Future Energy eNews

December 2018, Volume 19

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Hello Tom,

Happy Holidays! All of us here at IRI want to thank you for your support all year round, some of you for over two decades! We will continue to bring you The Future Energy eNews, free of charge for many years to come with your support!

The climate study events cited in the last Future Energy eNews are having an effect on promoting more radical carbon capture and storage methods. As reported in the Washington Post this week, NRG Energy in Texas is now reviving its technology for removing 90 percent of the power plant’s carbon dioxide emissions, with 18 other carbon capture facilities in operation. Furthermore, the Global CCS Institute says the industry as a whole has the capability to remove 40 megatons per year of CO2 from the air, even though the Post says it needs to grow by about 200 times that, in order to have any impact on the world level of carbon emissions, which is in the billion ton range.

We are happy to present Story #1 of the Branson achievement of private enterprise bringing the future of space travel to us now. The first commercial human flight to reach space is a big breakthrough for civilian access to space. With trillion dollar asteroids just waiting to be mined for their rare earth minerals, our civilization now stands a chance of surviving and even thriving by adapting to a changing and expanding environment with convenient access to space.

Story #2 celebrates the history of Tesla’s invention and birthplace of polyphase electricity, which is called “ the most significant invention of the electrical age”. Great details of Tesla’s work on AC electricity at 89 Liberty Street in NYC, from IEEE.

Story #3 is a fascinating discovery of a new application for pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF). With pharmaceuticals having repercussions and negative reviews for the lack of success with depression once again, it is exciting to see how electrotherapy can be a logical intervention with no side effects.

Story #4 presents another breakthrough for transportation. China plans to build the world’s “first” underwater high-speed bullet train, even though only a 16 km section will be undersea and is boasting 80 minutes to go 77 kilometers. However, if speed is important these days, IRI did a little research and suggests that we should give credit to the Channel Tunnel train, or “Chunnel”  which crosses under the English Channel in 35 minutes four times an hour and is the longest undersea tunnel in the world. Furthermore, the Chunnel train travels at 100 miles per hour (160 kph) in the tunnel and 186 miles per hour (300 kph) when outside of the tunnel, which seems to win the “high-speed” comparison even when the China undersea train is built.

Story #5 offers an upgrade to the electric vehicle charger used in a Germany charging station which is three times faster that those in use today. BMW and Porsche lead the way with this new technology, supplying 60 miles (100 km) of range in just three minutes of charging. Hope these chargers make their way across the Atlantic Channel for American use too.

Tom Valone, PhD

Editor

Richard Branson's Company aims to take first passengers in 6 months time!

MOJAVE, Calif. (Reuters) - A Virgin Galactic rocket plane reached space on Thursday and returned safely to the California desert, capping years of testing to become the first U.S. commercial human flight to breach Earth's atmosphere since America's shuttle program ended in 2011.

The successful test flight presages a new era of civilian space travel that could kick off as soon as next year, with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic battling billionaire-backed ventures such as Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, to be the first to offer suborbital flights to fare-paying tourists.

It was here where Tesla established his first lab on the second floor.

Today, 89 Liberty Street in New York City is part of the pedestrian plaza of the large office building known as 1 Liberty Plaza. In 1887, it was the site of a small commercial structure in which the first practical induction motor and polyphase system was constructed, patented, demonstrated. Vital to large-scale commercial electrification, the polyphase system was declared by experts to be the most significant invention of the electrical age. It can be said that the structure at 89 Liberty Street was truly the birthplace of modern ac technology in the United States.



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