Magnetism and Superconductivity Observed to Exist in Harmony

(Physorg.com) -- Physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, along with colleagues at institutions in Switzerland and Canada, have observed, for the first time in a single exotic phase, a situation where magnetism and superconductivity are necessary for each other's existence.

Physicists have seen the battle for supremacy between the competing states of magnetism and superconductivity as one in which no truce could be struck. This perplexing dilemma has thwarted scientists' quest for the resistance-free flow of electrons, and, with it, the vast potential in energy savings that superconductivity holds for ultra-efficient power transmission, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, and other applications.

"This coexistence is an exotic superconducting state that has not been observed in any other superconducting material," said Los Alamos scientist Roman Movshovich, one of the paper's authors. "It shows a very strong link between superconductivity and magnetism."

Scientists understand superconductivity as a phenomenon that occurs when electrons spinning in one direction form pairs with electrons spinning in the opposite direction, usually at very low temperatures. These pairs, in turn, combine with each other to form a new superconducting state of matter where electrons move resistance-free through the material. Superconductivity is a manifestation of interactions that take place between few particles (electrons and atoms) that reveal themselves on a macroscopic scale, in samples that we can see and touch. Magnetism, where electrons' magnetic spins are fixed in space in an orderly fashion, requires participation of the same electrons and therefore generally competes with superconductivity.

But why, in this particular case, magnetism and superconductivity appeared at the same time in the same compound is still a mystery. "It's not clear what the origin of this state is, or what creates or modifies it," Movshovich said.

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news139159195.html

================

See also:
http://www.physorg.com/news134828104.html

The quest for room temperature superconductivity has gripped physics researchers since they saw the possibility more than two decades ago. Materials that could potentially transport electricity with zero loss (resistance) at room temperature hold vast potential; some of the possible applications include a magnetically levitated superfast train, efficient magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), lossless power generators, transformers, and transmission lines, powerful supercomputers, etc.

'Single-Crystal' Superconductors are a Big Step for the Field

(PhysOrg.com) -- In key advances for the field of superconductivity, a research group has created versions of a class of widely studied superconducting compounds that are each one continuous crystal, rather than composed of many crystalline grains. These single-crystal materials are important achievements because they display better properties than polycrystalline types and are easier to study.

In a series of four recent papers, three published in Physical Review B and one in Physical Review Letters, the researchers describe the process they developed to "grow" the single-crystal materials.

The group, which includes scientists from Ames Laboratory in Iowa, Iowa State University (ISU), and San Diego State University, created single-crystal versions of two iron arsenide superconductors, a class of superconductors currently being examined by researchers across the globe. However, most of these researchers are studying polycrystalline varieties, with only recent work coming out on single crystals.

The first paper1 describes the barium/iron/arsenic superconductor BaFe2As2 and a compound derived from it that contains a slightly different amount of barium as well as small amounts of potassium.

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news139139958.html

Image caption:
A sample of a potassium-doped iron arsenide superconductor, shown on a millimeter grid. Image courtesy the American Physical Society [N. Ni et al. (10 July 2008). Anisotropic thermodynamic and transport properties of single-crystalline Ba1－xKxFe2As2 (x=0 and 0.45). Physical Review B, Vol 78, p014507, Fig 1]

photon detectors for telecommunications wavelengths

Practically speaking, single photon detection has not been something pursued very heavily at the wavelengths used for telecommunication signals. Part of the problem is that performance of single photon detectors are rather constrained at such long wavelengths. But, says Robert Thew, a scientist at the University of Geneva, the time is coming when single photon detectors may be needed in telecommunications.

“Up until now,” Thew tells PhysOrg.com, “classical communication has not done too badly with the detectors available now. But now they are getting pushed to the limit as optical communications explodes. Single photon detectors are becoming more important.”

In order to improve the ability of a single photon detector to work with signals with telecommunications wavelengths (about 1550 nanometers), Thew and his colleagues at the University of Geneva, Zbinden and Gisin, suggest a scheme that involves upconverting these signals using a tunable pump source to a silicon detector. Their work is published in Applied Physics Letters: “Tunable upconversion photon detector.”

“Photon detection in general is a key enabling field of research,” Thew explains. “And it is improving all the time. Photon detection is used for quantum cryptography and computing as well as for metrology and telecommunications. Our experiment is one that shows how telecom wavelength photons can be converted into the regime of silicon detectors.”

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news139226533.html

Largest Quantum Bell Test Spans Three Swiss Towns

In the Bell test, two photons from an entangled pair were sent from Geneva to Satigny and Jussy, two small towns located 18 km apart. This distance enabled the space-like separation necessary for finishing a quantum measurement in each town, which required a macroscopic mass to move. Detection of the mass’ movement was completed before information could have traveled between the two towns. Credit: D. Salart, et al.

In an attempt to rule out any kind of communication between entangled particles, physicists from the University of Geneva have sent two entangled photons traveling to different towns located 18 km apart – the longest distance for this type of quantum measurement. The distance enabled the physicists to completely finish performing their quantum measurements at each detector before any information could have time to travel between the two towns.

Source: http://www.physorg.com/preview132830327.html

Scientists take the sharpest image ever made with light

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of scientists from the Technische Universität Dresden (Germany) and the ESRF in Grenoble (France) has produced the image of an object at the highest resolution ever achieved with X-ray light. A 100-nanometre gold particle fixed on a substrate was reconstructed with 5 nanometre resolution. Contrary to other techniques, X-ray imaging works also in real-life environments like chemical processing or in the presence of high magnetic fields. The team reports its findings in the newest issue of Phys. Rev. Lett. dated 5 September 2008 (published online 29 August 2008).

Source: http://www.physorg.com/preview139237004.html

Entanglement without Classical Correlations

Quantum mechanics is full of counterintuitive concepts. The idea of entanglement – when two or more particles instantaneously exhibit dependent characteristics when measured, no matter how far apart they are – is one of them. Now, physicists have discovered another counterintuitive result that deals with the line between the quantum and classical worlds.

Normally, when two or more particles are entangled (and seem to communicate with each other instantaneously), they not only share quantum correlations, but also classical correlations. Although physicists don’t have an exact definition for classical correlations, the term generally refers to local correlations, where information does not have to travel faster than the speed of light.

But a team of physicists from the National University of Singapore, Mediterranean Technology Park in Barcelona, the University of Leeds, and the University of Bristol has demonstrated something different. They’ve theoretically shown that any odd number (greater than one) of entangled particles can exist without classical correlations. They explain this paradox in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.

“One way of seeing this is as follows,” Vlatko Vedral, Professor of Quantum Information Science at the University of Leeds, told PhysOrg.com. “Entanglement means being correlated as far as many different measurements are concerned. Classical correlations mean being correlated as far as one particular measurement is concerned. That is why researchers usually think that when there is entanglement, there are also classical correlations. However, our paper shows that you have to be careful about making this inference.”

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news139051854.html

Wind: The Power. The Promise. The Business

A partial answer to America's energy crisis is springing up. But the struggle to harness the winds of Kansas shows the difficulty in building an industry.

It's an ordinary day on Pete Ferrell's 7,000-acre ranch in the Flint Hills of southeastern Kansas. Meaning, it's really windy. When he drives his silver Toyota Tundra out of the canyon where the ranch buildings nestle, the truck rocks from the gusts. Up on top of a ridge, surrounded by a sweeping vista of low hills, rippling grass, and towering wind turbines that make you feel like a mouse scampering underfoot, Ferrell carefully navigates into a spot where the wind won't damage the doors when they're opened. Then he points to an old-style windmill, used for pumping water, which was erected by his father decades earlier when the ranch was in the throes of a drought. "That's the windmill that saved us in the '30s," he explains, his voice growing husky with emotion.

Ferrell, 55, is a fourth-generation Kansan who looks the part. He's slim with gray hair, squint-lines, and a cowboy hat. His great-grandfather established Ferrell Ranch on the high plains east of Wichita in 1888, and it has nearly failed several times over the years. Ferrell has held the place together through cattle grazing, oil wells, and, now, wind. He owns the land under 50 of the 100 turbines of the Elk River Wind Project, a 150-megawatt wind farm that opened in 2005.

Ferrell is one of the fathers of Kansas wind farming. He ran through three different developers before getting the operation going on his land. There was stiff opposition to wind farming in the Flint Hills from preservationists concerned about marring the landscape and from politicians tied to the coal industry, but, finally, Ferrell had his way. He now travels the state as an evangelist. "He has been a great spokesman for wind in Kansas," says Mark Lawlor, project manager in the state for Horizon Wind Energy, a wind farm developer. "He has lived off the land, and he's found something new he can tap into."

For centuries, the wind has been the enemy of the farmer. It blows away soil, dries out crops, and the howling makes some people crazy. So it's a twist of fate that wind is now emerging as an ally. Some call the vast American prairie the Saudi Arabia of wind, capable of producing enough electricity to meet the entire country's needs—assuming there's the will to harness it.

Wind power, while still just a speck in America's total energy mix, is no longer some fantasy of the Birkenstock set. In the U.S., more than 25,000 turbines produce 17 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity, enough to power 4.5 million homes. Total capacity rose 45% last year and is forecast to nearly triple by 2012. Right now, only 1% of the country's electricity comes from wind, but government and industry leaders want to see that share hit 20% by 2030, both to boost the supply of carbon-free energy and to create green-collar jobs.

Such a transformation won't come easily. While much of America's wind energy is in the Midwest, demand for electricity is on the coasts. And the electrical grid, designed decades ago, can't move large quantities of electricity thousands of miles. There's plenty of wind off the coasts, but it's both expensive to harness and controversial; not-in-my-backyard sentiment has slowed some of the most high-profile projects.





Source: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_27/b4091046392398.htm

Energy from Unusual Sources

A slew of entrepreneurs are looking well beyond sunlight and wind. Think: tornadoes, algae, giant kites, and lightning.

Chances are that Louis Michaud is one of very few people who spend their days trying to make tornadoes. A year ago, the retired petrochemical engineer put together what looked a bit like a high-tech kiddie swimming pool. Only rather than splashes, this pool tends to generate twisters about as high as the garage.

Michaud is shopping this prototype around to energy companies, hoping to get funding to build a tornado pool the size of a sports arena. The plan is to use warm air expelled by, say, the cooling system of a nuclear power plant, to create tornadoes that stretch up to 9 miles high, spinning turbines to generate electricity. Michaud figures that such a tornado could generate as much power as a nuclear plant (BusinessWeek, 6/26/07), though he allows that his idea is "the type of thing that's outside the norm."

But as the nation hunts for ways to reduce both pollution and U.S. dependence on foreign oil, outside the norm is exactly where many entrepreneurs are poking for inspiration. With prices for traditional fuels still riding high, it's more economically feasible to pursue potential energy sources that might otherwise appear to be "way out there," from algae and huge kites to lightning bolts.

Diverse Energy Sources
The demand is clear: Sales of energy generated from alternative sources, including corn-based ethanol, solar panels, and fuel cells, rose 37.5% in 2006, according to Clean Edge, an industry consultancy. That trend could accelerate, based on predictions by some that the nation is heading for a fuel shortage over the next decade. Recently, the North American Electric Reliability Council, a utility industry organization, predicted a shortfall by 2015. "We are moving from a mono culture," reliant on just a few traditional fuels like oil and coal, "to a diverse range of energy sources," says Ron Pernick, co-founder of Clean Edge. "There's room for new players."

True, many of the kookier-sounding concepts are still in deep development within large corporations, universities, and, of course, the garage. In August, Sony (SNE) announced advances on a biobattery that produces power from a sugary solution, but won't discuss any potential timing for commercial availability yet. Universities are pumping out ideas that might never appear in their present, theoretical form. Recently, two Massachusetts Institute of Technology architecture students proposed capturing energy from the footsteps of crowds by installing special floors near popular sightseeing spots where tourists stampede daily.



Source: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2007/tc2007096_843326.htm?chan=top+news_green+tech

New rays of hope for solar power's future

From five miles away, the Nevada Solar One power plant seems a mirage, a silver lake amid waves of 110 degree F. desert heat. Driving nearer, the rippling image morphs into a sea of mirrors angled to the sun.

As the first commercial “concentrating solar power” or CSP plant built in 17 years, Nevada Solar One marks the reemergence and updating of a decades-old technology that could play a large new role in US power production, many observers say.

“Concentrating solar is pretty hot right now,” says Mark Mehos, program manager for CSP at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Co. “Costs look pretty good compared to natural gas [power]. Public policy, climate concern, and new technology are driving it, too.”

Spread in military rows across 300 acres of sun-baked earth, Nevada Solar One's trough-shaped parabolic mirrors are the core of this CSP plant – also called a “solar thermal” plant. The mirrors focus sunlight onto receiver tubes, heating a fluid that, at 735 degrees F., flows through a heat exchanger to a steam generator that supplies 64 megawatts of electricity to 14,000 Las Vegas homes.

Today the United States has 420 megawatts of solar-thermal capacity across three installations – including Nevada Solar One. That's just a tiny fraction (less than 1 percent) of US grid capacity. But Nevada Solar One could signal the start of a CSP building boom.

Efforts to generate another 4,500 megawatts of solar thermal power are now in development across California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico – all of which have the flat, near-cloudless skies most desirable for solar thermal, the Solar Electric Industries Association reports.

Photovoltaic panels that produce electricity directly from the sun's rays work well on rooftops, but are still too costly for utility-scale power generation. Solar thermal, however, is nearing the cost of a natural gas-fired turbine power plant – making it a winner with several power companies that have signed long-term contracts to purchase solar-thermal power.

Desert land lures developers In fact, there's a land rush at the federal Bureau of Land Management. As of July, the BLM reported more than 125 applications to build solar power on about 1 million acres of desert, up from just a handful of proposals a few years ago.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20080823/ts_csm/wp_6342

New Energy and Celestine Prophecy

Last week I found an old book by J Redfield, The Celestine Propohecy.
I know some of you would not agree with his New Age-type ideas, but at least there
are new ideas by him which indicate that at these decades (late of twenty century) mankind will be able to 'generate' energy from the space.

This seems to me referring to ideas related to either zero point energy, or LENR (aka. Cold fusion).

See for instance: www.iccf-14.org, or www.lenr-canr.com

To read more :

http://www.maui.net/~shaw/celes/celestine.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestine_Prophecy

How Quantum Physics Could Power the Future

The strange behavior of quantum physics might seem too unpredictable to rely on for our energy needs, but new technologies hope to capitalize on its very strangeness.

The most familiar of these quantum tricks is the fact that light acts both like a wave and a particle.

This dual nature is utilized in solar power technology. Incoming sunlight is concentrated by mirrors and lenses that rely on the wave-like properties of light.

Once inside a solar cell, however, this focused light collides with electrons in a particle-like way, thus freeing the electrons to create an electric current.

The next generation of solar cells may employ tiny bits of semiconductor material called quantum dots. These nanometer-sized devices are so small that only a handful (anywhere from 1 to 1,000) of free electrons can reside inside.

Because of these cramped quarters, a quantum dot behaves like an artificial atom in that its electrons can reside only at specific (so-called quantized) energy levels. These levels define exactly what wavelengths of light the dot will absorb.

"Quantum dots have a host of unusual properties compared to bulk semiconductors," said Arthur Nozik of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, part of the U.S. Department of Energy.

He and his colleagues are looking at how a single light particle (or photon) can enter a dot and excite several electrons, rather than the usual one.

Other researchers are looking to tune the wavelengths at which a dot absorbs light by making it bigger or smaller.

Solar cell manufacturers may one day be able to mix together dots of different sizes to absorb sunlight along a wide range of wavelengths.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,396282,00.html

Naval Researchers Organize Cold Fusion Confab

It's like the beginning of a bad joke: If a cold fusion conference took place in Washington, and no one heard about it, should anybody care?

Even I'm not sure if I know the answer to that question, but I love unusual Pentagon and Beltway news so I'm posting it. The fourteenth cold fusion conference is taking place in DC all next week, and two of they key organizers are scientists affiliated with the Naval Postgraduate School and the Naval Research Laboratory (scientists from the latter institution having long been involved in this controversial field).

Cold fusion, the catch-all phrase for research that follows in the footsteps of the 1989 announcement by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, has been anathema to much of the mainstream scientific community in the United States. But interestingly, cold fusion -- now referred to by some as "low energy nuclear reactions" -- has long maintained some U.S. military interest, particularly among naval researchers, occasionally at DARPA (at least under the current director), and nowadays at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which, at one point, was considering funding some work in the area.

In fact, Pete Nanos, an associate director at DTRA and the former head of the Los Alamos lab, was originally the invited keynote speaker for the conference. But when I e-mailed Nanos to confirm his attendance, he wrote me back to say that he had decided to turn down the invitation.

Why was Nanos originally the invited keynote speaker? Who the heck knows, but Nanos is known for inviting controversy. In 2005, Pete "buttheads and cowboys" Nanos was famously drummed out of Los Alamos National Laboratory, where his brief tenure as director was widely regarded as a dark period for the lab that built the first atomic bomb. Anyhow, the keynote speaker is now the inimitable newsman Llewellyn King (full disclosure: my better half was once employed by King). What can I say? Small world.

Source: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/former-los-alam.html

First Solar: Quest for the $1 Watt

Within five years, this company's thin-film solar cells could compete with coal

It’s easy to make a small pile of money off photovoltaic cells but very hard to make a big one. The reason is one of the most fundamental in free-market economics: the larger the market you aim for, the more competitors you’ll have to face.

If you just want to power a billion-dollar space probe, almost any price per watt is acceptable. If you are selling to lonely farmhouses, you just have to charge less than the cost of running a power line to the boondocks. In some parts of the world, competing with grid electricity itself may be an easy game during peak consumption hours. But if you want the off-peak market, you’ll have to price your cells at about US $1 per watt. That price is called grid parity, and it’s the holy grail of the photovoltaic industry. At least 80 firms around the world, from Austin to Osaka, are in the chase.

Surprisingly, at the moment no company is ­closer to that grail than a little start-up called First Solar, which until very ­recently had been known only to specialists. It’s located in Tempe, Ariz., and analysts agree that it will very likely meet typical grid-parity prices in ­developed countries in just two to four years. It’s got a multibillion-dollar order book, it’s selling all the cells it can make, it’s adding production capacity as fast as it can, and its stock price has rocketed from $25 to more than $250 in just 18 months.

The most tantalizing fact about First Solar? The company will not talk to reporters. At all.

The company’s coyness seems to be related to the nature of its industrial secrets. These have less to do with First Solar’s device—a decades-old design based on a thin film of cadmium telluride—than with the way the company manufactures it. Somehow, First Solar has scaled up the light-catching area from postage-stamp to traffic-sign dimensions. What the company does ­reveal is that its product has three massive cost benefits. Its ­active element is just a hundredth the thickness of the old standby, silicon; it is built on a glass substrate, which enables the production of large panels; and manufacturing takes just two and a half hours—about a tenth the time it takes for silicon equivalents.

Of course, it’s not enough that First Solar match the costs of fossil-fuel generation on the grid; it must also maintain its economic edge over other photo­voltaics. There are additional nascent technologies, including cells based on copper indium gallium ­diselenide (CIGS), silicon on glass, and the combination of ­germanium, gallium arsenide, and gallium ­indium phosphide. Even conventional silicon ­technology, which has dominated the market since its commercial launch in the 1950s, seems to have a lot of kick left in it. Currently, though, it’s suffering from its own success, as an insatiable demand for silicon cells has led to a scarcity of raw material. However, if the silicon shortage disappears by the end of the decade, as expected, the sale price should drop substantially from recent levels, which have fluctuated between $3 and $4 per watt.

Source: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aug08/6464

Jatropha as Bio-Diesel Shrub

Jatropha is not palm tree, which is largely planted in Malaysia for palm oil extraction. Jatropha is a poisonous Central American shrub. Its seeds are used to extract biodiesel fuel in Philippines, India, and China.

On Tuesday, crude oil broke the record surpassing $97 a barrel. Malaysia has been subsidizing the fuel costs. The increase of fuel price had been a big burden for Malaysia. In September, Malaysian Agriculture Research and Development Institute (Mardi) announced it is studying the possibilities to cultivate Jatropha at large-scale to produce bio-diesel. Jatropha is chosen because of its characteristic of pest resistance, long lifespan (40 years), can be grown on poor, arid soil, and also able to produce bio-diesel that can be used by vehicles. As a solution for alternative fuel, Malaysia government had fund this research for RM300mil (~USD100mil).

Last month, Sarawak Land Development Minister Datuk Dr James Masing announced that Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) was carrying out joint research on Jatropha with Mardi. Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Sclcra) had been asked by the state to test which species of the plant is suitable to grow in Sarawak. On the other hand, another state in the country, Sabah, also announced that Sabah Land Development Board (SLDB) was testing the potential of Jatropha cultivation.

Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui announced yesterday that Government is giving out 300-acre site to Sabah to plant Jatropha Carcus.

Other uses of Jatropha Curcas are soap production and traditional medicine. The effect of large-scale planting of Jatropha Curcas to the soil and environment is unknown.

Source: http://science.kukuchew.com/2007/11/07/jatropha-as-bio-diesel-shrub/

Jatropha Plant’s Oil as Jet Fuel

Air New Zealand hoped to use jatropha oil for 10% of its needs by 2013. Poisonous Central American shrub, Jatropha, was studied by scientists to turn the extracted oil into jet fuel. Tee jatropha oil was significantly cheaper than the skyrocket crude oil. The jatropha oil was estimated $43 per barrel, and there were no side effects of other biofuels (such as deforestation, ethanol production, etc.). The shrub could be grown in difficult environment, as it did not require much water and fertilizer. Jet-engine maker Rolls-Royce will made one of the four engines compatible with jatropha biofuel. Air New Zealand will test flight from fields in southeastern Africa and India.

Source: http://science.kukuchew.com/2008/06/10/jatropha-plants-oil-as-jet-fuel/

McCain's Pitch for Safe Nuclear Power May Be Undercut by Leaks

Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain promotes nuclear power as a central element of his energy plan, boasting in particular about the safety record of the Navy's reactor-propelled fleet.

``We have been sailing nuclear ships around the world for 60 years, never had an accident,'' McCain, an Arizona senator and former Navy pilot, said July 22 in Rochester, New Hampshire.

Only two days later, the Navy disclosed that one of its nuclear submarines, the USS Houston, had been leaking radioactive coolant for two years as it called on ports in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Guam and Hawaii. The incident is part of a spate of nuclear accidents on land and sea that may undermine McCain's message.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/axf9mbjuf_l0

Bill Gates Surprises Energy Debate

[Wash DC] The Fourteenth International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-14) which gets underway this week had surprising last minute guests drop in Sunday morning for a kickoff debate, involving a member of the media in the DC area, Llewellyn King debating the newly retired Bill Gates.

Did I read that correctly? Bill Gates as a science debate panelist?

Gates opened the debate by saying : "Well, first, I want to clarify: I’m not a fake Steve Jobs, nor a real electrochemist". After discussing cold fusion's past public perceptions and some promising areas for future research, King and Gates then had a lengthy discussions with other panelists about the energy situation, solar and wind energy, fossil fuel dependence and America's growing shortage of skilled scientists and engineers. "In fields such as chemistry, physics, engineering and specialized software skills, government and industry will need well trained people for future job growth," he said.

"America has broad capabilities to bring scientists together. I think software and the web can help do that in new ways."

"One thing I'd also like to see more in the future are technology conferences that mix things up, where scientists in one field meet and debate engineers and specialists in another. We don't see enough of that sort of interesting interaction that stimulates new ideas with the public. It would help tremendously to see each others' points of view in a number of technology areas, capture the public's imagination and stimulate cross disciplinary ideas and help investors like myself weigh decisions," Gates said.

Source:
http://atomic-motor.blogspot.com/2008/08/bill-gates-surprises-energy-debate.html

To read more:
http://www.solar-aid.org/
http://www.ashoka.org/entrepreneurforsociety

Solar Eclipse footage

Solar Eclipse footage

http://atomic-motor.blogspot.com/2008/08/bill-gates-surprises-energy-debate.html

CMNS/LENR Update August 4, 2008

From New Energy Times: [CMNS/LENR Updates are archived here.]

Anomalies Within the Anomalies Conference
Larry Forsley of JWK Technologies Corp. sent an e-mail to Ashraf Imam, secretary of the technical program committee, and Jed Rothwell, responsible for the compilation of abstracts for the 14th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science and Cold Fusion (ICCF-14).

"I just received the ICCF-14 agenda...," Forsley wrote. "Has it been rejected?"

Rothwell wrote back to Forsley with reply and said he had just spoken with D. Nagel, chair of ICCF-14 conference and that Forsley's paper, "Quantitative Spatial Analysis of Pd/D Co-Deposition Induced Nuclear Particle Tracks," had not been rejected, it just had not been included in the schedule.

On Aug. 1, New Energy Times reported that Forsley had not been scheduled for a chance to speak at ICCF-14.

On Aug. 2, D. Nagel, conference chairman, apologized to Forsley for the "confusion" about the omission of a speaking opportunity for Forsley and advised that he had now been provided an opportunity to speak on Friday, Aug. 15 from 9:45 a.m. to 10 a.m.

This brings to light some additional peculiarities of this conference. Some speakers have been afforded 30-minute time slots, others 20-minute time slots, and others only 15-minute time slots. Ordinarily, plenary talks at a science conference are clearly designated as such, and the respective speakers are given more time than other speakers. From the looks of the most recent draft schedule, the provision of speaking time afforded to speakers seems to follow no consistent pattern. What is the explanation for this?

Such an uneven allotment of time suggests political favoritism and runs counter to the principles of fair play, good will and open science. It also runs counter to precedent, for example in the last ICCF conference and the recent "Anomalies" conference organized by Bill Collis, executive secretary of the International Society for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science.

How can such favoritism breed anything but contempt and divisiveness within this research community, pitting the favored researchers against the nonfavored ones? How can the provision of incentives to some researchers, and disincentives to others be viewed in any other way than a political control mechanism?


They Come to Praise Yoshiaki Arata and Stan Szpak

It gets even stranger. Conference organizers have planned two sessions supposedly honoring two current members of this research community.

The concept of the "Arata Fest" and the "Szpak Fest," as they were called by conference organizers on July 6, is unprecedented in recent, and perhaps all of, ICCF history. On July 29, these sessions were relabeled "Honoring Yoshiaki Arata" and "Honoring Stanislaus Szpak."

Isn't singling out Szpak and Arata like this fundamentally wrong?

As the conference organizers know, Szpak won't even be there, he is not able to travel.

Not that Arata and Szpak don't deserve praise and honor, but this is a conference for and about the community. Isn't it divisive for conference organizers to be showing such bias toward particular researchers who are active in the field? Dozens of researchers in this community deserve special recognition. How can the consequences of this "honoring" be anything but divisiveness?

At the Catania conference in October, George Miley - a participant, not an organizer - took it on himself to honor Giuliano Preparata, an Italian pioneer in cold fusion theory who died in 2000.


Source: http://www.newenergytimes.com/news/2008/CMNS-LENR-Update-20080804.htm
http://www.zpenergy.com/modules.php?name=AvantGo&op=ReadStory&sid=2972

Cold Fusion”: Exciting New Science and Potential Clean Energy

Conference Announcement for Members of the National Association of Science Writers:
Cold Fusion”: Exciting New Science and Potential Clean Energy


The announcement of a new source of energy by two chemists in 1989 attracted global attention. Their results implied that small systems can be used to produce power with densities greatly in excess of those available from chemical reactions, such as burning coal or oil products. It appeared possible to generate energy from nuclear reactions triggered at low energies, without building multi-billion dollar high-energy plasma machines. The reported results, and difficulties in reproducing them, lead to an intense scientific controversy. Many people quickly concluded that the initial experiments were wrong. This view is still widely held because few people have kept up with the significant experimental progress in the field.

A few hundred scientists world-wide have continued to investigate the subject, and to meet periodically at international conferences. Thousands of experiments since 1989 qhave been conducted and reliable experimental reports are widely available. The extensive empirical evidence supports the conclusion that there is a physical effect, which can produce significant heat. Power densities, exceeding even those of fission reactors, have been observed in some table top experiments. Indeed, the origin of the “excess” energy now appears to be nuclear. Confirming this remains a major and challenging research issue. There are also many other experimental challenges, and the underlying physical mechanisms are not yet understood theoretically.

This is one of the most exciting, but still little known areas in science today. The field also has real promise for the engineering and sales of distributed nuclear power sources for home and mobile applications. Production of clean water is one of the most attractive possibilities. Experiments to date have shown that the active mechanisms do not produce significant prompt radiation or residual radioactivity. That is, the potential power sources could be clean and green.

The 14th International Conference on Cold Fusion will be held in Washington DC from 10 to 15 August 2008. The web site for this scientific conference is www.iccf-14.org. Many of the pioneers of the field, several of them from abroad, will be at the conference. Remarkable new scientific results will be reported and discussed. The conference web site has links to several web sites with much information on “cold fusion”, including the several names by which the field is now known.

Contact: Marianne Macy, ICCF-14 Press Liaison, mariannemacy@verizon.net

Source: http://www.newenergytimes.com/Conf/2008/ICCMNS-14/Macy-ICCF-14-Announcement.htm

ICCF14, 10 Aug08

14th International Conference on
Condensed Matter Nuclear Science,
which is also known as the
14th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-14)

Background Information on this scientific field and
Terminology used to describe the field and
the History of the ICCF Conferences are summarized.


http://www.iccf-14.org/

The 10 Most Fuel-Efficient Vehicles in the U.S.

In the past 17 years, no vehicle in America outsold the Ford F-150 on a monthly or yearly basis—not once. In May of this year, however, Honda moved more Civics and Accords and Toyota more Corollas and Camrys than Ford moved of its bestseller. This shift has less to do with a change in Americans’ vehicular preferences than the fact that trucks guzzle fuel, the cost of which has doubled in the past three years.

America has been sideswiped by the $4 gallon of gasoline, and auto industry heads believe the higher gas prices are permanent, not just a temporary shift or spike. Companies have been reconfiguring their lineups accordingly. GM has green-lighted the electrically motivated Volt plug-in hybrid for a 2010 release, and in addition to ceasing production of trucks and SUVs at four U.S. plants and idling thousands of workers, it is considering selling off the iconic Hummer brand.

From a manufacturing perspective, it’s increasingly difficult to build fuel-sipping vehicles, as current safety and emissions technologies add weight, a primary nemesis of fuel economy. Hybrid technology and low mass are the most cost-effective strategies to better fuel economy, and the bulk of our list of the 10 most-fuel-efficient vehicles utilize one or both. Toyota plays both sides, managing to field three of the top 10—four if you count the Nissan Altima, which uses the Toyota Camry’s hybrid drive system under license.



Source: http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/hot_lists/high_performance/features_classic_cars/stingiest_sippers_the_10_most_fuel_efficient_vehicles_in_the_u_s_feature?cid=194

Batteries included: The most popular hybrid solutions

It’s a rare moment when big grins adorn environmentalists and oil companies alike, but all indicators point at the likelihood of $4-a-gallon gas being here to stay. The OPEC oil crisis delivered compact and subcompact cars into the hands of Americans in numbers for the first time, and expensive gas is doing it again as illustrated by Ford and GM’s recent commitment to new lines of smaller vehicles. This time around, however, hybrid technology is enabling greater choice of vehicle size and performance to go with respectable fuel economy.

The five bestselling hybrid vehicles in the U.S. contain few surprises. Toyota dominates the lineup with three vehicles, with Ford and first-to-market Honda filling out the list. All but the Prius are available in nonhybrid form.

From the 2007 sales numbers listed below, customers are willing to pay a premium to have a hybrid badge drag a green highlighter over their autobiography. As volume manufacturing hacks at battery prices—the primary foe in hybrid product pricing—this effective technological weapon in the fuel-economy wars will reshape the product landscape and this bestsellers list. Vehicles such as the Highlander and Escape point to the future of larger hybrids, and we look forward to reporting on hybrid sports cars.


1. 2008 Toyota Prius

2. 2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid

3. 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid

4. 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid

5. 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid


Source: http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/623/Five-Bestselling-Hybrids/

10 Green Concept Cars That Are Waaaaay Out There

Practicality is the last thing anyone considers when designing concept cars. A car made of glass? Windows like gun slits?

But practicality isn't the point. Concept cars are flights of fantasy carrying auto design into the future. Since our future will be a place where a gallon of gas costs more than a gallon of Scotch, the students at Royal College of Art designed their cars that run on things like electricity and algal fuel.

These outlandish designs will influence the cars you drive tomorrow. RCA has been teaching vehicle design since 1967 and its alumni include big-name designers at Ford, Mazda, Volvo and other companies. An RCA grad has probably worked on the car you're driving now, even if it isn't made of glass.

Photo: The Airflow by Pierre Sabas of France has wheel-mounted electric motors and is made entirely of glass. "I’ve tried to wrap it around like fabric. It allows for a new driving sensation and it gives the occupants a new perception of the outside world," he says. The car won the Best Design Interpretation Award at the Pilkington Automotive Vehicle Design Awards.

Source: http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/multimedia/2008/08/gallery_green_concept_cars

Plug and Fly: The Battery-Powered Plane

Take your everyday metal moni motoglider, trick it out with a custom battery pack and you've got the ElectraFlyer C, a small electric airplane that debuted at the AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, last week.

The plane, which received its airworthiness certificate in April, features a 5.6 kWh lithium battery with a projected life cycle (the number of times it can be depleted and recharged) of 1,000 cycles. The battery has a max weight of 78 pounds and can be custom-built to fit the available space in an airplane. It provides juice for a motor driving a 45-inch superlight PowerFin propeller made of a foam core surrounded by an outer shell of carbon fiber and glass fabric.

Once in the air, the ElectraFlyer C cruises at 70 miles per hour. Top speed is 90 mph and the stall speed is 45. The plane can fly for 90 to 120 minutes before the battery needs recharging. When the battery winds down, just plug it into a 110V outlet -- your house is full of them -- and you're good to go in just more than six hours. Bump the voltage to 220 and you're flying again in two hours.

The people at Electric Aircraft Corporation say the small plane carries some big benefits. The motor is nearly silent, which means no earplugs for pilots, and brings the potential for flying into new sites. And then there's the a dramatic improvement in what the company calls "neighbor relations" -- no droning engines to drive them nuts. Electric motors don't produce a lot of soot or pollution, and overhauls are a snap. And by combining this motor with the ElectraFlyer's slow turning propeller, you've got a flight that is practically vibration free.

But the most compelling sell is an economic one: The company estimates that "refueling" the plane with a full charge of the battery will cost, on average, a whopping sixty cents.

Source: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/08/the-company-cla.html

See also: http://www.electraflyer.com/electraflyerc.html

Patchouli Power! Lotus Goes Green with Eco Elise

The engineering superheroes at Lotus have churned out yet another iteration of the street-legal go-cart we call Elise. Aptly named “Eco Elise,” the concept based on the Elise S will hit 60 mph in less than 5.8 seconds yet treads lightly thanks to its use of sustainable materials and across-the-board cuts in the energy needed to build it.

The Elise S is already mighty efficient considering the grins it can produce -- 34 mpg (combined), 196 g/km CO2 emissions and a dry weight of 1,896 pounds. New to the party are renewable materials like hemp, eco-wool and sisal in some body panels and interior trim. Water-based paints reduce pollution during the painting process. Lotus rolls out the concept vehicle next week at the 2008 British Motor Show.

Lotus and DuPont teamed up to develop a water-based paint system for primer, color and lacquer. Lotus says it's the first time it's been possible to hand-spray a water-based “A class" production paint finish. It takes less energy thanks to the paint's low-cure temperature and cuts solvent emissions to boot. Lotus says this technology is expected in production cars sometime soon.

"This Eco Elise is a great example of the advanced and affordable green technologies Lotus is developing," says Mike Kimberley, CEO of Group Lotus. "We are at the cutting-edge of environmental technology and are determined to push forward with our green agenda. The Lotus brand values of lightweight, fuel efficient, and high performance are more relevant today than they ever have been. We are keen to ensure that Lotus as a company and its products offer an ethical, green option that appeals to our customers".


Source: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/lotus-eco-elise.html

Lotus Makes Hybrids Sound Like Real Cars

Hybrids are the greatest. They pollute less and consume less than regular cars and save you boatloads of money at the pump. But activists and legislators consider them silent killers that prey on blind people who never hear 'em coming.

Full Hybrids like the ubiquitous Toyota Prius run only on electricity at low speeds, emitting no more than a whine around town. That's great for lowering noise-vibration harshness and making drivers feel like George Jetson, but it's a big problem for the blind -- and pedestrians, and cyclists, and people who simply don't pay attention -- who rely on the familiar rumble of internal combustion to know what's coming down the pike.

The engineers at Lotus, a company way into green these days, have a solution.

Lotus took a bone-stock Prius and outfitted it with a waterproof speaker near the radiator that blares simulated yet realistic engine sounds to let pedestrians -- those who don't have earbuds crammed into their ears, anyway -- know to watch out. "Our advanced external sound synthesis technology increases pedestrian safety, while retaining the car’s environmental benefits," says Mike Kimberley, CEO of Group Lotus.

The system uses a speed sensor on the accelerator to control the vroom-vroom sound. You only hear it as the car approaches, and it cuts out entirely when the car's engine takes over at higher speeds. It's all automated and Lotus says the driver hears almost nothing.


Source: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/08/lotus-makes-ele.html

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_vehicle

Racing to Canada in a Hydrogen Car

Of all the teams competing in the North American Solar Challenge, only the University of Missouri won't be bothered by cloudy skies. They're making the 2,400-mile run from Texas to Alberta in a car fueled by hydrogen.

Hydrogen? In a solar car race?

Yep. The school's built a lot of solar cars over the years and decided to try something different. Tigergen is a "demonstration vehicle" competing in the 10-day race just to show that hydrogen works. The way the team sees it, hydrogen cars makes more sense than solar cars.

"We didn't feel that solar is the most efficient fuel for transportation," team member Sarah Scully told Wired.com. The team entered the last Solar Challenge, she says, "and our car's whole roof was the solar array. It generated about as much power as a microwave."

Source: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/racing-to-canad.html

Lotus Building a Hydrogen Taxi and Hybrid Limo

By Stuart Schwartzapfel

Lotus, the go-fast gurus who brought us the wonderful Elise and helped Tesla Motors with the Roadster, is developing a hydrogen fuel cell taxi that could be on the road by 2012 and hybrid Jaguar limo.

The company's Lotus Engineering division landed the contracts from Britain's Government Technology Strategy Board, which is investing $45.3 million in 16 low-emission vehicle projects. Lotus has a long racing pedigree and is known for building high-performance cars like the awesome 2-Eleven, but it's no stranger to green vehicles. The Tesla Roadster shares DNA with the Elise and is being built at the Lotus factory in Hethel, England, and Lotus has experimented with flex-fuel vehicles in recent years. Group Lotus chief executive Mike Kimberley says the company's expertise with lightweight vehicles and hybrid and electric drivetrains can provide "guilt-free performance motoring."

“There is a worldwide drive to reduce carbon dioxide emission levels and this is something to which we are dedicated, for both our Lotus cars and our global engineering clients,” he says.

Source: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/lotus-building.html

Next-Gen RX-8 Gets Hydrogen Power

The old joke "Hydrogen is the fuel of tomorrow -- and always will be" isn't keeping Mazda from jumping on the H2 bandwagon and stuffing a dual-fuel rotary under the hood of the next RX-8. They might even dub it the RX-9.

Wankels are sweet engines that really scream at full throttle, but they get lousy fuel economy and aren't terribly green. In an effort to clean things up a bit, the next-gen production rotary reportedly will be based on the hydrogen/gasoline engine in the RX-8 Hydrogen RE (pictured).

Just make sure you aren't trying to chase down that ZR-1 under hydrogen power.

According to Auto Express, running on the most common element in the universe robs the car -- which gets 228 hp out of a 1.3-liter engine -- of 20 percent of its power, so Mazda's engineers envision owners opting for hydrogen (those who can find it, anyway) only during city driving.

Mazda's been playing with hydrogen since 1991, when it unveiled the HR-X concept at the Tokyo Motor Show. It developed the RX-8 Hydrogen RE five years ago and started road-testing it in 2004. A trunk-mounted tank holds 74 liters of gaseous hydrogen at 5,000 PSI; a direct-injection system feeds it directly into the rotor housing. "Because existing parts and production facilities are used," Mazda says, "the innovative engine can be built at relatively little cost."


Source: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/08/next-gen-rx-8-g.html?npu=1&mbid=yhp

See also:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/sbs.htm