Friday, December 29, 2006

Dean Kamen's Advanced Stirling Engine and Slingshot Purifier

Yes, it is true. It is possible to provide clean water, and reliable electricity from dung, and urine. Can you think of many places that significant numbers of humans live where there is not ample supply of both?

Dean Kamen--successful college dropout, inventor extraordinaire--provides the means to make energy from dung or other bio-combustibles, and pure water from piss--or any impure water source. The ingenious devices that provide clean water and plentiful energy can be mass produced cheaply, and transported anywhere.

Wealthy inventor Dean Kamen does not hesitate to drink his own urine(!)--once it has passed through his patented "Slingshot" purification system. He does this in front of audiences to convince them that it is possible to do away with water-born illness around the globe. Would George Bush or Nancy Pelosi drink their own urine to help make the world a better place? Interesting question.

There should be no shortage of clean water, no one without electricity. The only real shortages existing are shortages of intelligence, ingenuity, cooperation, and tolerance for other religions and ideologies. Dean Kamen has provided the ingenuity for plentiful freshwater and energy--no matter how remote the village.

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Friday, December 22, 2006

High Altitude Wind Power

Flying Electric Generator (FEG) test flight video. There is enough energy in high-altitude winds to satisfy the world's demands. Wind-tunnel data suggests a cluster of 600 flying electric generators, or FEGs, could produce three times as much energy as the United States' most productive nuclear power plant. High-altitude winds could provide a potentially enormous renewable energy source, and flying windmills could put an end to dependence on fossil fuels. At 15,000 feet, winds are strong and constant. On the ground, wind is often unreliable - the biggest problem for ground-based wind turbines. For FEGs, the winds are much more persistent than on ground-based machines, more power and greater concentration. Having conducted tests with models, Sky WindPower wants to scale up experiments and produce a commercial-sized flying windmill with four rotors. The rotorcraft will go into the first layer of the atmosphere, called the troposphere. Sky WindPower estimates the craft will produce 200 kilowatts per hour of electricity in an area that at ground level would produce none because of a lack of wind.

Somewhere, the wind is blowing.

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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion--Talk by Bussard at Google

This is an alternative approach to magnetic confinement and inertial confinement fusion. It has an interesting history and may end up being the fusion reactor of choice for outer space applications, due the small size of reactor.

This talk by Bussard is almost an hour and a half long, but if you are fascinated by unique approaches to fusion, this might hold your interest.

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