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Dear
Subscriber,
On this Memorial Day, as we
remember our military service men and women, IRI
is pleased to announce a collaboration for future
energy developments that will help all sectors of
society, including our Defense Department. This FE
eNews serves as the IRI announcement of the Fourth
International Conference on Future Energy
(COFE4) to be held under the
auspices of SPESIF-2011 (see #1 story) on March
15-17, 2011 at the University of Maryland in the
Washington DC metro area. The exciting part
of SPESIF is also to have five
concurrent conferences all under the same
roof, all focused on energy and propulsion. Our
second story (#2) announces a www.kickstarter.com
campaign for a laudable future energy project
called the "Ultimate Energy
Showdown" produced and directed by
filmmaker Chris Toussaint who I have known
for years, ever since we worked on the "Free
Energy: The Race to Zero Point" video back in the
mid-1990's, produced and sold by www.LightworksAV.com
. He already has found some amazing energy
inventors, all of whom will be put to the test for
ten days each, to prove the performance claims.
Just like "The Biggest Loser", our country needs a
TV show like Ultimate Energy Showdown to focus
attention on how important an energy breakthrough
will be for reducing the megaton weight of
our carbon emissions. Emerging "green" and exotic
technologies are here today. Technologies that if
implemented would completely revolutionize our
planet's power needs with a green industrial
revolution. Your pledge of
support at any level will help kick this
project off of the starting gate. IRI is also able to
accept tax-deductible donations earmarked for this
project, according to IRS standards for
nonprofits, with a small
administrative fee. Watch the short
intro video online to see what Ultimate Energy Showdown
is all about. Lastly, the #3 story about the
solar discovery by the U of CA at Berkeley is a
true breakthrough. Their product converts 95% of
the 85% of sunlight that it absorbs into
electricity! We'll see if the inventor can
be a speaker at
COFE4
Sincerely,
Thomas Valone,
President
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| 1) COFE4 Joins
SPESIF-2011 in Washington
DC |
|
Integrity Research Institute Press Release,
May 30, 2010,
Washington DC - After
three Conferences on Future Energy held in the DC
area in the past ten years (1999, 2006, 2009), the
Integrity Research Institute (IRI), is
teaming up with the prestigious Institute for
Advanced Studies in the Space, Propulsion and
Energy Sciences (IASSPES) from Madison AL to host
a joint conference under the umbrella of Space,
Propulsion & Energy Sciences International
Forum (SPESIF) to be held in 2011 at the
University of Maryland. SPESIF has gained the
affiliation with the American Institute of Physics
which publishes the peer-reviewed papers
Proceedings of SPESIF each year (for the AIP
Conference Proceedings page for 2010, see http://scitation.aip.org/dbt/dbt.jsp?KEY=APCPCS&Volume=1208&Issue=1
in CD and bound book format ). Other exciting
symposia that also are a part of SPESIF each year
include the Symposium On New Frontiers In The
Space Propulsion Sciences, the Symposium On
High-Frequency Gravitational Waves, a Symposium on
Astrosociology, and the Meeting On Future
Directions In Space Science And Technology.
 Conference on Future
Energy Theme and ObjectiveThe push
for future sources of new energy is a long-term
program and several Conferences on Future Energy
(COFE) have been held in the past, with past
Conference Proceedings available ( http://www.integrityresearchinstitute.org/cofe.html).
However, much of these new ideas, technologies,
and concepts have already been developed.
Therefore COFE has the objective of being a venue
to expose these worthwhile ideas while maintaining
a flow of innovative theories and concepts and
keeping the doors open for advances in more
non-conventional approaches that could yield
tremendous technological and economic dividends in
both investment dollars and potential applications
for future generations. The future energy umbrella
includes energy, force production and
bioenergetics.
Papers presented at the
COFE section of SPESIF should deal with
experiments, theories, and approaches that will
help man achieve both a short-term and long-term
solutions to fueless energy for electricity
generation and travel, as well as drugless energy
medicine. Short-term objectives support the
near-term environmental initiative for humankind
to live on the earth without burning fossil fuels
and off the Earth, to the Moon and Mars. Long-term
objectives will lay down the scientific foundation
necessary for future generations to extend
mankind's ability to survive in other parts of our
solar system. These long-term objectives are more
pronounced and designed to stretch the
intellectual capabilities and imagination of
mankind in advanced technical disciplines. This
will broaden our understanding and usage of the
space environment for communications, power
generation/storage, and propulsion. Papers are
invited in the following sessions:
D01. New Energy
and Bioenergy Developments
D02. Hydrogen and
Hydroxy Generators
D03. Alternative
Electricity Generation
D04. Solar and Space
Solar Power
D05. Advanced Nuclear Energy
D06. Bioelectromagnetics
Developments
The "Call for Papers"
has been issued for the upcoming SPESIF-2011 joint
conference of COFE and the other above-listed
symposia, with abstracts due August 15, 2010 and
draft manuscripts due a month later. Papers and
presentations are invited in all technical areas
of the SPESIF-2011, organized by IASSPES.
SPESIF-2010 will be held March 15 - 17, 2011, at
the University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
Papers approved by the Technical and Editorial
Committees will be publishable in an American
Institute of Physics (AIP) proceedings. Interested
authors or presenters are invited to submit
abstracts for approval by email through the
technical chairs listed within the individual
descriptions with a copy sent to the editorial
chair at abstracts@ias-spes.org for
cataloging. The email submission should indicate
in the SPESIF forum, number and title of the
technical session in which they wish their
abstracts to be considered. The general deadline
for submission of abstracts for papers and
presentation is August 15, 2010. After this date,
approval will depend generally on space
availability. The abstract guidelines/template can
be found at :
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| 2) Ultimate Energy Showdown
TV
Series |
Free
Spirit Productions Press Release, May 1, 2010
About This
Project
At the dawn of
the 21st century humanity stands upon a
precipice.
Climate change threatens to
forever alter our planet, as we know it. Excessive
amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are
the result of over a century of polluting fossil
fuel technologies. Environmentally-caused health
issues are soaring. Recent catastrophic events
have underscored the point.
But there is
hope.
Emerging "green" and advanced exotic
technologies are here today. Technologies that if
implemented would completely revolutionize our
planet's power needs. A green industrial
revolution. Providing mass numbers of people
worldwide can get up to speed on which
technologies are real, safe and worth their weight
in crude oil.
Ultimate Energy Showdown is a
television series that demonstrates and proves or
disproves new energy devices that could power our
homes, automobiles, and the electric grid. It
combines the do-it-yourself , practical "does it
work?" philosophy of MythBusters
(Science Channel) with the scientific integrity
and creative imagination of NOVA
(PBS station). We'll feature 3-4 cool devices or
processes on each episode.
Our hosts Matt
& Carter challenge the validity of each
inventor and invention presented. One is more open
minded than the other, creating a critical debate
that holds the viewers' interest and provokes
global audience interactions through the
"cloud".
I've assembled a professional team
to develop and pitch this television series to
international cable TV networks and produce high
quality episodes for a reality-series budget. We
feel strongly that we can get a cable deal as well
as an Internet streaming deal if we can reach the
decision-makers with a professional pitch
package.
To reach them, I need funds to
print materials and demo DVDs, hone our sizzle
reel, and attend 3 of the major television
markets/conferences coming up, to meet with and
pitch the concept to network executives. These
events are:
Factual Entertainment Forum
(Real Screen) - June 2-3, 2010 - www.factualentertainment.com
Great American Pitchfest - June 26-27, 2010 -
www.PitchFest.com
LATV Fest (NATPE)- July 12-15, 2010 - www.LATVfest.net
Obviously, we
will have to expend some of our own money upfront
to cover a good part of these expenses before our
Kickstarter campaign is up. Costs will include
attendance fees, printed materials like one-sheets
and business cards, as well as DVD copies of the
sizzle reel. We will also include consultation
with Mark & Jeanne Simon, founders of www.SellYourTvConceptNow.com
which will cost about $350.
We are
passionate about this subject and the impact it
could have on society. Type in "Free Energy" at www.Yahoo.com and
you'll see over 1 billion hits - the interest is
out there! With multiple media programs focussed
on Green Energy Alternatives, we feel the barriers
are finally being broken down to allow for this
kind of information to reach mainstream audiences.
We feel it can shift the conversation from Doom
and Gloom about the environment to one of Hope. So
that when these technologies do come to market,
millions of people will know that they are not
just "perpetual motion machines" promoted by
scammers, and they'll be armed with knowledge to
go out and buy them instead of relying on the
coal, oil and nuclear industries for our energy
security.
Visit our websites for more
details about my films, our team and the concept
-
http://www.freespiritproductions.com
http://www.ultimateenergyshowdown.com
(under construction)
Project
By: Chris
Toussaint [email: c2saint@verizon.net
]
Santa Monica, CA
Project
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Christopher
Toussaint is an award-winning documentary
film & video maker whose credits include two
new-paradigm science documentaries-Cold
Fusion: Fire From Water (1999), winner of
an Aurora Platinum Best of Show Award, an Axiem
Silver Award, Honorable Mention from the Columbus
Film Festival and a Telly Award (distributed by
Monarch Films/The Video Project/Liberty
Entertainment) and Roswell: The UFO UnCoverup
(1998) winner of 3 EBE Awards from the
International UFO Congress and a Finalist in the
Telly Awards (distributed by UFO Video). Currently
he is the Director of Transvision and President of
Free Spirit Productions in Santa
Monica.
From 1992 to 1996 he was the
Director of Acquisitions and Sales for Lightworks
Audio & Video where he also produced numerous
audio and video programs such as the best-selling
video, Opening To Angels (1994), honored by the
Film Advisory Board, Excellence In Media and the
17th Annual Telly Awards, Free Energy: The
Race to Zero Point (1997), a feature
documentary awarded a Finalist statuette in the
18th Annual Telly Awards, an Aurora Gold Award and
Best Special Interest Documentary from the Profit
Producers, The Second Coming of
Science (1996) with Dr. Brian O'Leary,
and Hidden Memories (1996) with Budd
Hopkins.
He also has edited numerous
documentary specials and TV programs & promos
including, Raw For Life, The Science of Miracles
with Gregg Braden, Experiencing The Soul, Sweat
Equity and Emmy award winner Robert F. Kennedy
Medical Center: 75 Years of Service.
He is
past Executive Director of The Producers
Consortium where he produced the short, Columbus
Go Home, about the protest of indigenous peoples
over the selection of Christopher Columbus'
descendent as Grand Marshal of the Rose Bowl
Parade, and the documentary feature,
Future Options, focusing on
alternatives for creating a more
environmentally-sustainable society. He also
organized and hosted "Getting At The Heart of
Truth", a monthly speaker series held at the
Electronic Cafe in Santa Monica featuring
independent producers of alternative,
socially-conscious films.
Other programs he
has produced and/or directed include Investing
Your Conscience series for KWHY-TV, the Business
Channel; Star Flight, New Age music video & a
Silver Award winner at the Houston International
Film Festival; and Rodeo Clown, documentary short
& Finalist in the National Student Film
Festival.
Toussaint graduated from the
University of Maryland and started as a 16mm film
editor for American National Enterprises and Alan
Landsburg Productions. He has since served as
cameraman, editor, writer, production assistant,
researcher and/or director on numerous commercials
and long-form programs in television, theatrical
features, educational films and home video
including The New Candid Camera, Disney Channel's
American Teacher Awards, The Earth Day
Special for ABC, Girlfriends with Vanessa
Williams and In Search Of with
Leonard Nimoy.
Pledge
your support today by visiting: Ultimate Energy Showdown
series http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ChrisToussaint/ultimate-energy-showdown-series where a introductory
trailer is online.
For More
Information
www.freespiritproductions.com
www.transvision.bbnow.org
|
| 3) Material Traps Light on
the
Cheap |
Katherine Bourzac,
Technology Review, February 26,
2010
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/24665/?nlid=2777&a=f
The flexible composite
requires far less silicon than today's solar cells
Light Trap
 |
A new
photovoltaic material performs as well as the one
found in today's best solar cells, but promises to
be significantly cheaper. The material, created by
researchers at Caltech, consists of a flexible
array of light-absorbing silicon microwires and
light-reflecting metal nanoparticles embedded in a
polymer.
Computational models suggest that
the material could be used to make solar cells
that would convert 15 to 20 percent of the energy
in sunlight into electricity--on par with existing
high-performance silicon cells. But the material
would require just 1 percent of the materials used
today, potentially leading to a dramatic decrease
in costs. The researchers were led by Harry
Atwater, professor of applied physics and
materials science at Caltech.
The
key to the new material's performance is its
ability to trap light. The longer a photon bounces
around inside the active part of any solar cell,
the greater the chance it will dislodge an
electron. All high-performance solar cells have
antireflective coatings that help trap light. But
these cells use require far more silicon and must
be sawed from wafers, a wasteful
process.
"The promise of light trapping has
always been that you could use less silicon and
bring the costs down, but it's been difficult to
implement," says Eli Yablanovitch, professor of
electrical engineering at the University of
California, Berkeley, who was not involved with
the research.
Many groups have turned to
structures such as nanowires and microwires in an
effort to solve this problem. The Caltech group's
photovoltaic material, which uses silicon
microwires, demonstrates a new level of
performance largely due to the addition of
reflective nanoparticles.
Silicon
MicrowiresAtwater's group grew
arrays of silicon microwires from a gas on the
surface of a reusable template. The template
dictates how thickly the forest of wires will
grow, and the diameter of each wire. The arrays
are arranged sparsely, and without further
treatment, make a poor solar material. But the
wires are treated with an antireflective coating
and coated in a rubbery polymer mixed with highly
reflective alumina nanoparticles. Once the polymer
sets, the entire thing can be peeled off like a
sticker. Over 90 percent of the resulting material
is composed of the cheap polymer, and the template
can be used again and again.
"These materials are pliable, but
they have the properties of a silicon wafer," says
Atwater. When light hits the composite solar mats,
it bounces around, reflecting off the alumina
particles until it can be absorbed by a
microwire.
Even though the microwire arrays
are quite sparse, the reflective particles ensure
that very little light escapes before it's
absorbed. The Caltech group has not yet published
details of the material's performance as part of a
solar cell, but the composite has demonstrated
very good numbers for light absorbance and
electron carrier collection.
Solar Cell
Requirements
"There are three things a solar
cell has to do: it has to absorb the light,
collect all the [electrons], and generate power,"
says Atwater. The material can absorb 85 percent
of the sunlight that hits it, and 95
percent of the photons in this light will
generate an electron. Until the results are
published, the Caltech group won't disclose their
power generation results.
"What's exciting is, you can use a
lot less material to make a solar cell--two orders
of magnitude less," says Yi Cui, professor of
materials science at Stanford University. This
will do more than just lower the material's costs.
"Once you use less material for deposition, your
manufacturing line is shorter," Cui explains. This
has two business implications: it should take less
capital investment to build the factories needed
to make the cells, and it should be possible to
produce them at a faster rate.
Atwater's group is now working on
making the photovoltaic material over a larger
area and incorporating it into prototype solar
cells. The results published so far come from
proof of concept experiments using square
centimeters of the material. "We have to do the
normal unglamorous engineering: making
low-resistance electrical contacts, and making
large areas, hundreds of square centimeters," says
Atwater. He adds that although the material is put
together in a novel way, it can be made using a
combination of techniques that are well
established and
scalable.
back to table of
contents |
| 4) Power Kites Harvest Wind
Energy |
|
Tessa Henderson, Energy Harvesting Journal,
February 11, 2020 http://www.energyharvestingjournal.com/articles/power-kites-to-harvest-wind-energy-00002030.asp
 Experts say that the energy
in winds miles above the earth is sufficient to
provide the world's energy needs. One company
working towards harnessing this energy is Kite Gen
Research, based in Italy. Kite Gen uses kites or
"semi-rigid automatically piloted high efficiency
air foils" which harness energy from winds at
altitudes of up to a thousand metres. The kites
are attached to power generators on the ground by
high resistance lines which control the kites'
direction and angle to the wind. Kite Gen says
their method is faster and more constant than
using traditional windmills.
A clear advantage of this
technology is visually suggested in the
illustration below where the Kite Gen concept is
compared with a wind turbine, whose most efficient
part are the wing tips in red, where the highest
speeds are reached. Using a kite only the
essential components remain - the high speed wings
and the generator which is moved to ground level.
The resulting structure, base foundation included,
is much lighter and cheaper. Moreover the
operative height can be adjusted according to wind
conditions. The KSU (Kite Steering
Unit) allows a power kite or an array of power
kites to be automatically piloted over a
predefined flight path. The power kite is
manoeuvred by differentially unrolling and
recovering the two lines on two winches controlled
by engines. Each Kite Gen power plant is composed
of several KSUs and at the core is software that
receives data from on-board avionic sensors and
autonomously pilots the power kites, so that their
flight patterns can be controlled, synchronized
and directed to maximise the production of
energy.  The Kitegen is a simple
aerodynamic system where the kites create lift
dynamically by flying at 70-80 m/sec; this is the
speed reached by the tips of the blades of a
conventional wind turbine. In the simplest
configuration (called "stem"), the system uses a
single kite linked to a power generator located on
the ground. When the kite moves up it generates
energy that is transformed into electric power by
the generator. When it reaches its maximum height,
it is placed in an aerodynamically non-lifting
configuration, so that it can be pulled down at a
very small energy cost. A single stem could have a
maximum power of a few MW. Larger plants could be
operated in the "carousel" configuration. In this
case, the kites fly at a constant height and at
much higher altitudes, pulling a generator that
moves on a circular rail. For a large carousel
system, the maximum power obtained could be 1 GW
or even higher. Kite Gen is putting
this technology to use in a new project called
KitVes. The main objective of the KITVES Project
is to provide power aboard vessels including
supplying energy to on board services and
auxiliaries and supplying energy for traction
purposes on electric motors-powered
vessels. For more read : Energy Harvesting and Storage for
Electronic Devices 2009-2019 and attend
Energy Harvesting & Storage
Europe and Wireless Sensor Networks & RTLS
Summit
2010
|
| 5) From Waste Biomass
to Jet
Fuel |
Kevin Bullis, Technology Review,
February 25, 2010,
Fuel made from waste
by-products could lower greenhouse gas
emissions.
A novel chemical
process developed by researchers at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison converts cellulose from
agricultural waste into gasoline and jet fuel. It
produces fuel by modifying what until now had been
considered unwanted by-products (levulinic acid
and formic acid) of breaking cellulose down into
sugar.
Biofuel
Tap
 | The
work was described in this week's issue of the
journal Science.
The process is one of
a number of new technologies that make
conventional fuels such as gasoline and diesel
from biomass rather than petroleum. Unlike
ethanol--today's most common type of
biofuel--these new fuels can easily be used in
conventional automobiles and transported with
existing infrastructure. What's more, the jet fuel
it produces stores enough energy to power
commercial or military airplanes.
Up to now, however,
methods to make these advanced biofuels have often
involved biological processes in which microbes
break down sugars derived from biomass, including
cellulose.
The Wisconsin method
could prove more reliable than those processes
because it is a chemical process that's easier to
maintain. What's more, carbon-dioxide created
during its production can be easily captured--an
advantage over conventional biofuels.
To convert cellulose,
a large component of biomass, into fuel,
researchers first need to break it down into
simpler components, such as simple sugars.
Microorganisms then process those sugars to make
liquid fuels.
Cellulose can be
broken down by treating it with acids, but these
reactions are difficult to control--the sugars are
often further converted into formic and levulinic
acids. "Rather than fight it, we wondered if we
could start with the unwanted product to make
fuel," says James Dumesic, professor of chemical
and biological engineering at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison.
It is "an entirely
different approach to making biofuels," says Bob
Baldwin, thermochemical process manager at the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden,
CO, who was not involved with the work. In the
Wisconsin process, the acids are combined to form
gamma-valerolactone, an industrial chemical.
Catalysts made of
silica and alumina then help convert this to a gas
called butene, which is easily converted to liquid
hydrocarbon fuels, including gasoline and jet
fuel.
One advantage of the
Wisconsin process compared to biological routes to
biofuels is that it could decrease greenhouse gas
levels, says Doug Cameron, managing director and
chief science advisor at Piper Jaffray.
Conventional biofuels
are at best carbon neutral--growing crops for
biofuels takes carbon dioxide out of the
atmosphere, but this is released again when the
crops are grown and processed and the biofuels are
manufactured and burned. The new process produces
a pure and high-pressure stream of carbon dioxide,
which is easy to capture and permanently store. As
a result, the net carbon emissions could be
negative--part of the carbon dioxide absorbed by
the plants would be prevented from returning to
the atmosphere.
However, economics
questions remain. Baldwin says that although the
process produces high yields of the desired fuels,
it requires a large number of processing steps,
including separating cellulose from other
components of biomass, which could make it
expensive. It will also need to compete with other
thermochemical processes that can be adapted to
work with biomass, such as those that have been
used to convert coal into liquid
fuels.
Space,
Propulsion & Energy Sciences International
Forum (SPESIF-2011)College Park MD,
Washington DC Metro area. Tuesday, March 15 -
Thursday, March 17, 2011 http://www.ias-spes.org/SPESIF.html
|
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Institute
Future Energy
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