I'm a big fan of advancements in energy production, maybe because I spend most of my time in front of the computer, using a variety of devices and traveling. I think most of us think about our energy consumption frequently because it's all around us. We always have a reminder of this need when we pay our monthly bills or run close to being out of gas.
If we look into the future, it looks like we'll be running way more equipment on electricity, vehicles in particular. Elon Musk and Tesla even recently presented their electric heavy transport vehicle to the public about a week ago. Several car manufacturers are also experimenting with the release and sale of a few hydrogen-based vehicles.
The trend seems to show we'll be using more electricity and less gasoline.
Best however, would be for us to use more hydrogen as a power source for 2 reasons:
We would still be using combustion engines so not as much would change.
Burning hydrogen makes only pure water.
The main issue with hydrogen as an energy source is that it currently takes more non-renewable energy to make the hydrogen than what you get in the product.
Many groups have been doing great work at making it less costly through the use of catalysts or specialized electrodes though, which is good. Some groups have been experimenting with solar energy instead of electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, which is great because solar is indeed renewable and clean.
One particular group was able to bring the solar to hydrogen electricity to 30% by using composite electrodes. The electrodes however contain Gallium, which is expensive and polluting.
Others have been making efforts to simply separate the hydrogen from the rest of the water (or methane compound) by using a specialized filter, typically also made out of Gallium and/or Palladium, to some success. No sun needed, but the liquid metals needed are still pretty bad for the environment.
One awesome group have been doing quite well by using photosensitive protein enveloped in a bi-lipid layer along with some platinum, a titanium dioxide catalyst, and light, to get hydrogen gas. This one uses metals that are much cheaper and less polluting than others.
Can we do better? I discuss the following solutions further in the video below:
One group out of the U.S. Aberdeen Proving Ground Research Laboratory made a discovery (by mistake) that a certain aluminum allow, when in direct contact with water at room temperature, produced copious amounts of hydrogen gas, until the alloy was completely consumed. This is without light or any energy source. Just spontaneous. Now this is interesting because the resulting aluminum can be recovered and you have a disposable hydrogen battery right there that can be used to power specialized equipment in a pinch.
But the best I've found so far is from UCLA researchers. They've apparently devised a device that can convert solar energy into both hydrogen gas and electricity when water is filtered through. The device is a combination super-capacitor and hydrogen fuel cell. Contrary to the other examples mentioned above, the device only uses very common metals like cobalt, nickel and iron, which makes it cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
This is a very sexy device because cost is always a problem for hydrogen production and having a fuel cell concept, it means that hydrogen can be stored until it is needed and in the meantime, the device is producing electricity from light directly.
Bottom line we probably need both hydrogen and electricity to run our devices cleanly and cheaply in the future. Electricity is very useful for constant work but hydrogen can give way more power when you need it most. It is for this reason why hybrid cars use their combustion engine more when accelerating. There is just more power in explosions than in electric potential.
On other another note, clever engineers have also designed devices that can create electricity for very specific applications where you just can't have explosions (hydrogen or otherwise) going on or where you just can't have enough surface area to have light convert to electricity or where light isn't always in play.
One of the advancements I really like is this device from Seoul that can use heat differentials at a small scale to generate electricity. Great to run wearable devices on clothing. This has been done before, but this one in particular can make electricity from temperature differences as high as 20.9 degrees Celcius. The more temperature difference, the more juice you can get out of it per square centimeter.
This last one of interest I think has great future for tiny devices such as nanorobots: making small infinite amounts of electricity from the natural molecular movement of graphene between two electrodes. The team working on this at the University of Arkansas have tested the concept and it would be enough to run watches forever (same as quartz concepts). This is not useful to produce energy for a home, but anything that needs tiny amounts of electricity could use this without need for batteries, or quartz crystals, which is tremendously advantageous.
As we find better cleverer ways to generate high value energy at lower cash and environmental costs, we'll gradually change our infrastructures to match. It is all in the hands of the entrepreneurs to make the move using the research done on materials and devices mentioned above. The consumers are ready to move away from fossil fuels as long as it doesn't affect their wallets negatively.
I think we're in a nice place to see very positive innovations in the next few years in renewable energies (beyond solar power, which is still extremely interesting and positive).
When we think about solar panels or solar energy, we always think of hot solar panels that are installed on top of building's roofs over top of shingles or flat surfaces.
Generally, they are an eyesore and expensive to install.
Well, since the solar power business has boomed in many parts of the world, and governments and private sector alike are now interested in powering up their grids with renewable energies, lots of private companies, laboratories and public sector entities have thrown in their cash and started developing solar energy programs, new solar energy techs and programs for the mass market.
Europe, China, India, the US, South Korea and Japan all have invested HUGE amounts in the technology and in some places, like in 2017 India, solar power is just as cheap as coal power!
This is what drives whole businesses to change, including the Energy industry.
And with interest in the market, comes innovation, not only in efficiency, but also in form factor and ergonomics.
I discuss this movement and where it may lead in the video below:
Now for some examples of great looking solar panels:
IKEA
Yep, Ikea is ready to sell you solar panels of its own. Fortunately (or is it unfortunately), you won't be installing these yourself. Experts do it after delivery. They look pretty standard for solar panels, so nothing very beautiful about those, however, it does show that solar panels are becoming a sort of commodity in a similar way that LED lighting has become something of a standard for car lights nowadays.
TESLA
I love Tesla's concepts. They always think of beauty whenever they design something, whether it is their cars, their battery packs and now solar panels on the roof. The image below shows the new concept they are going with. Can you tell that those shingles are actually solar panels? This is a case of camouflage indeed! You wouldn't know if those were solar cells or just normal shingles...
BUILD SOLAR
We've heard of solar roofs and solar windows. But how about making opaque or semi-transparent walls solar power capable as well? This company's concept can make walls look futuristic, have good insulation and generate power as well. I don't think these are out yet, but does show some ideas and innovation.
SKYCOOL SYSTEMS
This is a spinoff company from Stanford University and these are NOT solar panels. What they do is perhaps act to avoid additional energy needs for cooling buildings in hot areas or hot times of the year, thus avoiding the need for solar panels in the first place. Less juice needed for cooling = less energy demand on the building. The concepts currently look like ugly solar panels, unfortunately, but they could be melded properly to a roof surface in a similar way to the Ikea idea for solar roofs (or perhaps better), once they get these into commercial form factors. What these panels do is absorb thermal energy (heat) from the bottom surface in contact with the building and shoot the radiation out into the cold, cold vacuum of space. It's top reflective surface reflects 97% of all of the sun's energy back to where it came from, thus keeping the building cool even in strong heat. Now, these clever guys thought of something pretty neat: what if they coat solar panel surfaces with their energy re-transmission material? That has the effect of keeping the solar panel cooler (increasing solar panel efficiency), and keeping the building underneath cooler as well, thus reducing the need for electricity in the first place. So combining both material and solar panel tech could potentially require us to use fewer solar panels and still have energy to spare. Great idea guys!
All in all, the Solar Energy industry is just gearing up as costs for solar are down enough to warrant such investments. This will in turn make solar energy even more cost-effective than it is now... and with clever people working on these, we can have nice homes and offices, fully charged, nice to look at, and COOL!
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.
This post is a follow-up on last week's post about the very real probability of a global Great Depression coming on, something that will severely affect the US and Canada, but tied to every other economies in the world.
In fact, the more advanced your country's economy is, the more affected you will be. The reason for it is discussed at length in my previous video (Breakdown of the current economical system soon ? ), but in a nutshell, technology is destroying jobs at an alarming rate while new jobs aren't being created.
We're essentially advancing ourselves out of our means of living (work) in the technologically advanced areas of the world to a point where the currency system is going to just crash to make way for another system.
In the medium to long term, its a great thing because it'll most likely lead to what futurists like myself call a "Leisure-based society" where people no longer need to work to live. The basics you need to survive and live decently is provided almost solely through automation and Artificial Intelligence while you can dedicate your time to providing value in your local community and/or the global community through what you are really good at, and what you enjoy doing etc...
Anyhow, the topic for this week was about how to survive the scary transition between the few days where the markets totally crash and your money has no value anymore, AND the unemployment + underemployment rates suddenly double.
Once again, it all comes down to being prepared for the worst, without going into panic mode here. You can't depend on the government or area services to do everything for you since they are controlled by people too, who have families they do want to take care of as well.
I'll summarize the tips here. If you want more information, please watch the video above. I'm giving a bit more information.
1. DON'T PANIC. Information is king. Just be aware that this is likely coming sooner or later, so being psychologically prepared is the first step and probably 80% of what you need to do to avoid real problems.
2. Talk about it to others. Of second importance is to try to make sure others around you also DON'T PANIC and make your life a living hell if things break down. Instead you can talk with your extended family and local community and neighbours about sharing resources, and making some of the basic living tips happen together, so everyone can be prepared together, and no one feels alone in all this.
3. Get your Basics covered:
Housing. Make sure you own your property or land. Can't repo if you totally own it. If you don't, its best to have an alternative location you can go to with others, like a cottage, someone's owned house, just in case. Banks will likely try to get your house and you can't be sure how your rented apartment owner will react in situations like this, so best have some options to have a roof over your head at the very least (especially in winter).
Food:
Gardens are super easy to make, even indoors, even in winter. Just surf the web and check it out. Very cheap, and good whether or not things go bad. Eating your own veggies tastes really nice and healthy when coming from a home garden.
Try to save up about 3 month's worth of canned goods as a reserve. They won't spoil so good for whatever reason (good or bad).
Make sure you have access to another water source than the city water. You can easily filter drinking water using a long pipe/tube packed with soil or sand and running the city water, the river, or rainwater in there to drink on a daily basis. Tips on doing that on the web are out there, so unless you're in a place where it doesn't rain or running water, you should be good to go.
Energy: Especially important for heating.... Don't rely on the grid to be there to serve you. You don't know. However, there are great ways you can generate your own energy for your home for less than $500. Ideas below.
Wind Turbine: Build one from scrapyard bits and a car battery. Some parts are a little harder to find, so you may want to buy, but if you're mechanically inclined and know a bit about electricity conversion of Volts and Amps, you can do this setup totally free (or almost) and provide electricity for your whole family no problem.
Water turbine: Same as above but instead of a wind blade (or propeller blade) spinning, your turbine is turning by hitting pallets that dip in a rapid stream. Great for cottages where there is water flowing nearby.
Solar Energy: you can buy solar panels that will suffice for your family home for about $4000-$6000 expenditure. it'll be good for your home with all the kit working in it. However, even better is to take advantage of some programs in some states and provinces where they totally or partially subsidize the conversion of your home's whole roof to solar panels, plug it into the grid and whatever you don't use, is sold back to the power company for $1k-$2k / month. In the case of a Great Depression where the Grid isn't providing energy to people in your neighborhood, you can shift that excess energy to serve all your neighbor's houses, which is great.
Hope you all at least receive this information well and find ways to be prepared for what may come, so that the transition towards a great technological future (and way better social infrastructure) is the least painful and even perhaps positive!
Enjoy!
As always, I'm available for speaking engagements about this subject and others on request.
