Future Energy eNews January 21, 2003


1) Low grade heat now creates electricity with the Thermator from Iceland. Not available in the US yet.

2) Car that runs on air. Yes it is true - compressed air yields 10 hours and 120 miles! Overall efficiency?

3) Study says NW USA can be Energy Independent. Tellus Institute study with NW Energy Coalition.

4) Sharp to set up first US solar power plant. World's largest solar battery maker is investing $3 million.

5) New Tools for Developing Renewable Energy Projects. Interactive guide to legislation, RPS, and SBF.

6) Reward and License Agreement Offered for Free Energy. Three organizations offer substantial rewards.

7) New Book by Keith Tutt. Well-written and probably the best overview of the development of emerging energy inventions and the brave inventors who have struggled with them. I also was his consultant and helped with much of the factual information that Keith needed for The Scientist, the Madman, the Thief and their Lightbulb. After the author's emailed press release are two activist links. -TV


1) Thermator converts excess heat into electricity

Iceland invents energy-from-water machine

By Richard Black Wednesday, 23 October, 2002, 14:38 GMT 15:38 UK BBC science correspondent in Iceland

The UN climate change negotiations, now getting under way in Delhi, have focused international attention once more on the problem of global warming.

Experts agree there is a need to switch to renewable forms of energy if production of greenhouse gases is to be curbed.

Now an Icelandic team has invented a radical device which can produce electricity from water.

The Thermator could play a major role in the non-polluting economies of the future.

The Thermator

The Thermator contains a semi-conductor crystal ©Varmaraf

It works by something called the thermo-electric effect, which scientists have known about for many years.

But while thermo-electric generators have mainly been used to power spacecraft, such as Voyager and Galileo using heat from radioactive materials, the Thermator is firmly rooted on Earth and works on nothing more than hot water.

Professor Thorstein Sigfusson, of the University of Iceland, says it works by translating the difference between the temperature of hot and cold water into energy.

He explains: "In between the hot and the cold side are crystals made of semi-conductors.

"As the heat is transferred through these crystals part of it is converted from heat energy into electric energy."

Professor Sigfusson said there was potential for using all sorts of excess heat to fuel Thermators and he added: "In car engines for example, only a fraction of the heat produced is turned into propelling energy."

News story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2352853.stm

Thermator: http://www.varmaraf.is/vorur/thermatorc.htm (click on English)


2) The car that runs on air
By Carolyn Dempster in Johannesburg

BBC News Tuesday, 24 October, 2000, 11:06 GMT 12:06 UK

Urban transport could soon be revolutionised with the launching this week in South Africa of a prototype new car which designers say runs on air.

It is being predicted that the e.Volution will be able to travel up to 200km (120 miles) for only 30 US cents.

The e.Volution prototype will be unveiled at Auto Africa Expo 2000 in Johannesburg this week and is being touted as the first viable alternative to cars that run on conventional fuels.

Researchers have been working for many years to produce 'eco-friendly' cars, but so far these attempts have not been successful. Some models already in development use hydrogen as a fuel.

It is expected to sell in South Africa for about R74,000 ($10,000) which is on a par with a medium-sized car.

The body of the vehicle weighs only 700kg, and the engine itself is a mere 35kg.

This means that the vehicle can theoretically be driven for up to 10 hours in an urban environment at an average speed of 80km/h.

Filling up

The designers of e.Volution say it will be possible to merely plug the vehicle into any electrical power source to fill it up. That could take up to four hours.

e.Volution

It could be a serious challenge to the current motor vehicle market

But the manufacturers envisage that fleet owners could install their own air stations, where a fill up could take as little as three minutes.

If the e.Volution lives up to all the hype, it could offer a serious challenge to the current motor vehicle market.

There are currently two factories in France, with the first models expected on the streets later this year.

There are five factories planned for Mexico and Spain, with three in Australia.

Anti-globalisation idea

But South Africa will be the second country after France to open a factory and begin production.

Helen Brown says her company aims to set up a production line in the province of Gauteng by next year, with the first cars off the production line and onto the salesroom floor by early 2002.

" It's really an anti-globalisation production idea" she said.

"The aim of the project is to cut costs and create jobs locally, serving the consumer market directly."

With petrol and diesel prices going up, and the price of oil subject to fluctuations, the Middle East crisis and occasional shortfalls, motorists might be only too happy to "go green" if it means a lifetime saving on fuel costs.


3) Tellus Institute Study Affirms Energy Independence

Another study by the Tellus Institute (www.tellus.org) in cooperation with the NW Energy Coalition (www.nwenergy.org) shows that the Northwest can meet all of its growing energy needs by increasing energy efficiency and investing in new sources of renewable power generation. Thanks to recent innovations, clean energy technologies are primed to compete directly with natural gas-fired power plants, the economic benchmark for new power generation. The results of the Tellus study cast doubt on the need for additional fossil fuel generation in the Northwest. Clean Energy Options for the Pacific Northwest summary is available at: http://www.nwenergy.org/outreach/docs/Tellus_Summary.pdf. The full Tellus report is free from: http://www.nwenergy.org/outreach/docs/Tellus_PNW_Oct15.pdf


4) Sharp to set up first US solar power plant
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18608/story.htm

USA: November 15, 2002 Reuters


MEMPHIS, Tennessee - The U.S. unit of Japanese electronics giant Sharp Corp. said this week it will open its first overseas solar product assembly plant in January at its facility in Memphis, Tennessee.


Sharp, the world's largest solar battery maker, wants to create a production base in the United States, which lags Japan and Germany in solar power usage, to tap the potentially large market, said Ron Kenedi, General Manager of Sharp's U.S. Solar Division.

Sharp has been shipping assembled solar products from Japan to the United States, where it holds 10 percent of the market.

"We expect more than double-digit sales growth (in the U.S.), especially (in states) where (the) utility rate is high and state incentives are offered (to promote use)," Kenedi told Reuter. These states include California, New York and Massachusetts, he added.

Sharp initially plans to invest about $3 million in the plant to make solar batteries that use silicon to convert sunlight into energy.

(Full story at Planet Ark link above. -TV)


5) New REPP Tools For Developing Efficiency And Renewable Projects In Uncertain Electric Markets
[available at www.repp.org – Renewable Energy Policy Project]

Developing efficiency and renewable resources will require creative responses to overcome the uncertainty that now cripples electric markets.

Attempts to encourage new renewable development as part of major federal energy legislation seem headed toward stalemate. If stalemate is all that comes from the federal effort, state initiatives may provide the best opportunities for the near future.

States have shown willingness to experiment with new policies. In addition, many states face major energy/environmental challenges. State efforts are complicated, however, by uncertainty as they sort out their response to the push to deregulate electric markets.

Despite the uncertainty, creative state responses that use already tested policies to respond to major, unresolved challenges could spur development.

REPP has developed several tools we feel can reduce uncertainty, increase understanding, and provide important support for creative state responses. All of these interactive tools are available on the REPP website: www.repp.org.

BACKGROUND

Over the past decade, electric market regulation has attempted to respond to calls for dramatic change. We have moved from nearly universal acceptance of integrated resource planning to a patchwork of regulation, deregulation, and reregulation.

While the environmental criteria of electric generation have unquestionably risen in importance, no clear national consensus on how to properly incorporate these criteria has emerged.

The Policies: System benefit funds and renewable portfolio standards are tested models. System benefit funds have been successfully introduced in 23 states over the past 7 years most often in the context of an overall move to deregulate the electric market in the state. Renewable Portfolio Standards have been introduced in 12 states. These programs have provided great stimulus for both efficiency and renewable development.

While interest in them remains high among advocates, most of the programs were implemented as part of an overall negotiation covering market deregulation. With momentum to deregulation stopped, system benefit funds and renewable portfolio standards face greater challenges in gaining acceptance.

The Challenge: The strong connection between environmental mandates - such as the need to reduce NOx emissions - and the ability of efficiency and renewable development to play a role in the curtailment of these pollutants, can support the creation of new system benefit funds.

Many states face an urgent requirement to reduce NOx emissions from thermo-electric generation plants. Efficiency and renewables can be among the best methods for reducing NOx emissions and the societal cost of meeting these reductions.

System benefit funds can be prefunded efforts to put in place the programs that will allow states to aggressively pursue efficiency and renewable development. Once active, the efficiency and renewable developments can claim NOx reduction credits, and sell those credits to replace some part of the system benefit funding.

Tested policies that respond to major new challenges can cut through the crippling uncertainty, and lead to major renewable and energy efficiency development.


6) Reward and Licensing Offers for Free Energy

More than one organization now offers help, rewards, and licensing options to inventors of innovative energy production.

Eric Krieg offers $10,000 and $1000 referral rewards

besides people to potentially validate their claims:
http://www.phact.org/e/freetest.html

SEAS is offering $1 million as a licensing reward for a qualified energy invention:
www.seaspower.com

ZPower is looking for zero-point energy inventions:

http://www.zpower.net/invention.htm, and offers three options for the agreement: http://www.zpower.net/invention_app1.htm


7) First Mainstream Book About Free Energy Technologies
Preview and order at www.thesearchforfreeenergy.com

'The Scientist, the Madman, the Thief and their Lightbulb -
The Search for Free Energy'
by Keith Tutt
with a Foreword by Sir Arthur C. Clarke

'The biggest scandal in the history of science'
Arthur C. Clarke

'His writing is clear, his reporting thorough and his arguments crisp'
The Economist

'The inventors could hardly have asked for a better intercessor than Tutt.
His vivid, level-headed and engrossing commentary is as entertaining as it
is thought-provoking'
New Scientist

'The Scientist, the Madman, the Thief and their Lightbulb' examines the
work of inventors and scientists struggling to find solutions to the problem
of how we can create the pollution-free electrical energy we need. It tells
the stories of extraordinary characters who people this search for the holy
grail of technology.

'The Scientist, the Madman, the Thief and their Lightbulb' is also a
fascinating and intriguing quest for the truth about some of the world's
most extraordinary claims. The book also looks at the negative effects of
climate change and at our hopes for reducing CO2 emissions.

PREVIEW AND ORDER NOW at www.thesearchforfreeenergy.com

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CANADIANS TO LEAD weapons inspection team into USA

Toronto, January, 2003 - Greenpeace Canada, Center for Social Justice, Global Exchange, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, ...
A coalition of dozens of Canadian peace groups today announced their intention to send an international team of volunteer weapons inspectors into the United States to locate massive stockpiles of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons: http://www.rootingoutevil.org


Forwarded as a courtesy from:

http://www.integrityresearchinstitute.org

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