When we talk about energy generation, we often think about batteries, generators and even solar panels.
But when we think about renewable, alternative or green energy generation, what we're really after is more energy at a lower environmental cost, which means we must think about energy savings as well.
Some of the most exciting work being done on the planet right now is in fact in the development of new materials, and in some cases, the modification of things that already exist in nature.
We have the capabilities these days to engineer amazing materials with properties that are extremely useful when used in combination with energy generation in our daily lives, to soften the burden on the planet. And heck, why not make our lives easier or more comfortable too.
In the following video, I discuss 3 different materials and give further comments about them:
The first material can turn light, heat and movement into electricity, all at the same time. It is in fact a type of perovskite crystal that can be found on Earth already but just recently discovered could do all of the above at room temperature. There is a whole family of such crystals, each with slightly different properties and their composition can be manufactured in labs and made more efficient through experimentation. Just to be clear, the perovskite family of crystals can have many different compositions, from simple easy to come by atoms to pretty heavy and complex ones.
This material could work great in many applications converting typically hard to reclaim energy into usable energy (light, heat and movement (kinetic)). So basically any system that generates or is exposed to light, heat or movement (or all three) could use this material on its surface or casing, and we can get some free electricity back into our grid.
Pretty neat huh?
Speaking of neat. A team at the University of Colorado have come up with a material that can be manufactured cheaply into thin 50 micrometer rolls that has the property of reflecting incoming solar radiation while still letting infrared radiation to pass through when it is in contact with a surface.
The idea here is to use the material to wrap surfaces in order to prevent the sun's radiation to heat the surface, while still letting the surface "chill" by releasing its own heat through infrared radiation. Hence, we get an instant cooling system at zero energetic cost.
The team imagines using the material on roofs so that during summer days, when the sun is at it's hottest, the building not only doesn't increase its heat intake, but it is also allowed to radiate out excess heat. Instant air conditioning system. I can see our air conditioning bill go down already!
Here is another one that is often disregarded because it is alive: waste hungry bacteria that naturally generate an electrical charge while it eats. We all know our wastewater is treated before we release it back into nature. Waste management plants do actually use up lots of energy to do exactly that.
Well researchers at the University of California in Santa Barbara managed to modify bacteria that already had the natural property of generating electricity as they went about their business to make them eat our water waste. The amount of electricity generated isn't enormous, but if it is cycled back into the wastewater plant, then it is using up less electricity from the grid isn't it?
On the energy balance sheet, all of these materials and techniques give us more energy to play by reducing the environmental strain.
What is super exciting about these is, because they are materials, they can be used in any number of great applications. Good materials with exciting properties are way more powerful inventions than actual engines because of that very fact.
So if I were a betting man, I'd put my funds into new materials way faster I would money on any sort of new widget. :)
Recently, I've been researching and discussing alternate energy devices with lots of people, either through this blog, or through my youtube channel.... mostly because of the Keshe Foundation analysis I did a couple weeks ago.
There is a growing interest in both weaning ourselves off the powerful energy cartels and "the Grid" but also to enter into a new era of peace, harmony and ... technology. All things that are interesting to me, of course.
Since we haven't received the Keshe Plasma Reactors yet for testing, I decided that I would go over more conventional and better known alternate energy sources... focusing on the kind you could build yourselves to provide plentiful energy for your family.
All of the techs I'll present below can be done on the average budget and some for less than $100, which is great!
Thank you Open Source movement, and thank you Internet (== humans sharing freely and openly their expertise on the Internet!).
In this article, we'll be going through these alternate technologies. I'm going a little deeper in the following youtube video too:
Wind turbine power
Water turbine power
Kymogen Wave Energy Generator
Solar panel power
The Keshe Plasma Reactor
Wind turbine power
Wind turbines are simply propellers directed into the wind. The wind catches the blades, make them spin, gets the generator moving, which creates your electricity. Other things than a generator can be used (like a car's alternator) as the important part is to have a rotor with a stator that rotate one against the other. Rotors and stators have coils of copper that generate magnetic fields and when the rotor turns near the stator, the magnetic fields "rub against each other", creating electricity in the copper wires. Electricity generation 101. :)
What you need to build a wind turbine to power your home:
A generator
Blades
A mounting that keeps it turned into the wind
A tower to get it up into the wind
Batteries and an electronic control system
Basically you need to get all these parts to get started, most of which you can get from a scrap yard, equipment you already have around the house and don't use, and the missing pieces you can get from hardware stores and whatnot. If you are frugal, you can make all this happen for less than $100. If you prefer buying systems, but for about $4,000 USD per Kilowatt. Not so cheap.
Advantages:
Easy to operate and maintain
Inexpensive to build
Low expertise needed to build
Can be scaled up to accommodate larger homes/neighbors by increasing blade diameter and other parameters
Large amount of resources out there that can help
Disadvantages:
Is known to kill birds at times that don't see the blades spinning and fly in
Can be inefficient in areas where there is inconsistent wind flow
The water turbine principle is the same as for the wind turbine, except that instead of channelling the wind through blades that look like aircraft blades, you will want to channel water onto the blades that look more like spoons in order to capture the maximum amount of kinetic energy from the water. What's great about water turbines is that its way easier to have a consistent turbine speed as the speed of the water is easier to control than... well, untameable wind. Like the wind turbines, the spoon blades are spinning a generator (rotor and stator) to create your electricity flow in your cable.
What you need to build a water turbine to power your home:
A generator
"spoon-like" blades
A mounting that keeps your blades in high speed current
A setup that keeps the equipment it safely in the water stream without shortcut or corrosion issues
Batteries and an electronic control system
A water stream or river nearby (or make one, see below)
Again, like the wind turbines, most of the equipment needed to build one can be done with $100 or less, which is terrific but you have to think about how to set up the turbine safely within a water source like a river or stream, or better yet, build a way to channel a portion of racing water on to the turbine spoons to make them spin at a good consistent pace. You can even create a water stream if you live on or near a mountain slope where you can channel rainwater down to your turbine setup, possibly also using the mountain to build a little aqueduct of fresh water at the same time for drinking water or water of general use.
Advantages:
Easy to operate and maintain
Inexpensive to build
Low expertise needed to build
Can be scaled up to accommodate larger homes/neighbors by increasing blade diameter and other parameters
Large amount of resources out there that can help
Consistent day to day electricity flow
Disadvantages:
Won't work so well in freezing climates in winter as the water flow will diminish at least or totally freeze over. Water levels will change too.
Requires a racing water source, either natural or artificial for this to work
This device is ridiculously simple but not well know. You may have heard of Tidal Wave Energy generation which takes the movement of the tides to generate mechanical movement between magnetic fields (i.e. in a similar way turbines turn to generate electricity), but tidal devices need to be Huge, which is impractical to building them near your home. The Kymogen device is the tidal wave generator's little brother, one that can be set up to harness the kinetic energy of simple waves on a nearby lake. The larger the waves the better.
Below is a link where you can check it out in detail. The company tried to raise funds for a Kickstarter campaign, but it failed. However, based on my research, it wouldn't be terrible to build such a device yourself. The floating apparatus part that "rides the waves" is about 800 lbs total to properly sit on the waves and properly go up and down to generate juice but if you want to have a nice floating device at your cottage to play around with and swim around, why not combine it with energy generation? There is no dangerous parts inside so why not?
Advantages:
Easy to operate and maintain
Relatively cheap to build, relative to the need for it to be large in size and weight.
Low expertise needed to build
Can be combined to be used as a floating deck or diving board for the lake at the cottage
Consistent day to day electricity flow
Disadvantages:
Pretty large setup to generate electricity
More energy is generated via larger waves, so size of equipment can't help. More of them tethered would be needed to double or triple capacity, which may be undesirable visually and environmentally
Not a lot of information out there on how to build these right now
Everyone is hot for solar panels, which is great because the sun is the ultimate renewable energy source right? Well, its one of them and indeed pretty much there all day. The issue is day lengths change depending on latitude on the globe, time of year and whether or not there are annoying clouds in the sky blocking the sun.
Personally, I love solar energy. The issue I have is in the production of most of the commercially available solar panels, lots of pollution is created. There are some now that are way more environmentally friendly in their production so please be careful when you shop.
Solar panels can be made at home, but its hard enough already to have decent efficiency of energy conversion, I would strongly recommend using commercial ones. The link below has plenty of resources leading to building them or buying them, pros and cons etc.... for further research.
What is exciting about solar energy is that in many states, provinces and countries, there are government funded programs where you can actually get your solar farm financed and the extra energy sold back to the grid. In Ontario, Canada, if you are accepted as part of the Feed Tariff Program you can get your solar energy done and maintained on your room and make perhaps a few thousand $ a year in cash for your trouble. In Ontario, the reason why they do this is to get off the coal-burning plants we have to generate electricity. Pretty cool deal to look into.
If you're not into such a thing, you can probably make due with the purchase of about 4-6 standard sized solar panels on your roof to generate enough electricity for your home. If you are building an Earthship, you may need less as Earthships are great modern, environmentally friendly home concepts that are designed to be off the grid, thus energy requirements are minimalized even in cold weather.
Combined with a battery system and the proper electricity flow controller, electricity flow is consistent
Can take advantage of regional government Green programs to finance the setup and maintenance of a whole solar farm.
Can easily feed back and make some decent money reselling extra electricity to the grid
Solar energy resources are abundant on the internet
Disadvantages:
Solar panels are expensive if you want your own setup
Many solar panels are not environmentally friendly to manufacture. Must take care on purchase.
Not great for every latitude. Best for areas with long days of sun with low cloud coverage yearly, for best results.
For instructions on how to build, buy or setup, here is a link.
Keshe Plasma Reactor
This is something I've been investigating quite a bit for the last 2 weeks as its technology that defies our current scientific understanding, essentially creating a new branch of science alongside quantum physics to really understand.
I am in the process of validating this technology with other scientists and engineers by testing 2 of the devices and making sure its all on the "up and up". Just because we can't really explain the science behind it all... if it does the job, we'll figure out the scientific principles fully afterwards, together and with the community.
For the time being, I've added this to the list for 3 reasons:
The reactors are made of environmentally friendly components
Any person could build one to power their home for less than $100 using commonly available materials
This tech, if validated, could revolutionize the world and help bring world peace by completely demolishing the whole oil and energy industries towards something democratic (build it yourself) and controlled by the people.
At this point in time, I haven't received the ordered reactors, have not done validation tests but I have studied hours upon hours of videos and written materials.
I consider this energy device as Theoretically ok. For now and until quantitative and qualitative tests are done after device reception. Standby for those results in future blogs. I DO NOT encourage people to bet their livelihoods and change their lives at this point to convert to this technology.
I would encourage people who are interested in this technology to assess it for themselves by watching and listening to videos posted in Kevin Flynn's youtube channel . M. Flynn is one of M. Keshe's helpers for Youtube so you get official workshop videos on the science and how to build these reactors from this channel, and directly from M. Keshe, the nuclear physicist that has defined the science, dubbed Plasma science by him.
In a nutshell, the principle is all about converting physical copper wires into a cold superconductor, hence delivering a constant and infinite flow of electricity within the copper wire. Superconductors, for those who don't know, have the property of having no electrical resistance, so in practicality, electricity generated by the device through plasma principles (see below) can flow any distance and at optimum strength within wires.
The copper wires become superconductors via a precise arrangement of matter around the copper wire from physical copper (the wire) to the deposition of nanoparticles (like CuO2) to what M. Keshe calls GANS (Gas state nanostructrures), something that looks like a paste. This arrangement creates a gradient in the gravitational and magnetical (not magnetic... magnetical is a new word defined by M. Keshe for a force that opposes the gravitational) that drives the waveforms of the subatomic to channel these energies toward the wire.
Then the way the wires themselves are coiled and connected, creates gravitational and magnetical fields at a macro scale that pushes out electricity, after it has been primed by a smaller amount of electricity and the system brought to equilibrium (taking up to 3 weeks approx.).
If this is all correct (I may have made mistakes in the description above, and if so, I apologize... it IS a new science with little documentation to read about), then the matter states are stable, unlike a battery and its really the conformation of matter than creates a "push and pull" effect that ultimately flows the electricity along the now superconductive-like state wires.
The result is a device that can last a lifetime and would generate energy for a home with a device that is roughly 1 foot high, requiring no maintenance at all and no replacement parts, aside from very normal wear and tear based on where the device is, and whether it is properly sealed from the outside world etc....
I know, its pretty funky and hard to follow but I think I "get" most of the theory.
I have only 2 issues with this:
I can only validate half the science as the other half is a brand new science with no documentation available.
I won't be convinced that the whole thing is real until I see a unit working for myself. Then I can try to work with M. Keshe and others to figure out the details of the science so more people can do better applications of the tech.
IF IT CHECKS OUT: Advantages:
Free energy with no input required of other traditional forces.
Can be set up out of the way easily
Easy to build for less than $100 to feed energy to a whole house, no problem
Materials are super easy to come by
Environmentally friendly
Theoretically would gradually convert all that is wired with the device into a superconductive material, increasing the electrical efficiency of a whole system (helping neighbors and communities)
Disadvantages:
Information about how to build these is sketchy at best at this time. Blueprints are being defined though as we go.
Science is funky and only M. Keshe has a firm grasp of it. He is teaching others at this time though.
The technology and devices are untested in practice and are essentially "laboratory experiments" at best at this stage. Some shortfalls like bursting incandescent light bulbs have been reported. Experimentation is needed to figure how to use the tech in different situations, circumstances and how to scale them for larger capacities etc... Untested
This technology is currently UNVALIDATED by any unbiased 3rd party entity. A few like myself and the ZeroFossilFuel channel are attempting to do so from a skeptical point of view.
