The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

Discussions regarding "The Three Technologies That Will Blow Oil Away":

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A.R. P.,

I would imagine you could easily fly jets on biodiesel - jet fuel is very similar to diesel already. There is vast untapped potential for production. Billions of tons of yard waste go into landfills every year. Billions of tons of used restaurant oil. All the parts of food plants that are not eaten, stalks, leaves, roots. Deciduous tree leaves. Waste animal fats from cooking and agriculture. What remains after pressing for the oils that are converted to biodiesel can still be composted and used to fertilize soils. There are also certain plants that produce a very great amount of oil in their tissues that could be grown strictly for fuel production. I read about one plant that was recently discovered which has a bean-like seed pod that is fully 60% vegetable oil. There are also certain trees with high oil content. Biodiesel production is in it's infancy, but production could be ramped up very quickly if the huge subsidies for coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear were brought to bear on wind, biodiesel, and Stirling cycle solar. It is especially friendly in that diesel-powered vehicles don't even require modifications to run on it. (Although gasoline powered vehicles would require modification or replacement and jet liners might need their fuel systems re-worked to run properly.)

Yes, the solar and wind power in combination can vastly reduce or even replace the use of coal and nuclear power as well as natural gas. I referenced oil in the title of my article for it's high psychological impact, but oil is not alone on the list of fuels that are going to become obsolete.

In discussing solar technology, you are talking PV panels running at around 10-15% efficiency mounted on rooftops or stands out in the yard. The technology I was referencing uses a 38 foot diameter solar concentrator to run a Stirling cycle engine to drive a 25kw generator at roughly a continuous 30% net efficiency. That's something only the most cutting edge PV cells can achieve under optimal laboratory conditions. Not the same animal or cost structure at all.

Additionally, you can not achieve the economy of scale of a utility sized installation with a residential sized installation. The same is true in wind plants. A 1.5 MW or 3 MW wind turbine can produce electricity at a cost of between 3- 14 cents per KWH depending mostly on location. A 1kw-45kw wind installation is going to produce for something closer to 20-30 cents / kwh. Coal-fired utility generation currently achieves between 3-10 cents / kwh with federal subsidies. As you can see, utility scale wind is now producible at rates directly competitive with coal.

These technologies can alleviate many of the problems you describe in your article, if they are invested in early and strongly. In time, the U.S. could actually be exporting electricity and hydrogen. In reading your article, I saw not just the loss of oil you predict - and I agree with you - but the impetus to drive our economy in the direction of these three technologies.

Indeed, it is already happening. There are now twenty biodiesel producers supplying two hundred + fuel stations with biodiesel blends as I write this. There are another twenty producers being started up as I understand it, and more fuel stations being added all the time. Vehicle fleet owners are increasingly turning to biodiesel because of its environmental benefits and how clean it is to run in their engines. The word is spreading faster and faster every year.

Wind farms are popping up all over the country every year and the industry is sustaining international growth rates of 30-35% per year with domestic growth rates of 20-25% per year. The U.S. has incredible potential for producing power from wind, enough to feasibly power the country's entire electric grid from just three states, without even resorting to off-shore wind plants.

You can bet that the oil barons will be wringing every last dime out of the technology they already have in place. You can also bet that at least some of them are well aware that they will need to invest in new technologies if they are going to wring dimes out of people after the oil is gone - and so what do your economic indicators look like as applied to these industries if you go looking at them in depth? I would challenge you to bring a deep analysis of the economic picture of these three technologies and their likely future from a standpoint of full understanding of the technologies and the kind of numbers companies in these sectors are already and have generated. I would be interested in seeing that, very much so. What funds are out there to invest in an energy industry with a strong domestic future instead of an international strong-arm that is unsustainable? What are our prospects for investments like those?

Dan

Agent RED PILL, BPSA wrote:

Hi folks,

I don't know if this is a response to my oil postings, but I note again my article at www.redpill.info/oil.htm. While there are numerous references to producing the amount of electricity currently used in the US, the article does not say "technologies that will replace natural gas and coal," but oil.

There is no controversy as to the utility of biodeisel. It is clearly an interesting technology and will get more and more attention in the future.

However, the stated issue is "blowing away oil." The amount of energy (including in transportation applications) currently derived from petroleum products is significant. If you can fly commercial airliners on electricity and biodeisel, the question is raised of production and conversion: how much can be produced? How quickly can millions of units be converted? Then, once those issuies are covered, can this technology bring the entire population of China up to the energy consumption standards of America and Western Europe? Or- will they be at a huge advantage since they can design their infrastructure around more efficient fuels?

People seem sentimentally attached to ideas like solar power- and it has great potential. I have lived "off the grid" myself. For $15-25k upfront, you can be free of the grid power system for a decade or so before significant repairs and replacements are needed.

However, to produce all the panels and convert all industry to a new fuel source takes time and energy as well. Solar panels require significant amounts of rare metals which are not currently accessible except with oil-using mining machinery. It is not as if we can snap our fingers and have a completely new power system across the US next week or even next year- not without some massive sacrifices, if at all.

Even electrical cars require batteries and thus the chemicals that go in the battery and- oh- what is the battery case made of? Plastic? Yeah, well, you can't make plastic without petroleum, so before we presume that "everything is fine," we might look at the research of those who have accurately predicted energy and oil markets and prices for numerous decades.

"Agent RED PILL"

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Dear Hal,

I am aware that there are scientific teams working on zero point energy. I am also aware of work being done on the Searl and Bifield-Brown effects, and fusion. (Note that Popular Science reported on research being done in national laboratories to modulate gravitic effect on objects through the use of rotating magnetic fields in superconducting magnets two years ago. I believe they are finding a variation of the Searle effect in this research.)

I will quote another similar conversation thaty I think very well explains my reasoning for writing the article as I did. Time will judge if I am right in my assessment of the situation, but the best news is that there are many wonderful things in development for the next century that are going to radically change the way we power our industries and heat our homes and move around the planet, and even beyond. I still believe that the three I wrote of will be here the soonest. See below.

Dan

Geri - I'm not sure about the Joseph Newman thing, as there are some technologies being developed that are in their infancy, like Ben Franklin playing with a kite in a rainstorm, which are just as poorly understood as electricity was back then. He could be hitting on one of them.

The car - you have to put in the energy to compress the air that's stored in the tanks on the car and released to drive it. That means somewhere there is a compressor that runs on electricity or some burning fuel to fill those tanks up. If the energy that drives the compressor is derived from oil in any way, all you are doing is moving the source of the pollution from auto tail pipes to the electric company's generation facilities. If the electric company that supplies the energy to compress the air to fill the tanks uses solar or biofuels or wind, then you are accomplishing something. If it uses coal, natural gas, nuclear power, well, you just have to use more of it to fill all those compressed air tanks - and the car will carry less weight than what a gasoline powered car and only have a range of about 120 miles. Gasoline cars usually can go 350-450 miles on a tank of fuel at faster speeds. IF clean energy is used to fill the compressed air tanks, it might be worth the trade offs in vehicles used mainly for getting people around in the city, but it will benot so good for hauling loads like a pickup truck or travelling the interstate between cities. Add to that you will need compressed air tank stations all over the place to replace conventional gas stations. Biodiesel is a much better solution - you can use the same diesel engines that are used now, you can use the same diesel gas stations there are now, you have the same load hauling capabilities and vehicle range, and you are reducing ozone causing emissions by 75%, reducing volatile organic compound release by a little better than 50%, reducing sulfite emissions by 99% (Acid rain-causing sulfites) and making the fuel carbon neutral. The carbon dioxide it emits was absorbed from the atmosphere by the growing plants the biodiesel was made from instead of being pumped up from under the ground where it had been stored away for millions of years.

Yes, the worlds' oil fields are getting ready to peak and then decline. The thing is, unlike before the oil fields peak where production slowly increases for many years, once production starts to decline, it falls off very very quickly to the point where it's completely uneconomical to recover. The Saudi oil fields, the worlds' largest, are better than 90 years old. We need alternatives to oil for this reason alone, even if global warming, acid rain, ozone, and particulate smog weren't issues.

On the three technologies I outlined in my article, there are currently already around two hundred fuel stations selling biodiesel, at least one in each state in the union, and several states have many. There are more coming online all the time. Most of them sell blends of bidiesel and petroluem diesel - but could be switched to all biodiesel without new hardware. There are currently twenty companies producing bidiesel and at least twenty more in the startup stage. Biodiesel is on the way, and expect to see diesel-electric hybrids start showing up on showroom floors in the near future. Diesels already get better fuel mileage than gasoline cars by about a quarter. Once biodiesel is used in conjunction with fuel-electric hybrid technology, we are going to start seeing a major shift in what new cars run on - and it will be biodiesel hybrids because both technologies are already being embraced by the car manufacturers and fuel makers aon a fairly large scale already. GM makes a gas hybrid pickup truck starting in 2005. Ford is selling a gas hybrid SUV as of 2005. Toyota and Honda have been selling hybrid cars for about four years now. Diesel technology has also been revolutionized by electronic controls and fuel injection - it is much quieter and cleaner now even with petroleum disel, not like the old VW diesels and Mercedes diesels of twenty years ago. Diesel engines also last much longer than gas engines. 300K miles plus is typical.

There are wind farms all across the country and more going up all the time. They make electricity well within the price range of what it can be made for with natural gas, coal, and definitely cheaper than nuclear. I drove by one on the border of IL/WI two years ago in Montfort, WI. Took my son by there to see them. There are two wind farms being built in Illinois now. There are many in Texas, California, and Minnesota with more going up all the time. Texas is the number one state for wind energy now. Cal is second and Minny 3rd. The Dakotas are ramping up too. Native American reservations are putting up wind plants all across the country and selling the power. Farmers are leasing more and more acres to wind farms all the time, because they only lose the use of a very small area for farming and they get something like a $1,000.00 a month to lease the space for the turbines. Growth rate in the wind generation industry is currently averaging 20-25% in the U.S. and 35% in Europe and the Netherlands annually.

The solar dishes are backed by the prestigious Sandia National Laboratory. As more of them are produced and mass production facilities are built, they will become much cheaper and more accepted by utility companies. The desert areas they will be placed in are some of the least habitable lands in the country, with low human populations and less fauna per mile than most habitats.


Barring someone really doing it up with zero point energy, the Searle effect, the Bifield-Brown effect, or fusion energy, these three technologies are the alternatives of least resistance and the most potential for being rapidly ramped up to replace oil. Two of them are already approaching critical mass, and are still being improved upon every year in the areas of quality, consistency, and grid integration.

In the immediate future these three technologies are by far the most likely to be adopted on a large scale and used widely, precisely because it is happening already. The biggest point is that if our government moves it's massive energy subsidy bills into these technologies and away from coal, natural gas, and nuclear. it will happen at a truly prodigious rate because it already makes economic and environmental sense. Additionally attractive to utilities is large-scal public acceptance of the environmental qualities of these technologies.

At some point one of the four alternatives of zero point energy, the Searle effect, the Bifield-Brown effect, or fusion energy will become mature enough for wide adoption and bring another radical change.

However, solar, biofuels, and wind are already up and coming NOW. They have a huge head start and much wider acceptance building. In the next two decades they will expand rapidly. That is why I wrote the article the way I did. There are many wonderful technologies in the pipeline for the future. The three I wrote of are the closest to the spigot with the most support for opening the valve.

Dan

Geraldine Perry wrote: Dan,

i think I asked you before, but have you investigated anything at all about free energy? Specifically stuff by Joseph Newman: http://www.josephnewman.com/

The reason I ask is that I have been having a conversation with my son about HAARP, Tesla, et al and I ran across this recetn BBC article about a new car that runs on air: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/988265.stm

Also, Mike Ruppert has a good article on The beginning of the End of The Oil Age: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012505_ftw_maps_summary.shtml including links such as:

http://www.ems.org/nws/2004/01/28/oil_supply_short

just wondering,

gerip

Harold Fox wrote:

Date: 25 January 2005
From: Hal Fox

Dear Jean and Friends,

My respects to all, however, Dan is not up to date on the latest
developments in new-energy devices and systems. Here is some
information that should be seriously considered:

SUBJECT: FUNDING FOR NEW-ENERGY DEVELOPMENT

There are dramatic developments being made in new-energy systems.
Definition: New-energy does not include the older forms of
"alternative energy" with sources from sun, wind, tide,
geothermal, or biomass. Also not included are fuel cells and the
use of hydrogen. Fuel cells are a hundred-year-old technology.
The production of hydrogen from water is energy intensive. New-
energy devices are non-polluting and tap into the vast amount of
energy that is everywhere present (so-called "space energy" or
"zero-point energy").

Creating energy from the burning of fossil fuels creates a market
that is approximately $4.5 trillion per year. [Source of data
from Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year 2000, computed at
5 cents per kilowatt hour.] The result of fossil fuel combustion
is global warming and the pollution of our atmosphere. These
valuable fossil-fuel resources should be retained for continued
long-term use as chemical feed stocks.

Our group has spent over 15 years searching the world for
new-energy devices. There are now four new-energy devices that
have been invented, tested, and which are in some stage of being
commercialized and are considered to have strong commercial
potential. All four of the new-energy devices are patented (or
have patents pending) and all four appear to pass our stringent
requirements for commercial potential.

It is time for governments (state and national) and, more
important, private industry, to recognize that solutions to the
current polluting, high-cost, energy sources are available. The
required development funds are being provided from corporate and
private investors. No U.S. government funds have been used in
developing these new-energy devices. Furthermore, there is no
need for tax-payers funds to be used.

Any one of the above new-energy discoveries can be commercialized
within two years or less with an estimated $10 million or less.
EEMF is being privately funded for a project to demonstrate that
radioactive wastes can be transmuted to stable elements with a
dramatic reduction in radioactivity. EEMF, Inc. has demonstrated
the capability to dramatically reduce radioactivity from
radioactive liquids. (Paper presented at a meeting of the
American Nuclear Society). This technology is based on the
creation and use of high-density, electron charge clusters
(HDCC). Each HDCC has over 100 billion electrons. The HDCC can
ionize hydrogen and attract the protons. The combined HDCC
(billions of electrons and thousands of protons) become a potent
combination that can be locally accelerated to produce nuclear
reactions in nearby heavy elements.

EEMF, Inc. has been approved for a $40 million grant for the
full-scale demonstration of the on-site, transmutation of high-
level, radioactive, liquid wastes. There is no longer any need
for the packaging, transporting, and storage for 10,000 years of
high-level, radioactive wastes.

Because the process of transmuting radioactive wastes to stable
elements is energy intensive, a fourth of the $40 million grant
has been allocated to the commercialization of one or more of the
available new-energy devices. The end result could be some major
future changes in the way in which energy is produced and
distributed.

Please note: The real problem is NOT that we are running out of
oil. The real problem is that the pollution of our atmosphere by
burning so much fossil fuels has resulted in the extinction of
several sensitive plants and animal species. In addition, many
humans who are sensitive to the increased levels of CO2 suffer
health problems. It is very important that we replace the
burning of fossil fuels with new-energy devices that cause zero
pollution and that are relatively inexpensive to manufacture.

Best personal regards, Hal Fox, Editor, J. of New Energy

P.S. You will want to see www.starshipcapricorn.org for the
latest information from Capt. Helena, Starship Capricorn.