My "Free Energy" Machine or Frack, Baby Frack!

Here it is.  A 2003 Chevy Cavalier, bi-fuel, four door sedan.

 

Did anyone ever tell you that the elusive "free energy" machine was going to cost nothing?  I hope not, just that the energy used by the machine was going to be free.

This car has a 3,600 psi natural gas tank in the trunk.  It holds approximately 6 equivalent gallons of NG, (about 5.66 pounds per eq gallon).  In my city there in one filling station and it seems to do a good business.  A tankful costs around $9 and takes me about 150 miles, or about 6 cents per mile in fuel costs.  I'm calling that "free energy".

On an inflation adjusted basis, I can't imagine that energy has every been so cheap in the history of the world!  I also like the fact that the car has a regular gasoline tank, which it automatically switches over to when the NG runs out.  I don't have to worry about running out when I am far from a CNG station.

Two final points I want to make:
1. The reason that NG is so cheap right now is partly because of the revolution in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking that is occurring in the Bakken Formation.  I say, Frack, Baby Frack!

2.  I still love nuclear reactors because the energy they can produce will be even cheaper than NG, especially the new molten salt reactors.

 

Infinite Energy

The strange, ethereal (pun intended) world of free energy, zero point energy, and cold fusion:

 I used to subscribe to this magazine in the days before the internet. There was great hope (at least I had some hope) that these marginalized technologies would someday develop into commercial products. But alas, they are still marginalized!

The Correas, shown on the front of this issue, have disappeared into free energy oblivion.  In addition to their work with plasma discharge tubes, they apparently have done lots of other stuff, some if it pretty weird.

The magazine's editor was murdered in a petty robbery.  One of the contributors to the magazine committed suicide, allegedly after his scientific claims of perpetual motion were disproven.  Another has died of old age.  I am not suggesting that something sinister is at work here, but it might be.  We all die eventually, though hopefully not violently.

Inventors are sometimes their own worst enemies.  They are suspicious and think everyone is out to steal their ideas.  Well, guess what?  If you have a great idea and someone steals it and everyone else uses it, you really did have a good idea.  On the other hand, what good is an idea that no one wants?

The Correa's patents probably cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtain and I'm sure they have brought them nothing but dissapointment.

Their 3 US Patents on plasma discharge tubes are extensive and incomprehensible, since they were written in a combination of patentese and legalese.  (Let that be a lesson to anyone who still believes that the purpose of patents is to disseminate knowledge for the benefit of humanity, in exchange for a government granted monopoly for a specific period.  The monopoly is granted in exchange for a full disclosure of the technology, but if the patent is incomprehensible, how is that a full disclosure?)

I asked the Correas' publishing agent about purchasing one of their plasma tubes to do my own replication experiments, but their agent said they weren't interested.  I was told "They want investors in their R&D, and offer testable demonstrations to serious candidates."  I guess I wasn't considered "serious".  Besides, why should they be bothered to sell plasma discharge tubes to people with money wanting to purchase them.  That's so capitalistic!  They only have time for science!

Next post, my very own "free energy" machine.

Stinger 609

I wasn't sure what to ask Santa for this year, but I was thumbing through a magazine on Thursday and I saw the perfect gift - the Stinger 609.

 

It is a quarter-scale, working V-8 engine with a supercharger!  You can see a video here.  The sound the engine makes is really cool!

It produces a whopping 9.5 hp at 10,000 RPM (with supercharger).  All for the low, low starting price of  $5,695.00.  Do you think Santa will bring me one?

Thirty Two Questions

Thirty Two Questions from Congressman Ron Paul's farewell address -  (watch it here)

1. Why are sick people who use medical marijuana put in prison?

2. Why does the federal government restrict the drinking of raw milk?

3. Why can't Americans manufacturer rope and other products from hemp?

4. Why are Americans not allowed to use gold and silver as legal tender as mandated by the Constitution?

5. Why is Germany concerned enough to consider repatriating their gold held by the FED for her in New York? Is it that the trust in the U.S. and dollar supremacy is beginning to wane?

6. Why do our political leaders believe it's unnecessary to thoroughly audit our own gold?

7. Why can't Americans decide which type of light bulbs they can buy?

8. Why is the TSA permitted to abuse the rights of any American traveling by air?

9. Why should there be mandatory sentences--even up to life for crimes without victims--as our drug laws require?

10. Why have we allowed the federal government to regulate commodes in our homes?

11. Why is it political suicide for anyone to criticize AIPAC ?

12. Why haven't we given up on the drug war since it's an obvious failure and violates the people's rights? Has nobody noticed that the authorities can't even keep drugs out of the prisons? How can making our entire society a prison solve the problem?

13. Why do we sacrifice so much getting needlessly involved in border disputes and civil strife around the world and ignore the root cause of the most deadly border in the world-the one between Mexico and the US?

14. Why does Congress willingly give up its prerogatives to the Executive Branch?

15. Why does changing the party in power never change policy? Could it be that the views of both parties are essentially the same?

16. Why did the big banks, the large corporations, and foreign banks and foreign central banks get bailed out in 2008 and the middle class lost their jobs and their homes?

17. Why do so many in the government and the federal officials believe that creating money out of thin air creates wealth?

18. Why do so many accept the deeply flawed principle that government bureaucrats and politicians can protect us from ourselves without totally destroying the principle of liberty?

19. Why can't people understand that war always destroys wealth and liberty?

20. Why is there so little concern for the Executive Order that gives the President authority to establish a "kill list," including American citizens, of those targeted for assassination?

21. Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it's wrong.

22. Why is it claimed that if people won't or can't take care of their own needs, that people in government can do it for them?

23. Why did we ever give the government a safe haven for initiating violence against the people?

24. Why do some members defend free markets, but not civil liberties?

25. Why do some members defend civil liberties but not free markets? Aren't they the same?

26. Why don't more defend both economic liberty and personal liberty?

27. Why are there not more individuals who seek to intellectually influence others to bring about positive changes than those who seek power to force others to obey their commands?

28. Why does the use of religion to support a social gospel and preemptive wars, both of which requires authoritarians to use violence, or the threat of violence, go unchallenged? Aggression and forced redistribution of wealth has nothing to do with the teachings of the world's great religions.

29. Why do we allow the government and the Federal Reserve to disseminate false information dealing with both economic and foreign policy?

 30. Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it's the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority?

31. Why should anyone be surprised that Congress has no credibility, since there's such a disconnect between what politicians say and what they do?

32. Is there any explanation for all the deception, the unhappiness, the fear of the future, the loss of confidence in our leaders, the distrust, the anger and frustration? Yes there is, and there's a way to reverse these attitudes. The negative perceptions are logical and a consequence of bad policies bringing about our problems. Identification of the problems and recognizing the cause allow the proper changes to come easy.

I don't recall either presidential candidate ever bringing up any of these important questions. Awkward!

ALARA and LNT

ALARA and LNT are the twin nemeses of commercial nuclear power.  I have written about them before, but I want to share some additional thoughts.

ALARA is a misnomer, and a large one at that.  As low as reasonably achievable - a bureacronym that means in practice that the regulatory agency, in this case, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will use this innocuous sounding theory to add nearly unlimited cost to the nuclear industry.  Perhaps some, already in the nuclear industry welcome this, because it keeps out interlopers/competitors, but it also keeps 300 million Americans from enjoying the fruits of nuclear power.

What a thinking person needs to ask themselves is why, in a grand, universal way, should the regulatory goal be to reduce the exposure to radiation to below naturally occurring levels?  To do so is simply stupid, inefficient, and wasteful.  

Natural background radiation levels range from around 3.6 mSv/year to as much at 260 mSv/year in Ramsar, Iran.  Regulating the nuclear industry to achieve levels below this is not science.

BTW, it makes no difference to your cells whether the radiation is natural or man-made.

Lazy Saturday Afternoon

What to do on a boring/lazy Saturday afternoon:

Hook your electric guitar up to your oscilloscope and play "Dust in the Wind" while you watch the scope.

David Stockman on CNBC

David Stockman, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget recently appeared on CNBC and had some choice words for the FED and both political parties:


"Ron Paul is the only one who is right about the Fed, and the Fed is the heart of the problem. They have destroyed the capital markets and the money markets; interest rates mean nothing; everything is trading off the Fed and Wall Street isn't even home – as it's now a bunch of computers trading word-clouds emitted by this central banker and that"

"The Fed (and the lunatics that run it) are telling the whole world untruths about the cost of money and the price of risk."

“TARP was an abomination”

“Why should the government reform when they can borrow money at essentially zero interest?”

“Morgan Stanley should have been allowed to go down”

“If you can’t fail, you shouldn’t succeed”

“We have no industrial enemies, but we spend $800 billion per year on the military industrial complex.  I would cut it by a third”

“Means test social security and Medicare”

“We are crushing savers”

“The Obama budget is total fantasy”

“The problem we have now is two free lunch parties in Washington”

“Republicans are out of their minds”

“We can’t keep simulating this economy by borrowing from the future”

“We have to eat our broccoli”

“We have all these boys and girls on wall street begging the FED for another injection of sugar.”

“Day one, hour one, job one for Romney is to fire Bernanke”

“Clean house at the Fed.  That is where the crisis came from and that is why we are still buried.”
  
Too bad we Americans vote for people who tell us Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are real and we think that this fiscal disaster is going to hurt the other guy.