battery could change world, one house at a time

New battery could change world, one house at a time

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In a modest building on the west side of Salt Lake City, a team of specialists in advanced materials and electrochemistry has produced what could be the single most important breakthrough for clean, alternative energy since Socrates first noted solar heating 2,400 years ago.

The prize is the culmination of 10 years of research and testing -- a new generation of deep-storage battery that's small enough, and safe enough, to sit in your basement and power your home.

It promises to nudge the world to a paradigm shift as big as the switch from centralized mainframe computers in the 1980s to personal laptops. But this time the mainframe is America's antiquated electrical grid; and the switch is to personal power stations in millions of individual homes.

Former energy secretary Bill Richardson once disparaged the U.S. electrical grid as "third world," and he was painfully close to the mark. It's an inefficient, aging relic of a century-old approach to energy and a weak link in national security in an age of terrorism.

Taking a load off the grid through electricity production and storage at home would extend the life of the system and avoid the expenditure of tens, or even hundreds, of billions to make it "smart."

The battery breakthrough comes from a Salt Lake company called Ceramatec, the R&D arm of CoorsTek, a world leader in advanced materials and electrochemical devices. It promises to reduce dependence on the dinosaur by hooking up with the latest generation of personalized power plants that draw from the sun.

Solar energy has been around, of course, but it's been prohibitively expensive. Now the cost is tumbling, driven by new thin-film chemistry and manufacturing techniques. Leaders in the field include companies like Arizona-based First Solar, which can paint solar cells onto glass; and Konarka, an upstart that purchased a defunct Polaroid film factory in New Bedford, Mass., and now plans to print cells onto rolls of flexible plastic.

The convergence of these two key technologies -- solar power and deep-storage batteries -- has profound implications for oil-strapped America.

"These batteries switch the whole dialogue to renewables," said Daniel Nocera, a noted chemist and professor of energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who sits on Ceramatec's science advisory board. "They will turn us away from dumb technology, circa 1900 -- a 110-year-old approach -- and turn us forward."

Why not just upgrade to a so-called "smart grid" as President Obama has proposed in his economic stimulus package? There are complications, Nocera said.

"First you have to rebuild the grid because the one we have now is a creaky machine from the 1920s, and we keep trying to retrofit it," he said. "Then you're going to have computers trying to manage the energy, which brings up issues like security. You have to make it really secure so you don't have people hacking into things. And then politics. Just wait until you try to run power lines through someone's backyard.

"I can't imagine anything more secure than generating my own energy with the sun at my house, and now I'll have a way to store it. It's the ultimate in security, and the ultimate in control."

With small-scale electrical generation taking place at millions of individual homes -- as opposed to today's large-scale power generation from a handful of giant power plants -- there would be less worry about what's called "point failure" on the grid. That's when a single component gets knocked out and shuts off power to a whole region. California-style rolling blackouts would be history.

The threat of terrorism has heightened the worry. But wide distribution of batteries in homes would virtually eliminate it.

***

Inside Ceramatec's wonder battery is a chunk of solid sodium metal mated to a sulphur compound by an extraordinary, paper-thin ceramic membrane. The membrane conducts ions -- electrically charged particles -- back and forth to generate a current. The company calculates that the battery will cram 20 to 40 kilowatt hours of energy into a package about the size of a refrigerator, and operate below 90 degrees C.

This may not startle you, but it should. It's amazing. The most energy-dense batteries available today are huge bottles of super-hot molten sodium, swirling around at 600 degrees or so. At that temperature the material is highly conductive of electricity but it's both toxic and corrosive. You wouldn't want your kids around one of these.

The essence of Ceramatec's breakthrough is that high energy density (a lot of juice) can be achieved safely at normal temperatures and with solid components, not hot liquid.

Ceramatec says its new generation of battery would deliver a continuous flow of 5 kilowatts of electricity over four hours, with 3,650 daily discharge/recharge cycles over 10 years. With the batteries expected to sell in the neighborhood of $2,000, that translates to less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour over the battery's life. Conventional power from the grid typically costs in the neighborhood of 8 cents per kilowatt hour.

Re-read that last paragraph and let the information really sink in. Five kilowatts over four hours -- how much is that? Imagine your trash compactor, food processor, vacuum cleaner, stereo, sewing machine, one surface unit of an electric range and thirty-three 60-watt light bulbs all running nonstop for four hours each day before the house battery runs out. That's a pretty exciting place to live.

And then you recharge. With a projected 3,650 discharge/recharge cycles -- one per day for a decade -- you leave the next-best battery in the dust. Deep-cycling lead/acid batteries like the ones used in RVs are only good for a few hundred cycles, so they're kaput in a year or so.

How do you recharge? By tapping your solar panels or windmills. It's just like plugging in your cell phone or iPod, only you plug in your house.

A small three-bedroom home in Provo might average, say, 18 kWh of electric consumption per day in the summer -- that's 1,000 watts for 18 hours. A much larger home, say five bedrooms in the Grandview area, might average 80 kWh, according to Provo Power.;Either way, a supplement of 20 to 40 kWh per day is substantial. If you could produce that much power in a day -- for example through solar cells on the roof -- your power bills would plummet.

Ceramatec's battery breakthrough now makes that possible.

Clyde Shepherd of Alpine is floored by the prospect. He recently installed the second of two windmills on his property that are each rated at 2.4 kilowatts continuous output. He's searching for a battery system that can capture and store some of that for later use when it's calm outside, but he hasn't found a good solution.

"This changes the whole scope of things and would have a major impact on what we're trying to do," Shepherd said. "Something that would provide 20 kilowatts would put us near 100 percent of what we would need to be completely independent. It would save literally thousands of dollars a year."

Shepherd is connected to the grid through Rocky Mountain Power, which charges a variable rate for power depending on demand during a given 24-hour period. With his windmill setup, Shepherd has what's called "net metering" -- an electric meter that spins both ways. He pays for electricity coming in, but gets a credit from Rocky Mountain for any excess power generated by his windmills that flows back onto the grid. Already, he's cut his power bills in half, and with good storage batteries he thinks he could reduce the bill to zero.

While Shepherd opted for windmills over solar at the time he was planning his alternative energy installation, he said he would reconsider that decision today as the bottom continues to fall out of the cost of solar cells.

"Batteries and PV are about to merge," said MIT's Nocera, using the shorthand for "photovoltaics" or solar power. "First Solar is now saying that it takes $1 a peak watt to manufacture, and another 80 cents for installation. So they're saying that you can get PV for under $2 a watt. That's a reduction of cost by a factor of four. Only a few years ago, it was $8. If CoorsTek and Ceramatec come up with a good battery, the market will develop quickly."

The long-term impact of home electric generation for a power company's business model could be huge. After all, you can't stay in business if nobody's paying for power. Exactly how that will play out remains to be seen.

***

Fifty miles south of Ceramatec's laboratories, Chris Cannon, the former congressman from Utah County, is on a crusade to transform the world through technology. He currently sits on Ceramatec's advisory board with Nocera. No longer burdened by the pressures of Washington, he's using his experience in energy, manufacturing and government to carry the message of innovation and help move research to reality.

"What I choose to concentrate on now are things that will make the world a better place," Cannon said, "and Utah is an incredibly good place to do that."

Approached by Ceramatec after he left Congress, Cannon fills a complementary role in a group of smart engineers and academic types. With extensive Washington contacts and an understanding of the inner workings of power generation, he hopes to be able to make connections that will push the new battery technology forward for the benefit of the country.

"I have an energy and manufacturing background, so I understand the process," he said. "Ceramatec had a gap in their experience which I think I filled pretty well." On top of that, there was "good chemistry" from the start.

While Cannon's six terms in Congress representing what is arguably the most conservative district in America means keeping a somewhat jaundiced eye on the Obama administration, he's far from negative. He thinks of himself as a "post-partisan Republican" willing to run with good ideas regardless of their source. And when it comes to energy policy, he's anything but discouraged.

"If you look at the president, he inherited some really difficult things," Cannon said. "But he hired a guy to be the secretary of energy who is a scientist. And we are on the verge of so many scientific breakthroughs that no matter what the president's ideology is, if we do the right thing scientifically, America is going to do well. Many of the innovations that are coming out of Utah that I'm involved with are likely to be really important, regardless of the leadership."

Last month, Obama introduced a raft of broad energy proposals that were sharply criticized by conservatives as economic back-breakers. Proponents hailed the plans as progressive. Either way the administration appears to be on a path that could soon drive the cost of conventional energy higher -- some say as much as double. Electrical generation at home using solar panels, coupled with storage in effective batteries, could soften the financial impact on many homeowners' utility costs.

The new Ceramatec battery could also change the way private enterprises invest in energy, Cannon said. Instead of building another power plant, for example, maybe they buy 100,000 or a million batteries and distribute those around the service area of a utility to reduce loads and eliminate expensive "spinning reserve," the supplementary power generation that's fired up in response to daily spikes in electric demand.

"The technology could mean a lot of things," Cannon said, "but it certainly means that we change the way we invest. It also means that we shift our expenditures on terrorism, because our infrastructure for power transmission is probably the weakest link in America today. If you have local batteries with local control, that gives terrorists a more difficult target. And local control systems are much simpler than a vast national transmission grid."

***

CoorsTek's manufacturing roots go back to the early 20th century, when Adolph Coors diversified his beer brewing empire based in Golden, Colo. He set up a ceramic manufacturing business called the Herold China and Pottery Company, whose early product line included dinnerware and utensils but later moved to high-tech industrial products made of ceramics. With World Wars I and II, the company stepped up to provide needed ceramics for industry and the military, including materials used in the production of the atom bomb.

"To most Americans, the word 'Coors' means beer," wrote Business Wire on the ceramic maker's 75th birthday. "But to scientists and industrialists throughout the world, the word 'Coors' means technical ceramics of extraordinary quality."

That hasn't changed. Cellular telephones, car engines, computer chips, soda dispensers, semiconductor casings, blood processing pumps, bulletproof vests and armor for military vehicles, to name just a few items in a dizzying high-tech product array, all use ceramic components produced by Coors enterprises. And so it was natural in 2008 for CoorsTek to purchase the hottest ceramics R&D firm going -- Ceramatec, with its 165 employees in Salt Lake City.

Ceramatec was founded in 1976 by a group of University of Utah professors who made important contributions to the sodium-sulphur battery technology being pursued by Ford Motor Company for vehicles at the time. Those early liquid-core batteries didn't pan out well for transportation, though, because of their size and weight, and because of the extremely harsh internal chemical conditions required for them to work.

In the years since, electric cars have remained on the sexy-tech list, with substantial industry efforts aimed at developing various flavors of zippy batteries to power them. Ceramatec had other ideas, recognizing a vast potential market for a different sort of power -- for homes.

"With a house, you don't need to get energy in and out instantaneously. You need huge amounts of storage capacity," says MIT's Nocera. "That suggests a different commercial market and different technical restraints and opportunities."

***

In 2000 Ashok Joshi, a native of India, took the helm at Ceramatec. His international reputation in ion technology and fuel cells kept the company among the first rank of innovators.

Joshi (he prefers A.J.) looked to the potent combination of sodium and sulphur for the basic components of a new battery. That was known chemistry. But while he wanted to achieve a high energy density offered by those elements, he also wanted to get rid of the extreme heat, corrosion and toxicity of liquid sodium batteries.

The key would be found in a paper-thin, yet strong and highly conductive, electrolyte material -- an advanced ceramic -- to serve as the barrier between the battery's sodium and sulphur. The thinner the barrier, the cooler the battery can operate. If you can get below the melting point of 98 C, sodium stays in its solid state, and you've got enough energy to run a house with safety.

Charged particles of sodium and sulphur -- ions -- now scoot so effortlessly through the new ceramic wafer that the sodium doesn't even approach 98 C, let alone 350.

The ceramic that made this possible was dubbed NaSICON by chemists. That stands for "sodium super ion conductor" -- "Na" being the code name for sodium in chemistry's periodic table.

Ceramatec's formulation is a trade secret. With trademark modesty, A.J. observes, "We feel confident it's a good material."

"It's a miracle material," corrects Grover Coors. He's the great-grandson of Adolph Coors, the brewmaster-industrialist who started all this. Grover has a Ph.D and specializes in solid-state ionics and advanced materials. He's working with Ceramatec as a sort of research fellow to evaluate technologies and advise senior management. A.J. stayed on as president after the sale to CoorsTek.

"There are two classes of ceramic materials that are good conductors," Coors explained. "One is what developed here in the early days -- beta-alumina solid electrolyte, or BASE. It's temperamental, brittle. A.J. thought of a better material. It's a better conductor, easier to manipulate and process, and lower cost."

This is where the earth moves for renewable energy. The new electrolyte enables the development of an energy-dense, inexpensive and safe storage battery for use at home. Combined with the rapidly emerging thin-film solar cells, it presents an unparalleled business opportunity.

***

Grover's brother, John K. Coors, is CEO of CoorsTek, the manufacturing company that applies what the scientists at Ceramatec dream up. Their nephew, Doug Coors, oversees R&D.

With some 21 plants producing advanced ceramic products worldwide, the expectation is that full-scale production of ceramic sheets for the new batteries could be tooled up in short order. In fact, only a handful of CoorsTek facilities would likely be employed.

The order of magnitude pencils out along these lines: a target of 20 gigawatt hours of storage in 20 kilowatt-hour battery increments equals 1 million batteries. Or using a different metric, 1 million square meters of thin ceramic electrolyte would yield 20 gigawatt hours of batteries, equal to California's entire spinning reserve.

Nobody at CoorsTek even blinks at such figures. The company already produces 3 million pounds of ceramic material per month. "Once we have a working prototype battery with all the standards and cost requirements met, it will come up quickly," said Grover Coors. "It would scare people to know how quickly we can bring this up."

They're about about six months away from initial scale-up toward a commercial product, he said.

Lots of sodium will be needed to make the new batteries, and Ceramatec proposes a symbiotic relationship with the federal government to get it. Enormous quantities of sodium metals, the byproducts of nuclear weapons manufacturing, just happen be available for cleanup at Hanford nuclear reservation near Richland, Wash. It's a ready-made source of material that CoorsTek can recycle.

***

In a laboratory at Ceramatec, a small battery -- a NaSICON sandwich in silver foil -- has been cycling up and down since October to prove out the electrochemistry. Engineers are confident the tests will support a projected useful life of 3,650 cycles, which meet the standard of one discharge/recharge cycle per day for 10 years. It's a tall challenge, according to Coors, but doable. "It's very efficient in terms of watt-hours per kilogram," he said. "We're now in excess of 200, which puts us in the sweet spot for all the applications we've been talking about."

There are a handful of small hurdles yet to cross in the science, but nobody seems terribly concerned. One is the fact that when two solids are joined along flat surfaces, there will always be at least a 1-micron gap between them. That needs to be closed somehow. Nocera is making some suggestions for suitable fillers, but neither he nor Ceramatec developmental scientist John Watkins feel that the problem will be a difficult one.

"I want to say, this is no big deal," Nocera said. "But sometimes little things can bite you in the butt. So we'll just work it out."

***

Meanwhile, heavyweight liquid sodium-sulphur batteries from Japan are making an inroad into the United States at Luverne, Minn. They're part of a demonstration project by Xcel Energy, an eight-state power utility. In February, Xcel began testing a 1-megawatt battery installation intended to capture power from a giant 11-megawatt wind farm owned by Minwind Energy, LLC. It's said to be the first attempt to store wind-generated power at a large-scale.

Contrasting with Ceramatec's vision of many small home-based power centers with refrigerator-size batteries, this project is another mainframe -- albeit fueled by wind. Hot liquid sodium-sulphur batteries from NGK are intended to move a lot of energy to the grid. The 50-kilowatt battery modules -- 20 cylindrical cells -- are roughly the size of two semi-trailers and weigh 80 tons. They'll store about 7.2 megawatt hours of electricity, enough to power 500 homes for seven hours, according to company data. The test is intended to validate greater penetration of wind energy on the Xcel Energy system.

It's one of many efforts by industry to cut down carbon dioxide emissions and move to a more sustainable energy model, but it's not without hurdles.

"One of the big problems with the NGK system is that it's megawatt-scale storage," said Ceramatec's Coors. "It has to be on top of the 10 kilowatt side of the utility transformer, meaning that there's a lot of step-down transformers and whatnot involved in hooking those things up -- a lot more system complication.

"If you go with a smaller system like the 5 kilowatts for four hours system that we're contemplating, that's all done on the 110-volt side of the transformer, and so all the switching can be done with solid-state relays very inexpensively."

Such comparisons are batted around frequently by Ceramatec insiders as they seek to optimize the science and develop business models. A recent Sunday dinner with several board members was a popcorn machine of problem-solving and technical musings.

Over dessert, Cannon suggested a new angle: Was it possible to use the thin ceramic membrane developed at Ceramatec to reduce the production costs and improve efficiency of NGK's existing hot liquid batteries -- replacing the old beta-alumina electrolyte currently used in those devices? After all, the new ceramic membrane is cheaper and a better conductor. That got Nocera's attention, and the idea then bounced to A.J., whose mental wheels were rolling.

The exchange was typical of the collegial atmosphere and dynamic thinking processes that characterize Ceramatec.

***

Joe Hunter envisions applications for a new generation of batteries in his specialty of hydroelectric power -- not massive banks of batteries at dam sites, but maybe something along the lines of the 1 megawatt battery array at Minwind's Minnesota wind farm. Alternatively, many small batteries could be distributed throughout a community.

Hunter is a former deputy assistant secretary in the Department of the Interior and was Cannon's chief of staff.

In Hunter's world, large dams typically don't employ batteries on-site because the torrent of juice a hydroelectric plant generates is overwhelming. Glen Canyon Dam, for example, produces close to 1,000 megawatts, which is comparable to a big coal-fired power plant. In eastern Utah, Flaming Gorge churns out 150 megawatts.

The advantage of a dam over a wind farm, however, is predictability. Water must be released continuously to support fisheries and other environmental systems downstream. That's essentially wasted power. If small energy generation and battery storage could piggyback on such flows, the community could benefit at low cost. Inexpensive batteries could be used economically in areas serviced by many dams, Hunter suggested.

Take Deer Creek at the head of Provo Canyon, for instance. Generators at the dam can produce up to 5 megawatts, but they run mainly in the irrigation season. But water to sustain the Provo River has to be released all the time, and local residences, with batteries trickle-charging continuously, could benefit.

It's another value proposition added to others, like the net metering enjoyed by the Shepherds in Alpine. The idea in all this is to ease pressure on the grid while moving people toward greater energy independence.

"What we're talking about is the ability to take the edges off," Hunter said. "We're at a tipping point for alternative energy."

In Salt Lake City, Grover Coors agrees: "This will be the largest industry of all time," he said. "But it's all about cost and reliability."

Salmon on the Seine

Salmon return to Paris - they must be in Seine
Atlantic salmon
Charles Bremner in Paris


It is not quite a return to the days when dolphins and even whales were seen making their way upstream to Paris, but the Seine is welcoming back at least one long-lost visitor: the Atlantic salmon.

A fish that in the Middle Ages abounded in the river is returning in healthy numbers after efforts to clean the polluted waters.

“There are more and more fish swimming up the Seine. This year the numbers have exceeded anything we could have imagined,” said Bernard Breton, the secretary-general of the National Federation for Fishing. “I would not be surprised if we had passed the 1,000 mark.”

It may be a while, however, before le pavé de saumon Notre Dame becomes a local delicacy. Salmon may be allowed to frolic in the Seine but levels of pesticide, lead and bacteria remain too high for people to risk it.
Times Archive 1897 Can the Thames again become a salmon river?

Probably the last salmon taken in the Thames was that caught near Monkey Island in 1823 and sent to the King at Windsor


Even overheated patrons of Paris Plage, the summer beach on the Right Bank, are warned to stay clear of the waters in which Louis XIV used to take his mistress for moonlight dips.

Those who ignore the rules are taken to hospital for checks once they have been hauled out by police.

Not so long ago, the Seine was connected to the famed sewers that the writer Victor Hugo called “a world of slime without human form”.

Efforts have been made in the past 30 years to end the fouling of the Seine with organic pollution and chemical run-off from industry and agriculture. Most species of fish had disappeared from the city’s waters by the 1920s.

Today the surface is cleaned regularly and there is a system that pumps oxygen into fish-friendly stretches when floodwaters run into the river.

Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, called the return of the Atlantic salmon a triumph for the Seine purification effort after the INRA, the leading state research institute, issued its study on the fish.

A statement on the mayor’s website said: “Without any project to reintroduce them we see that several species of migratory fish, including salmon, have come back up the Seine. This is a sign of a clear improvement in the quality of water in the river.”

The gradual return of about 30 species of fish — the Atlantic salmon made a tentative appearance a few years ago — has encouraged an urban angling boom. At weekends the Île Saint Louis, opposite Notre Dame, and the Left Bank by the Eiffel Tower are thick with anglers casting for bream, carp, pike, perch, catfish and sea trout.

“They do not eat them,” Stephanie Hofer, of the fishing federation, told The Times. “They throw them back — but that’s what 80 per cent of the anglers in France do.”

Central Paris hosted the world angling championship in 2001. No salmon were caught and few have since been hooked by the registered 7,000 fishermen in Paris.

The return of the salmon was spectacularly illustrated last October when a 15½lb (7kg) fish was caught in Suresnes, on the western downstream edge of the capital.

From genetic samples and age measurements, the INRA reported that all the Atlantic salmon were found to have swum up, or back up, the Seine via the estuary to the Channel in Le Havre after months or years in the sea. Some were born in French rivers, others farther afield.

The researchers said that the return was significant because the Atlantic salmon were bioindicators — creatures whose choice of habitat indicate a healthy environment.

Practical Guide to Free-Energy

Practical Guide to Free-Energy Devices
by Patrick J. Kelly
The purpose of this web site is to provide you with an introduction to a series of devices which have been shown to have very interesting properties and some are (incorrectly) described as 'perpetual motion' machines.

What's that you say - perpetual motion is impossible? My, you're a difficult one to please. The electrons in the molecules of rock formations have been orbiting steadily for millions of years without stopping - at what point will you agree that they are in perpetual motion?

source

So, why don't electrons run out of energy and just slow down to a standstill? Quantum Mechanics has shown that the universe is a seething cauldron of energy with particles popping into existence and then dropping out again. Knowing that E = mC2, we can see that a tremendous amount of energy is needed to create any form of matter. Scientists remark that if we could tap even a small part of that energy, then we would have free energy for our lifetime.

The Law of Conservation of Energy is undoubtedly correct when it shows that more energy cannot be taken out of any system than is put into that system. However, that does not mean that we cannot get more energy out of a system than we put into it. A crude example is a solar panel in sunlight. We get electrical power out of the panel but we do not put the sunlight into the panel - the sunlight arrives on its own. This example is simple as we can see the sunlight reaching the solar panel.

If, instead of the solar panel, we had a device which absorbs some of the energy which Quantum Mechanics observes and gives out, say, electrical power, would that be so different? Most people say "yes! - it is impossible!" but this reaction is based on the fact that we cannot see this sea of energy. Should we say that a TV set cannot possibly work because we cannot see a television transmission signal?

Many people have produced devices and ideas for tapping this energy. The energy is often called "Zero-Point Energy" because it is the energy which remains when a system has its temperature lowered to absolute zero. This presentation is introductory information on what has already been achieved in this field: devices which output more power than they require to run. This looks as if they contradict the Law of Conservation of Energy, but they don't, and you can see this when you take the zero-point energy field into account.

The material on this web site describes many different devices, with diagrams, photographs, explanations, pointers to web sites, etc. As some of the devices need an understanding of electronic circuitry, a simple, step-by-step instruction course in electronics is also provided in Chapter 12. This can take someone with no previous knowledge of electronics, to the level where they can read, understand, design and build the type of circuits used with these devices.

This is a very interesting field and the topic is quite absorbing once you get past the "it has to be impossible" attitude. We were once told that it would be impossible to cycle at more than 15 mph as the wind pressure would prevent the cyclist from breathing. Do you want to stay with that type of 'scientific' expert? Have some fun - discover the facts.

There are many, many interesting devices and ideas already on the web. This site does not mention them all by any means. What it does, is take some of what are in my opinion, the most promising and interesting items, group them by category, and attempt to describe them clearly and without too many technical terms. If you are not familiar with electronics, then some items may be difficult to understand. In that case, I suggest that you start with Chapter 12 and go through it in order, moving at whatever speed suits you, before examining the other sections. I hope you enjoy what you read.



Note: When you have finished reading any of the sections shown below, use the 'Back' button of your browser
to return to this page. You will need a recent version of the Adobe 'Acrobat' reader to display these sections.
It can be downloaded free from: Adobe


THE INFORMATION PRESENTED ON THIS WEB SITE IS FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY. SHOULD YOU DECIDE TO PERFORM EXPERIMENTS OR CONSTRUCT ANY DEVICE, YOU DO SO WHOLLY ON YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY -- NEITHER THE COMPANY HOSTING THIS WEB SITE, NOR THE SITE DESIGNER ARE IN ANY WAY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS OR ANY RESULTING LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY DESCRIPTION, SHOULD ANY OCCUR AS A RESULT OF WHAT YOU DO.


The main information on this web site has been gathered together into a standard book format. You can download the main set of information, including the patents, as an eBook, using this link Book Release 11.0. The document contains over 2,000 pages and has a file size of about 26 Mb which means that it will take some time to download. It is also possible to use a background download from fileFactory. Alternatively, you can pick individual chapters as you wish. May I suggest that you store anything you download on your local drive as web sites do not remain in place for ever.

Chapter 1 Magnet Power: Introduction, Contents, Overview, COP, the Wang magnet motor, Bedini magnet motor, Ecklin-Brown magnetic generator, the Phi Transformer, Howard Johnson magnet motor, Carousel magnet motor, Robert Tracy magnet motor, Ben Teal electromagnetic motor, Jines magnet motor, Invention Intelligence magnet motor, Stephen Kundel's magnet motor, Charles Flynn's magnet motor, the Asymmetrical magnet motor, Lines of Magnetic Force, Steele Braden's magnet motor, Emil Hartman's magnetic track, Howard Johnson's magnetic track, James Roney's shielded stator magnets, the shielded twin-rotor idea, Don Kelly's magnet motor patent and the Perendev Magnet Motor. size 1.1 Mb, 7 Jun 2009 HTML

Chapter 2 Moving Pulsed Systems: The Adams motor, Harold Aspden's modifications of the Adams motor, Raymond Kromrey's No-drag Generator, Teruo Kawai's motor, self-powered 800 watt generator, the Muller motor, the RotoVerter, Phil Wood's energy pick-up, Phil Wood's DC motor RotoVerter modification, the David Kousoulides energy pick-up, thyristor testing circuit and alternator design details from Prof. Kevin Sullivan. size 1.1 Mb, 30 Jul 2009 HTML

Chapter 3 Motionless Pulsed Systems: Graham Gunderson's Solid-state Electric Generator, Charles Flynn's magnetic power enhancement system, Floyd Sweet's VTA, Dan Davidson's acoustic generator, the Pavel Imris optical amplifier, Michael Ognyanov's self-powered power pack, the Meyer-Mace Isotopic Generator, the Colman/Seddon-Gilliespie generator, Hans Coler's passive device and Don Smith's "Resonance Energy Methods". size 440 Kb, 21 Jul 2009 HTML

Chapter 4 Gravitational Pulsed Systems: Chas Campbell's pulsed flywheel, John Bedini's pulsed flywheel, the water-jet generator, Johann Bessler's gravity wheel, the Dale Simpson gravity wheel, the Veljko Milkovic pendulum/lever system, the Dale Simpson hinged-plate system, the Murilo Luciano gravity chain and Ivan Monk's Rotary Power Unit. size 728 Kb, 17 Jan 2009 HTML

Chapter 5 Energy-Tapping Pulsed Systems: Frank Prentice's electrical power accumulator, Dave Lawton's cold electricity water-splitter cell, John Bedini's pulsed battery charger, the Tesla Switch, Dave Lawton's cold electricity lightbulb, Bob Boyce's TPU energy tapping circuit, Steven Mark's TPU, comments from Jack Durban on Steven's TPU, a Nikola Tesla patent, the Ed Gray power tube, Radiant Energy waves, Nikola Tesla's experiments, Don Smith information, the Alberto Molina-Martinez generator, Alfred Hubbard's device, Joseph Cater's device, Floyd Sweet's VTA and Collapsing Field Technology generators. size 585 Kb, 3 Jul 2009 HTML

Chapter 6 Battery-Charging Pulsed Systems: John Bedini's pulsed systems, battery information from Ronald Knight, Ron Pugh's battery charger build, a self-charging battery pulser, the fan pulse charger, the automotive pulse charger, the self-charging motor, the one-battery pulse charger and the Tesla Switch. size 535 Kb, 5 Nov 2008 HTML

Chapter 7 Aerial Systems: Nikola Tesla's system, Thomas Henry Moray's system, Moray King's circuit suggestions, Hermann Plauston's systems, Roy Meyer's device and Raymond Phillips' RF to DC aerial system. size 342 Kb, 18 Jun 2009 HTML

Chapter 8 Fuel-less Engines: The energy in air, Bob Teal's compressed air engine, Scott Robertson's thoughts on putting low-pressure air into a tank of high-pressure air, the Leroy Rogers compressed-air vehicle engine adaption, the Vortex Tube, the Eber Van Valkinberg compressed fluids engine, the Clem engine, Vortex analysis by Prof. Evert, the Josef Papp engine, the Robert Britt engine, the Michael Eskeli turbines and the water-jet generator. size 1.5 Mb, 4 Nov 2008 HTML

Chapter 9 Passive Systems: Hans Coler's device, Thomas Trawoeger's pyramid, Karel Drbal's pyramid, James Brock's pyramids, Verne Cameron's pyramid transmission technique, the Pancake coil, Peter Grandic's patent, the Joe Cell, Bill Williams' design and recent analytical advances and co-ax cable electrets. size 584 Kb, 22 May 2009 HTML

Chapter 10 Vehicle Systems: The HydroStar and HydroGen designs, running an engine on water alone, Hydroxy Boosters, the Smack's Booster design plans, electrolyser design, the Hotsabi Booster construction plans, the 7-cell Isolated Cell booster design, the Series Cell design, Pulse Width Modulation current control, controlling heating, The DuPlex booster, dealing with the oxygen sensor, the Zach West electrolyser design, electrolyser principles, Bob Boyce's high-efficiency electrolyser system, how to wind Bob's toroid, running with high voltage, water-level sensors, water supply systems, connecting to the engine, safety devices, timing details, diesel engines, dealing with 'waste' sparks, measuring gas output rates, operating from the mains, Bob Boyce's experiences, Dave Lawton's replication of Stan Meyer's Water Fuel Cell water-splitter, Dave Lawton's circuits and construction details, pipe-tuning details, Dr Cramton's low-power water-splitting, Tad Johnson's ultra low-power water splitting, Stan Meyer's water injection system, mpg improvement through cam timing, the Firestorm spark plug, Ted Ewert's Vortex Turbine, Water Vapour Injection systems, the Ram Implosion Wing, Fuelsavers, high mpg carburettors, Vortex fuel reformers, water as a fuel and the weird nature of water. size 2.6 Mb, 8 May 2009 HTML

Chapter 11 Other Devices: Nikola Tesla's power from air system, Dr. Harold Apsden's Electrical Power Generating Apparatus patent, Our Energy Future, Paulo and Alexandra Correa's conversion of Longitudinal Electromagnetic Waves to ordinary electricity, Prof. Constantin Meyl's scalar wave information, Nikola Tesla's MHD device, the effects of the Zero-Point Energy field, John R. R, Searle's self-powered garvitational device, construction details for Dave Lawton's gravity wave detector, the Butch Lafonte motor/generator, the Joseph Newman motor, the differences between Maxwell and Heaviside, Daniel Cook's electrical generator, Michael Eskeli's work-free heater design, Karl Schapeller's Device, Condensation-induced water hammer and William Hyde's COP=10 electrostatic power generator. size 1.2 Mb, 12 Jun 2009 HTML

Chapter 12 Electronics Tutorial: Simple descriptions of Voltage, resistors, capacitors, current flow, multimeters, transistor circuits, sensor systems, relays, diodes, transistor testing circuits, Power Supply Units, AC, DC, rectification, the SCR, the triac, the opto-isolator, LEDs, chokes, transformers, the Schmitt Trigger, solenoids, RF detection, coil impedance, the diode bridge, multivibrators, inverters, truth tables, the 7414 chip, NAND gates, latches, bistables, gating, the 4093 chip, prototype construction, the 4011, the Darlington pair, using a gate as an amplifier, the 555 chip, the 741 chip, op-amps and comparators, the 4022 chip, laying out a circuit, test equipment and how to build it, and 'the weird stuff'. size 483 Kb, 7 Jun 2009 HTML

Chapter 13 Doubtful Devices: Paul Baumann's Thestatika, Michael Faraday's Homopolar Generator (or the N-Machine), the Romag and Mini-Romag, Cold Fusion, Moller's Atomic Hydrogen Generator, Muammer Yildiz's 'Ocean Star' electrical generator, Jesse McQueen's 'Internal Energy-generating Power Source', the 'D18' Nitro Cell, the HydroStar and HydroGen systems, Hydrogen from Aluminium, Francois Cornish's system, Ultrasonic Water-splitting, Tom Bearden's Motionless Electromagnetic Generator, Dave Lawton's assymetric MEG and Valeri Ivanov's Motionless Generator. size 689 Kb, 21 Jun 2009 HTML

Chapter 14 Renewable-Energy Devices: Efficient solid-fuel burners, Stan Meyer's hydroxy gas burner system, the Eugene Frenette heater, the Eugene Perkins heater, the multi-disc heater, the Peter Davey heater, the simple home-build windmill design from Dan Bartmann and Dan Fink, Frank Herbert's high-efficiency windmill, the 'Power Plant for Caravans' from Claude Mead and William Holmes, the easy-build Solar Funnel cooker, water and milk pasteurisation, the Solar Funnel as a Cooler, the Solar Puddle, the 'Easy-Lid Cooker', drinking water systems, solar sills, Elmer Grimes' high-volume drinking water from air, the Chalice Courneya water from air system, Toribio Bellocq's well-pumping system, Richard Dickinson's well-pumping system, Arthur Bentley's well-pumping system, the self-powered Ram Pump, wave power systems, solar icemaking and Einstein's refrigeration through heating. size 1.3 Mb, 29 Oct 2008 HTML

Chapter 15 The Time Available: The time limits set by coming world events, the Astronomical situation, the New World Order people's economic attack, the New World Order people's biological attack, a Home-Made Remedy for the biological attack and the present status of the flu "epidemic", the Japanese company Panasonic has instructed all it's foreign company executives to sell up and move back to Japan no later than September 2009 - find out why. size 688 Kb, 7 Aug 2009 HTML