Smart Garage

Hydrid gas/electrics are the future…we can do most of our intown errands on 10-20 miles a day at most! Of course, depends on the size of the city and how much you run around.

“In order for the future to be sustainable, it must be more interconnected than the present. For example, early charge stations will be easiest and most profitable to construct where there are large groups of cars, like in parking garages. This fits very well with models like car-sharing, which serve dense populations. According to MOVE team member Laura Schewel, a Smart Garage car share is a likely follow-up project. “Car shares are a great match for the Smart Garage business proposition: they drive more miles per day (and since this depends on operational savings, that’s a big deal) they expose a lot of people to the new technology, and they already have a model that utilizes dedicated parking spots (which could become dedicated charge spots).” “Families with the PHEVs/EVs will be able to power the neighborhood in case of a black-out,” Schewel says. “Today, some regions have municipally owned electricity utilities. If you neighborhood has solar panels and some wind, and xEVs, in the long run, one can imagine see micro-utilities at the neighborhood scale. This is a LONG way off but it is a potential outcome.” – Source

Can the Bolt-on Blade Really Boost Gas Mileage? w/video

Sounds almost like a resonance effect for a standing wave?

“We’ve all heard about the 100-miles-per-gallon carburetor that “they” don’t want you to have, and the scientist whose invention was mysteriously suppressed just as he was about to bring incredibly cheap people’s power to the world (think Nikola Tesla). Popular Mechanics tested a bunch of “fuel savers” back in 2005 and concluded that absolutely none of them worked. One even started a fire. These devices use miracle magnets, vortex generators, ionizers and water injection. But the only thing they reduced, PM said, was the cash in your wallet. And this brings us to the latest device, The Blade, which bolts on to the exhaust pipe. Actress Laura Dern says it works. “Having a Blade on my hybrid car allows me to continue driving with the satisfaction that I am lowering my carbon footprint and burning less fuel,” she says. The Blade is definitely more credible than most. The company paid for independent testing by the respected Automotive Testing and Development Services (ATDS) in Canada. On a 2004 Honda Civic, the Blade allegedly achieved a 57 percent reduction in hydrocarbons, 14 percent in carbon monoxide, 34 percent in nitrogen oxides and six percent in carbon dioxide (the main global warming gas). And on the highway, the numbers show it achieving a five percent fuel economy improvement. “There’s a phenomenon called backsliding. When the spark goes off and the piston fires, there is both an exhaust wave and an energy or sound wave (which is five times faster than the exhaust wave). When the reversion wave bounces out, some of it goes back into the exhaust chamber, affecting fuel economy. The ratio of air to fuel is affected. The Blade compresses the sound wave, with a vacuum effect, so the exhaust is sucked more freely toward the tailpipe. You end up with a cleaner charge.” – Source

Hot-E $140 Computer

And they are apparently for sale now, though useless without the internet.

“John and Jeanne Nicholls have developed a line of computers – named the Hot-E – which they’re hoping to launch early next year. Unlike most computers, the Hot-E doesn’t store information on an internal hard drive, instead it lets you access your information which is stored on a remote server. “Imagine everyone’s got their own TV station,” John said. “You don’t need your own TV station. All you need is a TV station somewhere else and a device like the Hot-E to display the information. “A Hot-E is like a TV set, you plug in your keyboard, your mouse, your keyboard and your internet connection. “The desktop can be running over in America. “You get the illusion you’re seeing a normal computer. But you’re not.” Mr Nicholls said his company, ThinLinX, had been inundated with hundreds of requests from potential customers around the world wanting to purchase the Hot-E after a story about his invention appeared in the New York Times. Eventually his interest was piqued with the release of the Linux operating system – a competitor of the Microsoft Windows operating system – and started to become interest in the concept of cloud computing – systems and programs which live on the internet – on which the Hot-E is based. “We’re hoping to sell it for about US$100. It uses less power. Mr Nicholls said one of the major drawcards of the Hot-E was that it consumes around 3 watts of energy, compared with an average PC which uses 200 watts. “Houses will have their media centre in the lounge room,” he said. “That system will be running windows, can have movies and mp3s stored, a TV tuner. “The kids can be in their room and they’ll be able to watch TV, movies, play music and surf the net.” – Source

Military Investigates Amnesia Beams

Wow, reminds me of the old movie, ‘Looker’ – “During his investigation, Roberts discovers some advanced-technology devices the Digital Matrix corporation is using to hypnotize consumers into buying the products they advertise. He also discovers the L.O.O.K.E.R. (Light Ocular-Oriented Kinetic Emotive Responses) gun, a light pulse device that gives the illusion of invisibility by instantly mesmerizing its victims into losing all sense of time.”

“In the 1980s, researchers found that even low-level exposure to a beam of electrons caused rats to forget what had just happened to them (an effect known as retrograde amnesia — the other version, anteretrograde amnesia, is when you can’t form new memories). The same effect was also achieved with X-rays. The time factor was not large — it only caused memory loss about the previous four seconds — but the effect was intriguing. One theory was that the amnesia was a result of the brilliant flash experienced when the electron beam struck the retina. And, indeed, it turned out that it is possible to produce amnesia in rodents using a flash of light: Retrograde amnesia was demonstrated for the 80-, 85-, and 100-V foot-shock test trials. At 40 V the voltage may not have been great enough to be felt by the subject. For groups examined at shock levels above 100 V, the foot shock was so potent that a photoflash was ineffective in producing RA. Our conclusion was that the photoflash was an effective amnesiac until the intensity of the foot shock became more potent than the photoflash; this is consistent with the recency theory generated in serial learning and memory tasks. What’s more, a 2003 paper on microwave effects on the nervous system, from a team that includes Navy and Air Force scientists, states that “research with isolated brain tissue has provided new results that do not seem to rely on thermal mechanisms.” It is hard to assess the real effect on working memory and other brain functions, they add. “The many exposure parameters such as frequency, orientation, modulation, power density, and duration of exposure make direct comparison of many experiments difficult…. It is concluded that the diverse methods and experimental designs as well as lack of replication of many seemingly important studies prevents formation of definite conclusions concerning hazardous nervous system health effects from RF [radio frequency] exposure.”
- Source

Lutec’s perpetual motion calculations a “basic mistake” w/Lego video

It is peculiar that they have now been at this for so many years with no working devices available to sell.

“From Lutec’s website, it appears to be an investment scheme, with many appeals to buy shares. The most interesting claim in pursuit of that goal is that no physicist or engineer has ever looked at their figures and said it doesn’t work. Enter BBG commenter Mac, who claims he’s an engineer who has looked at Lutec’s numbers and says it doesn’t work. I am a professional engineer in Australia. In September 2006 I was supplied with a summary of calculations by a potential investor to Lutec Australia, John Christie’s company. The summary had diagrams and calculations showing how this worked. The calculations were, to put it politely, fundamentally miscalculations. For example, they calculated the energy taken out of the battery as ‘Ampere Hour Rating’ of the battery multiplied by the battery voltage drop over the time of the test. Another basic mistake was that they did all kind of ‘chopping’ of a sine wave, then used formulas to convert ‘Ipeak’ to ‘Irms’ on the assumption that it was a non-chopped sine wave. They are just two of the many, many mistakes in the calculations. I know that my comments to the investor were passed back to them, as I was emailed John Christie’s response. I have no objection to them believing that they have invented something new. However, the claim that no engineer has looked at their figures and said it doesn’t work is incorrect.” – Source

Dean Kamen discusses his Stirling engine

Love it that he is using off the shelf cars, modified to run on his engine.

“Now he and his engineers have built and tested a range of Stirling engines suitable for mass production that can be run on anything from jet fuel to cow dung. The one in the boot of the small blue car is designed to extend its range and constantly recharge its batteries to make a new kind of hybrid vehicle: one fit for the roads of the 21st century. A Stirling-electric hybrid, Kamen tells me, can travel farther and more efficiently than conventional electric cars; it generates enough power to run energy-hungry devices such as heaters and defrosters that are essential for drivers who, unlike those he calls the ‘tofu heads’ of California, must cope with a cold climate; and even using petrol, the engine runs far cleaner than petrol-electric hybrids such as Toyota’s Prius. However, Kamen confesses, his new creation isn’t quite finished yet: ‘The Stirling engine’s not hooked up. Which really pisses me off.’ / Using a Think City car, Kamen is now modifying the two-seater coupe to carry a Stirling engine that would not only extend its range by hundreds of miles but turn the car into a mobile generator. When electricity demand peaks during the day, thousands of Thinks plugged in at office parks could feed power back to the grid so utilities like PG&E (PCG) and Edison (EIX) could avoid having to fire up planet-warming power plants. The Stirling engine would then recharge the car’s battery for the commute home. When we last spoke in July, Kamen had the autmotive version of the Stirling engine up and running. The next step is to hook it up to the City and see if it’ll work as planned. You probably won’t see a Stirling in a Toyota (TM) or Ford (F) but the device gives Think another power plant to offer its customers.” – Source

What we could have done with the money…

Preaching to the choir!

“He calculates $1 trillion could pave the entire U.S. interstate highway system with gold _ 23.5-karat gold leaf. It could buy every person on the planet an iPod. It could give every high school student in the United States a free college education. It could pay off every American’s credit card. It could buy a Buick for every senior citizen still driving in the United States. $10 billion a month… $1 trillion American tax dollars… the things we could have done with the Bush’s war money…” – Source

New process increases energy output of methanol fuel cells by 50%

Excellent, another thing that might take years to come to market!

“A layer-by-layer assembly technique is the key to Hammond’s membranes. In earlier work, her team altered a membrane made of Nafion, a polymer manufactured by DuPont that is commonly used in fuel cells. It conducts protons well but also permits some methanol leakage, and it’s rela­tively expensive to make. To begin the new process, Avni Argun, a postdoc in the lab and lead author on the Advanced Materials paper, mounts a specially treated silicon disc in a lab hood and starts the disc slowly rotating. Facing the membrane are four sprayer ­nozzles. Each nozzle is connected to a separate container. One contains a positively charged polymer solution and one a negatively charged polymer solution; two hold water. Argun starts the sprayer system, which mists the disc with the positive solution for a few seconds, then with a water rinse, then with the negatively charged polymer, and finally with water again. A two-layer film forms within about 50 seconds. The thickness of this “bilayer” depends on the polymers and can range from 3 to 50 nanometers. In about six hours, the sprayer can apply between 400 and 600 bilayers, creating a membrane about 20 micro­meters thick. The membrane described in Advanced Materials was made up of three bilayers on top of a Nafion membrane, adding only 260 nanometers to its thickness. By using a combination of positive and negative polymers, the researchers maintained Nafion’s high conduc­tivity while reducing its methanol crossover.” – Source

Light bulb glows energy-free

Now if they could just change the color from something less than ‘thriller’ zombie green.

“American Environmental Products this month debuted the After-Lite, a compact fluorescent lamp that can shine light without any electricity or battery power. An attachment clipped to the top of the fluorescent bulb’s spiral contains an advanced photoluminescent, or a refined phosphorous product. This attachment, like the minerals within it, absorbs, retains and gradually releases light photons and only needs to be charged with natural or artificial light. When used, a dark room suddenly glows green, illuminated by American Environmental Products’ new bulbs. “It’s kind of like a glow-in-the-dark key chain,” said Charles Bolta, inventor of the After-Lite technology and president of American Environmental Products. After-Lite, the first consumer product of its kind, can serve as a child’s night light, lantern or just a safety light as it glows throughout the night. The bulbs cost $19.95 apiece and are available at http://www.After-Lite.com. The bulbs last at least 8,000 hours, but “will decay out through the night,” Bolta said. The After-Lite will glow the greenest and the brightest within the first hour of darkness, but there will still be what he calls an “after glow” into the morning.” – Source

SuperSoaker Inventor breaks through again with JTEC

So when does this thing come to market?

“Johnson’s share (he licensed the Soaker’s design to Larami, later bought by Hasbro) won him the financial independence to pursue his own ideas, which is how the Johnson Thermo-electrochemical Converter system —- JTEC for short —- was born. Using heat to force ions out of a hydrogen cell, the JTEC “is just a stunning insight,” said Jerry Beilinson, deputy editor of Popular Mechanics magazine, which honors innovators in its current issue and sponsors the Breakthrough Awards. “I kind of thought we were finished; I didn’t think there was a new way.” Johnson’s device can potentially work with even modest temperature differentials —- say, between body heat and ambient air —- to power implanted medical devices such as pacemakers. If successful, at high heat it would generate Con Edison-scale output. It also would run backward for refrigeration purposes: put in electricity to generate heat loss for, say, wearable air conditioning. Paired with a parabolic solar array to generate heat, it would create virtually limitless emission-free power. Johnson, who projects earnings of $10 billion by 2013, claims a potential 60 percent efficiency rating, which doubles the efficiency of the current leader, the Stirling engine. “It has a darn good chance,” said Werbos, “of being the best thing on Earth.” HOW DOES IT WORK? Most electricity is generated using heat to power a mechanical device, such as a piston or a turbine. The JTEC uses heat to force ions through a special membrane. “It’s a totally new way of generating electricity from heat,” Paul Werbos told Popular Mechanics. The JTEC includes two closed hydrogen cells or “stacks” attached to pairs of electrodes. One is a low-temperature stack, the other is high-temperature. Current compresses hydrogen in the low-temperature stack, ionizing the hydrogen and forcing its protons through the membrane to the high-temperature stack, where the hydrogen expands. Current is generated as electrons are freed. The high-temperature end generates more power than the low-temperature end uses —- creating an excess that can cool beer or run TVs and washing machines. Hydrogen is neither burned nor added, and emissions are zero.” – Source / And here is the JTEC webpage for more details.