its trunk. This takes it from 0 to 100
kilometres per hour in around 5 seconds, and gives a top speed of 200 kilometres
per hour. The range is a much more modest 350 kilometres - and then only if
conservatively driven. Tesla hopes to sell 600 of the two-seaters by the end of
this year.
Unfortunately,
the performance figures are not the only spectacular numbers associated with the
Roadster. It costs a cool $100,000, and the battery pack is expected to need
replacing after three to five years at a cost of $20,000.
Lithium
ion batteries have such a short life partly because the cathode, which is
usually made from layers of lithium cobalt dioxide, wears out quickly. When the
battery is being charged, positively charged lithium ions migrate from the
cathode across a separator screen into the porous graphite anode, which becomes
replete with lithium atoms. The battery delivers power when the lithium atoms
feed electrons via the graphite electrode into the external circuit. The
resulting lithium ions then leave the anode and migrate back into the cathode,
where they are absorbed.
This
repeated gain and loss of lithium ions causes a continual expansion and
contraction that eventually degrades the cathode's layers. It also leads to a
build-up of impurities that further reduce the cathode's ability to retain
lithium ions. As a result, the cathode degrades after only a year or two of
regular use. If stressed, it can also overheat, releasing volatile chemicals and
leading to short circuits that can cause a spectacular electrical
fire.
Now
A123, a company in Watertown, Massachusetts, has found a way to
make the cathode more durable, using a material called lithium iron phosphate in
place of the delicate lithium cobalt dioxide. A123's lithium iron phosphate
cathode has a birdcage-like nanostructure that allows lithium ions to enter and
exit without causing damaging expansion and contraction. "Mother Nature was
kind," says Bart Riley, A123's chief technical officer. "The crystal structure
of the cathode is very similar in the charged and discharged state." This means
it can survive about 10 times as many charges and discharges, says Ric Fulop of
A123.
A123's
batteries pack twice the power of NiMH cells of the same size. While that's not
as much as a standard lithium ion battery, the risk of conflagration is far
lower. "They're very powerful little batteries," says David Swan, a consultant
in rechargeable battery technology at DHS Engineering in
Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia, Canada. "They seem to work very
well."
A123's
innovation has been taken up by Hymotion of Toronto, Canada,
which has developed a kit for the Prius that allows it to have an additional
high-capacity lithium ion battery that drivers charge from the mains electricity
supply. The lithium kit will significantly improve the car's fuel efficiency
compared with using NiMH cells alone because it will not always be using
batteries charged by the engine. However, some of that improved fuel efficiency
will be offset by emissions at the power station where the electricity is
generated.
Search
giant Google says it will be fitting the Hymotion kits to its entire hybrid car
fleet. A123 is also developing batteries for possible use in General Motors'
planned Chevrolet Volt hybrid car, which it expects to launch in
2010.
It
could get even better, with improvements to the anode as well as the cathode. A
group led by Yiying Wu at Ohio State University in Columbus has developed a
novel anode made from nanoscopic wires of cobalt oxide. Because the nanowires
have a much larger surface area than a flat substrate, lithium ions can flow in
and out more easily, Wu says. This could increase both a battery's capacity and
its peak power. "It should be interesting for practical applications for hybrid
vehicles," Wu says. "The key thing for hybrids is high performance and high
current," and according to Wu his nanowire array can achieve
both.
Yi
Cui of Stanford University in California has taken a similar approach but with a
different material. By using nanoscale silicon wires instead of graphite he has
made an anode that holds 10 times as many lithium ions as an equivalent graphite
one (Nature Nanotechnology, vol 3, p 31). Though the diffusion of lithium
ions into and out of the silicon's crystalline structure causes it to expand and
contract with each cycle, this is only a problem with a flat silicon anode.
Silicon nanowires, grown like grass on the anode's surface, thicken as they
absorb lithium ions, and slim down when they leave, but because the wires are so
small the stress is not great enough to do any damage.
Swan
notes that a cathode with roughly the same capacity is still needed to supply
the lithium ions, but Cui's group are on the case. "We are using a similar
nanowire idea for the cathode," says team member Candace
Chan.
"Every
improvement counts," says Fulop. "The anode also affects the system's power and
lifespan. Everybody is trying to improve both components."
Ideas
are one thing, practice another. Quong recalls a Prius driver in Alaska
complaining that he only gets half the fuel economy in the winter that he does
in the summer. "The major question is durability," he observes. "Can they make a
battery that will last as long as today's petrol-driven vehicles and which works
well from the desert to Alaska? That's their challenge."
Cars
and Motoring
- Learn more about the latest technologies in our comprehensive special
report.
Energy
and Fuels
- Learn more about the looming energy crisis in our comprehensive special
report.
Related
Articles
Weblinks
From
issue 2645 of New Scientist magazine, 29 February 2008, page
28-29
4) Turning CO2 Back Into
Hydrocarbons
Carbon
dioxide is the devil molecule of our time. Belched out from vehicle exhausts and
power stations, it is the biggest contributor to global warming. As such it is
universally recognised as a Bad Thing. Yet a pioneering band of researchers
would like us to see it differently - as a valuable resource. They are
developing a collection of technologies to retrieve some of the
CO2
that would otherwise pollute the atmosphere, using its carbon atoms to form
hydrocarbons. These could then be used as vehicle fuel, or as a feedstock to
make plastics and other materials we now derive from oil. So could the expanding
clouds of CO2
in our atmosphere really have a silver lining?
The
idea is simple. Find a way of removing an oxygen atom from a CO2
molecule and you are left with carbon monoxide (CO). From there it is but a
short step to hydrocarbon riches. Mix CO with hydrogen, pass the mixture over a
catalyst, and out comes liquid hydrocarbon fuel. This reaction, called the
Fischer-Tropsch process, was invented as long ago as the 1920s. It was used by
Germany during the second world war, when oil was in short supply, to make
petrol from gasified coal, and apartheid-era South Africa did the same when
sanctions blocked oil imports.
The
hard part is the first step: finding a cost-effective energy-efficient way of
creating CO from CO2.
The simplest route is to heat CO2
molecules to around 2400 °C, at which point they spontaneously split into CO and
oxygen. The problem is finding the energy to do
this.
One
obvious candidate is sunlight. Los Alamos Renewable Energy (LARE), a company based in
Pojoaque, New Mexico, has built a small-scale prototype reactor that
demonstrates how it can be harnessed. In the LARE reactor, CO2
is fed into a reaction chamber that is sealed at one end by a quartz window 8
centimetres in diameter. The chamber is fixed at the focal point of a mirrored
dish that concentrates sunlight through the chamber's window onto a ceramic rod
set inside the chamber to collect the heat. As the gas comes into contact with
the rod its temperature rises to around 2400 °C, causing the molecules to break
down and release CO and oxygen. Reed Jensen, LARE's managing director, says a
larger prototype reactor will be ready for trials in a year's time, though he is
not saying how big this reactor will be, nor how much CO it will
produce.
One
of the drawbacks of this approach is the high operating temperature, says Nathan
Siegel of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where a rival
team is at work. High temperatures lead to heavy thermal losses, which in turn
can reduce efficiency. Though the sun's energy is free, equipment to generate
and withstand these temperatures is expensive to build, making efficient
operation vital if the process is to be cost-effective.
With
this in mind, the Sandia team is developing a rival system known as CR5 (short for counter-rotating ring receiver reactor
recuperator) which operates at less extreme temperatures. Like the LARE reactor
it has a concentrator dish that focuses the sun's rays. In this case, the high
temperatures are generated on one side of a stack of 14 rings made of a cobalt
ferrite ceramic, a material that when heated releases oxygen from its molecular
lattice without destroying the lattice's integrity. The rings, which are about
30 centimetres in diameter, rotate at around one revolution per minute inside a
sealed double chamber. Sunlight focused through a window in the hot side of the
chamber heats the rings to 1500 °C, causing the ceramic lattice to liberate
oxygen atoms. As the rings rotate, the heated section passes to the rear of the
chamber, where it cools to around 1100 °C as it is bathed in CO2.
At this temperature the deoxygenated ceramic reacts with the CO2
molecules to grab back the oxygen atom missing from its lattice, leaving behind
a molecule of CO. As the ring continues to rotate, the reoxygenated section
passes back into the hot side of the chamber and the cycle begins again (see
Diagram).
Proper
heating and cooling of the rings is crucial to the operation of the process. On
the heated side, the rings must reach the correct temperature for the ceramic to
liberate oxygen, and they must cool by several hundred degrees by the time they
reach the cool side in order to react with the CO2.
To help achieve this, alternate rings rotate in opposite directions, so as the
hot section of each ring moves towards the cool side of the chamber it is cooled
by neighbouring rings moving in the opposite direction. Both hot and cooler
sides of the chamber are maintained at equal pressure to minimise the flow of
gases between them.
The
CR5 was originally developed as a way to produce hydrogen, using steam in the
cool chamber rather than CO2,
but its inventor, Rich Diver, reckoned that splitting CO2
would offer a more efficient way of capturing solar energy. Burning the CO
formed in the solar reactor should deliver 10 per cent of the energy that was
required to produce it, and in April he and his colleagues will switch on a
prototype reactor to put their predictions to the test. They calculate it should
be able to produce about 100 litres of CO per hour.
Reversing
the fuel cell
The
idea of using solar energy to convert CO2
into a carbon-based fuel is being taken a step further by Gabriele
Centi at the Department of Industrial Chemistry and Engineering of Materials
at the University of Messina, Italy. Rather than producing CO with a view to
turning that into something more useful, he is building an electrochemical cell
that produces hydrocarbon molecules such as nonane and ethylene - important
chemical building blocks for plastics and other materials currently derived from
oil.
Centi's
cell is a distant cousin of the fuel cells that generate electricity by reacting
hydrogen or methanol with oxygen, but with the chemical reaction running in
reverse. On one side of the cell is a titanium dioxide catalyst that encourages
water molecules to split when hit by photons of sunlight, producing hydrogen
ions and oxygen gas. The hydrogen ions migrate through a proton exchange
membrane to the other side of the cell, where a catalyst containing platinum
nanotubes facilitates the reaction with CO2
to produce hydrocarbons.
The
energy that would be liberated by using these hydrocarbons as fuel amounts to
just under 1 per cent of the solar energy needed to produce it. This may not
seem like much but it's better than the energy conversion rate that plants
achieve through photosynthesis, and Centi says there is room for improvement by
tweaking the catalysts.
So
how do these technologies stack up against biofuels as a way of using solar
energy to capture atmospheric carbon and turn it into fuel? Ellen Stechel,
manager of Sandia's Fuels and Energy Transitions department, estimates that
enough CR5 plants to fuel 100 million domestic vehicles with synthetic gasoline
could be accommodated on about 5800 square kilometres of land. "That's actually
not very much," she says. A recent survey of seven states in the US Southwest
revealed that more than 135,000 square kilometres of suitable land were
available there. "This is land that's not being used for anything else," she
says.
By
contrast, biofuels compete with food crops for fertile land. What's more, the
percentage of the solar energy that is available from the fuel is staggeringly
small - about 0.1 per cent if you take into account the irrigation, harvesting,
transportation and refinery process, Stechel says.
To
make the most of the available land, Jensen suggests coupling LARE's carbon
capture reactor with an electricity generating station that would use the heat
wasted by the reactor itself. He reckons the combined installation could convert
as much as 48 per cent of the solar energy into usable
energy.
As
oil and natural gas become more expensive and scarce, petrochemical companies
are increasingly interested in finding new raw materials to replace them. Centi
is now working with one French firm to explore the use of recycled
CO2
to meet this demand, though he refused to name the company. If competitively
priced, hydrocarbons produced from industrial sources of CO2
could one day be used to make plastics and other products, where it would remain
fixed for years rather than being pumped out into the atmosphere. The devil
molecule may yet redeem itself.
Energy
and Fuels
- Learn more about the looming energy crisis in our comprehensive special
report.
Climate
Change
– Want to know more about global warming: the science, impacts and political
debate? Visit our continually updated special
report.
Duncan
Graham-Rowe is a writer based in Brighton, UK
Related
Articles
Weblinks
From
issue 2645 of New Scientist magazine, 03 March 2008, page
32-34
5) Synthetic Fuel Concept to Steal CO2 From Air
Contact: Nancy Ambrosiano, nwa@lanl.gov, (505) 667-0471
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., February 12, 2008 --
Green Freedom™
for carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuel and chemical production http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/12554Los
Alamos National Laboratory has developed a low-risk, transformational concept,
called Green Freedom™, for large-scale production of carbon-neutral, sulfur-free
fuels and organic chemicals from air and water.
Currently, the principal
market for the
Green Freedom production concept is fuel for
vehicles and aircraft.
At the heart of the technology is a new process
for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and making it available for
fuel production using a new form of electrochemical separation. By integrating
this electrochemical process with existing technology, researchers have
developed a new, practical approach to producing fuels and organic chemicals
that permits continued use of existing industrial and transportation
infrastructure. Fuel production is driven by carbon-neutral power.
"Our
concept enhances U.S. energy and material security by reducing dependence on
imported oil. Initial system and economic analyses indicate that the prices of
Green Freedom commodities would be either comparable to the current market or
competitive with those of other carbon-neutral, alternative technologies
currently being considered," said F. Jeffrey Martin of the Laboratory's
Decisions Applications Division, principal investigator on the
project.
Martin will be presenting a talk on the subject at the
Alternative Energy NOW conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida,
February 20, 2008.
In addition to the new electrochemical separation
process, the Green Freedom system can use existing cooling towers, such as those
of nuclear power plants, with carbon-capture equipment that eliminates the need
for additional structures to process large volumes of air. The primary
environmental impact of the production facility is limited to the footprint of
the plant. It uses non-hazardous materials for its feed and operation and has a
small waste stream volume. In addition, unlike large-scale biofuel concepts, the
Green Freedom system does not add pressure to agricultural capacity or use large
tracts of land or farming resources for production.
The concept's
viability has been reviewed and verified by both industrial and semi-independent
Los Alamos National Laboratory technical reviews. The next phase will
demonstrate the new electrochemical process to prove the ability of the system
to both capture carbon dioxide and pull it back out of solution. An industrial
partnership consortium will be formed to commercialize the Green Freedom
concept.
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a multidisciplinary
research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national
security. The Laboratory is operated by a team composed of Bechtel National, the
University of California, BWX Technologies, and Washington Group International
for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security
Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the
safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to
reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to
energy, environment, infrastructure, health and global security concerns.