New York Times, November 15, 2003 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/politics/15ENER-TEXT.html?tntemail1
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Future Energy eNews November 19, 2003 Integrity Research Institute |
1) Global Warming affects energy choices -
Another call for an energy Manhattan Project to avert worsening hot house earth.2) Energy Bill is useless says Union of Concerned Scientists -
NY Times and Washington Post agree. Call your Senator.3) LED Therapy -
Energy medicine is now mainstream - DARPA & NASA funded. Article uses the word 'cure.' Tell your doctor.4) Handling Innovation with Patience -
Little companies more important than big ones in some invention arenas.5) Report on the Tesla Conference -
Videos / DVDs available from 800-952-LOST (Lost Arts Media 562-427-ARTS) who recorded the successful IRI event.1) As Earth Warms, the Hottest Issue Is Energy
By KENNETH CHANG, New York Times,
November 4, 2003http://query.nytimes.com/search/abstract?res=F00713FF35540C778CDDA80994DB404482
Suppose that over the next decade or two the forecasts of global warming start to come true. Color has drained from New England's autumns as maple trees die, and the Baltimore oriole can no longer be found south of Buffalo. The Dust Bowl has returned to the Great Plains, and Arctic ice is melting into open water. Upheavals in weather, the environment and life are accelerating around the world.
Then what?
If global warming occurs as predicted, there will be no easy way to turn the Earth's thermostat back down. The best that most scientists would hope for would be to slow and then halt the warming, and that would require a top-to-bottom revamping of the world's energy systems, shifting from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas to alternatives that in large part do not yet exist.
"We have to face the fact this is an enormous challenge," said Dr. Martin I. Hoffert, a professor of physics at New York University.
But interviews with scientists, environment advocates and industry representatives show that there is no consensus in how to meet that challenge. Some look to the traditional renewable energy sources: solar and wind. Others believe use of fossil fuels will continue, but that the carbon dioxide can be captured and then stored underground. The nuclear power industry hopes concern over global warming may help spur a revival.
In an article in the journal Science last November, Dr. Hoffert and 17 other experts looked at alternatives to fossil fuels and found all to have "severe deficiencies in their ability to stabilize global climate."
The scientists believe that technological fixes are possible. Dr. Hoffert said the country needed to embark on an energy research program on the scale of the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb during World War II or the Apollo program that put men on the moon.
"Maybe six or seven of them operating simultaneously," he said. "We should be prepared to invest several hundred billion dollars in the next 10 to 15 years."
But to even have a hope of finding a solution, the effort must begin now, the scientists said. A new technology usually takes several decades to develop the underlying science, build pilot projects and then begin commercial deployment.
The authors of the Science paper expect that a smorgasbord of energy sources will be needed, and they call for intensive research on radical ideas like vast solar arrays orbiting Earth that can collect sunlight and beam the energy down. "Many concepts will fail, and staying the course will require leadership," they wrote. "Stabilizing climate is not easy."
The heart of the problem is carbon dioxide, the main byproduct from the burning of fossil fuels. When the atmosphere is rich in carbon dioxide, heat is trapped, producing a greenhouse effect. Most scientists believe the billions of tons of carbon dioxide released since the start of the Industrial Revolution are in part to blame for the one-degree rise in global temperatures over the past century. Carbon dioxide concentrations are now 30 percent higher than preindustrial levels.
With rising living standards in developing nations, emissions of carbon dioxide are increasing, and the pace of warming is expected to speed up, too. Unchecked, carbon dioxide would reach twice preindustrial levels by midcentury and perhaps double again by the end of the century. That could force temperatures up by 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, according to computer models.
Because carbon dioxide is colorless, odorless and disperses immediately into the air, few realize how much spills out of tailpipes and smokestacks. An automobile, for example, generates perhaps 50 to 100 tons of carbon dioxide in its lifetime.
The United States produces more carbon dioxide than any other country by far
. Each American, on average, generates about 45,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. That is about twice as much as the average person living in Japan or Europe and many times more than someone living in a developing country like Zimbabwe, China or Panama. (Even if the United States achieves President Bush's goal of an 18 percent reduction in the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions by 2012, the output of an average American would still far exceed that of almost anyone else in the world.)Even if all emissions stop, levels of carbon dioxide in the air will remain high for centuries as the Earth gradually absorbs the excess.
Currently, the world's energy use per second is about 12 trillion watts — which would light up 120 billion 100-watt bulbs — and 85 percent of that comes from fossil fuels.
2) The New Energy Bill
New York Times, November 15, 2003 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/politics/15ENER-TEXT.html?tntemail1
Some highlights of the agreement on energy legislation announced yesterday by House and Senate Republican negotiators:
TAX INCENTIVES
Provides more than $18 billion in tax incentives, most to boost development of oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear power. The bill’s final language and details on many of its provisions have not yet been released.
ELECTRICITY GRID
Imposes reliability standards and penalties on the transmission system for the first time. The federal government will also be given the authority to designate the routes of those transmission lines that are of ‘‘national significance’’ if local governments and states cannot agree on their paths.
ELECTRIC UTILITIES
Repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act, a 1935 law that strictly regulates the business dealings of multistate holding companies that operate electric utilities.
GAS ADDITIVES
Doubles the use of corn-based ethanol as a gasoline additive, a boon to farm states. As part of that deal, producers of the additive MTBE, which has been blamed for ground water pollution, would win immunity from product liability lawsuits, though MTBE would be banned nationwide as of 2015.
NEW PIPELINE
Includes tax subsidies to encourage the construction of a $20 billion natural gas pipeline from Alaska to Chicago.
WHAT’S NOT IN THE BILL
President’s proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling.
Plan to conduct an inventory of oiland gas reserves in coastal areas now off-limits to drilling.
Requirements that electricity producers steadily increase their use of renewable fuels.
See the entire bill at:
http://energy.senate.gov/legislation/energybill2003/energybill2003.cfmVote expected by full House and Senate this week. Three summary opinions below.
Union of Concerned Scientists Opinion
http://www.ucsaction.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=12787
America needs an energy policy that increases our energy security and protects the environment. Unfortunately, several House and Senate leaders are working behind closed doors to craft a final energy bill that takes us backward by opening our public lands to oil and gas drilling, letting polluters off the hook for contaminating our drinking water, and funneling billions of dollars in taxpayer money to polluting industries. According to Senator Domenci (R-NM), chair of the energy conference committee, the final bill will actually http://www.ucsaction.ctsg.com/ctt.asp?u=112638&l=7926weaken the Clean Air Act by needlessly extending the deadline to achieve health-based clean air standards. The bill imposes these risks on our communities while ignoring practical solutions that would increase our use of clean renewable energy, reduce our oil dependence, and prevent future blackouts. Please urge your senators to reject this destructive energy bill. Follow this link to view a humorous cartoon highlighting destructive pieces of the energy bill:
http://www.ucsusa.org/animation/energy01.html
Alliance to Save Energy Opinion
e-FFICIENCY News
11-19-03http://www.magnetmail.net/Actions/linktosite.cfm?message_id=22357&user_id=ase&recipient_id=797184&site=http://www.ase.org/policy/energy_bill_analysis.htm
The energy bill recently passed by the House-Senate conference contains a number of vital energy-efficiency provisions including new appliance efficiency standards, better energy management in federal facilities, and tax incentives for energy-efficient buildings, appliances, and vehicles. Missing from the bill, however, is a full commitment to energy efficiency's potential to solve critical energy problems through measures such as higher fuel economy standards. The bill is expected to be voted on by the full House and Senate as early as this week.
MoveOn.org Opinion
http://www.moveon.org/energy-woes.pdf3) LED Therapy
By Joy LePree, Technical Editor, Product Design & Development Online, http://www.pddnet.com/scripts/showpr.asp?PUBCODE=045&ACCT=0006487&ISSUE=0311http://www.pddnet.com/scripts/showpr.asp?PUBCODE=045&ACCT=0006487&ISSUE=0311&RELTYPE=RWE&PRODLETT=C&PRODCODE=0000
High-tech companies are exploring a strange new world to develop devices
that cure an assortment of illnesses
The key to providing the appropriate wavelength and power is cooling
technology, says Ignatius, because it allows the LEDs to supply light
without heat. "It is necessary to provide built-in cooling technology to
dissipate the heat so you can use the LED therapy, which penetrates very
deeply, but still touch the lights to the skin without causing discomfort or
burns," he says. The cooling technology used by different manufacturers is
usually proprietary and covered by patents.
Quantum's Warp 10 is a battery-powered infrared device being used by a
handful of special operations forces. Soldiers can carry the device into
combat to self-treat muscle aches and wounds.
Enlightening Product Array
Quantum's devices are considered to be extremely sophisticated because of
their higher wavelengths, power intensities, and cooling technology. Because
of its expertise in this area, Quantum has been working with NASA and DARPA
to develop devices that would be useful in space and on the battlefield.
Initially, Quantum began working with NASA to create something that would
help stimulate plant growth in space. "I suggested the use of LEDs and they
almost laughed me out of the room," recalls Ignatius. "But someone did a
little research and found that the idea wasn't all that far-fetched and that
it really worked."
Since NASA found that LEDs could be used to provide energy for plant cells
to grow, it wasn't that much of a leap to relate the technology to human
cells, says Whelan. Subsequently, NASA provided funding to Quantum Devices
with the hopes that it could develop a device for astronauts to stem the
loss of bone and muscle mass, which occurs during long periods of
weightlessness. Studies are being conducted to see if this therapy will
work.
Meanwhile, Whelan and engineers at Quantum discovered a more down-to-earth
use for this technology in the form of a product called the Spectralight.
"We are currently using it to treat patients with a condition called
mucousitis, which occurs as a side effect of cancer treatments," says
Ignatius.
Mucousitis occurs when the mucous membranes of the body, especially those in
the mouth, break down and cause bleeding and ulcers that lead to the
inability to eat, making recovery more difficult. "Dr. Whelan found that by
exposing just one cheek two minutes a day to the light source it could start
eliminating the condition, and later we found that by exposing patients to
the light source before the problem even started, it could be prevented,"
says Ignatius.
Following the success of the Spectralight, Quantum received funding from
DARPA to develop a device that soldiers could carry into combat to
self-treat muscle aches and wounds with little or no training. In response,
Quantum created the Warp 10, which is a battery-powered, hand-held infrared
device. Currently, a handful of special operations forces are trying the
Warp 10 on an experimental basis.
The military is also looking into whether this same device could be used to
treat blindness caused by enemy troops using laser weapons. Studies on
reversing blindness in rats have shown promise in this area.
Although Quantum's products are ultra high-tech devices for use only by
professionals or the military, other companies offer over-the-counter LED
devices that have been approved by the FDA for treatment of muscle aches and
pain.
"The FDA has cleared a number of applications for consumer use, so people
can buy them without a prescription," says Richard Braden, president of
BioScan, a Palitas, NM-based developer of medical LED therapies. "What used
to be just in the realm of the laser surgeon or dermatologist is now
available to people because the devices are being powered in such a way that
they are completely safe."
BioScan currently has three devices approved by the FDA for consumer use for
the treatment of muscle aches and pain. One is a light patch, which is a
5-inch-by-8-inch oval pad with all the LEDs contained within it. The patch
is placed on the sore area. Another is a spinal pad designed to contour with
the spine. It includes lights placed along the areas that cover the nerve
endings that are most responsive to LED energy. The company also has a
battery-powered knee wrap, which is a knee brace with light devices built
into it so that the user can put it on, turn it on, and walk around while
receiving therapy.
Diomedics makes similar products as well as a bed with more than 2,000 LEDs
on it. "It looks like a tanning bed and has a box attached that controls the
lights," says Everett. "The patient lays on it and it treats the whole body
for pain and muscle relaxation at one time."
Future LED Applications
Much research is underway on the use of medical LED therapy to determine
whether there are other applications for light therapy. "Research is
currently being done on the different effects of different spectrums of
light on living tissues," says Braden. It is thought that the visible red
spectrum, which is roughly in the 600 to 700 nanometer range, is effective
with surface issues such as wound care and that higher wavelengths,
including infrared, are more penetrating. Studies also suggest that going
down to the 400 or 500 nanometer spectrum, which is blue light, might be
effective for treating skin disorders including acne and scarring.
"Companies in this business are looking at the medical research that is
being conducted regarding different frequencies of light to see where this
technology might take us," says Braden. He foresees wound care as being the
next big application. "You can expect over the next few years to see LED
therapy as being the primary treatment for wounds such as post-surgical and
non-healing wounds like diabetic ulcers."
Whelan and Ignatius say they would like to test their technology in other
clinical situations such as spinal cord injuries and for treatment of
Parkinson's disease, strokes, brain tumors, and tissue and organ
regeneration.
"It may seem strange to some people because it is very much a change in the
whole paradigm of medicine, which has been pretty much poisons and knives up
until this point. The use of natural energy at an intensity that is brighter
than the sun, but still nonetheless near infrared light at wavelengths that
are helpful and not harmful, to enhance the cells' natural biochemistry
truly has a lot of potential in the medical arena," says Whelan.
Product Design and Development
301 Gibraltar Drive
Morris Plains, NJ 07950
Visit Industrial Products Bulletin Online at:
http://www.pddnet.comwww.pddnet.com
By JULIE FLAHERTY New York Times, Sept. 25, 2003
http://query.nytimes.com/search/abstract?res=F50711FC3A590C7A8EDDA00894DB404482CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 25 - In one of its current television commercials, the
Hewlett-Packard Company describes itself as a leader in the science of nanotechnology. It invites consumers to imagine the exciting products of the future, like light bulbs that never burn out and "a cellphone so small an ant could use it."The advertising team probably did not run that one by R. Stanley Williams, who works in the nanotechnology trenches as director for quantum science research at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto, Calif. Not surprisingly, Mr. Williams chose not to elaborate on the telecommunications needs of insects when he spoke here this week at the Emerging Technologies Conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Instead, he preached patience. Yes, it is possible to build a hand-held device that can outperform all the earth's present computers, he said, but it may take 50 years to figure out how to make it.
He warned that consumers will get fed up with innovations - including the wonders expected from nanotechnology, or the science of very tiny objects - that are oversold or underdelivered.
"They are a little bit jaded," Mr. Williams said. "They've heard too much of this wonderful future, and they wonder why it isn't here right now."
Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chief executive of the
General Electric Company, also counseled patience, to engineers and investors. He has poured extra money into research and development at G.E. while loosening timelines on projects that may not pay off for 10 years or more. For established companies, he said, investing in emerging technologies is a matter of survival."I just see very clearly that unless you're out there pushing the envelope and driving innovation, you're not going to get the kind of margins and the kind of growth that we need for a company like G.E.," Mr. Immelt said. "I really see it as an economic imperative."
Some experts warn that even the best corporate research efforts may not be enough to ward off disruptions to their businesses that come from innovations out of left field. Inevitably, some of today's household names will falter in the face of newcomers with better ideas, just as several mainframe computer companies were left behind in the wake of minicomputers and minicomputer companies disappeared with the advent of PC's.
Nathan Myhrvold, a former top scientist at the
Microsoft Corporation who runs Intellectual Ventures, an investment firm in Bellevue, Wash., surmised that in the not-too-distant future, the top 20 companies in pharmaceuticals, with the exception of one or two, would be unfamiliar names."If you look at the pipeline of drugs in clinical trials,'' he said, "way more of them were made by the little companies than the big guys."
The conference, organized by M.I.T.'s Technology Review magazine, drew about 1,000 attendees from established companies like
Cisco Systems Inc., Kraft Foods Inc. and the Sprint Corporation, and even a few unknown start-ups.They listened to colorful descriptions of nanotechnology as well as other innovations like developing hydrogen fuel sources and creating medicines based on genomics. Wireless technologies seemed among the ripest for products making their way onto the market, as demonstrated by four-year-old WideRay, a San Francisco company that was showing off the wireless capabilities of its proximity server, which allows a user to download information onto a personal digital assistant just by moving near it.
Despite the promise of these inventions, several speakers were fretful. Faced with a sluggish economy, many companies have reined in their research and development budgets.
David Tennenhouse, vice president of the
Intel Corporation's technology group, more than once lamented the insufficiency of government financing for basic research at universities. And Edward B. Roberts, a professor of technology management at M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management, pointed out that two-thirds of all corporate research and development expenditures are for short-term projects, not the long-term ones that will be the ground-shaking breakthroughs.At the
General Motors Corporation, research spending has stayed about the same in recent years, but Lawrence F. Burns, vice president for research and development and planning, said he has achieved better results by working with knowledgeable (and less expensive) researchers in China, India, Israel and Russia. Sharing is also a virtue, as in the research lab G.M. owns with the Boeing Company and the Raytheon Company."Each company has specific directive research and then shared research," Mr. Burns said. "That's a highly leverage-able thing."
Lucien P. Hughes, research director for the technology labs at
Accenture, the consulting company, agreed that alliances in research are now the norm."The days of the large-scale insular lab - not talking to the rest of the world - I think are over for now," he said.
Finding the technology - either through internal ingenuity, outsourcing or acquisition - is only the beginning. For a time-honored company, breakthrough technologies can be as disruptive inside the company as they are externally. Too many companies are not structurally prepared to handle them, said Professor Roberts of M.I.T.
"It's not all a question of a willingness to spend," he said. "It's a willingness to participate."
Moreover, while many companies are trying to tie their research efforts more closely to their actual marketing needs, some of the most successful companies have faltered along the way by listening too closely to what their current customers want, and not planning for unknown markets.
"I do a lot of customer interaction," Mr. Immelt of G.E. said, "but when it comes time to figure out nanotechnology, there's no customer view on nanotechnology."
As for whether old-school or upstart companies will dominate the innovation game in the coming years, Mr. Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures said it is anyone's guess.
"Really radical stuff," he said, "is going to come bubbling up from random sources, like it always does."
5) Report on the Nikola Tesla Energy Science Conference & Exposition
----- Original Message -----
From: <
David.Hamilton@ee.doe.gov>To: <
Ed.Wall@ee.doe.gov>; <Dave.Goodwin@hq.doe.gov>Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 9:24 AM
Subject: trip report
I attended the local event this weekend celebrating the Centennial of
Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower (1903 -2003) Speakers included:
Paul Werbos, PhD., and Director of Electrical Communications at NSF gave a
presentation on energy issues facing the World from a United Nations
perspective and how space solar power is a possible long-term
sustainability solution.
James Corum, PhD., spoke of the complexities of wireless power transmission
and how the Earth must be part of a resonant system to achieve efficient
power transmission on a large scale. He showed how Tesla had actually
patented the Earth as part of the Wardenclyffe project.
Konstantin Meyl, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of
Berlin gave a lesson on Scalar wave theory and a demonstration of wireless
transmission. His theory is interesting and favors Faraday's findings over
some key assumptions made by Maxwell in ignoring magnetic and electric
potentials. The theory reduces to Maxwell if the evidence of magnetic or
electric potentials are truly zero. Professor Meyl is quite popular in
Europe on the lecture circuit and has sold his demo to schools and
companies with some interesting findings. Since the energy transfer
interacts with the Earth, there are reports of receiver gains of 2 to 3
times the transmitted power and it is felt that this is charge and ionic
energy entrained from the atmosphere. He discussed this in detail and also
the instability as atmospheric potentials vary with weather. None the
less, as the recent solar flares showed, the ionosphere is a powerhouse of
energy and if this is a method to interface with the ionosphere, it is a
powerful source of sustainable energy. Good atmospheric coupling may
require large towers as Tesla attempted at Wardenclyffe and in Colorado.
Elizabeth Rauscher, PhD., Nuclear and Astrophysics, gave a presentation on
using the ionosphere for wireless power based on her experience with the
development the ELF for Earthquake [prediction] detection and triangulation.
William Terbo, Tesla's closest living survivor opened the Sunday sessions
with a talk from a family perspective and insight into Tesla's personality.
The remainder of Sunday covered a great many of the medical uses of Tesla
developments and patents that have led to uses in sports medicine for fast
healing of injuries and to aid poor healing in the elderly.
Although interesting on the whole and certainly leading to beneficial
developments, there were not any obvious transportation benefits except for
possibly rail based applications, but this critical need well understood by
all for Human sustainability.
Respectfully,
David B. Hamilton
w: 202-586-2314
PC: 202-491-7414
Provided as a courtesy from:
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