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THE SOLUTION TO THE WORLD ENERGY CRISIS HAS BEEN ACHIEVED AND PROVEN FOR FOUR YEARS

Subject: SOLUTION TO THE WORLD ENERGY CRISIS HAS BEEN ACHIEVED AND PROVEN FOR FOUR YEARS.
Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 08:04:06 -0700
From: "Toby Lansel" via Connie Fogal

Sadly, there are MANY things and MANY startling developments that our Congress and our news media do not seem to even be aware of. Either they just ignore them, or just don't care.

Here's one very strong example. If you never do anything else "off the beaten path" in your life, please have a good physicist check out the Klimov work (at Los Alamos National Laboratory) and explain it to you. This work alone could eventually solve the debt problem, for it gives the U.S. (and the world) ABSOLUTELY FREE ENERGY taken directly from the seething virtual state vacuum.

THE SOLUTION TO THE WORLD ENERGY CRISIS HAS BEEN ACHIEVED AND PROVEN FOR FOUR YEARS.
The work by Dr. Victor Klimov at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is the rigorous scientific proof, including nanocrystalline scientists easily building and demonstrating actual working systems..

Klimov and his team have produced ultra-tiny nanocrystalline solar cells that freely output far more electrical energy (voltage x current) than the tiny amount of energy that is input via the incident photons. Also, the input photons can easily be freely furnished by a tiny bit of photon-emitting materials (such as tourmaline).

This excess output electrical energy is FREELY taken directly from the seething virtual state vacuum, and that has been rigorously proven by Klimov's working models. Thus the Klimov team has proven and demonstrated practical "free electrical energy from the vacuum" for all time.

Real physical systems have been readily produced, and the process and the entire area has been rigorously validated by two great U.S. national laboratories (LANL and NREL).

This Klimov work has been openly published thoroughly in the leading physics journals worldwide, and it has also been published thoroughly in the leading nanocrystalline journals worldwide. This has been true for several years now (about four). IT IS ALREADY ACCEPTED AND PROVEN IN PHYSICS AND NANOCRYSTALLINE SCIENCE, AND YET THE POLITICIANS, PUBLIC, AND NEWS MEDIA CONTINUALLY IGNORE IT.

We stress again: It is already rigorously proven and accepted scientifically, worldwide. It never has to be proven again.

Never mind that the electrical engineers do not know it, and that it completely violates their terribly flawed old 1892 standard electrical engineering model that contains at least a dozen known falsities. The practical solution is there, it's proven, it's validated, and it's already widely published technically and accepted in physics and nanotechnology worldwide?which means many other nations have also now validated it.

And repeating: The Klimov free energy systems are easily made self-powering, since there are various materials (such as tourmaline) which continually and freely emit the necessary "incident photons" that are input to the tiny solar cells. Just mix a tiny bit of one of those materials in the nanocrystalline buildup, and the photons inputted are thereafter and forever furnished freely, as thus is the tremendous output electrical energy from the very small Klimov devices.

THIS MAY BE A DELIBERATE GIFT FROM THE SOVIETS
One points out that Klimov is a Russian scientist who came (or was sent) to this country, apparently to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. You can Google his personals on the web at a website etc. about his work and get information about the team he directs at LANL.

Here's the weird part: Since the Russians have apparently already developed these systems, and since they have already developed precursor engineering (the direct engineering of physical reality itself via controlled patterning of the tickled Dirac Sea vacuum in which physical objects or physical processes are ongoing), it appears that this is a deliberate "gift" to the U.S. from Russia. Russia is already in the process of very, very slowly releasing some very useful (healing) aspects of its long-developed precursor engineering, apparently planning to gradually increase the amount released very slowly over about 30 years or so.

Well, why would the Russians give us such a startling and tremendous "free gift"? We refer you to the statement by Soros that the U.S. Government should be eliminated and replaced by a World Government. As superb chess-players the Russians always look many moves ahead on the chess board, to ascertain which way things are headed. So they consider this powerful but secretive movement toward World Government (which would eventually subjugate every present national government, and thus lead to total world dictatorship) quite unacceptable. They have no intention of allowing Mother Russia to be returned to a dictatorship, and they thus will be taking very odd moves having the power to deviate the world from that hidden objective of what is called The World Order, etc.

THE IMMEDIATE STARTLING USE TO PROVIDE SELF-POWERING ULTRA-LASER WEAPONS
The result of the Klimov work at LANL is the emergence of very tiny self-powering systems having startling?even mind-boggling? output electric ic power to power loads, and never needing any further energy input from the operator himself. If you build very powerful energy weapons based on the tremendous output energy freely furnished by the Klimov process, then you will have just dramatically revolutionized warfare as it is presently known and conducted.

It has now been realized (in several nations of the world) that this new PROVEN Klimov process allows, e.g., superpowerful ultra-lasers which are self-powered and also are very, very small yet startlingly powerful! And that is a total giant revolution?a very abrupt one?in warfare itself. A relatively small superlaser pistol (with a Klimov power unit the size of your thumb) can continually and freely emit huge energy bursts capable of killing entire groups of people at a mile and a half distance or even further. The pistol never runs out of "bullets", and it needs no energy input from the operator except aiming at the target and pulling the trigger.

An ultra-laser the size of a present bazooka, carried in one hand by an infantryman, will emit a mind-boggling blast that will destroy a huge steel and concrete building in a single shot. And it can continue to freely provide such shots indefinitely. It will destroy trains, ships, aircraft carriers, groups of attacking tanks, all sorts of attacking vehicles, shoot down airplanes, destroy incoming ballistic missiles, etc. With a small sensor added, it can also detect and destroy incoming field artillery rounds fired against the infantryman's position. And it never "runs out of ammunition", so that the infantryman can just continue to shoot freely and indefinitely (even for years). This produces an infantryman carrying a formidable weapon or series of weapons that totally and abruptly change warfare as we have known it. Indeed, any army that does not have these weapons, will quickly and easily be destroyed by one that does have them.

These are just two examples, but as you can see the coming quick deployment of such weapons will immediately revolutionize warfare forever. And such weapons will be rolling off the assembly lines this year or no later than early next year, in several nations of the world.

KLIMOV'S WORK DRAMATICALLY SOLVES THE WORLD ENERGY CRISIS
If the Klimov work is used to provide a power unit for your car, a little power unit about the size of your thumb will power a normal but powerful electric car freely and indefinitely (for many years ?even for your lifetime). A little power unit about double the size of your thumb would power your home, freely and indefinitely (again for many years or even for your lifetime). Such units can easily be powering trains, aircraft, ships, trucks, factories, homes, cities, etc. without any need for fuel at all. We can move rapidly to eventually replace the highly dangerous nuclear powerplants, the filthy coal-burning plants, the burning of fuel in our automobiles and trucks and trains and ships and aircraft, etc.

And the powering is completely "clean" and "green" since no hydrocarbons are emitted and exhausted into the earth's biosphere.

Yet eerily the news media hasn't picked up on this startling?even spectacular?PROVEN and epochal scientific development. The newsmen and the public are almost completely unaware of it, as apparently are our politicians, congressmen, officials, etc.

Anyway, I just wanted you to be aware of the mind-boggling changes that are coming right away; first to warfare which will be almost totally revolutionized (e.g., visualize combat vehicles self-powered this way, as well as a range of superweapons and ultra-lasers etc.). If it is then openly applied, it will also revolutionize transportation, travel, powering of our homes and cities, factories, etc.

After the startling Japanese disaster, Germany has apparently decided to get rid of its nuclear powerplants. The Germans may well replace them by basing its electrical grid power on new Klimov generators that power the grid and the electricity supply absolutely freely, consuming no fuel at all, having no carbon footprint at all, and having no radioactive wastes produced at all.

You can also see what emerges when the "bad guy" nations start getting such ultra-weapons. And the chaos that is coming when bad guys or groups like the Mexican Mafia start getting them (e.g., the ultra-laser pistols, e.g.) and using them across our country in many of our large cities such as Los Angeles, California, and New York City.

Just wanted you to be aware of this eerie and very startling scientific development, which is rapidly and very quietly occurring (in the frenzied R&D programs of several nations right now).

Again, please have a good physicist familiar with nanocrystalline science examine the Klimov work and brief you on his results and conclusions.


Best wishes,

Tom Bearden
LT COL, U.S. Army (Retired)
BS Mathematics, minor in Electronic Engineering
MS in Nuclear Engineering
U.S. Army 1181 course graduate (equivalent of MS in Guided Missile Engineering).


ENCLOSURE:

KLIMOV-RELATED TECHNICAL REFERENCES
Brody, Herb. Victor Klimov in Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has constructed a solar cell which can absorb the light of a specific wave length in such a way, that one photon can energize more than one electron. As soon as the electron absorbs a photon, it disappears for a very short moment into the quantum field. Being in the virtual state the electron can borrow energy from the vacuum and thereafter appears again in our reality. Now the electron can energize up to 7 other electrons. This leads to a theoretical coefficient of performance (COP) of 700%. A COP = 200% can be readily achieved and it has been. The experiment has also been replicated successfully by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden Colorado. [Herb Brody, "Solar Power - Seriously Souped Up." New Scientist, May 27, 2006, p 45].
Quoting: ?Make solar cells as small as a molecule; and you get more than you bargained for. Could this be the route to limitless clean power?"].
Comment by T.E.B.: Note that the super-excited electron, after emerging from the seething virtual state vacuum immersion, actually splits into two or more electrons! So the output current of the solar cell process is freely amplified by excess energy from the local virtual state vacuum. Note that at about COP = 3.0, one could conceivably add clamped positive feedback of one of those output electrons back to the "dive back into the seething virtual state vacuum" input, replacing the original electron input, and the unit would be "self-powering" (powered by energy from the vacuum) while putting out the other two electrons as output.
Or by using some of the output current in a radiation-producing process, one could have the positive feedback input as a radiation photon, to replace the initial solar input entirely. In this fashion, once "jump started" by some source of solar radiation, the resulting "solar panel" system would become totally self-powering, taking all its input and output energy directly from the seething vacuum itself
Additional references; Richard D. Schaller, Vladimir M. Agranovich and Victor I. Klimov; "High-efficiency carrier multiplication through direct photogeneration of multi-excitons via virtual single-exciton states." Nature Physics Vol. 1, 2005, pp. 189-194.
Richard D. Schaller, Melissa A. Petruska, and Victor I. Klimov; "Effect of electronic structure on carrier multiplication efficiency: Comparative study of PbSe and CdSe nanocrystals"; Appl. Phys. Lett. Vol. 87, 2005, 253102.
Richard D. Schaller, Milan Sykora, Jeffrey M. Pietryga, and Victor I. Klimov, "Seven Excitons at a Cost of One: Redefining the Limits for Conversion Efficiency of Photons into Charge Carriers," Nano Lett. Vol. 6, 2006, p. 424.
Victor I. Klimov, "Spectral and Dynamical Properties of Multiexcitons in Semiconductor Nanocrystals," Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 58, No. 1, 2007, p. 635.
M. C. Hanna, A. J. Nozik. "Solar conversion efficiency of photovoltaic and photoelectrolysis cells with carrier multiplication absorbers," Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 100, No. 7, 2006, p. 07450.
Sung Jin Kim, Won Jin Kim, Yudhisthira Sahoo, Alexander N. Cartwright, Paras N. Prasad, "Multiple exciton generation and electrical extraction from a PbSe quantum dot photoconductor," Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 92, No. 3, 2008, p. 031107.
Alberto Franceschetti, Yong Zhang, "Multiexciton Absorption and Multiple Exciton Generation in CdSe Quantum Dots," Physical Review Letters, Vol. 100, No. 13, 2008, p. 136805.
G. Allan, C. Delerue, "Role of impact ionization in multiple exciton generation in PbSe nanocrystals," Physical Review B, Vol. 73 (20), 2006, p. 205423.
Hsiang-Yu Chen, Michael K. F. Lo, Guanwen Yang, Harold G. Monbouquette, Yang Yang, "Nanoparticle-assisted high photoconductive gain in composites of polymer and fullerene," Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 3 (9), 2008, p. 543.
M.C. Beard, R.J. Ellingson, "Multiple exciton generation in semiconductor nanocrystals: Toward efficient solar energy conversion," Laser & Photonics Review, Vol. 2, No. 5, 2008, p. 377.
Quoting: "Now Victor Klimov and colleagues at the Alamos National Laboratory have designed nanocrystals with cores and shells made from different semiconductor materials in such a way that electrons and holes are physically isolated from each other. The scientists said in such engineered nanocrystals, only one exciton per nanocrystal is required for optical amplification. That, they said, opens the door to practical use in laser applications." ["Scientists Create New Type of Nanocrystal," PHYSORG.COM, Nanotechnology, May 24, 2007.
Seo, Hye-won; Tu, Li-wei; Ho, Cheng-ying; Wang, Chang-kong; Lin, Yuan-ting. "Multi-Junction Solar Cell," United States Patent 20080178931, July 31, 2008. A photovoltaic device having multi-junction nanostructures deposited as a multi-layered thin film on a substrate. Preferably, the device is grown as InxGa1-xN multi-layered junctions with the gradient x, where x is any value in the range from zero to one. The nanostructures are preferably 5-500 nanometers and more preferably 10-20 nanometers in diameter. The values of x are selected so that the bandgap of each layer is varied from 0.7 eV to 3.4 eV to match as nearly as possible the solar energy spectrum of 0.4 eV-4 eV.
J. R. Minkel, "Brighter Prospects for Cheap Lasers in Rainbow Colors," Scientific American (website), May 25, 2007.

Quoting Klimov, Victor" "Carrier multiplication actually relies upon very strong interactions between electrons squeezed within the tiny volume of a nanoscale semiconductor particle. That is why it is the particle size, not its composition that mostly determines the efficiency of the effect. In nanosize crystals, strong electron-electron interactions make a high-energy electron unstable. This electron only exists in its so-called 'virtual state' for an instant before rapidly transforming into a more stable state comprising two or more electrons." [Lead project scientist Victor Klimov, quoted in "Nanocrystals May Provide Boost for Solar Cells, Solar Hydrogen Production," Green Car Congress, 4 Oct., 2008.]
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Report on the Japan Nuclear Reactors

This is an outstanding explanation. Anyone can follow it by focusing. I read a book many years ago about the actual safety of nuclear power plants, built correctly. Note that the galactics for years have stopped nuclear war stuff but not power plants, of which there are probably at least hundreds worldwide. Thank you, Mark!

----- Original message -----
From: "Mark

All-
This is from my office manager Ann, whose husband Steve works at Los Alamos National Lab. It's a long narrative but very interesting concerning the catastrophe in Japan.


I am writing this text (Mar 12) to give you some peace of mind regarding some of the troubles in Japan, that is the safety of Japan's nuclear reactors. Up front, the situation is serious, but under control. And this text is long! But you will know more about nuclear power plants after reading it than all journalists on this planet put together.
There was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity.
By "significant" I mean a level of radiation of more than what you would receive on - say - a long distance flight, or drinking a glass of beer that comes from certain areas with high levels of natural background radiation.
I have been reading every news release on the incident since the earthquake. There has not been one single (!) report that was accurate and free of errors (and part of that problem is also a weakness in the Japanese crisis communication). By "not free of errors" I do not refer to tendentious anti-nuclear journalism - that is quite normal these days. By "not free of errors" I mean blatant errors regarding physics and natural law, as well as gross misinterpretation of facts, due to an obvious lack of fundamental and basic understanding of the way nuclear reactors are build and operated. I have read a 3 page report on CNN where every single paragraph contained an error.
We will have to cover some fundamentals, before we get into what is going on.
Construction of the Fukushima nuclear power plants
The plants at Fukushima are so called Boiling Water Reactors, or BWR for short. Boiling Water Reactors are similar to a pressure cooker. The nuclear fuel heats water, the water boils and creates steam, the steam then drives turbines that create the electricity, and the steam is then cooled and condensed back to water, and the water send back to be heated by the nuclear fuel. The pressure cooker operates at about 250 °C.
The nuclear fuel is uranium oxide. Uranium oxide is a ceramic with a very high melting point of about 3000 °C. The fuel is manufactured in pellets (think little cylinders the size of Lego bricks). Those pieces are then put into a long tube made of Zircaloy with a melting point of 2200 °C, and sealed tight. The assembly is called a fuel rod. These fuel rods are then put together to form larger packages, and a number of these packages are then put into the reactor. All these packages together are referred to as "the core".
The Zircaloy casing is the first containment. It separates the radioactive fuel from the rest of the world.
The core is then placed in the "pressure vessels". That is the pressure cooker we talked about before. The pressure vessels is the second containment. This is one sturdy piece of a pot, designed to safely contain the core for temperatures several hundred °C. That covers the scenarios where cooling can be restored at some point.
The entire "hardware" of the nuclear reactor - the pressure vessel and all pipes, pumps, coolant (water) reserves, are then encased in the third containment. The third containment is a hermetically (air tight) sealed, very thick bubble of the strongest steel and concrete. The third containment is designed, built and tested for one single purpose: To contain, indefinitely, a complete core meltdown. For that purpose, a large and thick concrete basin is cast under the pressure vessel (the second containment), all inside the third containment. This is the so-called "core catcher". If the core melts and the pressure vessel bursts (and eventually melts), it will catch the molten fuel and everything else. It is typically built in such a way that the nuclear fuel will be spread out, so it can cool down.
This third containment is then surrounded by the reactor building. The reactor building is an outer shell that is supposed to keep the weather out, but nothing in. (this is the part that was damaged in the explosion, but more to that later).
Fundamentals of nuclear reactions
The uranium fuel generates heat by nuclear fission. Big uranium atoms are split into smaller atoms. That generates heat plus neutrons (one of the particles that forms an atom). When the neutron hits another uranium atom, that splits, generating more neutrons and so on. That is called the nuclear chain reaction.
Now, just packing a lot of fuel rods next to each other would quickly lead to overheating and after about 45 minutes to a melting of the fuel rods. It is worth mentioning at this point that the nuclear fuel in a reactor can *never* cause a nuclear explosion the type of a nuclear bomb. Building a nuclear bomb is actually quite difficult (ask Iran). In Chernobyl, the explosion was caused by excessive pressure buildup, hydrogen explosion and rupture of all containments, propelling molten core material into the environment (a "dirty bomb"). Why that did not and will not happen in Japan, further below.
In order to control the nuclear chain reaction, the reactor operators use so-called "control rods". The control rods absorb the neutrons and kill the chain reaction instantaneously. A nuclear reactor is built in such a way, that when operating normally, you take out all the control rods. The coolant water then takes away the heat (and converts it into steam and electricity) at the same rate as the core produces it. And you have a lot of leeway around the standard operating point of 250°C.
The challenge is that after inserting the rods and stopping the chain reaction, the core still keeps producing heat. The uranium "stopped" the chain reaction. But a number of intermediate radioactive elements are created by the uranium during its fission process, most notably Cesium and Iodine isotopes, i.e. radioactive versions of these elements that will eventually split up into smaller atoms and not be radioactive anymore. Those elements keep decaying and producing heat. Because they are not regenerated any longer from the uranium (the uranium stopped decaying after the control rods were put in), they get less and less, and so the core cools down over a matter of days, until those intermediate radioactive elements are used up.
This residual heat is causing the headaches right now.
So the first "type" of radioactive material is the uranium in the fuel rods, plus the intermediate radioactive elements that the uranium splits into, also inside the fuel rod (Cesium and Iodine).
There is a second type of radioactive material created, outside the fuel rods. The big main difference up front: Those radioactive materials have a very short half-life, that means that they decay very fast and split into non-radioactive materials. By fast I mean seconds. So if these radioactive materials are released into the environment, yes, radioactivity was released, but no, it is not dangerous, at all. Why? By the time you spelled "R-A-D-I-O-N-U-C-L-I-D-E", they will be harmless, because they will have split up into non radioactive elements. Those radioactive elements are N-16, the radioactive isotope (or version) of nitrogen (air). The others are noble gases such as Argon. But where do they come from? When the uranium splits, it generates a neutron (see above). Most of these neutrons will hit other uranium atoms and keep the nuclear chain reaction going. But some will leave the fuel rod and hit the water molecules, or the air that is in the water. Then, a non-radioactive element can "capture" the neutron. It becomes radioactive. As described above, it will quickly (seconds) get rid again of the neutron to return to its former beautiful self.
This second "type" of radiation is very important when we talk about the radioactivity being released into the environment later on.
What happened at Fukushima
I will try to summarize the main facts. The earthquake that hit Japan was 5 times more powerful than the worst earthquake the nuclear power plant was built for (the Richter scale works logarithmically; the difference between the 8.2 that the plants were built for and the 8.9 that happened is 5 times, not 0.7). So the first hooray for Japanese engineering, everything held up.
When the earthquake hit with 8.9, the nuclear reactors all went into automatic shutdown. Within seconds after the earthquake started, the control rods had been inserted into the core and nuclear chain reaction of the uranium stopped. Now, the cooling system has to carry away the residual heat. The residual heat load is about 3% of the heat load under normal operating conditions.
The earthquake destroyed the external power supply of the nuclear reactor. That is one of the most serious accidents for a nuclear power plant, and accordingly, a "plant black out" receives a lot of attention when designing backup systems. The power is needed to keep the coolant pumps working. Since the power plant had been shut down, it cannot produce any electricity by itself any more.
Things were going well for an hour. One set of multiple sets of emergency Diesel power generators kicked in and provided the electricity that was needed. Then the Tsunami came, much bigger than people had expected when building the power plant (see above, factor 7). The tsunami took out all multiple sets of backup Diesel generators.
When designing a nuclear power plant, engineers follow a philosophy called "Defense of Depth". That means that you first build everything to withstand the worst catastrophe you can imagine, and then design the plant in such a way that it can still handle one system failure (that you thought could never happen) after the other. A tsunami taking out all backup power in one swift strike is such a scenario. The last line of defense is putting everything into the third containment (see above), that will keep everything, whatever the mess, control rods in our out, core molten or not, inside the reactor.
When the diesel generators were gone, the reactor operators switched to emergency battery power. The batteries were designed as one of the backups to the backups, to provide power for cooling the core for 8 hours. And they did.
Within the 8 hours, another power source had to be found and connected to the power plant. The power grid was down due to the earthquake. The diesel generators were destroyed by the tsunami. So mobile diesel generators were trucked in.
This is where things started to go seriously wrong. The external power generators could not be connected to the power plant (the plugs did not fit). So after the batteries ran out, the residual heat could not be carried away any more.
At this point the plant operators begin to follow emergency procedures that are in place for a "loss of cooling event". It is again a step along the "Depth of Defense" lines. The power to the cooling systems should never have failed completely, but it did, so they "retreat" to the next line of defense. All of this, however shocking it seems to us, is part of the day-to-day training you go through as an operator, right through to managing a core meltdown.
It was at this stage that people started to talk about core meltdown. Because at the end of the day, if cooling cannot be restored, the core will eventually melt (after hours or days), and the last line of defense, the core catcher and third containment, would come into play.
But the goal at this stage was to manage the core while it was heating up, and ensure that the first containment (the Zircaloy tubes that contains the nuclear fuel), as well as the second containment (our pressure cooker) remain intact and operational for as long as possible, to give the engineers time to fix the cooling systems.
Because cooling the core is such a big deal, the reactor has a number of cooling systems, each in multiple versions (the reactor water cleanup system, the decay heat removal, the reactor core isolating cooling, the standby liquid cooling system, and the emergency core cooling system). Which one failed when or did not fail is not clear at this point in time.
So imagine our pressure cooker on the stove, heat on low, but on. The operators use whatever cooling system capacity they have to get rid of as much heat as possible, but the pressure starts building up. The priority now is to maintain integrity of the first containment (keep temperature of the fuel rods below 2200°C), as well as the second containment, the pressure cooker. In order to maintain integrity of the pressure cooker (the second containment), the pressure has to be released from time to time. Because the ability to do that in an emergency is so important, the reactor has 11 pressure release valves. The operators now started venting steam from time to time to control the pressure. The temperature at this stage was about 550°C.
This is when the reports about "radiation leakage" starting coming in. I believe I explained above why venting the steam is theoretically the same as releasing radiation into the environment, but why it was and is not dangerous. The radioactive nitrogen as well as the noble gases do not pose a threat to human health.
At some stage during this venting, the explosion occurred. The explosion took place outside of the third containment (our "last line of defense"), and the reactor building. Remember that the reactor building has no function in keeping the radioactivity contained. It is not entirely clear yet what has happened, but this is the likely scenario: The operators decided to vent the steam from the pressure vessel not directly into the environment, but into the space between the third containment and the reactor building (to give the radioactivity in the steam more time to subside). The problem is that at the high temperatures that the core had reached at this stage, water molecules can "disassociate" into oxygen and hydrogen - an explosive mixture. And it did explode, outside the third containment, damaging the reactor building around. It was that sort of explosion, but inside the pressure vessel (because it was badly designed and not managed properly by the operators) that lead to the explosion of Chernobyl. This was never a risk at Fukushima. The problem of hydrogen-oxygen formation is one of the biggies when you design a power plant (if you are not Soviet, that is), so the reactor is build and operated in a way it cannot happen inside the containment. It happened outside, which was not intended but a possible scenario and OK, because it did not pose a risk for the containment.
So the pressure was under control, as steam was vented. Now, if you keep boiling your pot, the problem is that the water level will keep falling and falling. The core is covered by several meters of water in order to allow for some time to pass (hours, days) before it gets exposed. Once the rods start to be exposed at the top, the exposed parts will reach the critical temperature of 2200 °C after about 45 minutes. This is when the first containment, the Zircaloy tube, would fail.
And this started to happen. The cooling could not be restored before there was some (very limited, but still) damage to the casing of some of the fuel. The nuclear material itself was still intact, but the surrounding Zircaloy shell had started melting. What happened now is that some of the byproducts of the uranium decay - radioactive Cesium and Iodine - started to mix with the steam. The big problem, uranium, was still under control, because the uranium oxide rods were good until 3000 °C. It is confirmed that a very small amount of Cesium and Iodine was measured in the steam that was released into the atmosphere.
It seems this was the "go signal" for a major plan B. The small amounts of Cesium that were measured told the operators that the first containment on one of the rods somewhere was about to give. The Plan A had been to restore one of the regular cooling systems to the core. Why that failed is unclear. One plausible explanation is that the tsunami also took away / polluted all the clean water needed for the regular cooling systems.
The water used in the cooling system is very clean, demineralized (like distilled) water. The reason to use pure water is the above mentioned activation by the neutrons from the Uranium: Pure water does not get activated much, so stays practically radioactive-free. Dirt or salt in the water will absorb the neutrons quicker, becoming more radioactive. This has no effect whatsoever on the core - it does not care what it is cooled by. But it makes life more difficult for the operators and mechanics when they have to deal with activated (i.e. slightly radioactive) water.
But Plan A had failed - cooling systems down or additional clean water unavailable - so Plan B came into effect. This is what it looks like happened:
In order to prevent a core meltdown, the operators started to use sea water to cool the core. I am not quite sure if they flooded our pressure cooker with it (the second containment), or if they flooded the third containment, immersing the pressure cooker. But that is not relevant for us.
The point is that the nuclear fuel has now been cooled down. Because the chain reaction has been stopped a long time ago, there is only very little residual heat being produced now. The large amount of cooling water that has been used is sufficient to take up that heat. Because it is a lot of water, the core does not produce sufficient heat any more to produce any significant pressure. Also, boric acid has been added to the seawater. Boric acid is "liquid control rod". Whatever decay is still going on, the Boron will capture the neutrons and further speed up the cooling down of the core.
The plant came close to a core meltdown. Here is the worst-case scenario that was avoided: If the seawater could not have been used for treatment, the operators would have continued to vent the water steam to avoid pressure buildup. The third containment would then have been completely sealed to allow the core meltdown to happen without releasing radioactive material. After the meltdown, there would have been a waiting period for the intermediate radioactive materials to decay inside the reactor, and all radioactive particles to settle on a surface inside the containment. The cooling system would have been restored eventually, and the molten core cooled to a manageable temperature. The containment would have been cleaned up on the inside. Then a messy job of removing the molten core from the containment would have begun, packing the (now solid again) fuel bit by bit into transportation containers to be shipped to processing plants. Depending on the damage, the block of the plant would then either be repaired or dismantled.
Now, where does that leave us? My assessment:
* The plant is safe now and will stay safe.
* Japan is looking at an INES Level 4 Accident: Nuclear accident with local consequences. That is bad for the company that owns the plant, but not for anyone else.
* Some radiation was released when the pressure vessel was vented. All radioactive isotopes from the activated steam have gone (decayed). A very small amount of Cesium was released, as well as Iodine. If you were sitting on top of the plants' chimney when they were venting, you should probably give up smoking to return to your former life expectancy. The Cesium and Iodine isotopes were carried out to the sea and will never be seen again.
* There was some limited damage to the first containment. That means that some amounts of radioactive Cesium and Iodine will also be released into the cooling water, but no Uranium or other nasty stuff (the Uranium oxide does not "dissolve" in the water). There are facilities for treating the cooling water inside the third containment. The radioactive Cesium and Iodine will be removed there and eventually stored as radioactive waste in terminal storage.
* The seawater used as cooling water will be activated to some degree. Because the control rods are fully inserted, the Uranium chain reaction is not happening. That means the "main" nuclear reaction is not happening, thus not contributing to the activation. The intermediate radioactive materials (Cesium and Iodine) are also almost gone at this stage, because the Uranium decay was stopped a long time ago. This further reduces the activation. The bottom line is that there will be some low level of activation of the seawater, which will also be removed by the treatment facilities.
* The seawater will then be replaced over time with the "normal" cooling water
* The reactor core will then be dismantled and transported to a processing facility, just like during a regular fuel change.
* Fuel rods and the entire plant will be checked for potential damage. This will take about 4-5 years.
* The safety systems on all Japanese plants will be upgraded to withstand a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami (or worse)
* (Updated) I believe the most significant problem will be a prolonged power shortage. 11 of Japan's 55 nuclear reactors in different plants were shut down and will have to be inspected, directly reducing the nation's nuclear power generating capacity by 20%, with nuclear power accounting for about 30% of the national total power generation capacity. I have not looked into possible consequences for other nuclear plants not directly affected. This will probably be covered by running gas power plants that are usually only used for peak loads to cover some of the base load as well. I am not familiar with Japan's energy supply chain for oil, gas and coal, and what damage the harbors, refinery, storage and transportation networks have suffered, as well as damage to the national distribution grid. All of that will increase your electricity bill, as well as lead to power shortages during peak demand and reconstruction efforts, in Japan.
* This all is only part of a much bigger picture. Emergency response has to deal with shelter, drinking water, food and medical care, transportation and communication infrastructure, as well as electricity supply. In a world of lean supply chains, we are looking at some major challenges in all of these areas.
--
Dr. Steven J. Greene, Physics Division, Subatomic Physics Group, P-25
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop H846, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545

Energy Alternatives

Dear friends,

The exciting, clean energy inventions reported in the major media articles below could easily transform our world within just a few years. These amazing inventions are ultra green and renewable. Concise summaries of each fascinating media article are given, with links provided to the full original article.

Big oil companies and the power elite don't want us to know about these incredible energy breakthroughs. They will not likely support inventions which could seriously erode their huge profits and power. A personal friend of mine who is a genius inventor came up with an amazing energy invention a few years ago. He had a $7 million company, and I personally witnessed how he was attacked and shut down by powerful interests.

None of these amazing inventions are receiving the front page coverage they deserve. Yet when you consider them all together, it is clear that given the necessary funding, one or more of these energy inventions could literally transform our world. What we need now is for the public and politicians to be informed so that pressure will build to support these exciting projects. Please help to spread the word. For how to do this, and for other great links on this topic, see the "What you can do" section below these articles. Thanks for caring.

With very best wishes,
Fred Burks for PEERS and the WantToKnow.info Team
Former language interpreter for Presidents Bush and Clinton

Note: For an index to revealing excerpts of major media articles on several dozen engaging topics, click here.




The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?
2010-02-18, CBS 60 Minutes
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60minutes/main6221135.shtml

In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that's inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on it. One of them, Bloom Energy, is about to make public its invention: a little power-plant-in-a-box they want to put literally in your backyard. You'll generate your own electricity with the box and it'll be wireless. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid. K.R. Sridhar ... says he knows it works because he originally invented a similar device for NASA. He really is a rocket scientist. He invented a new kind of fuel cell, which is like a very skinny battery that always runs. Sridhar feeds oxygen to it on one side, and fuel on the other. The two combine within the cell to create a chemical reaction that produces electricity. There's no need for burning or combustion, and no need for power lines from an outside source. "It's cheaper than the grid, it's cleaner than the grid." Twenty large, well-known companies have quietly bought and are testing Bloom boxes. The first customer was Google. Four units have been powering a Google datacenter for 18 months. They use natural gas, but half as much as would be required for a traditional power plant. John Donahoe, eBay's CEO, says its five boxes were installed nine months ago and have already saved the company more than $100,000 in electricity costs. eBay's boxes run on bio-gas made from landfill waste, so they're carbon neutral. "In five to ten years, we would like to be in every home." [Sridhar] said a unit should cost an average person less than $3,000.

Note: To watch the fascinating 60 Minutes video clip of this amazing invention, click here. For other CBS videos clips on the Bloom Box, click here. For astounding information on other clean, green, renewable energy sources and inventions, click here.




2,757.1 MPG Achieved at 2009 Shell Eco-marathon Americas
2009-04-19, CNBC News
http://classic.cnbc.com/id/30287740

Distance, not speed, was the goal this weekend on the track at the 2009 Shell Eco-marathon Americas(R), a challenge for students to design, build and test fuel-efficient vehicles that travel the farthest distance using the least amount of fuel. This year, more than 500 students from North and South America were on hand to stretch the boundaries of fuel efficiency. So who came out on top? The student team from Laval University, with an astonishing 2,757.1 miles per gallon, equivalent to 1,172.2 kilometres per liter, won the grand prize in the "Prototype" category. And in the "UrbanConcept" category - new to the Americas event this year - the team from Mater Dei High School took the grand prize by achieving 433.3 mpg, equivalent to 184.2 km/l. With 44 participating teams at track competition was steep. This year's challenge brought together a number of returning teams determined to beat the 2,843 mpg (1,208 km/l) record set by Mater Dei High School (Evansville, Ind.) in 2008, combined with a number of new teams adding fresh innovation and vehicle designs to the competition. "The Shell Eco-marathon is a platform for students to let their imaginations run wild," said Mark Singer, global project manager for the Shell Eco-marathon. "By encouraging these students to build vehicles with greater energy efficiency, we hope this will help inspire others; and together we can find solutions that will help meet the global energy challenge."

Note: If the above links fails, this article is also available on the Shell website at this link. Why so little media attention to this most exciting race for top gas mileage? And if high school students can build a car that gets over 400 mpg, what's up with Detroit? Could big business be suppressing, or at the very least ignoring these inspiring inventions some of which use clean, green, and renewable energy sources?




The Prophet of Garbage
Popular Science - March 2007 Issue
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/873aae7bf86c0110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd...

The Plasma Converter ... can consume nearly any type of waste—from dirty diapers to chemical weapons—by annihilating toxic materials in a process ... called plasma gasification. A 650-volt current passing between two electrodes rips electrons from the air, converting the gas into plasma. The plasma arc is so powerful, it disintegrates trash into its constituent elements by tearing apart molecular bonds. The system is capable of breaking down pretty much anything except nuclear waste. The only by-products are an obsidian-like glass [and] a mixture of primarily hydrogen and carbon monoxide that can be converted into a variety of marketable fuels, including ethanol, natural gas and hydrogen. Perhaps the most amazing part of the process is that it’s self-sustaining. Once the cycle is under way, the 2,200°F syngas is fed into a cooling system, generating steam that drives turbines to produce electricity. About two thirds of the power is siphoned off to run the converter; the rest can be used on-site for heating or electricity, or sold back to the utility grid. Even a blackout would not stop the operation of the facility. New York City is already paying an astronomical $90 a ton to get rid of its trash. According to Startech, a few 2,000-ton-per-day plasma-gasification plants could do it for $36. Sell the syngas and surplus electricity, and you’d actually net $15 a ton. But the decision-making bureaucracy can be slow, and it is hamstrung by the politically well-connected waste-disposal industry. Startech isn’t the only company using plasma to turn waste into a source of clean energy. A handful of start-ups—Geoplasma, Recovered Energy, PyroGenesis, EnviroArc and Plasco Energy, among others—have entered the market in the past decade.

Note: Why isn't this amazing, proven machine and technology making front page headlines? Read the exciting full article to find how it is already being used. For why you don't know about it, click here.




Researcher sets saltwater on fire
2007-11-14, CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/11/14/saltwater.fire/

Last winter, inventor John Kanzius was already attempting one seemingly impossible feat -- building a machine to cure cancer with radio waves -- when his device inadvertently succeeded in another: He made saltwater catch fire. TV footage of his bizarre discovery has been burning up the blogosphere ever since, drawing crackpots and Ph.D.s alike into a raging debate. Can water burn? And if so, what good can come of it? Some people gush over the invention's potential for desalinization or cheap energy. Briny seawater, after all, sloshes over most of the planet's surface, and harnessing its heat energy could power all sorts of things. Skeptics say Kanzius's radio generator is sucking up far more energy than it's creating, making it a carnival trick at best. For now, Kanzius is tuning out the hubbub. Diagnosed with leukemia in 2002, he began building his radio-wave blaster the next year, soon after a relapse. If he could seed a person's cancerous cells with nanoscopic metal particles and blast them with radio waves, perhaps he could kill off the cancer while sparing healthy tissue. The saltwater phenomenon happened by accident when an assistant was bombarding a saline-filled test tube with radio waves and bumped the tube, causing a small flash. Curious, Kanzius struck a match. "The water lit like a propane flame," he recalls. "People said, 'It's a crock. Look for hidden electrodes in the water,' " says Penn State University materials scientist Rustum Roy, who visited [Kanzius] in his lab in August after seeing the feat on Google Video. A demo made Roy a believer. "This is discovery science in the best tradition," he says. Meanwhile, researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center have made progress using Kanzius's technology to fight cancer in animals. They published their findings last month in the journal Cancer.

Note: For other compelling articles on this fascinating invention, see recent articles in the Los Angeles Times, ABC News, and especially Medical News Today.




BlackLight's physics-defying promise: Cheap power from water
2008-07-02, CNN Money
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/01/smallbusiness/blacklight.fsb/index.htm

Imagine being able to convert water into a boundless source of cheap energy. That's what BlackLight Power, a 25-employee firm in Cranbury, N.J., says it can do. The only problem: Most scientists say that company's technology violates the basic laws of physics. Such skepticism doesn't daunt Dr. Randell Mills, a Harvard-trained physician and founder of BlackLight, who recently claimed that he has created a working fuel cell using the world's most pervasive element: the hydrogen found in water. Mills says he has a market-ready product: a fuel cell that produces a chemical reaction to alter hydrogen atoms. The fuel cell releases heat that turns water into steam, which drives electric turbines. The working models in his lab generate 50 kilowatts of electricity - enough to power six or seven houses. But these, Mills says, can be scaled [up] to drive a large, electric power plant. The inventor claims this electricity will cost less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, which compares to a national average of 8.9 cents. Mills developed the patented cocktail that enables the reaction - a solid fuel made of hydrogen and a sodium hydride catalyst - only a year ago. (He recently posted instructions on the company's Web site). Now that the device is ready for commercialization, he says, BlackLight is negotiating with several utilities and architecture and engineering firms. The business, Mills says, has attracted $60 million in funding from wealthy individuals, investment firms ... and it is no longer seeking money. BlackLight's board of directors reads like a Who's Who of finance and energy leaders.

Note: For two New York Times articles showing the viability of this amazing technology, click here and here.




Puzzled Researchers Vet BlackLight’s Physics-Defying Hydrogen Power
2008-10-21, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2008/10/21/21gigaom-blacklight-validat...

BlackLight Power, the company that has pulled in $60 million for its seemingly physics-defying fuel cell, is back with an announcement about an independent validation of its technology. A team of engineers, headed by Dr. Peter Jansson at Rowan University, have tested BlackLight’s prototypes and found that the devices perform as BlackLight claims, ambiguously concluding that “there is a novel reaction of some type causing the large exotherm which is consistently produced.” To translate: There’s definitely lots of energy being produced. They’re just not sure why. BlackLight says its technology can push an electron closer to the nucleus by way of a catalytic reaction, resulting in a huge amount of clean energy. The company describes the reaction as “somewhere between a nuclear and a chemical reaction,” but without any of the messy fallout. The team at Rowan tested BlackLight’s 1,000- and 50,000-watt reactors over three months and were able to replicate BlackLight’s energy claims, saying that the energy produced “cannot be explained by other known sources like combustion or nuclear energy.” The company says a complete verification of the whole process will likely happen within a year. BlackLight tells us it is now in the process of licensing its technology to power producers. The company says it has enough capital to get through commercialization and plans to have its reactors in a power plant in the next two years.

Note: For a seven-minute video demonstrating this amazing new energy source, click here. These results have been published in dozens of peer-reviewed scientific journals. See list with links by clicking here. Exciting news! Clean, renewable energy inventions may be coming sooner than most people think.




Solar Panel Drops to $1 per Watt
2009-02-26, Popular Mechanics
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4306443.html

A long-sought solar milestone was eclipsed on Tuesday, when Tempe, Ariz.–based First Solar Inc. announced that the manufacturing costs for its thin-film photovoltaic panels had dipped below $1 per watt for the first time. With comparable costs for standard silicon panels still hovering in the $3 range, it's tempting to conclude that First Solar's cadmium telluride (CdTe) technology has won the race. But if we're concerned about the big picture (scaling up solar until it's a cheap and ubiquitous antidote to global warming and foreign oil) a forthcoming study from the University of California–Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggests that neither material has what it takes compared to lesser-known alternatives such as—we're not kidding—fool's gold. Even if the solar cell market were to grow at 56 percent a year for the next 10 years—slightly higher than the rapid growth of the past year—photovoltaics would still only account for about 2.5 percent of global electricity, LBNL researcher Cyrus Wadia says. "First Solar is great, as long as we're talking megawatts or gigawatts," he says. "But as soon as they have to start rolling out terawatts, that's where I believe they will reach some limitations." Even the current rate of growth won't be easy to sustain. Despite the buck-per-watt announcement, First Solar's share price plummeted more than 20 percent on Wednesday, thanks to warnings from CEO Mike Ahearn about the effect of the credit crisis on potential solar customers—as much as 10 to 15 percent of current orders might default.

Note: Solar energy costs have dropped consistently and steadily over the past 30 years. In the late 1970s solar energy cost $100 per watt. The price will almost certainly continue to drop. The San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2005 that "the electricity currently provided by utilities ... averages $1 per watt." Why isn't it being trumpeted loudly worldwide in the media that solar energy is reaching parity with traditional energy sources? Could it be that powerful interests don't want solar energy to be competitive with oil and nuclear?




Cold Fusion Is Hot Again
2009-04-19, CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/17/60minutes/main4952167.shtml

Twenty years ago it appeared, for a moment, that all our energy problems could be solved. It was the announcement of cold fusion - nuclear energy like that which powers the sun - but at room temperature on a table top. It promised to be cheap, limitless and clean. Cold fusion would end our dependence on the Middle East and stop those greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. It would change everything. But then, just as quickly as it was announced, it was discredited. So thoroughly, that cold fusion became a catch phrase for junk science. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to oblivion - for many scientists today, cold fusion is hot again. "We can yield the power of nuclear physics on a tabletop. The potential is unlimited. That is the most powerful energy source known to man," researcher Michael McKubre told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley. McKubre says he has seen that energy more than 50 times in cold fusion experiments he's doing at SRI International, a respected California lab that does extensive work for the government. McKubre is an electro-chemist who imagines, in 20 years, the creation of a clean nuclear battery. "For example, a laptop would come pre-charged with all of the energy that you would ever intend to use. You're now decoupled from your charger and the wall socket," he explained. The same would go for cars. "The potential is for an energy source that would run your car for three, four years, for example. And you'd take it in for service every four years and they'd give you a new power supply," McKubre told Pelley.

Note: For more and to watch the full, revealing 12-minute video clip of this segment that was strangely removed, only to be reposted after a campaign by WantToKnow.info, click here and here. To go directly to the video, click here.




Fusion's Ups and Downs
2010-03-23, MSNBC
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/03/23/2237165.aspx

This week, scientists gathered at the American Chemical Society's spring meeting in San Francisco to turn the spotlight on a highly unorthodox path: the effect known as cold fusion. This year's session featured nearly 50 presentations - including reports on batteries and bacteria that appear to exhibit the cold-fusion effect. Back in 1989, cold fusion was heralded as a simple, inexpensive way to get a power-generating fusion reaction on a desktop. But when the experimental results couldn't be reproduced, the researchers were driven into obscurity [and] the term "cold fusion" became synonymous with quackery. Chemists, however, have kept up their interest in the effect. Rick Nebel [has headed] up a handful of researchers following the less-traveled path to fusion at EMC2 Fusion Development Corp. EMC2 recently created a buzz in the fusion underground by reporting on its Web site that it successfully completed a series of experiments to "validate and extend" earlier results. The company is now using a $7.9 million contract from the U.S. Navy to build a bigger test machine. Nebel and his colleagues are now seeking contributions to fund the development of what they say would be a 100-megawatt fusion plant - a "Phase 3" effort projected to cost $200 million and take four years. "Successful Phase 3 marks the end of fossil fuels," the Web site proclaims.

Note: For a powerful, reliable documentary showing how promising results from cold fusion were strongly suppressed, click here.




Taming the Gas-Hogging SUV
2008-06-09, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=5028894

Johnathan Goodwin walks to the back of his auto conversion shop in Wichita, Kan., and lifts up a gas nozzle connected to a huge cube-shaped container. The orange stuff he's pumping is the key to his company's mission: converting the worst gas-gulping SUVs into cleaner, meaner machines. "This is 100 percent canola oil, refined to biodiesel," Goodwin said. His well-maintained shop is a bit like a showroom for that much-maligned symbol of environmental ruin: the Hummer. The silver H-1 – which Goodwin says gets 60 miles per gallon – has already been modified to run on biodiesel, diesel, vegetable oil, gasoline, ethanol, hydrogen, natural gas and propane. On a standard gasoline-to-biodiesel conversion, Goodwin starts by taking a new nine-mile-per-gallon Hummer and removing the original gas engine. In goes an off-the-shelf GM Duramax engine that runs on diesel fuel. A few extra modifications and a tank full of biodiesel later, the Hummer – now boasting 500 horsepower and getting about 20 miles per gallon – is ready for the road. He offers a couple of lower-cost options, including a fuel vaporizer for $1,000 that he says boosts fuel economy by 30 percent, and a $500 software download that reprograms diesel engines to get up to an additional seven miles per gallon. His work has many wondering why the big automakers can't simply reconfigure their assembly lines to make their own cars run as efficiently as Goodwin does. "I don't know why GM hasn't done it," says Goodwin. "But I can tell you that all the parts that I use for the conversion – 95 percent – are all GM parts. I'm not reinventing anything."

Note: For lots more powerful and inspiring information on this breakthrough technology and kits you can order, click here.




Car achieves almost 10,000 miles per gallon
1999-07-16, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/395366.stm

A car driven by a 10-year-old and built at a French school has set a new world record for fuel efficiency. The Microjoule team managed the equivalent of 9,845 miles per gallon while driving for 10 miles around Silverstone race track in the UK. More than 100 teams competed in the Shell Eco-Marathon. Their one goal was to see how far they can get these amazing machines to travel on a minuscule amount of fuel. While we might be delirious if we managed 40 miles (64 kilometres) to the gallon (4.5 litres) pottering about town in our super minis, these people are not happy until they have seen the mileometer click through the thousands. The teams have a choice of petrol or diesel, with solar assistance permitted for the first time this year. A car is allowed three 40-minute runs. It must average at least 15 mph (24 kph) after which the stewards at the meeting calculate the machine's fuel efficiency. "The top fuel teams do about 10 miles, which is six laps on the club circuit at Silverstone," says the event's fuel manager Geoff Houlbrook. "They do that on less than 10 millilitres which is just two teaspoons of fuel." The entries come from all over Europe. Some teams use advanced materials like titanium and carbon fibre. Some of the machines built by schoolchildren are made from parts of old sewing and washing machines. "It's fun but it's also science," says BBC Top Gear presenter and racing driver Tiff Needell. "It's like an experiment with people learning how to save energy."

Note: Some of these amazing vehicles built in 1999 were "built by schoolchildren," yet the auto industry still can't come up with a car that get's 100 mpg? Granted these cars are slow and small, but if they can get almost 10,000 mpg, can't similar technology could be used to get at least several hundred mpg in regular cars? For why car mileage hasn't increased much since the 1908 Model T got 25 mpg, click here and here.




The New Dawn of Solar
2007-12-01, Popular Science magazine
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/green/item_59.html

Imagine a solar panel without the panel. Just a coating, thin as a layer of paint, that takes light and converts it to electricity. From there, you can picture roof shingles with solar cells built inside and window coatings that seem to suck power from the air. Consider solar-powered buildings stretching not just across sunny Southern California, but through China and India and Kenya as well, because even in those countries, going solar will be cheaper than burning coal. That’s the promise of thin-film solar cells: solar power that’s ubiquitous because it’s cheap. The basic technology has been around for decades, but this year, Silicon Valley–based Nanosolar created the manufacturing technology that could make that promise a reality. The company produces its PowerSheet solar cells with printing-press-style machines that set down a layer of solar-absorbing nano-ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum foil, so the panels can be made for about a tenth of what current panels cost and at a rate of several hundred feet per minute. Nanosolar’s first commercial cells rolled off the presses this year. Cost has always been one of solar’s biggest problems. Traditional solar cells require silicon, and silicon is an expensive commodity. That means even the cheapest solar panels cost about $3 per watt of energy they go on to produce. To compete with coal, that figure has to shrink to just $1 per watt. Nanosolar’s cells use no silicon, and the company’s manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt. "It really is quite a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar and in inherently altering the economics of solar," says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley.




Kids Build Soybean-Fueled Car
2006-02-17, CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/17/eveningnews/main1329941.shtml

The star at last week's Philadelphia Auto Show wasn't a sports car or an economy car. It was a sports-economy car — one that combines performance and practicality under one hood. But as CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports in this week's Assignment America, the car that buyers have been waiting decades [for] comes from an unexpected source and runs on soybean bio-diesel fuel to boot. A car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than 50 miles to the gallon would be enough to pique any driver's interest. So who do we have to thank for it. Ford? GM? Toyota? No — just Victor, David, Cheeseborough, Bruce, and Kosi, five kids from the auto shop program at West Philadelphia High School. The five kids ... built the soybean-fueled car as an after-school project. It took them more than a year — rummaging for parts, configuring wires and learning as they went. As teacher Simon Hauger notes, these kids weren't exactly the cream of the academic crop. "If you give kids that have been stereotyped as not being able to do anything an opportunity to do something great, they'll step up," he says. Stepping up is something the big automakers have yet to do. They're still in the early stages of marketing hybrid cars while playing catch-up to the Bad News Bears of auto shop. "We made this work," says Hauger. "We're not geniuses. So why aren't they doing it?" Kosi thinks he knows why. The answer, he says, is the big oil companies.

Note: So why isn't this remarkable engine design breakthrough making front page headlines in all major media? Why aren't the many other major energy breakthroughs that have been reported given the headlines they deserve? Could it be that those who are reaping huge profits from oil sales have much more political and media influence than you might imagine? For lots more reliable information on this, click here.




Loremo: The 'Low Resistance Mobile'
2008-02-20, MSN
http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=457882

The idea is deceptively simple. Forget about fancy batteries, regenerative braking, and alternative fuels. Instead, make a car that's elegant in its minimalism and efficiency. The Loremo's German designers revisited the basics — engine efficiency, low weight, and minimal drag — to create a car that offers fuel-efficiency in the neighborhood of 130 to 150 miles per gallon. The Loremo is likely to dazzle drivers not with its acceleration, but with its ability to drive from New York to L.A. with only three stops at the pump. Loremo stands for low resistance mobile, and its engineers have stuck obsessively to this idea. By building the car around a 2-cylinder turbodiesel engine, and cutting back on weight, drag, and other excess fat such as side-opening doors, the Loremo puffs out a mere 50 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. This is about 40 grams less per kilometer than the tiny diesel smart. According to its creators, this will make the Loremo the most efficient production car ever sold. If the Loremo showed up as a concept on an auto show pedestal, it would certainly garner some attention. But the Loremo is not a car for dreamers; not only will it enter mass production next year, it will sport a base price attainable by mortal motorists: 15,000 euros (about U.S. $22,000). After its 2009 release in Europe, the Loremo will be redesigned to reach the North American market the following year. A $30,000, 3-cylinder GT model will also become available, offering better acceleration (0-60 in roughly 10 seconds, vs. 16 for the base model). Both hybrid and fully electric versions are also in the works.




Toyota smashes fuel economy record
2002-10-20, London Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,588-451038,00.html

Tucked away on the Toyota stand you will find a cheeky little coupé that looks sporty but whose raison d’être is fuel economy, the lowest exhaust emissions and ease of recycling. The ES3 — the initials stand for Eco Spirit — achieves 104mpg in the official European fuel consumption tests, a record for a four-seat car. Some months ago I drove this prototype and not only is it even more economical than the special “3 litre” (three litres of fuel for every 100km travelled, or 94mpg) versions of the Audi A2 and VW Lupo that sell in Germany, but the Toyota is more lively and responsive and would be very acceptable as an everyday car. The ES3 has a 1.4 litre turbocharged diesel engine and CVT (continuously variable transmission).

Note: So what happened to this amazing car? Why haven't we heard anything about it since the article was published in 2002? Read the revealing WantToKnow.info article at this link to learn how this amazing car, which was the talk of the fuel economy car industry in 2002, eventually disappeared. And for an excellent essay which provides key information on this topic, including a detailed list of suppressed inventions which greatly improve gasoline mileage reported over the years in respected magazines, click here.

Ribbons of Death

Oil Spill Solution

Bloom Box

Burning Salt Water

A Great Talk by Steven Greer - Disclosure and New Energy

Hitler does not like Steorn's Orbo

Tesla

Breaking News from the Orion Project

Breaking News from the Orion Project
In response to our recent call for engineering professionals to work with The Orion Project, over 70 such candidates have offered their services.

We now ask the public to fully support and fund The Orion Project so that the best engineering candidates can be brought together to develop the definitive solution to the world's energy and environmental crisis.

Here is one example of the kind of amazing brain-trust now offering to work with The Orion Project: An engineer and inventor of stellar credentials, but who wishes to remain confidential, has offered to work full time with us on new energy solutions. This scientist has successfully built new energy and antigravity systems for major corporations and the US government and is ready to now bring all of this knowledge to the project. His technology has been reproduced by the largest department of defense laboratory and is proven-not theoretical. He is confident that within a year, the world would have a completely new way to generate clean, limitless energy from the Quantum vacuum.

Unfortunately, we do not yet have the funds to even outfit the laboratory we would need to carry forward this amazing research. Will you help us?

Where I live in Albemarle County (population 125,000) Virginia, we raised over $6 million to build a new shelter for stray dogs and cats. The Orion Project budget is for approximately half that amount. Surely, with this kind of talent ready to work full time on revolutionary new energy solutions we can raise half the amount raised for the local animal shelter!

Please help us by telling everyone you know about the promise of new energy and The Orion Project. And please give generously today so we may bring this scientists and others together to work on the energy solutions the world needs today!

Thank you for your support!

Steven M. Greer MD

Stan Meyer's Water Powered Car

The Orion Project: Inventor Update
Stan Meyer Technology

The Orion Project has been active over the last two months diligently pursuing the most promising opportunities for breakthrough technologies. One such technology is the work of inventor, Stan Meyer (link to our website). After Stan died more than ten years ago, his work fell silent. After such a long silence, many feared nothing more would come of his lifetime of dedication and research to free the US from its dependence on foreign oil. In January of this year, the TOP team was contacted by a representative of those who inherited Stan's technical materials and equipment.

Dr. Ted Loder went to visit the team and personally witnessed an extensive collection of Stan's equipment, physical inventions, notebooks, and documentation. Yes, including his widely publicized dune buggy alleged to have been powered entirely by water alone.

In the long months since Ted's visit, the family that controls Stan's equipment and documentation have been seeking the best buyer to carry on Stan's work and bring his technology out to the world. This has included an open bid process that has taken several months and attracted considerable attention from around the world. As of today, The Orion Project is one of the two remaining bidders still under consideration.

Though the process has been long, we remain in active negotiations to acquire Stan's technology and resume work on this widely publicized and most promising technology. It is only through your generous financial support that we have been able to be considered a viable bidder in this process. Please support us now in these final steps of the journey to win the bid and resume work on this most promising Water-for-Fuel Technology. Please donate today!

New Inventor Group

In April of this year, The Orion Project was contacted by an inventor group in Canada. Through a long and steady process of disclosure and trust-building, we have recently entered into a development agreement with this group. (For security purposes and to protect the inventor, we must keep their identity undisclosed at this time.) Bill Costantino has made two visits to personally see their work and assess the state of their technology.

There is evidence this group has built 1 Kw, 2 Kw, and 10 Kw working prototypes of their technology. These systems employ solid state electronics, operate without the use of any fossil fuels, and are entirely non-polluting. With support from The Orion Project, the team is currently working on a 20 Kw prototype, which we hope to be operational soon.

Again, it is only through your direct financial support that we are able to provide the needed funds for such critical technology. It is such brilliant, out-of-the-box systems as these that will help transform our terribly flawed global dependence on fossil fuels to a future of clean, sustainable, non-polluting energy for all mankind. Please donate today to help us support this vitally important work.

Tesla's 1930 Pierce Arrow Electric Automobile

Tesla's "1930 Pierce Arrow" Electric Automoblie

Nikola Tesla reading a newspaper in his Colorado Springs Lab. • 1908

Tesla Motors of 2006 runs on a electric motor with a rack of batteries.

Nik's Car was Wireless Dude! No need for downtime recharging it. Return to

Telsa Company like back in 1930. Wireless free radiant energy!

Nikola Tesla had an Electric Pierce Arrow back in 1930, the ICE engine was replaced with an Electric Motor. The power source was a black box of radio tubes, in the glove compartment. The box had an antenna sticking out. Tesla would fool with some tuners and tune in the right frequency and got 240 volts delivered through the air to his car. The car ran almost silent. He had the car stashed in a barn near Niguera Falls. He was sending the energy from the Power Plant, some how. He said this power could be made possible for everyone. J.P.Morgan did not like the idea, because where do you put the meter? Morgan stopped funding and Tesla's Wardencliffe Tower was taken down. We were denied FREE power. Now we pay for gas & SMOG.

Here is the story : In 1930, Nikola Tesla asked his nephew, Petar Savo, who was born in Yugoslavia in 1899, to come to New York. Petar was 43 years younger than his uncle. Up to that date he had lived under stringent conditions in Yugoslavia, Tesla's country of birth. During the summer of 1931, Tesla took his nephew to Buffalo to unveil and test a new automobile. Tesla had developed it with his own personal funds.

It was a Pierce Arrow, one of the luxury cars of the period. The engine had been removed, leaving the clutch, gearbox and transmission to the rear wheels undisturbed. The gasoline engine had been replaced with a round, completely enclosed electric motor of approximately 1m in length and 65cm in diameter, with a cooling fan in front. Reputedly, it has no distributor. Tesla was not willing to say who had manufactured the engine. It was possibly one of the divisions of Westinghouse.

The "energy receiver" (gravitational energy converter) had been built by Tesla himself. The dimensions of the converter housing were approximately 60 x 25 x 15cm. It was installed in front of the dashboard. Among other things, the converter contained 12 vacuum tubes, of which three were of the 70-L-7 type. A heavy antenna approximately 1.8 meters long, came out of the converter. This antenna apparently had the same function as that on the Moray converter (see chapter on Radiant Energy). Furthermore, two thick rods protruded approximately 10cm from the converter housing.

Tesla pushed them in saying "Now we have power." The motor achieved a maximum of 1800rpm. Tesla said it was fairly hot when operating, and therefore a cooling fan was required. For the rest, he said there was enough power in the converter to illuminate an entire house, besides running the car engine. The car was tested for a week, reaching a top speed of 90 miles per hour effortlessly. Its performance data were at least comparable to those of an automobile using gasoline. At a stop sign, a passerby remarked that there were no exhaust gasses coming from the exhaust pipe. Petar answered "We have no motor." The car was kept on a farm, perhaps 20 miles outside of Buffalo, not far from Niagara Falls.

A few months after this automobile test, and because of the economic crisis at the time, Pierce Arrow had to stop production. It is very likely that the interconnection between the electric motor and the transmission had been performed there. Pierce Arrow's tools were taken over by Studebaker, in South Bend. Not quite 30 years later, that company also vanished to form American Motors, jointly with Nash. Later, some of its fans attempted to resuscitate the Pierce Arrow. Unfortunately, they were not successful.

Thus, today that company's name is in a mausoleum, together with others, such as Horch, Maybach, Hispano-Suiza, Bugatti and Isotta Fraschini.

A modern distant relative of Tesla wrote me and here is what he had to say about Tesla

Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 on July 10th, at exactly midnight. He has near 1200 patents. George Westinghouse, only paid Tesla a portion of the patent money he owed Tesla because, he and his Westinghouse Co. was almost bankrupt at one point. He asked Tesla to forgive the rest of the debt to keep The Westinghouse Co. going. Tesla for his good friend George Westinghouse - forgave the debt and therefore never got all the money he was due. This is a testament to Tesla's generosity and his total disregard for money, even to his own financial well being. Tesla was not a good business man. Tesla had an uncle who lived to be 140 years old. Tesla could recall every page he ever read from memory - exactly as written. Tesla intentionally sabotaged the Philadelphia experiment when he found out the Navy was going to put men on the ship without further testing. 99%25 of all the things Tesla said he could do that everyone thought were boastful and crazy were absolutely true and most of them are just barely beginning to be understood. He thought Einstein and his Theory of Relativity was wrong - and it is. Einstein based his theory on the speed of Light. But that is only the speed of light from our perspective on earth. Einstein forgot to tell the rest of the Universe that light could only go 186,000 miles per second. In the rest of our Galaxy and in the Universe Light has a much higher speed limit. The speed of Light was measured in 1887 by two guys with a light and two mirrors. No one has remeasured it since. They were off a bit. An old saying goes. "Those who say something can't be done - should stop bothering those who are doing it!

The sky is NOT the limit.

Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Nikola Tesla's birth!

Also catch the movie : Who Killed the Electric Car!

Tesla Museum

More information on Tesla's Car

waterpoweredcar.com/teslascar.html

Press Release from Disclosure Project

INSIDERS EXPOSE REASONS FOR UFO SECRECY

Disclosure Project (www.DisclosureProject.org) Director Dr. Steven M. Greer reports that government insiders have revealed the existence of a shadowy, highly classified program related to UFOs.

The reasons for the secrecy are simple: The inertia of highly classified programs, embarrassment over past illegal actions taken to enforce secrecy, and the fact that the energy and propulsion systems behind the mysterious UFO objects have been studied and fully understood. This disclosure would spell the end for oil, gas, coal and other conventional forms of power - and with that, the end of the current oil-based geopolitical order and economy. The truth is our tax dollars have been used to investigate this matter for decades and it is time for a dividend on that investment. The full disclosure of the facts will enable humanity to attain a sustainable civilization without global warming or the need for oil.

Recent calls for a US government investigation into UFOs have not taken into account the fact that such investigations are on-going, highly compartmented and top-secret.

Dr. Greer states, "As early as 1993, when I personally briefed CIA Director James Woolsey on the UFO matter, we knew of on-going, secret projects to which President Clinton and Mr. Woolsey were denied access. The senior counsel for the Senate Appropriations Committee, then headed by Senator Byrd (D-WV) told me directly that upwards of $100 billion per year was going into so-called 'black' projects, including UFO programs, but that with a top-secret clearance and a subpoena power, he could not penetrate the veil of secrecy."

Subsequently, working with philanthropist Laurence Rockefeller, Dr. Greer provided in-depth briefing materials for President Clinton and Hillary Clinton, who reviewed the matter while staying at the Rockefeller's JY Ranch. (The briefing materials are at www.DisclosureProject.org).

Dr. Greer reports that "The Clintons refused further disclosure of the!
matter. CIA Director Woolsey frankly stated that they could not disclose programs over which they had no control or access. Mr. Woolsey and the Clintons were shaken by the secrecy, and the power behind it."

Since then, The Disclosure Project has uncovered thousands of official US documents and top-secret military and corporate witnesses to programs dealing with UFOs, including project code names and numbers. Such operations are rogue and are beyond the scope of Congressional oversight committees.

For further information or for an interview with Dr. Greer contact: http://www.DisclosureProject.org.

Note: The two paragraphs referring to Laurence Rockefeller and to Bill and Hillary Clinton had to be removed from this press release when we sent it out through our press release service - PRNewswire.com, because they refused to send out the original press release with those references. It was referred up the chain of command at their organization and censored by them. When you think that we have a free press, think again. This was not even censored by the outlets themselves, but by the entry point to those outlets!

Cheap Solar Power

Monday view: Cheap solar power poised to undercut oil and gas by half

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Last Updated: 11:31pm GMT 18/02/2007

Within five years, solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-generated electricity, even in Britain, Scandinavia or upper Siberia. In a decade, the cost may have fallen so dramatically that solar cells could undercut oil, gas, coal and nuclear power by up to half. Technology is leaping ahead of a stale political debate about fossil fuels.

Anil Sethi, the chief executive of the Swiss start-up company Flisom, says he looks forward to the day - not so far off - when entire cities in America and Europe generate their heating, lighting and air-conditioning needs from solar films on buildings with enough left over to feed a surplus back into the grid.

The secret? Mr Sethi lovingly cradles a piece of dark polymer foil, as thin a sheet of paper. It is 200 times lighter than the normal glass-based solar materials, which require expensive substrates and roof support. Indeed, it is so light it can be stuck to the sides of buildings.

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Rather than being manufactured laboriously piece by piece, it can be mass-produced in cheap rolls like packaging - in any colour.

The "tipping point" will arrive when the capital cost of solar power falls below $1 (51p) per watt, roughly the cost of carbon power. We are not there yet. The best options today vary from $3 to $4 per watt - down from $100 in the late 1970s.

Mr Sethi believes his product will cut the cost to 80 cents per watt within five years, and 50 cents in a decade.

It is based on a CIGS (CuInGaSe2) semiconductor compound that absorbs light by freeing electrons. This is then embedded on the polymer base. It will be ready commercially in late 2009.

"It'll even work on a cold, grey, cloudy day in England, which still produces 25pc to 30pc of the optimal light level. That is enough, if you cover half the roof," he said.

"We don't need subsidies, we just need governments to get out of the way and do no harm. They've spent $170bn subsidising nuclear power over the last thirty years," he said.

His ultra-light technology, based on a copper indium compound, can power mobile phones and laptop computers with a sliver of foil.

"You won't have to get down on your knees ever again to hunt for plug socket," he said

Michael Rogol, a solar expert at Credit Lyonnais, expects the solar industry to grow from $7bn in 2004 to nearer $40bn by 2010, with operating earnings of $3bn.

The sector is poised to outstrip wind power. It is a remarkable boom for a technology long dismissed by experts as hopelessly unviable.

Mr Rogol said he was struck by the way solar use had increased dramatically in Japan and above all Germany, where Berlin's green energy law passed in 2004 forces the grid to buy surplus electricity from households at a fat premium. (In Britain, utilities may refuse to buy the surplus. They typically pay half the customer price of electricity.)

The change in Germany's law catapulted the share price of the German flagship company SolarWorld from €1.38 (67p) in February 2004 to over €60 by early 2006.

The tipping point in Germany and Japan came once households twigged that they could undercut their unloved utilities. Credit Lyonnais believes the rest of the world will soon join the stampede.

Mike Splinter, chief executive of the US semiconductor group Applied Materials, told me his company is two years away from a solar product that reaches the magic level of $1 a watt.

Cell conversion efficiency and economies of scale are galloping ahead so fast that the cost will be down to 70 US cents by 2010, with a target of 30 or 40 cents in a decade.

"We think solar power can provide 20pc of all the incremental energy needed worldwide by 2040," he said.

"This is a very powerful technology and we're seeing dramatic improvements all the time. It can be used across the entire range from small houses to big buildings and power plants," he said.

"The beauty of this is that you can use it in rural areas of India without having to lay down power lines or truck in fuel."

Villages across Asia and Africa that have never seen electricity may soon leapfrog directly into the solar age, replicating the jump to mobile phones seen in countries that never had a network of fixed lines. As a by-product, India's rural poor will stop blanketing the subcontinent with soot from tens of millions of open stoves.

Applied Materials is betting on both of the two rival solar technologies: thin film panels best used where there is plenty of room and the traditional crystalline (c-Si) wafer-based cells, which are not as cheap but produce a higher yield - better for tight spaces.

Needless to say, electricity utilities are watching the solar revolution with horror. Companies in Japan and Germany have already seen an erosion of profits because of an effect known "peak shaving". In essence, the peak wattage of solar cells overlaps with hours of peak demand and peak prices for electricity in the middle of the day, crunching margins.

As for the oil companies, they are still treating solar power as a fringe curiosity. "There is no silver bullet," said Jeroen Van der Veer, Shell's chief executive.

"We have invested a bit in all forms of renewable energy ourselves and maybe we'll find a winner one day. But the reality is that in twenty years time we'll still be using more oil than now," he said.

Might he be wrong?