Simply make a car with a windmill on top of it that generates it's own energy as it moves along!

Of course we'd have to raise all the overpasses.

But, in all seriousness, they have fan energy generating fans that are small and efficient, there has also have been major strides in solar panels that may also apply. They have cars developed that run off water, not steam, but water itself.

Point is we do have the know-how and ability to feed, house and cloth every man, women and child on the planet. The problem of course we have a small group of insanely greedy and powerful people that control energy in this world and they're not about to give-up their strangle-hold on that power without a fight. And if the day should ever come that we can wrest that power from these madmen we'd achieve that peace on Earth that only exists in songs and fairy-tales now.

by Mr M (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 2845 comments [654 recommended, 27 rejected]) on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 8:30:41 AM

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 Solar is my preference for alternative energy. The wind farm industry is problematic. Since turbines only produce energy when the wind is blowing and shut down when it blows too hard...the energy is erratic. Yet the transmission lines have to make way for them. Texas is over run with wind farms. They are paying for their energy to be allowed on the grid. They have already paid for the wind farms to be built through tax subsidies. So the cost of the wind farms  and transmission lines are paid for with  taxes and utility bills. Nationalize? No. Go back to regulation of utilities. This was a hard won policy won by the socialist party , I think. Why does the US have to go back and forth on laws that work?

by Molly (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 6 comments) on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 8:57:33 AM

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I'm a member of the Pickens Plan (although after reading the following article, I have serious reservations about how we're drilling for NG. Anyone who is seriously considering NG as a solution to imported oil needs to honestly evaluate the following article with an open mind. If we do not solve both the pollution and overuse of water issues, NG will not be a viable solution - unless we are willing to depopulate the west, and maybe even stop drinking water from upstate NY. We owe it to ourselves to set a new clean path in using NG. Otherwise, we will be seen as anti-environmentalists, no matter how many wind turbines we eventually build. And let's keep in mind the NG installations look like they will be ready first, due to Bush's last minute opening up af 100s of thousands of new acres for drilling and his total abandonment of environmental safeguards.


I don't know if these is a way to clean drill, but we certainly need to change our tax policies to tax resources and untax profit, to encourage NG companies to place their priorities better.)

Sorry for the digression, but T. Boone is fond of saying in his presentation that you can' tmove an 18 wheeler with batteries.  Does anyone know if there are big trucks powered by batteries, or is CNG, or maybe hydrogen, the only answer to this transportation need?

by Scott Baker (13 articles, 51 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 162 comments [35 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 10:03:17 AM

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Every house in America should be endowed with a set of solar panels producing electricity for that house and back-feeding to the power grids.  Since most solar panels produce heat that heat can be used to warm the water for that homes use by storing it in an underground tank.  Our electric cars and trains should also have solar panels to help generate their power.  With all of this being generated we should be in good shape since I have not even touched on other solar, wind, and water sources to generate our power.  A great deal of these sources are portable/moveable so that all corners of this earth will be accessible to this regeneratable power.  Most of our(the worlds) infrastructure is in need of restoration/replacement so now is as good(if not better) a time to start the conversion.  It, obviously, will not be as easy as I make it sound but it is doable and necessary if we are to avoid the problems that the oill crunch will bring in violence and wars.  There are many other steps we must take in order to quell the problems we face in over-population and economic crisis that face us in todays screwed up world.  To actually be able to go forward(instead of backward) we must address all of these issues for all of us.  Converting our power sources will be one of the major steps we must take.

by Hayesml47 (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 540 comments [10 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 10:10:07 AM

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Very nice math, and it mainly checks out too ;)

One small point is, that many peeps claim gasoline in an internal combustion engine is about 20 to 25% efficient (which of course is still horrible, lol). However, this varies greatly and 15% may not be too far off. But to pad it for conservative figures you may want to raise the total equivalent kW's by about 10% .

Regarding generating the electricity... There are MUCH MUCH better ways available than coal, natural gas, or oil (...and especially better than fission Nuclear!). This will be the real key in the future: How do we make the juice?

>  LENR (cold fusion) is REAL and it works. But in the U.S., it is verboten for universities to study it.

>  This is also true of energy from Plasma or "Ball Lightening" (which some say is not "exactly" plasma); which is very under-studied despite it's tremendous potential. At present, the extreme heat generated from plasma / ball lightening chambers can heat boilers with 5-to-1 energy efficiency (COP>5).   

>  Another subject that has a very good chance of making clean and cheap energy (... but is refused to be studied by our universities), is magnetic motors. It appears to be possible to run a generator simply by the power of magnets... With no external power source. This has been proven with several small designs for magnetic motors, and if it were studied properly instead of being suppressed, could be of immense benefit to Mankind.  The U.S. Department of Energy is presently holding and just sitting on a Patent for manufacturing "asymmetric magnets" (for the last 7 years...), meaning that the North Pole of a magnet can be stronger than the South pole. This is innovation makes it much easier to build magnetic motor/generators; and do it with much higher torque than we see now. But we are not seeing this technology in the marketplace.. WHY IS THAT ??? 

>  Then there is "HHO" / Hydroxy... Hydrogen and Oxygen created from cracking the water molecule on demand. The energy needed to break out the H and O from water is dozens of times less now than the text books claim; they are out-and-out lying about it. So boilers (..or vehicles...) burning Hydrogen created safely at low pressures on demand as a fuel simply from water could generate our electricity very cheaply and efficiently... And utterly cleanly. This subject is also verboten for serious study by our universities; despite clear evidence that it IS energy efficient and viable. The only byproduct of this is water... Most of it can be re-used over and over.    

We are seeing a trend here: Any new energy producing technology "allowed" to be studied, or to enter the marketplace, must not be able to be easily home-generated.. So the national electricity Grid and centralized monopoly production (...or a large expensive infrastructure such as needed for pressurized pure Hydrogen), is still always required to transmit it to the Consumer... and secondly, the new technology must be less cost-efficient than oil or coal (..such as wind, tide, geothermal, and solar; which are "allowed" because they cost much more than oil). This is because the energy cartels (which include oil and coal producers and electric utility corps secretly banding together in an illegal TRUST) will do ANYTHING to stop losing their stranglehold they have over us.

We are now paying the largest, most non-progressive, and draconian TAX ever seen in the history of civilization for our energy!! Lol, and the Repubs never complain about THIS tax ;)   

We need to start producing our own energy at home.... Cleanly, cheaply, efficiently. This is how we end world hunger, wars over energy, clean up the environment, and end Global Warming. We CAN do it, if we have the will to.

THESE TECHNOLOGIES DO EXIST; and they do work! They have been proved with witnesses of engineers, scientists, and professors... And by multiple replications by several inventors and enthusiasts in the Free Energy / Open Source Energy Movement. It's just that we are not allowed to learn about them!

We need to demand that the new administration allow grant money to go to our universities to study the above exciting technologies. And we NEED IT NOW!!

by Steve Windisch (jibbguy) (17 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 360 comments [54 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 10:43:40 AM

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I'd also note that if you consider the weight of the passenger in comparison to the car, we're down to about 1% efficiency for the gasoline.

I imagine many readers here have seen my solar airship, but if not it can be found on YouTube (or just Google "solar airship").  It runs on nothing but about 20 watts produced by sunlight, with off-the-shelf 6% efficient panels.

More recently, I had a solar ship with 4 times the power of that one and yet the same size, again with solar only, but the panels got scratched while I was getting ready for Earth Day last year--and they are presently too expensive to replace.

Not only do we not fund alternate energy and have astronomical subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear (including probably the largest portion of our defense budget), but our polices actively discourage alternate energy.

by Daniel Geery (26 articles, 95 quicklinks, 126 diaries, 912 comments [26 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:09:18 AM

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The limit to wind, solar, and geothermal electrical generation utility is the overall collection/distribution grid.  With an eventual national (international?) grid (similar to the Interstate Higway system), gasoline is a supplementary fuel.  Natural gas will provide minimal base power throughout the grid, and wind/solar/geo will cooperate to fill out the demand where it is called.  This won't happen over night.  But, it will happen, maybe substantially so, within the next 50 years.  

by John Hargrove (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments) on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:18:23 AM

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Though it has gotten little or no recognition, General Motors has had it's own 'Manhattan Project' in developing the Chevy Volt Plug-In electric. GM has  compressed about 10 years of research into about 5 years in developing the industry's first mass-production fully plug-in electric automobile in 2010. Working with little or no government assistance, it has privately brought together a battery consortium to overcome seemingly insurmountable size, range and mass-prooduction problems in a remarkably short amount of time.

While Plug-In vehicles are a short-to-mid-term solution, ultimately a more renewable method of powering vehicles is needed in the long term. Hydrogen Fuel-Cell technology appears to be the  way to go. GM is now testing the world's largest fleet of Hydrogen Fuel-Cell cars in New York, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, with much success. The Hydrogen can be obtained via electrolysis from water, and the only emissions from these vehicles is warm water vapor. What will be needed is government cooperation and committment to enabling a Hydrogen fueling infrastructure so that these vehicles can be economically viable. Unfortunately, in this chicken-and-egg scenario, no automaker will mass-produce a powertrain when there is no fueling network in place, while no fueling infrastructure will be built unless there is a demand for it. This is exactly the type of situation where government intervention into the private sector is not only warranted, but necessary in order to move us away from fossil fuels and into the next phase of industrialization.

In the meantime, it is encouraging to hear the Obama administration is willing to take on the first serious upgrade of our electrical transportation infrastructure in more than 50 years. If we are to produce more electric power from whatever source (or even maintain our present output), we need to upgrade and reinforce the transmission lines to handle this capacity. The massive  blackout in the northeast and midwest US and Canada a couple of years ago resulting from a cascading failure around the Lake Erie power loop should have been a red flag warning us of the vulnerability of our aging and woefully inadequate power system in North America. If we are to maintain our status as an industrial, technological and economic world power, now is the time to build the basis for our advancement into a new age of power generation. Otherwise we will fall by the wayside as a civilization, as so many great nations have in the past- when they failed to realize that growth and change are essential in the health and well being of any society.

by Thaddeus Kaczor Jr (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 46 comments [7 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:29:38 AM

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Rapid rebirth of the automotive industry is now a matter of urgency. To the surprise of almost everyone, as unlikely as it may seem, revolutionary energy technology can change that goal from fantasy to reality.

Several renewable new energy systems are in development throughout the world – as they reach the market, demand for fossil fuels will drop.  However, few of these innovations have the potential to catalyze changes in the entire energy picture.  Even fewer can substantially wind down carbon dioxide production fast enough to avoid the most drastic, life threatening, impacts caused by Global Warming.

The earth is immersed in an extremely dense sea of energy.  In 1926, inventor Hans Coler, in Germany, tapped what he termed “Space Energy”.  His first generator delivered a few watts of electricity.  During 1937, Coler demonstrated a second, 6,000 watt, generator that was later shown to the German navy.  During WWII, a highly secret R&D project supported Coler, in attempts to achieve production in order to recharge submarine batteries without the need for a sub to surface.  Late in the War, the Allies bombed the lab.  After hostilities ended, Coler cooperated with British Intelligence, which published a Report in 1946, concluding his achievement was real.  In 1979, the British Intelligence Report was declassified.  Today, it can readily be found on the internet.

We are developing revolutionary new technology.  Some of our generators may prove to be tapping the same, Space Energy resource.  It is now often referred to as the Quantum Vacuum, or Zero Point Energy (ZPE).  U.S.  Patent, No.  7,379,286 (not directly connected with our work) is entitled: Quantum Vacuum Energy Extraction.  It provides a comprehensive discussion of the Zero Point Field.  The Patent is readily available on the web and provides scientists and skeptics with an excellent analysis. 

Ambient heat surrounds us at all times.  It is another huge untapped energy reservoir.  When it is utilized on a very large scale, it can help resolve our energy problems.  On earth, ambient heat is a secondary power source powered by the sun.  Sunlight is conserved in matter, such as rocks, in the form of heat.  A great deal of energy remains available after sunset.  Matter acts as an energy storage system for heat and allows life to survive periods of darkness.  The stored energy is released after sunset or if the energy has been absorbed.  Absorption takes place whenever heat is converted into electricity cooling instead of heating the planet.  Those who doubt this is possible may find the two papers dealing with Maxwell at the following link of interest:  http://arxiv.org/find/physics/1/au:+Fu_X/0/1/0/all/0/1

Unconventional energy conversion systems are under development in several countries.  Those inventions that become practical products may prove to be tapping one or the other of these never previously commercialized, renewable, abundant sources of energy.  Revolutionary new energy conversion devices can be manufactured in many of the world’s existing factories.  They are likely to prove inherently cost-competitive.  Not only can they be used to power homes and businesses of every variety, but also to make practical cars, trucks and buses that need no engines, batteries, or any variety of conventional fuel or recharge.

Advanced designs will soon be capable of producing torque and/or electricity on a self-sustaining basis.  Devices without moving parts are comparable to an inexhaustible electric battery.  One Proof-of-Concept prototype was evaluated by Lee Felsenstein, EE.   He concluded it to be analogous to the early work on the transistor, which eventually led to a Nobel Prize and the creation of Silicon Valley.   

Generators we are developing are expected to generate this much power and demonstrate replacement of the plug needed by a plug-in hybrid car, within a year.  This will be a harbinger of automobiles that need no conventional fuel.  With normal progress, prototype new energy conversion systems are anticipated to replace an automobile engine within three years.  That goal might be achieved more rapidly if development involves four teams of engineers and technicians working on a 24/7 basis.  These prototypes will open a path to mass production of entirely new varieties of automotive power plants.  Vehicles powered by these technologies will never require conventional fuel of any kind.   

Cars can become a source of income

Vehicle to grid (V2G) power was demonstrated by Google and PG&E during 2007.  It was recently estimated that selling power to the grid from future production hybrid electric cars might earn the vehicles’ owner $4,000 each year.  This assumes that power will be drawn by utilities from the car’s batteries, by means of a two-way, plug. 

In the future, cars powered by new energy conversion systems are expected to earn much more, as these generators are anticipated to replace both batteries and car engines.  Therefore, they are expected to produce far greater amounts of electricity.  No plug will be required. 

Generators of the variety we are developing to power electric automobiles might be thought of as analogous to a fuel cell that needs no hydrogen.  We can easily switch this cell on or off.  When the car is driving the conversion device is switched on, providing energy to the electric motor that propels the car.  When the vehicle is parked, the motor that drives the vehicle is turned 'off', but the modular device remains "on", still producing energy, like a fuel cell that needs no fuel.  In larger cars, trucks and buses, up to 150 kW, produced by the unit while the motor is off, can be transferred from the vehicle through a wireless technology requiring no physical connection to the parked vehicle, providing power to the utility grid.  Instead of paying to park, the electric power utility may decide to pay vehicle owners, because their cars and trucks become a source of electricity, a clean alternative to any existing variety of power plant.  Over a reasonable period of time, payments to the owner may be sufficient to reimburse the purchase price of many vehicles. 

Once cars, trucks and buses become available that need no fuel and can earn their keep, it is logical to expect automotive manufacturers will sell every such vehicle they make.  Plants that have been shut down will reopen.  Auto workers who have been laid off could have the opportunity to be rehired.  Large numbers of new manufacturing jobs will be created.

A revolutionary product this far-reaching has the potential to provide huge numbers of new jobs and opportunities for new enterprise.  The economic impact of cars as power plants is likely to prove a surprising way to stimulate the global economy. 

It can also provide distributed generation of electricity wherever the grid is lacking or unreliable.  Moreover, cars can wirelessly power homes and businesses.  Imagine the many advantages, such as the aftermath of storms and other disasters.

These technologies will rapidly reduce the need to import fuel and thereby accomplish a huge reduction in the balance of payments, a huge drain at present on our economy.

Auto manufacturers are already preparing to market plug-in hybrids and electric cars. However, present technology sharply limits projected production volumes.  Eliminating fuel burning engines and the need for batteries and recharge requirements will open huge new markets.

When jet engines were proposed for airliners, experts projected it would take 20 years for the changeover to take place. In fact, it took only 5 years!

When World War II began, auto makers rapidly shifted production to tanks and aircraft. These changes required massive reorganization. Shifting to new energy conversion systems that require no fuel or recharge is infinitely less difficult. It only requires the determination to adapt to rapid change that can insure not merely the survival, but the blossoming of the industry, instead of its destruction.

With the surprisingly rapid pace of CO2 production, human survival on the planet is presently at stake. Myles Allen of Oxford University captures the essence of the situation in one sentence: "The danger zone is not something we're going to reach in the middle of the century; we're in it now."  It has been said: “What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future.  This is the defining moment.”

Energy consumption is at the core of human existence.  We must sharply accelerate development of new, cost-effective, sustainable alternatives.  The auto industry has the potential to catalyze, with a kick start, a global economic recovery. 

by Mark Goldes (11 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 129 comments [3 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 2:51:23 PM

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Mr. Goldes,

I and many in the Free Energy / Open Source Energy movement have been watching you company with great expectations; and we admire and respect your tenacity and ingenuity... And we certainty are pulling for your success. But knowing the success rate for such ventures (..none yet so far have been allowed to enter the marketplace); we also despair for it.

Can you give us an update on how things are going, when we can see some prototypes of working or production models? And can you describe the basic technology a bit more than you have in the past? At this point, consider that perhaps letting something slip to a potential competitor is less important than getting the technology out to Mankind.

We would also urge you to re-consider the Open Source path. Especially if you find unscalable barriers in your way. Remember that Open Sourcing your device will not vacate any Patents, or lead to any significant decrease in revenues once you hit your stride in production... Such devices will be so incredibly successful that you would be hard-pressed to fully utilize every profitable avenue anyway....  What going Open Source route will do for you and the technology is this (...as i am sure you already know, it is for the audience's benefit lol ;) ):

> It will insure there are independent replications and test results that will help the technology's general credibility greatly. It is very hard to deny when 100 people around the world have working devices to show the media. Their favorite tactic is to deride: We can take that away from them with multiple, independent, and undeniable working prototypes.

>  Provide "free" R&D help; leading to perhaps enhancing the device or at least to widening the base of knowledge concerning it. With thousands of eyes and minds looking at the problems, there will be positive advances to that technology that your people may have missed; or at least it will improve it all faster... Leading to your firm's increased profits.

> It can help greatly in defeating the latent or overt "suppressions" or "road blocks" if you will, that any revolutionary new energy technology is going to meet when it is attempted to be introduced to the marketplace. You can expect to be attacked on several fronts simultaniously... Including "Economically" (via "shill" investors who file unending frivolous lawsuits and even criminal complaints in order to negatively "label" you), "Legally" via patent infringements and other similar attacks, and from the U.S. government / military industrial complex itself who may attempt to "secretize" the technology and silence you with gag orders.. As Dr. Thomas Valone, longtime U.S. Patent Office employee, stated has happened to over 4,000 similar Patents.

If history is any indicator, one or all of the above will certainly be tried against you.. As they have in EVERY SINGLE instance in the past regarding a free energy device. I suspect some already have been. Having hundreds of successfully replicated devices throughout the world to point to will make it very difficult to ignore, deride, or suppress using these tactics.

You may be the first free energy inventor or entrepreneur in history to defeat these road blocks that have ended the hopes for so many promising new technologies. We fervently hope you are. However, with the help of the Open Source Energy movement, you can raise your chances of success... And insure that the planet will benefit from the device.

.. End of pitch lol.... Best of luck to you and your ventures, and Keep On Truckin'  ;)

by Steve Windisch (jibbguy) (17 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 360 comments [54 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008 at 8:50:58 AM

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Gasoline can be used to make electricity but no known application of electricity can make gasoline out of moving electrons and magnetism.

by Bucky the Commoner (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 62 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 5:38:02 PM

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More simply, the average drive is 1000 miles per month; and the average mpg fuel efficiency is 20 mpg.

To travel 1000 miles in an EV takes 167 to 250 kWh (4 to 6 miles for each kWh).

Hence, you can replace gasoline in cars with an average of 250 kWh per car per month;  now how much is 250 kWh?  It's about the amount of electric you use to run an old refrigerator, or two new refrigerators.

The average home uses about 1000 kWh of electric per month; thus, you can replace gasoline in one car for a fraction of the electric you use.  And it's off-peak electric, if you charge slowly off-peak, so it's a lot cheaper than peak electric.

Even better, if you have an EV, the money you DON'T spend on gasoline more than pays for your solar rooftop system.

To make 600 kWh of electric per month, enough to run 2 EVs, takes a system of about 3 kW, which occupies 15 to 30 square meters (up to 3' by 10', only a small part of your roof) and costs, after rebates and tax breaks, about $15,000.

We've driven 600,000 miles over 10 years of EV driving, saving about 30,000 gallons of gas; saving at least $60,000, which more than paid for our solar system years ago. 

Now, we drive essentially for free, free of pollution, free of cost; and we get our domestic electric for free, too, and have a battery backup as well thrown into the bargain.

The only thing stopping others from doing so, is Chevron's control of the NiMH battery patents; Chevron's unit (Chevron-Ovonics BAtterySYStems, or cobasys) sued Toyota and won $30,000,000 in "damages", after which Toyota ceased production of the RAV4-EV and the NiMH batteries that power it.

But we, and hundreds of others, are still driving the Toyota RAV4-EV, last sold in Nov., 2002.

Only Chevron (Standard Oil of California) is stopping EVs; but they colluded with General Motors, which sold control of the NiMH battery patents to Chevron on Oct. 10, 2000.

Thus, Standard Oil and GM colluded to kill the EV, similar to their collusion to buy up urban railroads.

Why does an oil company own control of EV batteries?? Even stupid journalists can figure that out, but they just don't want to. 

by Doug Korthof (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 4 comments) on Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008 at 6:33:58 PM

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When I was a boy, my Dad told me TV's could never be portable-- the batteries would be too big.

Now we have tiny motors that run on a fraction of the current once needed. Our electrical efficiency has increased by orders of magnitude. Any measurement of comparative energy yields must allow for change. Comparing electric to petroleum energy is futile because it will change. What is needed is investment in change, not in existing tech. Unfortunately, existing tech. has the microphone, and the podium, and the major media, the banks, the Congress, and the world's oil fields and wealth.

Dick Tracy's wrist radio was once science fiction, too. And pay phones were a nickel. See the reactionary trend? Buggy-whip makers are running the country and the world.

Only We, The People, can force these dinosaurs to change into flying saucers.

by martinweiss (41 articles, 6 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 503 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008 at 12:03:33 AM

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Do we really want to replicate the oil-fired economic lifestyle with one based on electricity? Using electricty as oil only locks in the oil economy lifestyle, which is a rat race. We're expecting to become free from the rat race by using electricty and I don't think that it's going to work out like that. Pegging conspiracies as to why the conversion isn't happening misses the point: what's based upon sustainable electrical technoliges generates an economy that creates a new lifestyle rather than replicating an old one.

by ScottC 1676867503 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments) on Wednesday, Dec 24, 2008 at 1:32:40 PM

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