CLICK HERE FOR FREE WHOLESALE EXTENDED AUTO WARRANTIES FOR LESS DISTRIBUTORSHIP!
Rapid-fire 'Spark Plug' May Bring Fusion Power Closer
- 14:51 27 April 2007
- NewScientist.com news service
- Tom Simonite
A "spark plug" that should trigger nuclear fusion in a pellet of hydrogen every 10 seconds is being tested by Russian and US researchers.
The device fires an intense pulse of electricity – half a million amps and 100,000 volts. It has just completed preliminary testing at Sandia National Laboratories' "Z Machine" facility in New Mexico, US. Researchers hope the component could help narrow the gap between the fusion technique being used there and the one that currently leads the field. Some experts are sceptical about its chances, however.
Nuclear fusion harnesses the process that powers stars, generating power by binding atomic nuclear together. Unlike nuclear fission, which drives existing nuclear power stations, it offers hope of producing nuclear energy cleanly.
Sandia is developing a method called inertial confinement, to compress and heat small pellets of hydrogen isotopes. The process forces the isotopes to fuse together, producing helium and releasing energy.
Although inertial confinement is popular in the US, an alternative technique, known magnetic confinement, has shown greater practical promise. This involves pushinghydrogen atoms together using magnetic fields and it is the basis for an experimental fusion reactor called ITER, an international project. Following several years of intense negotiations, ITER will be built in Caderache, France, in 2008.
Faster firing
Inertial confinement is less efficient partly because the fusion produced is relatively short-lived. Each time the reaction fizzles out, researchers have to wait hours while devices called Marx generators recharge. These components kick-start a fusion reaction and function like gigantic spark plugs.
But a new device called a linear transformer driver (LTD) could drive this kind of fusion for much longer. By firing every 10 seconds, engineers hope to boost fusion power output. Just a few of the components have been tested so far.
"This is the most significant advance in primary power generation in many decades," says Keith Matzen, director of Sandia's Pulsed Power Centre. Test firings show LTDs to be 50% more efficient than the method currently used at the Z Machine.
The LTDs were developed by researchers at the Institute of High Current Electronics in Tomsk, Russia, in collaboration with Sandia colleagues. Each "spark plug" is about the size of a shoebox and contains a switch coupled to several large capacitors. A circular ring of 20 such units, wired in parallel, can produce half a million amps and one hundred thousand volts. Linking several rings together increases the final voltage produced. Researchers estimate that about 60 rings should be enough to power a fusion reactor.
LTDs achieve better performance partly because they are simpler than Marx generators, which need extensive wiring and hundreds of thousands of gallons of insulating water and oil. Neither do LTDs generate the magnetic fields that slow the passage of current and reduce performance.
"Significant breakthrough"
"Fusion is an important future energy source, and this does seem to be a significant breakthrough in its field," says Duarte Borba, who works on the world's largest fusion reactor, the Joint European Torus in Culham, UK.
However, he adds that the magnetic confinement technique, which is used in JET and is the basis for ITER, is more advanced. "The basic technological pieces have already been built and are well tested – we just need to integrate them," he explains. "Simulations [of a finished reactor] may suggest big improvements from a new technique but until they are tried you can't be sure."
Results on LTD development will be presented at the IEEE International Pulsed Power and Symposium on Fusion Engineering conferences in Albuquerque in June 2007.
Fusion V. The Kingdom
While Saudi Arabia touts the oil reserves of its barren 'Empty Quarter', a B.C. inventor toils to turn the entire energy world on its head
Nathan Vanderklippe, Financial Post
Published: Saturday, November 17, 2007
BURNABY, B.C. -Tucked away in the back corner of an old mattress warehouse in this Vancouver suburb sits a silver sphere not much larger than a human head. Like some mad inventor's futuristic Chia pet, it sprouts wires that lead to banks of capacitors, batteries capable of delivering their charge at lightning speed.
It could easily pass for a school science project from some overly keen teen -- complete with its very own home-made flourishes, like a particle detector hidden inside a stovepipe and held together with black electrical tape.
But if this is a science project -- and in many ways that is what it is for Michel Laberge, the 40-something PhD who has spent five years building it -- it is among the most ambitious. This modest assemblage of wires and dreams is in fact a home-brew nuclear-fusion reactor -- if reactor is the right word to describe a device that has achieved a micro-second's worth of miniscule energy output just seven times in the past few years.
But for Mr. Laberge, a slightly dishevelled Quebecer who built his fusion device in an old gas station on an island near Vancouver, it is the prototype for something enormous -- something that, in his words, "will actually save the planet."
He admits it is a lofty goal. "This is an outrageously ambitious project," he says. "Thousands of physicists have spent billions every year for the last 40 years [trying in vain to produce fusion] and I'm saying I'm going to take those guys and do it."
Mr. Laberge is hardly alone in the corner of the country that bred the hydrogen fuel cell more than two decades ago. Ballard Power Systems Inc. pioneered that technology, which promised cars that dripped nothing but water from their tailpipes, not far from where Mr. Laberge and his three-man company, General Fusion, are working today.
Last week, Ballard announced that it had sold off its automotive fuel-cell division and admitted that the hydrogen-powered car remains little more than a distant dream. Ballard will now focus on the decidedly less glamorous work of making fuel cells for forklifts, backup power and cogeneration units that produce power and heat for homes.
But if Ballard has stumbled, the tech-friendly environment its early successes fostered in B.C. is flourishing, with dozens of small to medium-sized companies working on everything from fuel-cell-powered cell phones to revolutionary new kinds of batteries.
Few, however, embody the bold promise of new technology as well as Mr. Laberge, who has drawn around him some of the same people who first saw Ballard's promise. One of them is Michael Brown, now executive director of Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, Canada's largest clean-energy venture-capital fund.
"If this form of fusion works, this is worth not millions but more than billions," Mr. Brown said. "I used to say that you can have a one-comma opportunity, a two-comma opportunity or a three-comma opportunity. This may be a four-comma opportunity. You write out a number with zeroes and four commas, that's a big number."
The reason: If fusion works, it will use as an energy supply a material -- deuterium -- that is so prevalent it could power all of Earth's needs for millions of years. And it will do it cheaper than coal power, completely without greenhouse gases and without risk of nuclear meltdown. (A coal plant produces more radiation than a fusion plant would.)
If it were achieved, fusion could almost instantly end the most vexatious issues confronting society today: climate change and peak oil.
There is no dispute that the "if " needs to be bolded, capitalized and triple underlined, given that vast sums of money and the world's brightest scientific minds have so far been unable to create a fusion reaction that produces more energy than it sucks up. Most have been abysmal failures.
Yet history has taught that men in garages working with shoestring budgets can do remarkable things. Take the Wright brothers, for instance, or Craig Venter, the surf-bum-turned-scientist who sequenced the human genome at a pace and cost considered impossible.
That those examples are exceedingly rare has not tempered Mr. Laberge's ambitions, despite his unlikely path into his current field. As a student, he had studied laser physics before landing a job at Creo Inc., the B.C. maker of printing technology that was bought out by Eastman Kodak Co. in 2005.
Two weeks before his 40th birthday, however, he looked at his life's work and gulped.
"I said, 'OK, what am I doing here? I'm making printing so cheap that I can fill your mailbox with junk mail. This is what my hard work produces here -- cheap junkmail'," he said.
Thinking back to his PhD studies, which had brought him into contact with fusion, he quickly latched onto that idea.
"I knew that the energy situation of the planet is a complete disaster --and we're going straight for total disaster -- so we need some solution to that," he said. "I decided that fusion is the solution so I say, 'OK, I'm quitting Creo and I'm going to do fusion my-self. '"
Begging and borrowing from friends and family, he managed to cobble together enough cash to begin his work.
Where nuclear fission produces electricity by splitting apart atoms -- a process that can release enough energy to level cities -- fusion is exactly the opposite. It works to join atoms together, a process that also produces enormous energy.
But it is exceedingly difficult to achieve because it involves melding together the protons of two atoms that naturally repel. The usual way to do it is to create a shockwave in a sphere that will press together the atoms in the centre with extraordinary pressure and temperatures of 100-million degrees Celsius.
Sustaining those conditions has proven impossible in the nearly eight decades since fusion was first proposed as a theory. The world record is the production of 16 megawatts of power for less than a second, and the most intensive global effort to beat that mark is a hugely expensive one. ITER, a recently formed international research-and-development project whose partners include the European Union, Japan, China, India and the United States, plans to build a fusion reactor in France with a budget of ¤10-billion, a construction time of 10 years and no ambitions to produce marketable electricity.
Mr. Laberge believes he and his team can build a functioning prototype fusion unit for $50-million in half a decade, and produce commercial electricity with a $500-million reactor. General Fusion has already raised $1.4-million this year, and has pencilled-in commitments for another $5-million to $6-million as part of a financing campaign.
He is not crazy. Although he has not described his successes or methods in refereed publications -- "basically because I really don't like writing papers," he says -- some of Canada's leading fusion physicists say there is no reason to doubt he has achieved fusion.
They do, however, question whether he can succeed.
"What he has done is not enough because everybody can get fusion. It doesn't take anything," said Emilio Panarella, a long-time fusion scientist with the federal government who now runs Ottawa-based Fusion Reactor Technology Inc., and has his own backyard project to solve the fusion puzzle.
"But the objective is so important that any enthusiastic person that joins this race is to be applauded, not reprimanded."
Mr. Laberge himself is strikingly up-front about his own somewhat modest successes. In well over 30 tries, he has created fusion in only seven, and each produced an infinitesimal amount of energy.
Not only that, it now takes him a week between attempts. For fusion power to work, he needs to be able to make an attempt once a second. He figures that a bigger machine that produces compression with steam-powered pistons, instead of the bits of exploding foil he now uses, will solve those issues.
But for that to work, he will need to make steam-powered pistons act with space-age precision. For atoms to stick together, they need to be hit with a perfect compression wave that will come from all sides of the sphere at exactly the same time. It is akin to compressing a balloon without letting it get misshapen -- except Mr. Laberge has to synchronize the compression from 200 different pistons in one-millionth of a second.
Whether Mr. Laberge can pull it off remains a potentially show-stopping question that he hopes to answer in the next two years with a pared-down, $10-million prototype.
If he can, he will be about 60% of the way to creating fusion power. Still, there is no doubt that those investing in this gambit are rolling the dice, and Mr. Brown hopes to convince big oil and utility companies to invest as one strategy for his retrieving his money if the technology doesn't work.
"The chances are that we will lose our money," he admits. "But it's not one-in-a million odds. I think we're in the 20%-to-25% likelihood of getting through the first part, and if we do succeed, the prize is unbelievably big. So from a risk-reward perspective, this is a risk that's worth taking."
CLICK HERE FOR FREE WHOLESALE EXTENDED AUTO WARRANTIES FOR LESS DISTRIBUTORSHIP!
Nov. 20, 2007
Some Discoveries That Are Really Cookin’
It always amazes me when garage inventors discover breakthroughs that should have been accessible to academics for decades. I wonder how they could have been missed.
My friend the professional inventor Jerry Smith has for many years made a very nice living doing exactly this. I attribute this phenomenon to a special kind of myopia: Academics tend to focus very narrowly, while independent inventors sometimes have the luxury of time to allow their minds to wander freely, synthesizing knowledge from diverse fields.
Now an expert in radio technology may have figured out how to use it to address two of humanity’s greatest challenges: cancer and the generation of energy.
The Los Angeles Times reports that John Kanzius made his breakthrough in response to a death sentence from leukemia. With just nine months to live, he used his expertise to build a kind of specialized microwave.
Essentially, it introduces nanoparticles of metal into living tissue. The tiny metal particles have a special affinity for cancer cells, and therein lies the trick.
As anyone who uses microwave ovens much knows, metal heats up in microwaves. Therefore, the nanoparticles literally burn the cancer cells to death.
It put his cancer into remission (doctors almost never call cancer “cured,” because microscopic particles may remain. Extreme remission happens when no cancer can any longer be found.)
Dr. David Geller, who is co-director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's liver cancer program, tested the machine. It has since been tested for four years at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. Researchers have, for example, been able to completely eliminate liver cancer in test rabbits.
Kanzius has filed a patent and is exploring commercialization. (Disclaimer: I have conceived a way to potentially augment his discovery, and am talking about it with one of the world’s experts in nanotechnology. We are exploring filing a derivative patent. Such a patent would work only with the original patent’s cooperation.)
It’s not really as radical an approach as it sounds. Before he died, my father underwent radiofrequency (RF) ablation to kill cancer in his kidney. Needles are inserted into tumors, and RF energy heats them up. However, healthy tissue can be damaged, and often not all the cancer is killed. It’s crude.
Comparing RF ablation to the Kanzius method is like compa ring a surgical knife of the 1800s to today’s lasers. The lasers can burn off single layers of cells; so can Kanzius.
Nobel laureate in chemistry Richard Smalley, who died in 2005, commented on the method as follows: "Nothing has the potential to help people, to help patients, more than this. You have to promise me to keep doing this work."
It has the potential advantage of killing cancers so small that they are undetectable with current methods. It might even find use as a preventive treatment, though this is speculation on my part. (My last girlfriend has an extremely high-risk profile for breast cancer, as do millions of women with her genetic condition. Physicians have seriously proposed that she undergo radical mastectomy as a preventive measure. Clearly, the Kanzius method offers a far more benign alternative.)
The researchers are currently focused on finding a method of binding nanoparticles with antibodies that will attach only to cancer cells. They believe it could lead to a shot to treat any kind of cancer. Clinical trials are three-four years away.
In 2007, a serendipitous discovery led to a whole other potential application. Out of curiosity, Kanzius heated saltwater in his generator. When he held a match next to the saltwater, it burned brighter than a match should. It was burning hydrogen liberated via RF stimulation from the saltwater.
Rustum Roy, a renowned Penn State University chemist, has called this the most remarkable discovery in water science in the last century.
(Second disclaimer: An entrepreneur I know is in discussions to license the energy use of this technology. If he does, there may be an investment opportunity for Emerging Capital Report readers. Stay tuned.)
It’s still unclear whether the energy input (via radio) is surpassed by the output (work from burning hydrogen). However, even assuming there’s no net energy gain, this may prove a far more efficient way of generating hydrogen than alternatives. (As I previously reported, careful analysis indicates that hydrogen cannot affordably be transported, because so much bleeds off.)
Generation of hydrogen at the point of use -- for instance, from saltwater carried in your vehicle -- may revive this as a possible alternative to fossil fuels. A key question is whether this is a more efficient way to store and transport energy than an electric battery.
The radio frequency (RF) energy would still have to be generated, but advanced systems could capture the energy of braking and use it to recharge batteries, which could then power the RF generator. This might not eliminate gasoline, but it could serve to power a superior hybrid vehicle of tomorrow. Such transitional technologies could help power the world until we deploy the truly advanced energy systems now on the drawing boards, which can completely replace fossil fuels.
To your profitable future,
Jonathan Kolber
CLICK HERE FOR FREE WHOLESALE EXTENDED AUTO WARRANTIES FOR LESS DISTRIBUTORSHIP!
Carbon-neutral Hydrogen on the Horizon
Hydrogen as an everyday, environmentally friendly fuel source may be closer than we think, say Penn State researchers.
"This process produces 288 percent more energy in hydrogen than the electrical energy that is added to the process."
-- Bruce E. Logan, Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering, Penn State
"The energy focus is currently on ethanol as a fuel, but economical ethanol from cellulose is 10 years down the road," says Bruce E. Logan, the Kappe professor of environmental engineering. "First you need to break cellulose down to sugars and then bacteria can convert them to ethanol."
Logan and Shaoan Cheng, research associate, have recently demonstrated a method based on microbial fuel cells to convert cellulose and other biodegradable organic materials directly into hydrogen.
The researchers used naturally occurring bacteria in a microbial electrolysis cell with acetic acid — the acid found in vinegar. Acetic acid also is the predominant acid produced by fermentation of glucose or cellulose. The anode was granulated graphite, the cathode was carbon with a platinum catalyst, and they used an off-the-shelf anion exchange membrane. The bacteria consume the acetic acid and release electrons and protons creating up to 0.3 volts. When more than 0.2 volts are added from an outside source, hydrogen gas bubbles up from the liquid.
"This process produces 288 percent more energy in hydrogen than the electrical energy that is added to the process," says Logan.
Water hydrolysis, a standard method for producing hydrogen, is only 50 to 70 percent efficient. Even if the microbial electrolysis cell process is set up to bleed off some of the hydrogen to produce the added energy boost needed to sustain hydrogen production, the process still creates 144 percent more available energy than the electrical energy used to produce it.
For those who think that a hydrogen economy is far in the future, Logan suggests that hydrogen produced from cellulose and other renewable organic materials could be blended with natural gas for use in natural gas vehicles.
"We drive a lot of vehicles on natural gas already. Natural gas is essentially methane," says Logan. "Methane burns fairly cleanly, but if we add hydrogen, it burns even more cleanly and works fine in existing natural gas combustion vehicles."
The range of efficiencies of hydrogen production based on electrical energy and energy in a variety of organic substances is between 63 and 82 percent. Both lactic acid and acetic acid achieve 82 percent, while unpretreated cellulose is 63 percent efficient. Glucose is 64 percent efficient.
Another potential use for microbial-electrolysis-cell produced hydrogen is in fertilizer manufacture. Currently fertilizer is produced in large factories and trucked to farms. With microbial electrolysis cells, very large farms or farm cooperatives could produce hydrogen from wood chips and then through a common process, use the nitrogen in the air to produce ammonia or nitric acid. Both of these are used directly as fertilizer or the ammonia could be used to make ammonium nitrate, sulfate or phosphate.
The researchers have filed for a patent on this work. Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. and the National Science Foundation supported this work.
A recent Science Friday broadcast on National Public Radio featured an interview with the researchers. You can listen to the show and learn more about the technology here.
CLICK HERE FOR FREE WHOLESALE EXTENDED AUTO WARRANTIES FOR LESS DISTRIBUTORSHIP!
Scientists are Finally Understanding Hot Fusion
By Jonathan Kolber
August 28, 2007
Some scientists at the esteemed Max Planck Institute have just cracked one of the thorniest unsolved questions about electricity. It may have powerful applications.
New Scientist reports that ball lightning — the mysterious form of energy sometimes seen during thunderstorms — has been created in the lab.
The Max Planck Institute’s scientists have figured out how to use underwater electrical bursts to generate ball lightning. (Technically, they call it “luminous plasma clouds” — but if it looks like a duck and quacks like one…)
The creations last for about half a second and are eight inches in diameter. This makes their size comparable to the size of naturally occurring ball lightning, which has been reported by many observers, including scientists, for centuries.
Even such luminaries as Charlemagne, King Henry II and the renowned physicist Niels Bohr reported seeing it.
The laboratory-created version doesn’t last nearly as long as has often been reported. However, when people are startled or frightened, time often seems to pass more slowly. So it’s possible the observers were wrong about duration.
It’s also possible that the scientists have yet to understand the properties of these balls fully, and that optimization is possible. That frequently happens with scientific discoveries, especially as engineers become involved.
The scientists are hopeful that these plasma fields will deepen understanding of “hot” fusion reactions such as those inside stars. The intent is to develop an inexhaustible power source based on the fusion of deuterium atoms. Deuterium is a special form of hydrogen found in seawater.
The water tank contains two electrodes. One is in contact with the water, while the other is insulated from the water by a clay tube. The high voltage burst causes enormous currents to flow through the water momentarily. When the current enters the clay tube, it ionizes the water and a “burp” of plasma rises to the surface.
Interestingly, more than one approach has proven successful in recent months. Earlier this year, Israeli scientists succeeded using microwaves. Specifically, they use a burst of 5,000 volts to vaporize water in a glass tank and the ball lightning is a byproduct.
The plasma balls display some interesting properties. They glow brightly yet are cold. This is reminiscent of neon lights, or fireflies (which use a chemical process to effect the same result).
An “ionic wind” is created in the vicinity of the plasma such that a sheet of paper placed above it is lifted — yet does not ignite.
Some have speculated that the ionic clouds are actually enabled by nanoparticles of dissolved materials, such as clay from the underwater apparatus. However, research indicates that it’s just ionized hydrogen and oxygen. In effect, a special kind of electrolysis effect is occurring.
So, what is the practical significance of all this? As yet, it’s unclear. “Hot” fusion has been the next great energy source for decades, and always seems to be 20 years away. I’m not holding my breath for that one, especially when alternatives (including so-called cold fusion) are stirring up so many interesting results.
Having said that, it may have more down-to-Earth significance. One of the challenges in generating a true “hydrogen” economy is the efficiency of converting water to hydrogen and oxygen. Specifically, it currently takes more energy input to split them than is recoverable by burning them.
That’s a big problem (although I am watching a California startup that may just have cracked the problem using an ingenious approach). A better understanding of these unique plasmas that dance around like living beings may hold the cluesto a better approach to generating hydrogen.
That would be huge.
To your profitable future,
Jonathan Kolber
RECENT NEWS ARTICLE FROM BMW
CLICK HERE FOR FREE WHOLESALE EXTENDED AUTO WARRANTIES FOR LESS DISTRIBUTORSHIP!
Ken Schultz
from one that is largely petroleum-based to one based on hydrogen. This has come to be known
as the Hydrogen Economy. If successful, this transition will result in significant improvements
in energy efficiency and environmental quality. A hydrogen economy can be based on domestic
energy resources and would make possible a high degree of energy security.
element on earth, virtually all of it is chemically bound. Energy must be invested to separate
hydrogen from the water, hydrocarbons or carbohydrates in which it is bound. The most
straightforward, cleanest and sustainable pathway to hydrogen is decomposition of water. This
can be accomplished by electrolysis using electricity, by high temperature electrolysis using both
heat and electricity, and by a variety of thermo-chemical water-splitting cycle processes using
only heat. Radiolysis is a potential technique for splitting of water that could use fusion energy
directly to make hydrogen.
Fusion energy could be the ultimate best source of the energy needed to make the vast
amounts of hydrogen needed for a hydrogen economy. Several studies done over the years have
all concluded that production of hydrogen is well suited to the characteristics of fusion energy
production, and could be a larger market for fusion energy than even electricity production.
These studies have shown that electrolysis, high temperature electrolysis and thermo-chemical
water-splitting all have the potential to be attractive techniques for the production of hydrogen
using fusion energy.
high temperature nuclear fission reactors that could use these techniques for hydrogen
production. Fusion can take benefit from this development. Use of fusion for low temperature
electrolysis will have no impact on the fusion designs envisioned for electricity production.
High temperature electrolysis and thermo-chemical water-splitting, which offer the potential for
higher efficiency and lower costs, would have impact on the fusion designs and would add
additional requirements and constraints to the already difficult fusion reactor design process.
Strict control of tritium to avoid contamination of the hydrogen product will be especially
important. Several fusion design concepts have been developed that appear to successfully meet
the requirements for hydrogen production.
Production of hydrogen for the Hydrogen Economy is an attractive mission for fusion energy
and could be a much larger ultimate use of fusion than electricity production. Special fusion
reactor designs will be needed for high efficiency production of hydrogen, but low temperature
electrolysis could be used with no constraints on fusion design. Fusion does have the potential to
provide the ultimate source of fuel for the Hydrogen Economy.
Governor pumps up Hydrogen-Fuel Alternative
By Clifton B. Parker
 |
 |
|
The governorn takes time to fill up at the campus’s new public hydrogen fueling station. (Debbie Aldridge/UC Davis) |
With a cloudy sky above him, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promoted hydrogen-powered vehicles as the future's bright transportation alternative during a visit to campus Tuesday.
"Let's create some action," said Schwarzenegger, signing an executive order to launch the nation's first Hydrogen Highway Network while a crowd of about 300 people looked on at the Unitrans Yard on Garrod Drive off of La Rue Road. "This starts a new era for clean California transportation," he said.
The event marked his first gubernatorial visit to a UC campus. Schwarzennegger drove a hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle to the media gathering and refueled it at UC Davis' new hydrogen fueling station.
The university's new hydrogen fueling station is the first publicly accessible station on California's Hydrogen Highway, and the governor was the first member of the public to use it.
"This is the future of California and the future of our environmental protection," he said.
The search for cheaper, cleaner fuels gave impetus to Schwarzenegger's Hydrogen Highways initiative. California's Hydrogen Highways involves the building of hundreds of hydrogen refueling stations across the state, creating an infrastructure for what some believe will be the fuel of the future.
Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef greeted Schwarzenegger, noting, "We see ourselves at the university as having a special responsibility to undertake objective research in the public's interest. Today's launching of the California Hydrogen Highway is an important step in the exploration of possibilities for the future."
The UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies held the event in conjunction with the Governor's Office and the California Environmental Protection Agency.
The program consisted of a couple dozen hydrogen-powered vehicles on display with their manufacturers hosting exhibit booths. Dozens of media, local and national, were in attendance, cordoned off by moveable fences. A helicopter flew overhead toward the end of the governor's address.
"This is like a movie set, but it's better," said Schwarzenegger, adding that alternative fuels like hydrogen could help communities protect their environment and people from pollution. "Growth and protecting our natural beauty go hand in hand," he said.
and hydrogen-enriched natural gas for refueling natural gas transit buses. It is capable of refueling up to eight light-duty hydrogen vehicles per day, and currently supports two Toyota hybrid vehicles and a Unitrans bus.
In its research fleet, UC Davis has two hydrogen-powered Toyota SUVs (the most at any university campus, a distinction shared with its sister campus UC Irvine) and a new transit bus, the first in the nation in everyday service to be powered by a blend of hydrogen and natural gas.
The campus Hydrogen Pathways research progr
The governor vowed that the state government would "lead by example" and build support for hydrogen fuel. He promised to seek federal funding for research and implementation efforts, and said businesses would look more favorably upon California when it offers alternative fuel choices in the future.
The Institute of Transportation Studies is a research unit on campus that receives funding from the government, private industry and foundations. Faculty and student researchers there have studied issues such as the adoption of new technologies by consumers and data analysis of emissions.
With more than 40 faculty members, 15 research staff and 80 graduate students involved, the ITS researchers are based primarily in the campus's College of Engineering and College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
"None of us knows what the future of transportation will be. But we do know change is needed," said ITS-Davis director Daniel Sperling. "We should take wise first steps now to find the best path. Intelligent demonstrations, strong research and public education are imperative if California will continue to lead in efforts to clean our air and reduce greenhouse gases that are warming the planet."
To use the hydrogen fueling station, individuals and companies will have to sign an agreement with the university. The station offers pure hydrogen for refueling fuel-cell vehiclesam is supported by 16 industry partners. Its station already is attracting non-university users. Two Honda fuel-cell cars participating in a demonstration project of the city and county of San Francisco drove to the governor's event today from San Francisco and refueled here for their return trip.
General Atomics, San Diego, CA;
It has been concluded that production of hydrogen is well suited to the characteristics of fusion energy production, and could be a larger market for fusion energy than even electricity production. These studies have shown that electrolysis, high temperature electrolysis and thermo-chemical water-splitting all have the potential to be attractive techniques for the production of hydrogen.
The United States has embarked on a serious effort to transform our transportation economy from one that is largely petroleum-based to one based on hydrogen. This has come to be known as the Hydrogen Economy. If successful, this transition will result in significant improvements in energy efficiency and environmental quality. A hydrogen economy can be based on domestic energy resources and would make possible a high degree of energy security.
Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source. While hydrogen is the most plentiful element on earth, virtually all of it is chemically bound. Energy must be invested to separate hydrogen from the water, hydrocarbons or carbohydrates in which it is bound. The most straightforward, cleanest and sustainable pathway to hydrogen is decomposition of water. This can be accomplished by electrolysis using electricity, by high temperature electrolysis using both heat and electricity, and by a variety of thermo-chemical water-splitting cycle processes using only heat. Radiolysis is a potential technique for splitting of water that could use fusion energy directly to make hydrogen.
Fusion energy could be the ultimate best source of the energy needed to make the vast amounts of hydrogen needed for a hydrogen economy. Several studies done over the years have allhydrogen using fusion energy.
The DOE hydrogen program is currently developing these techniques, and is also developing high temperature nuclear fission reactors that could use these techniques for hydrogen production. Fusion can take benefit from this development. Use of fusion for low temperature electrolysis will have no impact on the fusion designs envisioned for electricity production. High temperature electrolysis and thermo-chemical water-splitting, which offer the potential for higher efficiency and lower costs, would have impact on the fusion designs and would add additional requirements and constraints to the already difficult fusion reactor design process. Strict control of tritium to avoid contamination of the hydrogen product will be especially important. Several fusion design concepts have been developed that appear to successfully meet the requirements for hydrogen production.
Production of hydrogen for the Hydrogen Economy is an attractive mission for fusion energyand could be a much larger ultimate use of fusion than electricity production. Special fusion reactor designs will be needed for high efficiency production of hydrogen, but low temperature electrolysis could be used with no constraints on fusion design. Fusion does have the potential to provide the ultimate source of fuel for the Hydrogen Economy. Ford seeks speed record for fuel cell-powered vehicle
CLICK HERE FOR HYDROGEN CONVERSION PLANS & SCHEMATICS!
CLICK HERE FOR FREE WHOLESALE EXTENDED AUTO WARRANTIES FOR LESS DISTRIBUTORSHIP!
Author: RP news wires
Ford Motor Company will take its 10 years of hydrogen research expertise to the Bonneville Salt Flats in August in an attempt to set the world land speed record in a hydrogen fuel cell-powered Ford Fusion.
The Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999 fuel cell car – a collaboratively engineered racer with Ballard, Roush and Ohio State University – is one of two vehicles Ford’s fuel cell research team is helping prepare to set world land speed records. Ford researchers also are working with Ohio State University student engineers on its Buckeye Bullet 2, a fuel cell-powered racer that will compete for a similar world record in the unlimited-class category.
“Racing is part of Ford Motor Company’s DNA, so it seemed only natural for us to build a fuel cell race car that runs on hydrogen, a fuel that could someday play a key role in meeting the energy needs of the transportation sector,” said Gerhard Schmidt, vice president, Research & Advanced Engineeringfor Ford Motor Company. “Our goal in attempting this record is to further expand our technological horizons with fuel cell-powered vehicles. The collaboration with Ohio State University also affords us an opportunity to work closely with a prestigious university, which provides out-of-the-box thinking from student engineers and helps us recruit talented young people to work at Ford Motor Company.”
The land speed record attempt will take place during Bonneville Speed Week from Aug. 10-17. The attempt will be sanctioned by the Southern California Timing Association.
The Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999 land speed record vehicle was designed by Ford engineers and fabricated and built by Roush in Allen Park, Mich. Ohio State students are providing the design of the 770-horsepower electric motor, while Ballard is supplying the hydrogen fuel cells. Ford retiree Rick Byrnes, a veteran Bonneville racer, will pilot the Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999 car on its record attempt.
Ohio State students have designed their unlimited-class vehicle, dubbed Buckeye Bullet 2, from the ground up. Ballard donated the hydrogen fuel cells for Ohio State’s car, Roush its engineering services and Ford has provided overall project coordination and expertise in fuel cell drivetrains.
In 2004, Ohio State students set the unlimited land speed record for an electric vehicle by running 315 mph in the first Buckeye Bullet, dubbed BB1.
Hydrogen Part of a Broader Effort
Ford’s strategy for alternative fuels is built around multiple technologies, including hydrogen fuel cells. This flexible approach allows the company to meet goals for customer needs, environmental impact and shareholder interests. The strategy does not focus on one catch-all solution but includes a flexible array of options, including hybrids, E85 ethanol, clean diesels, bio-diesels, advanced engine and transmission technologies, and hydrogen fuel cells.
The company already has a fleet of 30 hydrogen powered Focus fuel cell vehicles on the road as part of a worldwide, seven-city program to conduct real world testing of fuel cell technology. The 30-car fleet has accumulated more than 540,000 miles since its inception in 2005.
Ford also is conducting tests with the world’s first plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, the Ford Edge with HySeries Drive. The Ford Edge with HySeries Drive uses a series electric drivetrain with an onboard hydrogen fuel cell generator to give the vehicle a range of 225 miles with zero emissions.
Currently, Ford offers gasoline-electric hybrids including the Escape Hybrid and Mercury Mariner Hybrid. The company will also offer hybrid versions of the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan in 2008.
July 11th, 2007 by Joel
CLICK HERE FOR FREE WHOLESALE EXTENDED AUTO WARRANTIES FOR LESS DISTRIBUTORSHIP!
Everyone tries to break speed records, this time its Ford. Ford recently released details on a planned all new Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999 car. The Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999 fuel cell car - a collaboratively engineered racer with Ballard, Roush and Ohio State University - is one of two vehicles Ford’s fuel cell research team is helping prepare to set world land speed records.
This car is soon gonna be the fastest fuel car in the world. The car will be cooled through ice bath cooling system, this is mainly because the front is sealed in order to keep the drag coefficient as low as possible. This car features a 770-hp electric motor.
It's time for Canada to get back into the fusion power field John Skelton, Special to the Sun Published: Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Is there a way out of the wretched dilemma of significantly reducing greenhouse-gas emissions while still pursuing the growth required to maintain our standard of living?
A technology that Canada helped pioneer, but abandoned in a round of budget cuts, could be the answer.
After 65 years of effort and false starts, real progress is finally being made on fusion energy. Regrettably, Canada is no longer at the table, having withdrawn its support to the international consortium funding this work.
As of today, a fifth-generation fusion reactor, and the first design expected to produce more energy than it consumes, is under construction near Marseille in the south of France.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is slated to attain "first plasma" by 2016 and is, indeed, the last step to the elusive "sustained ignition" objective (necessary for the production of large amounts of energy) first proposed by Manhattan Project scientists in 1942.
Sixth-generation, commerce-ready designs are on the drawing boards and await engineering results from ITER to move forward. Japan and China expect to pour first metal and concrete for a sixth-generation reactor by 2030.
Motivated by high energy prices and global warming, and an unexpected acceleration in the pace of technological advances, many consortium members are now compressing their initial timelines for the completion of their commitments toward a viable fusion reactor.
To cite just one example: In September 2006 the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced that its Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokomak (EAST) reactor had at last achieved a temperature of 100 million degrees, the threshold needed for sustained fusion. No wonder it is making progress: China has 4,000 researchers working full time on a wide variety of fusion energy projects.
Japanese energy specialists expect that the sixth-generation reactor design will produce in the range of one gigawatt of electricity and do so at a cost competitive to that of uranium-fuelled fission reactors. The raw materials to produce the fusion reaction fuels are water, lithium and deuterium (heavy hydrogen.)
Lithium is a common metal, in daily use in mobile phones and laptop batteries. There is enough deuterium for millions of years of energy supply, and easily accessible lithium for several thousands of years.
With essentially zero long-lived radioactive waste, zero greenhouse-gas emissions and none of the safety concerns associated with fission reactors, one can begin to see the attraction of fusion power.
It is the green technology with the most potential to make a real difference to the climate-change debate. There are, of course, many skeptics as to the wisdom of pursuing fusion power, and with reason. Progress has been elusive. In 1951, president Juan Peron of Argentina announced with great flourish that his country had, on the advice of an unscrupulous former Nazi scientist, succeeded in building a fully functional thermonuclear reactor. Pure fantasy.
Then the "cold fusion" fiasco of 1989 threw another dose of cold water on the viability of fusion technology. A long period of international bickering over which country should host ITER followed.
As with the development of any complex technology, the outcomes are uncertain and the costs high, but advances in much of science have been plagued with bunglers and bloopers.
The first crude steam engine, built in 1712 by Thomas Newcomen, intermittently produced all of one-half horsepower of output. It was not until some 100 years later that high-horsepower machines were widely available. Few would argue today that those years of trial and frustration were a waste of time.
Canada's resource-sector companies should be given incentives to develop fusion energy expertise. This policy would support their vital long-term interests by helping them prepare for the not-far-off future when conventional energy sources are significantly less economical to exploit. Energy and materials know-how is, after all, their prime line of business, and there is more to green technologies than building better wind farms and refitting homes with insulation.
The record profits in the resource sector make this a propitious time to increase investment in this transformative technology. The Canadian industrial average for R&D spending is 3.8 per cent of revenues, whereas the oil and gas sector invests less than one-tenth of this percentage. The way forward should be clear: Add fusion energy research to the list of projects qualifying for carbon tax credits. What companies do with this incentive is up to them.
Private corporations are notably more skilled at getting things done than are governments. It is time to begin to develop a robust Canadian economic potential in the post-Kyoto world. John Skelton, a former senior policy adviser with Industry Canada, is an educator with the Canada Museum of Science and Technology. © The Vancouver Sun 2007
CLICK HERE FOR FREE WHOLESALE EXTENDED AUTO WARRANTIES FOR LESS DISTRIBUTORSHIP!
LUTEC AUSTRALIA PTY LTD displays prototypes that amplifying electricity by at least five times. This technology could save our planet but it also begs the question; Where Does The "EXTRA" Energy Come From?: Lutec replies.
In 1831 the great English scientist Michael Faraday discovered that electrical energy can be produced by magnetism when accompanied by … motion. Notice that a rotary device infers motion, one of the two elements required.
167 years later in 1998 Ludwig (Lu) Brits and Victor (John) Christie applied for patent protection over an invention titled "A Means of Controlling a Rotary Device". The invention, the brain child of Lu Brits, was further developed by the two men from an existing concept design of Lu’s and were subsequently granted patent in New Zealand, Australia, the USA, Mexico, Israel, Turkey, Russia, Eurasia, South Africa, Africa, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and many other countries. See www.lutec.com.au for more details.
The rotor has permanent magnets embedded and stands in oil drum like fashion on a top and bottom bearing allowing it to spin freely through 360 degree rotation. External to the rotor, steel cores are wound with copper wire and placed in a fixed position independent of the rotor. Now of course the rotor cannot spin freely any more because the magnets are attracted to the steel core of the coil and so this is acting as a locking brake. The key is in how to cause the magnet to pass the steel core of the coil that is trying to attract then hold the magnet and so prevent the rotor from revolving.
As the magnet is attracted to the steel core of the coil it pulls the rotor with it, this is then motion caused by "Natural Magnetic Attraction". When the magnet is situated in the appropriate position opposite the steel core of the coil a short pulse of electrical energy is caused to be sent through the coil windings. This has the effect of turning the steel core temporarily into a magnet of like polarity to the permanent magnet. This causes repulsion from each other and so the revolution of the rotor continues. Absolutely critical to the efficient running of the machines is the accuracy of the timing and duration of the switching of the input pulse. The rotational speed is dictated by the amount of electrical energy of that input pulse. There is a lot of energy stored in the rotor created by the motion, however the motion itself is the result of the magnets being attracted to and then repelled from the steel core of the coils.
There are a couple of other very interesting things that occur about this time that we won’t go into here, and the coils in the LEA remain at room temperature even with the coils outputting their maximum energy. So we have a rotor that continues to spin, it is now in Motion, the. The motion permits induction resulting in the wiring of the coil/s to become exited. The amount of inputted electrical energy expended that magnetises the steel core of the coils, and does a couple of other things not mentioned here, is a far less amount than the electrical energy produced by the same coils. The input is a separate circuit to the output. All the input energy is expended. The resulting electricity production proves once more Mr Faradays discovery.
So where does the extra electrical energy come from? It’s not EXTRA energy, it is actually newly produced! And it comes from the interaction between the MAGNET’S natural magnetic attraction and natural magnetic repulsion causing the MOTION and the MAGNETISM in the coils then producing the new ELECTRICAL energy, just as Mr Faraday said it would.
Mr Faraday rocked the scientific establishment of the time back in 1831 with evidence that magnetism and motion create electrical energy. Brits and Christie are doing the same in 2007 by simply applying the principle extremely efficiently.
Lutec Australia Pty Ltd. 2007.
CLICK HERE FOR HYDROGEN CONVERSION PLANS & SCHEMATICS!
CLICK HERE FOR FREE WHOLESALE EXTENDED AUTO WARRANTIES FOR LESS DISTRIBUTORSHIP!
