From: Integrity Research Institute <iri@starpower.net>

Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 11:15 PM

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FUTURE ENERGY eNEWS

February 2013

Greetings!

While we at IRI are dedicated to educating the public on emerging energy, propulsion and bioenergy developments, the new trend in journals these days is open access publishing, which educates the public at no cost to them. This month I received two Call for Papers which can include fundamental energy breakthrough publications. One is from http://gsjournal.net/ General Science Journal which is a "non-peer-reviewed electronic journal" with all scientific opinions welcome, "particularly in physics" and NO cost to the authors, with editors all over the world. The second is from Springer publishers who sponsor the growing SpringerOpen portfolio of over 100 peer-reviewed

and fully open access journals. Usually, SpringerOpen journals request an article processing charge (APC) for each manuscript accepted after peer review. The APC is essential to ensure that the journal remains free of charge for readers everywhere. The publication costs for Micro and Nano Systems Letters are covered by The Society of Micro and Nano Systems, so authors do not need to pay an article-processing charge. If you are interested in these benefits, submit your next manuscript to Micro and Nano Systems Letters online.

This month we are once again ahead of the rest of the media in reporting breakthrough energy discoveries which deserves to make the news everywhere. How about throwing recycled plastic into your gas tank? Our first story does just that, with the help of an "end-of-life" plastic waste processing facility Cynar (http://www.cynarplc.com/), to power a single engine Cessna with the liquid fuel.

Our second story coincides with the release of the new Draft National Climate Assessment (http://ncadac.globalchange.gov/ ) where you can read the draft online including a short Executive Summary and submit comments before April 12, 2013. The experts have finally targeted the correct temperature rise (about 7 degrees F +/- 3 degrees F) expected by 2050 - 2100 but underestimate the sea level rise (about 2.5 feet +/- 3.5 foot uncertainty) that can be anticipated (see p. 20-21 of the Executive Summary). Watch my YouTube "Climate Change Consequences" video (link below) for a detailed summary of the impeccable facts from 400,000 years of climate history (thanks to Dr. Jim Hansen) to see and understand where we are already headed, unless we successfully lower the earth's CO2 level back to a maximum of 300 ppm. New Scientist explained this on Nov. 3, 2012 by referring to "an astonishingly close correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and temperature" (p. 33). This is why IRI is so committed to future energy breakthroughs which we hope the public will support, for everyone's benefit worldwide, to be followed by the best billion-ton carbon sequestration that money can buy.

Our third story motivates us with economic details in order to consider switching to electric vehicles if we intend to use them frequently, so the cost will be compensated by the savings of using electricity versus gasoline.

Our fourth story has an interesting assessment by the federal Energy Information Administration related to electricity generation energy costs for the past ten years with wind power finally reaching the 10 GWh range, surpassing biomass, solar and geothermal. I also just read that wind has now passed coal in the megawatt per cost assessment.

Lastly, there is great hope for photovoltaic solar to catch up with an amazing 50% efficiency that is now reachable by the Solar Junction company (http://www.sj-solar.com/). Throw out your old 10% efficient PV panels and make way for 5 times the output for the same intermittent sunshine, "with better performance in the infrared". We are now therefore seeing output even from ambient heat since that is what creates infrared radiation terrestrially. Morocco is converting their street lights to this free energy too. And don't forget about our valuable offer for the Breakthrough Developments in Energy and Propulsion DVD to readers of this eNews.

Sincerely,

Thomas Valone, PhD, PE.

Editor

IN THIS ISSUE

1) RECYCLED PLASTIC CONVERTED TO FUEL

2) CLIMATE CHANGE CONSEQUENCES

3) SAVING MONEY BY USING ELECTRIC VEHICLES

4) ELECTRICITY DATA BROWSER SHOWS CHANGES IN FUEL MIX

5) POWERFUL PVs APPROACH 50% EFFICIENCY

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1) Recycled Plastic Converted to Fuel

By Adam Williams February 26, 2013 Gizmag.

http://www.gizmag.com/fuel-plastic-waste-sydney-london-flight/26391/

British pilot Jeremy Rowsell is set to fly solo from Sydney to London in a Cessna 182 aircraft powered solely by diesel derived from "end-of-life" plastic (ELP) waste. If all goes to plan, the endeavor will set a new record time for the journey in a single-engine piston plane, and represent a compelling argument for the viability of ELP as a fuel source.

Plastic wasted converted to fuel

The project, dubbed "On Wings of Waste," was conceived following longtime pilot Rowsell's growing concern about the role that the aviation industry plays in harming the environment, in addition to the larger problem of pollution in general. To bring attention to the practicability of recycled plastic as a fuel source, Rowsell teamed up with Cynar PLC, an Irish company that converts ELP into synthetic diesel.

Gizmag spoke with Cynar CEO Michael Murray via telephone, who explained that the company converts ELP typically destined for landfills into useful diesel. The conversion involves pyrolysis, which is the process of thermal degradation of a material in the absence of oxygen - so heating, but no burning, takes place.

ELP is broken down into gases by the pyrolysis process, then put through a specially-designed condenser system in order to produce a mixture equivalent to petroleum distillates. This is then further treated to produce liquid fuel, while leftover gases are diverted back into the furnaces which heat the plastics. Interestingly, the diesel produced by this method is actually claimed more efficient and lower in sulfur than generic diesel.

The only waste material left over from the ELP-to-diesel conversion process is roughly five percent char, which can also be put to use in the building industry for concrete and tile manufacturing.

Each Cynar plant can produce up to 19,000 liters (around 5,000 US gallons) of fuel from 20 tons of ELP per day. For the roughly 4,000 liters (1,000 US gallons) of fuel that Rowsell's flight will consume, approximately five tons of waste plastic will be recycled.

Cynar's tech is being incorporated into several worldwide waste recycling firms, enabling such companies to convert ELP into diesel themselves. In addition, Cynar has penned an agreement with the UK's Loughborough University to in a bid to further advance research on the subject.

While the diesel produced by Cynar's recycling process has been used many times in vehicles, Rowsell's flight will be the first time it has been used to power an airborne journey.

The pilot will follow in the footsteps of aviation pioneers such as Charles Kingsford-Smith and Bert Hinkler. He'll be flying for stretches of up to 13 hours at a time, usually at around 5,000 feet (1,500 meters), while crossing massive swathes of land and sea, for a total of around 12,000 nautical miles (22,000 km).

The ambitious voyage is scheduled to take place this coming July.

Sources: At Altitude, Cynar PLC via The Telegraph

RELATED STORY

Converting End of Life Plastic into Liquid Fuels

Cynar was established to focus on finding solutions to waste problems. It was apparent then, and remains today, that End of Life Plastic is the waste industry's biggest issue. The new Cynar Technology is a unique and profitable process that is pertinent to the largest issue facing all markets and recyclers today, positive disposal of end of life plastic.

Cynar Plc ("Cynar") is developing and has patent applied for a technology which converts a wide range of ELP into liquid fuels, mainly diesel which Cynar calls - End of Life Plastic to Diesel (ELPD). This unique Cynar Technology converts mixed Waste Plastics into synthetic fuels that are cleaner, low in sulphur and in the case of the diesel, a higher cetane than generic diesel fuel. The key elements of the Technology involve pyrolysis and distillation.

The first full scale ELPD plant has received all required permitting and licensing and is operating in Ireland. The second plant has successfully been awarded planning permission in the UK with SITA/Suez Environment and is proceeding to plan.

Cynar has successfully agreed an exclusive contract with SITA/Suez for a total of 10 plants. This contract is valued at over 70m and is being followed by similar agreements with other reputable recyclers.

Cynar's Technology is a truly sustainable waste solution, diverting End of Life Plastic from landfill, utilising the embodied energy content of plastics and producing a highly usable commodity. Cynar are actively seeking partners with experience in the waste and fuel industries to work together in rapidly commercialising this unique Technology.

For further information
Contact Cynar Click Here

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2) Climate Change Consequences

IRI is giving away a 15-minute video tutorial posted online at YouTube. We encourage everyone to view it and get the complete facts on our expected climate future as well as the recommended recourse for solving the problem. - TV, Editor

Climate Change Consequences

RELATED ARTICLE

February 2013 * Vol 14. No 2, World Future Society, www.wfs.org

Climate change could actually benefit most of the Arctic's animal wildlife, according to ecologists from Umea University in Sweden. Writing in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE,they explain that, as the tundra retreats and the temperate climate zones expand, 43 out of 61 species studied will widen and modify their own ranges, migrating to new, more hospitable habitats.

Certain cold-weather species, such as the Arctic fox and lemming, may have greater difficulty at this, but the scientists do not foresee any animals going extinct.

Meanwhile, glaciers in other parts of the world appear less likely to survive. Glacial melt in South America's Andes region has been increasing since the 1970s, according to an article in The Cryosphere, an open-access journal produced by the European Geosciences Union. The authors' data indicates that the melting exceeds any that the region has experienced within the last 300 years.

Glaciers at altitudes below 5,400 meters have lost 1.35 meters of ice per year since the late 1970s and will probably completely disappear within the coming decades. The researchers pin the historic melting on regional climate, which has warmed by 0.15°C per decade from 1950 through 1994. This melting jeopardizes the water supplies of tens of thousands of the region's human inhabitants, who depend on the glaciers for water for farming, domestic use, and hydropower.

Sources: "Future Climate Change Will Favour Non-Specialist Mammals in the (Sub)Arctics" by Anouschka R. Hof, Roland Jansson, and Christer Nilsson, PLoS ONE 7(12): e52574. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0052574.

"Current state of glaciers in the tropical Andes: a multi-century perspective on glacier evolution and climate change" by A. Rabatel et al., The Cryosphere, 7, 81-102, 2013

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3) Saving Money by Using Electric Vehicles

Science Daily February 2013

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130222083021.htm

High battery costs still prevent many people from buying an electric vehicle. Is it possible to save money by using an electric vehicle instead of a conventional reference car? This question is studied by the companies of Michelin and Siemens in cooperation with research partners at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI. In January 2013, the consortium was promised funding by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building, and Urban Development (BMVBS) under the Baden-Württemberg LivingLab BWe mobil showcase project.

Electric Vehicles used by Siemens and Michelin.

"If electric mobility is to be successful in Europe, it has to be economically efficient. We are looking for applications in which electric vehicles are cheaper than a reference car with a combustion engine," says Dr. Olaf Wollersheim, head of the RheinMobil showcase project at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). This is where the companies of Michelin and Siemens come in. Their staff members commute frequently between the German and French facilities. So far, conventional vehicles have been used for these trips. However, an electric vehicle may be cheaper, as every kilometer driven electrically costs less than driving on gasoline or diesel fuel. Wollersheim points out that the reason is the much higher efficiency of the electric drive train. "If the vehicle is used often, costs can be reduced considerably and the high purchasing price is compensated."

In a few weeks from now, first electric vehicles will be used by the staff commuting from Alsace to the Michelin factory in Karlsruhe. At the same time, Siemens staff members will use an electric instead of a gasoline-based vehicle for their trips between the factories in Karlsruhe and Haguenau, France. In both cases, utilization of the vehicles is planned to be increased, such that the electric vehicle will be cheaper than the reference car with a combustion engine at the end of the project. This concept also convinced the federal government. The project scheduled for a duration of three years and having a volume of nearly two million euros will be funded by the BMVBF and the project partners at a ratio of 50 : 50.

"Michelin does not only develop and sell tires, but is also committed to viable mobility. This is one of the company's principles outlined in the "Performance and Responsibility" Charter. The RheinMobil project fits perfectly to our company culture, as we can combine our values of 'respect for people' and 'promoting innovation'," explains Christian Metzger, the Karlsruhe plant manager of Michelin. "If electric mobility is to have a future, we have to bring electric vehicles onto the roads and make them visible," Metzger says.

"By participating in the project, Siemens does not only want to contribute to environmental protection, we also want to enhance the acceptance of electric mobility among our staff members. For business trips to our factory at Haguenau, Alsace, which is located 70 km away, they can test the electric vehicle in practice,"

says Hans-Georg Kumpfmüller, spokesman of the Karlsruhe Siemens plant management.

To reach the ambitious project objectives, smart operation strategies for the vehicles, charging stations at the right places, and efforts to convince the staff members of the companies are required. Fraunhofer ISI and KIT have already studied user expectations and commercialization obstacles. They know the factors that prevent people from using electric vehicles, such as high costs, small ranges, and limited availability of charging infrastructure.

"This is where we come in," says Max Nastold, managing director of the company e-MotionLine. This company has just been established by KIT graduates and now received the first order to supply vehicles for the RheinMobil project. "We take care of the selection of economically most efficient vehicles, coordinate the charging infrastructure, and train the users in using this new technology." Max Nastold is convinced that this concept can also be used to open up other economically efficient applications. As regards the use of the charging infrastructure on both sides of the German-French border, the RheinMobil partners cooperate closely with the CROss-border Mobility for EVs (CROME) project (http://crome.forschung.kit.edu) that is funded by several German and French ministries.

The RheinMobil project is one of about 40 projects in the Baden-Württemberg "LivingLab BWe mobil" electric mobility showcase. It is funded with about 2 million euros by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building, and Urban Development (BMVBF) under the showcase program of the federal government. In April 2012, the federal government selected four regions in Germany as "electric mobility showcases." In these regions, research and development of alternative drive trains are funded according to the decision made by German parliament. For the showcase project, the federation will provide funds in the total amount of EUR 180 million. In large-scale regional demonstration and pilot projects, electric mobility will be tested at the interface of energy system, vehicle, and traffic system. Further information can be found atwww.schaufenster-elektromobilitaet.org.

"LivingLab BWe mobil" Electric Mobility Showcase In the Baden-Württemberg "LivingLab BWe mobil" showcase, more than 100 partners from industry, science, and public institutions are studying electric mobility in practice. The projects concentrate on the region of Stuttgart and the city of Karlsruhe and ensure high international visibility. "LivingLab BWe mobil" stands for a systematic approach based on coordinated projects for everybody to experience electric mobility from the electric bike to the electric car to the electric van to plug-in shuttle buses. The projects address aspects of intermodality, fleets, commercial transport, infrastructure and energy, urban and traffic planning, vehicle technology, communication, and participation as well as training and qualification. "LivingLab BWe mobil" is coordinated by the State Agency for Electric Mobility and Fuel Cell Technology e-mobil BW GmbH and the Stuttgart Regional Economic Development Corporation (WRS).

First off, what's the demand for electricity like? When you look at net generation data for electric utilities (this excludes independent power producers and co-gen facilities), you see a clear trend: flat to negative load growth. If you look at the "all fuels" red line below, you can see a dip in 2009 from the recession, which is to be expected. The number of electric gadgets U.S. homes have is growing, but overall usage is fairly steady, likely in part due to more efficient lighting and large appliances.

This slow or no growth environment means that the days of building a giant nuclear plant in the U.S., for example, to meet rapid growth appear to be in the past. It also means a rise in one fuel source use corresponds to a drop in another.

The rush of natural gas, due to fracking shale rock in the U.S., has been the biggest energy story of the past few years and the effects are quite clear in this next chart below. The annual data, indexed to 2001, show how much each fuel (minus pumped hydro and the "other" category) has contributed over time.

We see natural gas (the yellow line) shoot up over the past few years and coal going down (the red line)-a visual demonstration of utilities opting for cheap and cleaner-burning natural gas over coal.

The last graph showed that nuclear and hydropower have contributed roughly the same amount to overall electricity generation over the past decade. But what about the upward "other renewables" line? That includes biomass, or burning wood for power generation, along with geothermal, wind, and solar.

This next chart below shows just much wind has grown over the past five years in the U.S. It displays monthly data, which reflects how wind output varies substantially with the time of the year, unlike nuclear or fossil plants which can run steadily. The contribution of biomass and geothermal are fairly consistent over the years, while solar has started to creep up since the mid-2000s. (Note this is for megawatt-hours of energy produced, not the power capacity of wind and solar installations.)

To put the growth of wind and solar in perspective, look at this next chart below. The top brown line is all generation for electric utilities compared to hydropower and other renewables. As you can see, non-hydropower renewables (the green line at the borrom) still remain a tiny portion of the overall generating mix despite rapid growth over the past few years.

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5) Powerful PV's Approach 50% Efficiency

By RICHARD STEVENSON / DECEMBER 2012. IEEE

http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/powerful-pvs-approach-50-percent-efficiency

Super Solar: Solar Junction's photovoltaic cell breaks efficiency records.

Silicon Valley start-up Solar Junction has raised the bar for solar efficiency to 44 percent, and even higher values are in the cards: The company has a road map for reaching 50 percent efficency and beyond.

To break the efficiency record, Solar Junction built a cell with three regions, known as junctions, that are stacked on top of one another; each absorbs a different spectral region of the sun's rays. The result is a device that delivers far more energy than conventional cells do. Ordinary photovoltaics have just a single junction. Each junction in the triple-junction cell operates at a different output voltage, and they are connected in series, so the total power produced gets a boost.

Manufacturing a triple junction is not a first, but the type of material that Solar Junction uses for the bottom cell, known as dilute nitride, is new. In this case, the material is made up of gallium indium arsenide antimonide with a splash in nitrogen.

Dilute nitrides have a checkered history. In the middle of the last decade, they were the key ingredient in a new generation of telecom-wavelength lasers that failed to win significant sales. "It wasn't for yield or lack of performance. It was because the telecom industry crashed, and that choked off any new products," explains Homan Yuen, Solar Junction's vice president of research and development.

In triple-junction cells, dilute nitrides are destined to make a big impact because they offer unprecedented versatility, says Yuen. This material's composition can be tuned to optimize the power that the cell harnesses from the sun's infrared energy. But what's really important is that engineers can make those tweaks while independently controlling the spacing of the atoms in the dilute nitride's crystal. Even tiny mismatches between this nitride's crystal lattice and that of the layers below and above can crush efficiency.

The 44 percent figure is remarkable on its own, but what's going to keep Solar Junction's new cell from just being another one for the record books is that the process can be extended to produce four-, five-, or even six-junction cells. This will increase the output voltage of photovoltaics and ultimately let them yield more power (the product of current and voltage)

The upshot of all this optimization is that the company will be able to boost efficiency past the coveted 50 percent mark, according to Solar Junction engineers, who've already mapped out a path to that goal. They will begin by inserting a bottom germanium junction to form a four-junction cell with better performance in the infrared. Further gains will then result from replacing the single dilute nitride layer with a pair of dilute nitride layers, before a sixth junction is added at the top of the structure, which will improve the cell's ultraviolet efficiency.

Multijunction cells are very expensive to produce because their structure is formed using painfully slow deposition techniques on small, costly substrates. So to make the photovoltaic systems that use them cost-competitive with those based on silicon, you need mirrors and lenses to focus sunlight, concentrating it by a factor of several hundred onto cells no bigger than a fingernail.

Concentrating solar not only trims costs, it also boosts cell efficiency, because it increases the output voltages at each junction. In Solar Junction's case, the record-breaking efficiency resulted from concentrating sunlight by a factor of 947 on a cell from a production run.

Installations of photovoltaic systems based on this technology must swivel and tilt from dawn to dusk to ensure that sunlight always hits an array of cells head-on. Despite that complexity, such PV systems are quickly becoming more popular in dry, sunny climes. According to IMS Research, in Wellingborough, England, 90 megawatts will be deployed in 2012, rising to 1.2 gigawatts by 2016. This rapid growth is spurred by the low cost of the energy that these systems generate over their lifetime. The multijunction PV systems can undercut silicon cells by 12 percent in some locations, and at the efficiencies Solar Junction is now seeing, this gap could widen.

"Cells are one of the main contributors to the total system costs," explains Jemma Davies of IMS. "By increasing efficiency and concentration, the output per cell is increased, and the cost per watt decreases.

RELATED STORY

SOLAR STREETLIGHTING IN MOROCCO

IEEE, BILL SWEET / FRI, FEBRUARY 22, 2013

Last month, right after taking a camel ride into the Sahara Desert to sleep under the stars, on the far outer fringes of what we take to be civilization, I wasn't expecting to see a striking example of high tech. But see it I did, atop street light poles in the Moroccan village of Lgarfe: A small photovoltaic panel linked to what was obviously a battery box, so that energy from light stored during the day could be used to illuminate streets at night.

Ecolite

It took me a while to track down the manufacturer named on the poles, and to distinguish it from other manufacturers with very similar names, because, as it turned out, the maker of the PV streetlight system is a native Moroccan startup, not the subsidiary of some large global player. That is, Ecolite.ma is a private, independent Moroccan company, where "We are developing and manufacturing our products in Morocco," as a company representative reported in an e-mail. "We are helped by big European firms such as Philips, Solar World, [etc.], who provide us by equipments and devices," he continued, with evident pride. "[But] our products are certified made in Morocco."

According to the company's website each lamp is a 33 Watt LED, capable of producing 3000 lumens and with an operating lifetime of 50,000 hours; the pole-mounted energy storage system is a 12 Volt, 75 amp-hour battery; enough energy can be stored during the day to light streets for two nights, with a 50 percent discharge

A quick Google search reveals that Ecolite.ma is not the only company out there with a battery-equipped solar streetlighting system. But it is the first one I have ever noticed. How much potential is there for such systems? could Ecolite.ma some day be a household word in, say, Arizona or Andalusia? Well, remember this: Daytime temperatures on the edge of the Sahara can exceed 55 degrees Celsius (135 degrees F). It is not your usual environment.

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Scott Kelsey, Missouri State, explaining Rejuvamatrix, Pulsed EMF therapy to increase the length of DNA telomeres, which directly affect our lifespan.
Max Formitchev-Zamilov, Penn State, discussing Cavitation Induced Fusion, that will soon provide power generation and heat production.
Christopher Provaditis, from Greece, explaining Inertial Propulsion and who teamed up recently with Boeing for their space satellites.
PJ Piper of QM Power, discussing the motor invented by Charles Flynn, with a revolutionary parallel path that gives double and triple efficiency.
Dr Thorsten Ludwig from Germany (GASE) discussing the mysterious Hans Coler motor that WWII British Intelligence researched.

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