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We hereby announce the long-awaited premier of the
five-part series, “The TESLA Files” to be aired
starting this Friday, on the History Channel https://www.history.com/shows/the-tesla-files .
The film crew interviewed me extensively for this Nikola Tesla
series at the IRI Laboratory, so I will probably be given a small
appearance in the show as well. Another announcement worth
sharing is the Microsoft #MakeWhatsNext Patent Program which
offers female inventors patent support and mentorship
so they can protect their ideas and further their innovation. See
short
video and instructions.
As the
EPA Director Pruitt was grilled this week about the environment
and his weakening of the CAFE standards for fossil fuel burning
vehicles, we also saw the Washington
Post release a report that the North Atlantic
Ocean Circulation is now slowing to a predicted record
sluggish rate which means that the Greenland fresh
water glacier melt is significantly interrupting the flow “leading to a world of
fast-rising seas and even superstorms.” In the
face of such dire problems, I recommend the Dr. Jane Goodall
"Power of One" which is an inspiring
graphic version of her famous one-page article from Time magazine
in 2002. Show your kids and students! It is great, even if the
science of creating oxygen is not quite correct, since the
underlying message for young people is to counter apathy with
creative initiative.
Please
note that we have our Tenth Conference on Future Energy now
posted at www.futurenergy.org for
registrations with a great lineup of terrific speakers for two
days in August. Also, IRI now is announcing the first of many
“instant download” electronic versions of our most popular books
(see below), since many readers and visitors to our website like
instant gratification.
Story #1
is a fascinating discovery that graphene responds to laser light
more efficiently than simple solar sails to produce propulsion
and seem to include an additional mechanism of electron ejection,
making them a composite driver for spacecraft perhaps. A related
story also shows an interesting property of graphene as a sieve
for hydrogen that could allow cars to “run on air” as the sieve
filters hydrogen from the air, according to a Nobel Prize winner.
Story #2
resembles the related property of graphene above, in that a
special saturated membrane now is able to purge CO2 from an
exhaust mixture, allowing fossil fuel burners to syphon off CO2
for synthetic fuel, long term burial or concrete formation
underground.
Story #3
is an exciting breakthrough for us electric car enthusiasts. As
lithium ion batteries are becoming limited and increasingly more
dangerous, the development of lithium sulfur batteries should
make a difference with twice as much energy storage capability.
Story #4
gives us a futuristic view of the latest transportation
breakthrough, thanks to Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop, which
underwent testing in the Mojave desert recently.
Story #5
is especially inspiring for young people (in the same vein as the
graphic “Power of One” in our Introduction above). Take a minute
to see the wonderful video clip of the teenage Finkbeiner who has
been planting trees since he was nine years old. He may hold a
world’s record even now, since he is up to 14 million trees and
counting. If there ever was ONE person who can have an impact on
the amount of CO2 we add to the atmosphere EACH year, it is this
young man. Now what would happen if several other young people
decide to join the UN Billion Tree Project?
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Our Most
Popular Books Now Available in Instant Electronic Download!
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You can
save 15% if you download by May 15th and enter code:
"Aprilenews" in discount box
Go to Our
Instant Download Page showing
available items
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1) Graphene For Propulsion in Space
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Add this to the list of graphene's amazing
properties: It can transform light into motion.
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By Jacob Aron New Scientist April 2018
GRAPHENE
to the stars. The material with amazing properties has just had
another added to the list. It seems these sheets of carbon one
atom thick can turn light into action, maybe forming the basis of
a fuel-free spacecraft.
Graphene
was discovered accidentally by researchers playing with pencils
and sticky tape. Its flat structure is very strong and conducts
electricity and heat extremely well. Yongsheng Chen of Nankai
University in Tianjin, China, and his colleagues have been
investigating whether larger arrangements of carbon can retain
some of these properties. Earlier this year they published
details of a “graphene sponge“, a squidgy material made by fusing
crumpled sheets of graphene oxide.
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2) Memzyme Removes CO2 Emissions
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Membrane Purges CO2 from air
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By Steve Mazr Machine Design Magazine April 2018
Scientists
at the Sandia National Laboratory have developed a “memzyme,” a
membrane nearly saturated with carbonic anhydrase, an enzyme
cells use to rid themselves of carbon dioxide quickly and
efficiently. The patented work has grabbed the attention of
energy companies that would like to significantly and
inexpensively reduce carbon dioxide emissions, one of the most
widespread greenhouse gases, and explore other possible uses of
the invention.
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3) Lithium Sulfur Batteries Poised for a Leap
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By Robert Service Science Magazine April 2018
Take
that, Tesla. Researchers at Oxis Energy, a startup company in
Abingdon, U.K., are building batteries with a combination of
lithium and sulfur that store nearly twice as much energy per
kilogram as the lithium-ion batteries in electric cars today. The
batteries don’t last very long, conking out after 100 or so
charging cycles. But the company hopes that for applications such
as aerial drones, submersibles, and power packs that could be
shouldered by soldiers, weight will matter more than price or
longevity. Oxis’s small pilot factory aims for an annual
production of 10,000 to 20,000 batteries, which sit in thin
pouches the size of cellphones. The Gigafactory this is not—at
least not yet. But Chief Technology Officer David Ainsworth says
the company has its eye on a far bigger prize: the $100 billion
electric vehicle market. “The next few years will be critical,”
Ainsworth says. He and others see lithium-sulfur as the heir
apparent to lithium-ion as the dominant battery technology.
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4) Virgin Hyperloop One Latest Dream
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Doing a 10 Hour Saudi trip in only 76 minutes
The
fantastical 700-mph transportation system known as hyperloop
appeared to inch closer to a possible Saudi Arabian debut
after a weekend gathering in the American desert.
On
Sunday, Richard Branson, the chairman of Silicon Valley startup
Virgin Hyperloop One, helped unveil a sleek hyperloop pod
painted with the Saudi flag at the Mojave test site of Branson's
space company Virgin Galactic.
On hand
for the event was Saudi defense minister Mohammed bin Salman bin
Abdulaziz, part of a broader tech tour that includes meetings with Amazon, Microsoft
and Boeing, according to Bloomberg.
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5) United Nations has a Billion Tree Project to Offset
CO2
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Trees capture 1 ton of CO2 over their lifespan.
By Tom Valone, Integrity Research Institute. April
2018
May be the
single best answer to capture of CO2, if you Google it...a normal
tree will capture about 1 ton of CO2 over its lifespan. So the easy
calculation to attack the billions of tons of excess CO2 we have in
the atmosphere (any amount over 290 ppm is excess and beyond the
earth's max it ever had until the 20th century), is to plant
billions of trees! This is what the UN
Billion Tree Project aims to do. A young fellow named Finkbeiner is
helping. He has already planted 14 million trees since he was 9
years old
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