Our technical reality…

There is no energy crisis * Energy is more than abundant * What we have on our hands is a human development crisis!

*This document is simply to create awareness on energy options. The Zeitgeist Movement is not claiming to develop or have an affiliation to the companies or technologies mentioned below.

Sphelar  - Unlike conventional flat solar cells, Sphelar® takes on a spherical shape, which makes it capable of power generation with greater efficiency and flexible applications. This tiny solar cell measuring a mere 1.8 mm across holds huge potential, standing ready to contribute to the realization of everything from ubiquitous network society to clean-energy society. See-through Solar Modules for custom design inspiring the next generation of PV applications There is no hidden side: Both sides generate electricity wherever located is the light source. High transparency from 20 to 80 %; Varied shapes from curved surface to pliable sheet.

http://www.kyosemi.co.jp/product/pro_ene_sun_e.html

PowerSat Corporation.- Space-based solar power is a method of collecting solar energy so that it can be distributed for use all over the earth.  With this amazing technology, space-based solar power is the future of power generation. The first benefit of solar power satellites or powersats is the fact that space-based solar power collection is virtually unaffected by the day and night cycles of the sun, with only minor effects from orbital eclipse.  On the earth’s surface, solar panels can only collect solar energy for a maximum of 9 hours per day and when there is cloud cover this number is even lower.  Space-based solar power can be collected 24 hours per day for the majority of the year and this means at least 5 times more space-based solar power can be collected than that collected by solar panels on the surface.  That’s 5:1 in favor of space-based solar power.  In areas where it is frequently cloudy, this number jumps to 25:1. Space-based solar power is a method of using solar power satellites to collect solar energy so that it can be distributed for use all over the earth. With this amazing technology, space-based solar power is the future of power generation. What else makes space-based solar power a viable energy source for the future? It is fast. The energy can be transmitted from the solar power satellites to the receiving stations and then between receiving stations in just seconds. This is all accomplished via a wireless transfer of the energy and the result is dispatchable, baseload power, which can then power homes and businesses as effectively as the more traditional forms of power generation.

http://www.powersat.com/

 

Geothermal - Mannvit Engineering  is a leader in geothermal power development with decades of experience developing geothermal resources.  The company offers a comprehensive suite of design and consulting services that can take a project through from start to finish.
Mannvit’s geothermal energy projects involve harnessing high-temperature geothermal fields and designing power plants that produce electricity and hot water (combined heat and power), as well as designing geothermal power plants that produce electricity utilizing low-temperature geothermal fields via binary cycle. Geothermal power plants utilize heat energy from the Earth to produce electricity and sometimes for combined heat and power (CHP). They are cost effective, reliable and environmentally friendly. And, though previously restricted to certain geographic locations, technological advances in drilling and plant design allow for the development of what were once thought to be non-viable resources. As a result, more and more public and private entities are looking into geothermal power as part of their strategy to mitigate global warming while still meeting growing energy demands.

http://www.mannvit.com/

As fuel prices soar, Alaskan officials announced the exploration of the state's volcanoes, saying they could be exploited to provide energy for thousands of homes. Companies are being invited to lease the rights to explore geothermal resources beneath Mount Spurr, a snowcapped 11,070-foot volcano that most recently erupted in 1992 showering much of Anchorage with volcanic ash. According to experts, America is only just waking up to the ancient power source lying beneath dozens of states that has the potential to supply as much as 25 percent of the nation's energy needs.

OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) - is a unique technology to generate electric power by converting thermal energy accumulated in the ocean.
Due to its characteristics, OTEC is now being regarded as one of the most hopeful means to contribute to the today's energy issues; renewable and environmental-friendly energy supply. Power Generation from Waste Warm Water and Heat

http://www.xenesys.com/english/index.htm


http://www.voith.com/index_e.php

 

Wave Power - are generated by wind passing over the surface of the sea. As long as the waves propagate slower than the wind speed just above the waves, there is an energy transfer from the wind to the waves. Both air pressure differences between the upwind and the lee side of a wave crest, as well as friction on the water surface by the wind, making the water to go into the shear stress causes the growth of the waves.[4]

  

WindFloat - The innovative features of the WindFloat dampen wave and turbine induced motion, enabling wind turbines to be sited in previously inaccessible locations where water depth exceeds 50m and wind resources are superior. Further, economic efficiency is maximized by reducing the need for offshore operations during final assembly and commission.

 

Regenedyne Wind Turbine Demo CGI for proposed 2GW Magnetic Levitated wind Turbine. *Efficient Frictionless Power Generation with less maintenance, compared to VAWT. No oil change or replacement of the bearings, gears. Since, MAGLEV does NOT require such. ** Current bearing technology has forced wind turbine designers into horizontal spindle three bladed wind turbines. In this design the huge blades are connected to a spindle in the center. The bearings that support the spindle and control the pitch of the blades (which can be hundreds of feet long) see huge pitch-moment loading, some of which is manifest as torque energy that is focused through the center spindle. The target speed for the spindle is 18 or 20 rpm and the bearings holding the spindle are mounted in a huge casting which also contains a large gearbox stepping the speed up to 1800 to 2000 rpms which allows for the proper surface speed relationship between the coils and magnets. It is necessary to invert or condition the current, which is expensive. This gearbox is full of many large bearings, gears and castings; for a 2 MW turbine the gearbox can easily weigh 30 tons. This gearbox needs to be mounted on the top of a pole more than 150 feet in the air and be able to support the turbine blades under full-force wind conditions. ***MAGLEV Power Generation, the pitch moment ratio is closer to 1-to-1 then the 100-to-1 as with a horizontal spindle design.

 

http://www.regenedyne.com/

Bloomenergy - built with our patented solid oxide fuel cell technology, Bloom's Energy Server™ is a new class of distributed power generator, producing clean, reliable, affordable electricity at the customer site. Fuel cells are devices that convert fuel into electricity through a clean electro-chemical process rather than dirty combustion. They are like batteries except that they always run. Our particular type of fuel cell technology is different than legacy "hydrogen" fuel cells in four main ways: Each Bloom Energy Server provides 100kW of power, enough to meet the baseload needs of 100 average homes or a small office building... day and night, in roughly the footprint of a standard parking space. For more power simply add more energy servers.

http://www.bloomenergy.com/

 

Kinetic energy generator  - Researchers at the University of Southampton have developed a kinetic energy generator which derives electrical energy from the vibrations and movements that occur within its environment. Developed by Dr Steve Beeby and his team at the University's School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS), the tiny generator (less than 1 cubic cm in size) is 10 times more powerful than anything yet developed in the field and could form the basis of technology for self-powered pace makers and other embedded applications that require periodic replacement of batteries. The generator produces electrical energy using an arrangement of four magnets on a cantilever with a wound coil located in the magnetic field. The magnet size and coil properties are designed to produce energy from low vibration levels and the device has been shown to convert 30% of the power supplied from the environment into useful electrical power.

Stirling Engines - The Stirling engine is a heat engine that is vastly different from the internal-combustion engine in your car. Invented by Robert Stirling in 1816, the Stirling engine has the potential to be much more efficient than a gasoline or diesel engine. But today, Stirling engines are used only in some very specialized applications, like in submarines or auxiliary power generators for yachts, where quiet operation is important. Although there hasn't been a successful mass-market application for the Stirling engine, some very high-power inventors are working on it.

 
This engine can run using only the heat from your hand.

A Stirling engine uses the Stirling cycle,­ which is unlike the cycles used in internal-combustion engines.

  • The gasses used inside a Stirling engine never leave the engine. There are no exhaust valves that vent high-pressure gasses, as in a gasoline or diesel engine, and there are no explosions taking place. Because of this, Stirling engines are very quiet.

  • The Stirling cycle uses an external heat source, which could be anything from gasoline to solar energy to the heat produced by decaying plants. No combustion takes place inside the cylinders of the engine.

There are hundreds of ways to put together a Stirling engine.

Radio Wave-Powered Cell Phone

Solar-powered cell phone prototypes and rumors abound, but Nokia has a battery-less alternative power source for our cell phones lined up: radio waves. The company told MIT's Technology Review that it is working on technology to suck up enough power from ambient radio waves emitted by Wi-Fi transmitters, cell phone antennas, and television masts to keep a cell phone charged.

Solar Panels With Nanoantennas


Conventional solar panels have only 40 percent efficiency, meaning they can only convert 40 percent of the total solar energy they receive into usable electricity. More recently, however, a new variant of solar panel with 80 percent efficiency is being developed. This solar panel is designed to work even after sunset. In this new technology, solar energy is harnessed by using nanoantennas i.e. the square spirals of conducting metal embedded into a sheet of plastic which can be easily folded. The earth absorbs the infrared energy of the Sun and releases it after sunset. The new solar panels absorb this infrared energy released by the Earth at night and direct energy from the sun during the day. Thus they harness energy during the day as well as at night. At a size of 1/25th of the human hair diameter, they are very small, but when it comes to efficiency, they overshadow their conventional counterparts with immense ease.

 

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may have discovered a new, somewhat strange way to efficiently produce hydrogen fuel without the need for "dirty" catalysts like oil.

The new ingredients: water submersion and noise pollution.

The team has made piezoelectric crystals of zinc oxide that, when immersed in water, absorb vibrations and develop areas of strong negative and positive charge. These charges rip apart nearby water molecules, releasing hydrogen and oxygen gas.

"This is like a free lunch," says lead researcher Huifang Xu. "You are getting energy from the environment just like solar cells capture energy from the sun.


Harnessing sound power - You know how everyone's talking about using solar panels and wind turbines to Go Green. While thats good and all, those aren't the only sources of renewable energy; there's another one that is almost never used: sound. Although it does take a fair amount of noise to generate a descent amount of electricity, but if you think about it, say you harness all the noise from a football game or the hustel and bustel of a large city, by the end of the day you have a lot of power, and some stranger unknowingly will have given you free electricity.

 

Self-propellant vehicles - had been in the offing since late 1700s in Europe, and by the middle of 1800, engineers had come out with models that ran on steam, combustion as well as electrical energy. While the steam powered cars lasted only till the 1920s, and production of electric cars too ceased beyond the first decade of the twentieth century, combustion engines caught on and underwent development at various stages, to contribute to the progress of the automobile industry.

Engineair - The Di Pietro motor concept is based on a rotary piston. Different from existing rotary engines, the Di Pietro motor uses a simple cylindrical rotary piston (shaft driver) which rolls, without any friction, inside the cylindrical stator. The space between stator and rotor is divided in 6 expansion chambers by pivoting dividers. These dividers follow the motion of the shaft driver as it rolls around the stator wall. The motor shown is effectively a 6 cylinder expansion motor.

 MDI Air Car - India's largest automaker is set to start producing the world's first commercial air-powered vehicle. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre for Luxembourg-based MDI, uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine's pistons. Some 6000 zero-emissions Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008.

  

Thank for your time. I hope this introduces you to some different energy options. Please spread the word while you can.

A new reality that benefits everyone is possible...but it’s up to us to make it happen. Thanks again.

-Roberto Enamorado


 Visit www.TheZeitgeistMovement.com and explore the possibility for a complete redesign of our culture for the benefit of all, not the few.