Future Energy eNews November 19, 2003 Integrity Research Institute

1) Global Warming affects energy choices - Another call for an energy Manhattan Project to avert worsening hot house earth.

2) Energy Bill is useless says Union of Concerned Scientists - NY Times and Washington Post agree. Call your Senator.

3) LED Therapy - Energy medicine is now mainstream - DARPA & NASA funded. Article uses the word 'cure.' Tell your doctor.

4) Handling Innovation with Patience - Little companies more important than big ones in some invention arenas.

5) Report on the Tesla Conference - Videos / DVDs available from 800-952-LOST (Lost Arts Media 562-427-ARTS) who recorded the successful IRI event.


1) As Earth Warms, the Hottest Issue Is Energy

By KENNETH CHANG, New York Times, November 4, 2003

http://query.nytimes.com/search/abstract?res=F00713FF35540C778CDDA80994DB404482

Suppose that over the next decade or two the forecasts of global warming start to come true. Color has drained from New England's autumns as maple trees die, and the Baltimore oriole can no longer be found south of Buffalo. The Dust Bowl has returned to the Great Plains, and Arctic ice is melting into open water. Upheavals in weather, the environment and life are accelerating around the world.

Then what?

If global warming occurs as predicted, there will be no easy way to turn the Earth's thermostat back down. The best that most scientists would hope for would be to slow and then halt the warming, and that would require a top-to-bottom revamping of the world's energy systems, shifting from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas to alternatives that in large part do not yet exist.

"We have to face the fact this is an enormous challenge," said Dr. Martin I. Hoffert, a professor of physics at New York University.

But interviews with scientists, environment advocates and industry representatives show that there is no consensus in how to meet that challenge. Some look to the traditional renewable energy sources: solar and wind. Others believe use of fossil fuels will continue, but that the carbon dioxide can be captured and then stored underground. The nuclear power industry hopes concern over global warming may help spur a revival.

In an article in the journal Science last November, Dr. Hoffert and 17 other experts looked at alternatives to fossil fuels and found all to have "severe deficiencies in their ability to stabilize global climate."

The scientists believe that technological fixes are possible. Dr. Hoffert said the country needed to embark on an energy research program on the scale of the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb during World War II or the Apollo program that put men on the moon.

"Maybe six or seven of them operating simultaneously," he said. "We should be prepared to invest several hundred billion dollars in the next 10 to 15 years."

But to even have a hope of finding a solution, the effort must begin now, the scientists said. A new technology usually takes several decades to develop the underlying science, build pilot projects and then begin commercial deployment.

The authors of the Science paper expect that a smorgasbord of energy sources will be needed, and they call for intensive research on radical ideas like vast solar arrays orbiting Earth that can collect sunlight and beam the energy down. "Many concepts will fail, and staying the course will require leadership," they wrote. "Stabilizing climate is not easy."

The heart of the problem is carbon dioxide, the main byproduct from the burning of fossil fuels. When the atmosphere is rich in carbon dioxide, heat is trapped, producing a greenhouse effect. Most scientists believe the billions of tons of carbon dioxide released since the start of the Industrial Revolution are in part to blame for the one-degree rise in global temperatures over the past century. Carbon dioxide concentrations are now 30 percent higher than preindustrial levels.

With rising living standards in developing nations, emissions of carbon dioxide are increasing, and the pace of warming is expected to speed up, too. Unchecked, carbon dioxide would reach twice preindustrial levels by midcentury and perhaps double again by the end of the century. That could force temperatures up by 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, according to computer models.

Because carbon dioxide is colorless, odorless and disperses immediately into the air, few realize how much spills out of tailpipes and smokestacks. An automobile, for example, generates perhaps 50 to 100 tons of carbon dioxide in its lifetime.

The United States produces more carbon dioxide than any other country by far. Each American, on average, generates about 45,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. That is about twice as much as the average person living in Japan or Europe and many times more than someone living in a developing country like Zimbabwe, China or Panama. (Even if the United States achieves President Bush's goal of an 18 percent reduction in the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions by 2012, the output of an average American would still far exceed that of almost anyone else in the world.)

Even if all emissions stop, levels of carbon dioxide in the air will remain high for centuries as the Earth gradually absorbs the excess.

Currently, the world's energy use per second is about 12 trillion watts — which would light up 120 billion 100-watt bulbs — and 85 percent of that comes from fossil fuels.


2) The New Energy Bill


New York Times, November 15, 2003 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/politics/15ENER-TEXT.html?tntemail1

Some highlights of the agreement on energy legislation announced yesterday by House and Senate Republican negotiators:

TAX INCENTIVES
Provides more than $18 billion in tax incentives, most to boost development of oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear power. The bill’s final language and details on many of its provisions have not yet been released.

ELECTRICITY GRID
Imposes reliability standards and penalties on the transmission system for the first time. The federal government will also be given the authority to designate the routes of those transmission lines that are of ‘‘national significance’’ if local governments and states cannot agree on their paths.

ELECTRIC UTILITIES
Repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act, a 1935 law that strictly regulates the business dealings of multistate holding companies that operate electric utilities.

GAS ADDITIVES
Doubles the use of corn-based ethanol as a gasoline additive, a boon to farm states. As part of that deal, producers of the additive MTBE, which has been blamed for ground water pollution, would win immunity from product liability lawsuits, though MTBE would be banned nationwide as of 2015.

NEW PIPELINE
Includes tax subsidies to encourage the construction of a $20 billion natural gas pipeline from Alaska to Chicago.

WHAT’S NOT IN THE BILL

President’s proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling.

Plan to conduct an inventory of oiland gas reserves in coastal areas now off-limits to drilling.

Requirements that electricity producers steadily increase their use of renewable fuels.

See the entire bill at: http://energy.senate.gov/legislation/energybill2003/energybill2003.cfm
----------------------------

Vote expected by full House and Senate this week. Three summary opinions below.

Union of Concerned Scientists Opinion

http://www.ucsaction.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=12787

America needs an energy policy that increases our energy security and protects the environment. Unfortunately, several House and Senate leaders are working behind closed doors to craft a final energy bill that takes us backward by opening our public lands to oil and gas drilling, letting polluters off the hook for contaminating our drinking water, and funneling billions of dollars in taxpayer money to polluting industries. According to Senator Domenci (R-NM), chair of the energy conference committee, the final bill will actually http://www.ucsaction.ctsg.com/ctt.asp?u=112638&l=7926weaken the Clean Air Act by needlessly extending the deadline to achieve health-based clean air standards. The bill imposes these risks on our communities while ignoring practical solutions that would increase our use of clean renewable energy, reduce our oil dependence, and prevent future blackouts. Please urge your senators to reject this destructive energy bill. Follow this link to view a humorous cartoon highlighting destructive pieces of the energy bill:
http://www.ucsusa.org/animation/energy01.html

Alliance to Save Energy Opinion

e-FFICIENCY News 11-19-03

http://www.magnetmail.net/Actions/linktosite.cfm?message_id=22357&user_id=ase&recipient_id=797184&site=http://www.ase.org/policy/energy_bill_analysis.htm
The energy bill recently passed by the House-Senate conference contains a number of vital energy-efficiency provisions including new appliance efficiency standards, better energy management in federal facilities, and tax incentives for energy-efficient buildings, appliances, and vehicles. Missing from the bill, however, is a full commitment to energy efficiency's potential to solve critical energy problems through measures such as higher fuel economy standards. The bill is expected to be voted on by the full House and Senate as early as this week.

MoveOn.org Opinion http://www.moveon.org/energy-woes.pdf
The bill is littered with at least $20 billion in subsidies to the oil,
gas, coal, and nuclear industries. Although the bill is still being
analzyed as of this writing, one credible estimate puts the subsidy
figure at well over $100 billion. [3]

This bill won't solve America's urgent energy problems -- the need to
reduce our dependence on oil by shifting to renewable energy sources,
the need to make America's energy supply more reliable, and the need
to protect all of us who pay utility bills from Enron-style fraud.
Instead, it will make matters worse in most of these areas.

In recent negotiations, it's also become a vehicle for massive attacks
on clean air and clean water laws, which would risk our families'
health and pollute the environment our children will inherit. As Anna
Aurilio of U.S. PIRG put it, "The big winner is big oil. The big loser
is anyone who breathes, pays a utility bill or drinks water." [4]

Here are key excerpts from a recent story in the Washington Post [5]:

No Home Runs in Energy Bill
Little Impact Expected for Imported Oil, Pollution, Power Grid

The energy bill before Congress is a bulky tome of more than 1,000
pages, with thousands of provisions affecting every corner of the
country.

But for all its size, industry officials and environmental activists
of widely divergent viewpoints generally agree that it will have only
a modest impact on the nation's most pressing energy problems,
including its reliance on foreign energy supplies, an overburdened
electricity grid and fuels that pollute the air and may alter the
atmosphere.

For those who want to deal aggressively with the dangers of climate
change and air polluted by auto exhausts, power plants and factories,
the bill is a disappointment....

...conservation savings... amount to only about three months of U.S.
energy consumption between now and 2020, according to a preliminary
estimate by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

The bill's GOP authors dropped a Senate-approved plan to require
large utilities to steadily increase their use of energy from clean,
renewable sources such as wind and solar power...

The bill does not require improvements in the fuel efficiency of cars
and trucks, the main guzzlers of gasoline made from imported oil. The
current 27.5 miles per gallon average for cars could even decrease in
the next decade because of several provisions in the bill, according
to some analysts...

The legislation's most far-reaching feature may be the repeal of the
1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act, which limits utility
industry mergers. The act's repeal is a top priority for the electric
power industry and the Bush administration, and if the bill passes, a
wave of mergers and acquisitions could follow...

[End of Washington Post excerpts]

Repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act is a big problem.
Trashing this vital regulation on utilities would worsen the conditions
that enabled the recent Northeast power blackout. [6]

The bill would also roll back the Clean Air Act, allowing the air we
breathe to stay polluted, in virtually any area where air pollution is
a problem. This change would lead to thousands of additional asthma
attacks, hospitalizations, and emergency room visits nationwide. [7]

And it would threaten our drinking water sources, by letting polluters
off the hook for contaminating groundwater with pollutants like MTBE,
and by lifting Safe Drinking Water Act curbs on injecting diesel fuel
and other chemicals underground during oil and gas development. [8]

These are just a few of the energy bill's worst features.

Notes:

[1] "On October 25, 2001, 98 out of 99 voting senators hurriedly passed
the 342-page Patriot Act I - without any public debate and before most
of them had read it." http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0313/lee.php

[2] For more information on filibusters, see:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin11.html
The New York Times has called for a filibuster on this energy bill, at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/opinion/29MON1.html

[3] We've posted a cost analysis by Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) office:
http://www.moveon.org/energy_policy_cost_fact_sheet1.pdf

[4] As reported in the New York Times, at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/politics/16ENER.html?th

[5] For the full Washington Post story, see:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46456-2003Nov15.html

[6] For more on the Public Utility Holding Company Act, see:
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/renewable_energy/page.cfm?pageID=118

[7] Source: U.S. Public Interest Research Group. See:
http://www.moveon.org/energy-factsheet-pirg.pdf

[8] For details, see:
http://www.foe.org/camps/leg/current/energyfacts.html


3) LED Therapy

By Joy LePree, Technical Editor, Product Design & Development Online, http://www.pddnet.com/scripts/showpr.asp?PUBCODE=045&ACCT=0006487&ISSUE=0311http://www.pddnet.com/scripts/showpr.asp?PUBCODE=045&ACCT=0006487&ISSUE=0311&RELTYPE=RWE&PRODLETT=C&PRODCODE=0000

High-tech companies are exploring a strange new world to develop devices
that cure an assortment of illnesses
.

Almost everyone has seen an episode of Star Trek where the ship's doctor
uses a hand-held laser device to heal any and all injuries crew members may
have sustained while exploring new worlds. While this seems far-fetched to
those of us who are used to receiving more traditional medicines to heal our
aches and pains, the truth is light therapy is becoming a reality.
Cutting-edge companies are working with partners in the medical research
industry, as well as NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency
(DARPA), to provide therapeutic light-emitting diode (LED) devices that may
assist in the treatment of anything from wounds to muscle aches to torn
ligaments to acne to blindness and more serious illnesses.
A nurse practitioner places a Quantum LED array on the outside of a
patient's cheek where it shines for just over a minute each day, promoting
wound healing and preventing mouth sores caused by radiation and
chemotherapy.

Healing Power Of Light


Currently a handful of tech companies are making medical LED devices for
professional medical use, as well as lower-tech versions for
over-the-counter consumer use. While each company's technology differs, they
all work on the same basic premise: many illnesses are caused by cells
inside the body being starved for energy. Injuries are often slow to heal
for the same reason, so if a way can be found to provide the correct
wavelength of light (which provides an alternate form of energy) and have it
absorbed by those starved cells, it should speed the healing process.
"If the cells are starved for energy, you have to find a way to provide them
with the energy they need to recover from injury or disease," says Dr. Harry
T. Whelan, professor of neurology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in
Milwaukee, who is conducting studies using medical LEDs developed by Quantum
Devices Inc
. "Using LED therapy, the energy that we provide to those cells
is in the form of near-infrared light, and the wavelength we've used most
often is 670 nanometers, but we are still studying different wavelengths to
find the optimum for different clinical situations. And currently, we use
about 50 milliwatts per square centimeter of power intensity for a period of
about one to three minutes to generate anywhere between four and eight
jewels per square centimeter of full energy. The energy is then converted by
the cells into a high-energy phosphate, which helps speed the healing."
Some LED devices developed by companies other than Quantum operate at
significantly lower wavelengths and power intensities.

ADiomedics makes a bed with more than 2,000 LEDs. It treats the whole body
for pain and muscle relaxation.

Medical Device Makeup


While there's an array of devices out there, from knee wraps to hand-held
instruments to entire LED beds, they are all composed of several basic
components. First there are the LEDs, which aren't typical LEDs. "The LEDs
we use are much more powerful than the ones you have in your computer," says
Ron Ignatius, founder and chairman of the board of Quantum Devices in
Barneveld, WI. "They are 10 times as bright as the sun, but only offer
helpful wavelengths without the harmful ones."
Depending on whether the device is a hand-held, a wrap, or a pad, the LEDs
are placed on a circuit board or a pad, says Randall Everett, president of
Diomedics, a Melrose, FL-based developer of the technology. The devices are
either battery- or ac-powered, which is usually preferable. "With batteries,
you have constant power for only about an hour and then it starts dropping
off and you lose the effectiveness of the treatment," says Everett.
When designing medical LEDs, experts say that subtle differences in
engineering technology don't result in significant differences in the basic
biology of how and why LED therapy works. What's more important than the
arrangement of lights or the housing is finding a way to get the appropriate
intensity of light and power to penetrate the affected cells. "It's
basically different ways of arranging the LEDs to get a certain intensity of
a certain wavelength into tissue long enough to activate the energy
chemistry of the cells so that the cells have more energy in the form of
light and they can channel that energy into running the cells normally,"
says Whelan.


The key to providing the appropriate wavelength and power is cooling
technology, says Ignatius, because it allows the LEDs to supply light
without heat. "It is necessary to provide built-in cooling technology to
dissipate the heat so you can use the LED therapy, which penetrates very
deeply, but still touch the lights to the skin without causing discomfort or
burns," he says. The cooling technology used by different manufacturers is
usually proprietary and covered by patents.
Quantum's Warp 10 is a battery-powered infrared device being used by a
handful of special operations forces. Soldiers can carry the device into
combat to self-treat muscle aches and wounds.

Enlightening Product Array


Quantum's devices are considered to be extremely sophisticated because of
their higher wavelengths, power intensities, and cooling technology. Because
of its expertise in this area, Quantum has been working with NASA and DARPA
to develop devices that would be useful in space and on the battlefield.
Initially, Quantum began working with NASA to create something that would
help stimulate plant growth in space. "I suggested the use of LEDs and they
almost laughed me out of the room," recalls Ignatius. "But someone did a
little research and found that the idea wasn't all that far-fetched and that
it really worked."


Since NASA found that LEDs could be used to provide energy for plant cells
to grow, it wasn't that much of a leap to relate the technology to human
cells, says Whelan. Subsequently, NASA provided funding to Quantum Devices
with the hopes that it could develop a device for astronauts to stem the
loss of bone and muscle mass, which occurs during long periods of
weightlessness. Studies are being conducted to see if this therapy will
work.


Meanwhile, Whelan and engineers at Quantum discovered a more down-to-earth
use for this technology in the form of a product called the Spectralight.
"We are currently using it to treat patients with a condition called
mucousitis, which occurs as a side effect of cancer treatments," says
Ignatius.


Mucousitis occurs when the mucous membranes of the body, especially those in
the mouth, break down and cause bleeding and ulcers that lead to the
inability to eat, making recovery more difficult. "Dr. Whelan found that by
exposing just one cheek two minutes a day to the light source it could start
eliminating the condition, and later we found that by exposing patients to
the light source before the problem even started, it could be prevented,"
says Ignatius.


Following the success of the Spectralight, Quantum received funding from
DARPA to develop a device that soldiers could carry into combat to
self-treat muscle aches and wounds with little or no training. In response,
Quantum created the Warp 10, which is a battery-powered, hand-held infrared
device. Currently, a handful of special operations forces are trying the
Warp 10 on an experimental basis.


The military is also looking into whether this same device could be used to
treat blindness caused by enemy troops using laser weapons. Studies on
reversing blindness in rats have shown promise in this area.
Although Quantum's products are ultra high-tech devices for use only by
professionals or the military, other companies offer over-the-counter LED
devices that have been approved by the FDA for treatment of muscle aches and
pain.


"The FDA has cleared a number of applications for consumer use, so people
can buy them without a prescription," says Richard Braden, president of
BioScan, a Palitas, NM-based developer of medical LED therapies. "What used
to be just in the realm of the laser surgeon or dermatologist is now
available to people because the devices are being powered in such a way that
they are completely safe."


BioScan currently has three devices approved by the FDA for consumer use for
the treatment of muscle aches and pain. One is a light patch, which is a
5-inch-by-8-inch oval pad with all the LEDs contained within it. The patch
is placed on the sore area. Another is a spinal pad designed to contour with
the spine. It includes lights placed along the areas that cover the nerve
endings that are most responsive to LED energy. The company also has a
battery-powered knee wrap, which is a knee brace with light devices built
into it so that the user can put it on, turn it on, and walk around while
receiving therapy.


Diomedics makes similar products as well as a bed with more than 2,000 LEDs
on it. "It looks like a tanning bed and has a box attached that controls the
lights," says Everett. "The patient lays on it and it treats the whole body
for pain and muscle relaxation at one time."

Future LED Applications


Much research is underway on the use of medical LED therapy to determine
whether there are other applications for light therapy. "Research is
currently being done on the different effects of different spectrums of
light on living tissues," says Braden. It is thought that the visible red
spectrum, which is roughly in the 600 to 700 nanometer range, is effective
with surface issues such as wound care and that higher wavelengths,
including infrared, are more penetrating. Studies also suggest that going
down to the 400 or 500 nanometer spectrum, which is blue light, might be
effective for treating skin disorders including acne and scarring.
"Companies in this business are looking at the medical research that is
being conducted regarding different frequencies of light to see where this
technology might take us," says Braden. He foresees wound care as being the
next big application. "You can expect over the next few years to see LED
therapy as being the primary treatment for wounds such as post-surgical and
non-healing wounds like diabetic ulcers."


Whelan and Ignatius say they would like to test their technology in other
clinical situations such as spinal cord injuries and for treatment of
Parkinson's disease, strokes, brain tumors, and tissue and organ
regeneration.


"It may seem strange to some people because it is very much a change in the
whole paradigm of medicine, which has been pretty much poisons and knives up
until this point. The use of natural energy at an intensity that is brighter
than the sun, but still nonetheless near infrared light at wavelengths that
are helpful and not harmful, to enhance the cells' natural biochemistry
truly has a lot of potential in the medical arena," says Whelan.

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4) In Handling Innovation, Patience Is a Virtue

By JULIE FLAHERTY New York Times, Sept. 25, 2003 http://query.nytimes.com/search/abstract?res=F50711FC3A590C7A8EDDA00894DB404482

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 25 - In one of its current television commercials, the Hewlett-Packard Company describes itself as a leader in the science of nanotechnology. It invites consumers to imagine the exciting products of the future, like light bulbs that never burn out and "a cellphone so small an ant could use it."

The advertising team probably did not run that one by R. Stanley Williams, who works in the nanotechnology trenches as director for quantum science research at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto, Calif. Not surprisingly, Mr. Williams chose not to elaborate on the telecommunications needs of insects when he spoke here this week at the Emerging Technologies Conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Instead, he preached patience. Yes, it is possible to build a hand-held device that can outperform all the earth's present computers, he said, but it may take 50 years to figure out how to make it.

He warned that consumers will get fed up with innovations - including the wonders expected from nanotechnology, or the science of very tiny objects - that are oversold or underdelivered.

"They are a little bit jaded," Mr. Williams said. "They've heard too much of this wonderful future, and they wonder why it isn't here right now."

Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chief executive of the General Electric Company, also counseled patience, to engineers and investors. He has poured extra money into research and development at G.E. while loosening timelines on projects that may not pay off for 10 years or more. For established companies, he said, investing in emerging technologies is a matter of survival.

"I just see very clearly that unless you're out there pushing the envelope and driving innovation, you're not going to get the kind of margins and the kind of growth that we need for a company like G.E.," Mr. Immelt said. "I really see it as an economic imperative."

Some experts warn that even the best corporate research efforts may not be enough to ward off disruptions to their businesses that come from innovations out of left field. Inevitably, some of today's household names will falter in the face of newcomers with better ideas, just as several mainframe computer companies were left behind in the wake of minicomputers and minicomputer companies disappeared with the advent of PC's.

Nathan Myhrvold, a former top scientist at the Microsoft Corporation who runs Intellectual Ventures, an investment firm in Bellevue, Wash., surmised that in the not-too-distant future, the top 20 companies in pharmaceuticals, with the exception of one or two, would be unfamiliar names.

"If you look at the pipeline of drugs in clinical trials,'' he said, "way more of them were made by the little companies than the big guys."

The conference, organized by M.I.T.'s Technology Review magazine, drew about 1,000 attendees from established companies like Cisco Systems Inc., Kraft Foods Inc. and the Sprint Corporation, and even a few unknown start-ups.

They listened to colorful descriptions of nanotechnology as well as other innovations like developing hydrogen fuel sources and creating medicines based on genomics. Wireless technologies seemed among the ripest for products making their way onto the market, as demonstrated by four-year-old WideRay, a San Francisco company that was showing off the wireless capabilities of its proximity server, which allows a user to download information onto a personal digital assistant just by moving near it.

Despite the promise of these inventions, several speakers were fretful. Faced with a sluggish economy, many companies have reined in their research and development budgets.

David Tennenhouse, vice president of the Intel Corporation's technology group, more than once lamented the insufficiency of government financing for basic research at universities. And Edward B. Roberts, a professor of technology management at M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management, pointed out that two-thirds of all corporate research and development expenditures are for short-term projects, not the long-term ones that will be the ground-shaking breakthroughs.

At the General Motors Corporation, research spending has stayed about the same in recent years, but Lawrence F. Burns, vice president for research and development and planning, said he has achieved better results by working with knowledgeable (and less expensive) researchers in China, India, Israel and Russia. Sharing is also a virtue, as in the research lab G.M. owns with the Boeing Company and the Raytheon Company.

"Each company has specific directive research and then shared research," Mr. Burns said. "That's a highly leverage-able thing."

Lucien P. Hughes, research director for the technology labs at Accenture, the consulting company, agreed that alliances in research are now the norm.

"The days of the large-scale insular lab - not talking to the rest of the world - I think are over for now," he said.

Finding the technology - either through internal ingenuity, outsourcing or acquisition - is only the beginning. For a time-honored company, breakthrough technologies can be as disruptive inside the company as they are externally. Too many companies are not structurally prepared to handle them, said Professor Roberts of M.I.T.

"It's not all a question of a willingness to spend," he said. "It's a willingness to participate."

Moreover, while many companies are trying to tie their research efforts more closely to their actual marketing needs, some of the most successful companies have faltered along the way by listening too closely to what their current customers want, and not planning for unknown markets.

"I do a lot of customer interaction," Mr. Immelt of G.E. said, "but when it comes time to figure out nanotechnology, there's no customer view on nanotechnology."

As for whether old-school or upstart companies will dominate the innovation game in the coming years, Mr. Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures said it is anyone's guess.

"Really radical stuff," he said, "is going to come bubbling up from random sources, like it always does."


5) Report on the Nikola Tesla Energy Science Conference & Exposition

----- Original Message -----

From: <David.Hamilton@ee.doe.gov>

To: <Ed.Wall@ee.doe.gov>; <Dave.Goodwin@hq.doe.gov>

Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 9:24 AM

Subject: trip report

I attended the local event this weekend celebrating the Centennial of
Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower (1903 -2003) Speakers included:

Paul Werbos, PhD., and Director of Electrical Communications at NSF gave a
presentation on energy issues facing the World from a United Nations
perspective and how space solar power is a possible long-term
sustainability solution.

James Corum, PhD., spoke of the complexities of wireless power transmission
and how the Earth must be part of a resonant system to achieve efficient
power transmission on a large scale. He showed how Tesla had actually
patented the Earth as part of the Wardenclyffe project.

Konstantin Meyl, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of
Berlin gave a lesson on Scalar wave theory and a demonstration of wireless
transmission. His theory is interesting and favors Faraday's findings over
some key assumptions made by Maxwell in ignoring magnetic and electric
potentials. The theory reduces to Maxwell if the evidence of magnetic or
electric potentials are truly zero. Professor Meyl is quite popular in
Europe on the lecture circuit and has sold his demo to schools and
companies with some interesting findings. Since the energy transfer
interacts with the Earth, there are reports of receiver gains of 2 to 3
times the transmitted power and it is felt that this is charge and ionic
energy entrained from the atmosphere. He discussed this in detail and also
the instability as atmospheric potentials vary with weather. None the
less, as the recent solar flares showed, the ionosphere is a powerhouse of
energy and if this is a method to interface with the ionosphere, it is a
powerful source of sustainable energy. Good atmospheric coupling may
require large towers as Tesla attempted at Wardenclyffe and in Colorado.

Elizabeth Rauscher, PhD., Nuclear and Astrophysics, gave a presentation on
using the ionosphere for wireless power based on her experience with the
development the ELF for Earthquake [prediction] detection and triangulation.

William Terbo, Tesla's closest living survivor opened the Sunday sessions
with a talk from a family perspective and insight into Tesla's personality.

The remainder of Sunday covered a great many of the medical uses of Tesla
developments and patents that have led to uses in sports medicine for fast
healing of injuries and to aid poor healing in the elderly.

Although interesting on the whole and certainly leading to beneficial
developments, there were not any obvious transportation benefits except for
possibly rail based applications, but this critical need well understood by
all for Human sustainability.

Respectfully,


David B. Hamilton
w: 202-586-2314
PC: 202-491-7414


Provided as a courtesy from:

http://www.integrityresearchinstitute.org

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