Feb

2

Cold Fusion Has a Good Week

February 2, 2012 | 8 Comments

Last week at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Electrical Engineering Prof. Peter Hagelstein taught an Independent Activities Period course titled “Cold Fusion 101: Introduction to Excess Power in Fleischmann-Pons Experiments.”  For many, the news that an MIT professor holding a cold fusion class at MIT is astonishing because decades ago former MIT people went [...]

Jan

30

A Reduced Energy Way To Distill Alcohol

January 30, 2012 | 8 Comments

University of Manchester (UM) academics won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 demonstrating graphene’s remarkable properties.  Now Professor Sir Andre Geim’s team in a report published in Science shows that graphene-based membranes are impermeable to all gases and liquids as vacuum-tight.  Except – The new finding gives graphene’s potential a most surprising dimension – [...]

Jan

27

A Government Divided Against Itself Is a Mess

January 27, 2012 | 4 Comments

World Nuclear News is reporting that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is to help push forward the manufacture of small modular nuclear reactors. This contrasts with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) standing record of never approving a new reactor design.  The December 2011 “approval” by the NRC of the Westinghouse AP1000 is not a [...]

Jan

12

Will The Price of Oil Go Up or Down This Year?

January 12, 2012 | 3 Comments

Gail the Actuary posted an article by Chris Cook a former compliance and market supervision director of the International Petroleum Exchange.  To say Mr. Cook has an inside view and solid understanding of the oil market and oil prices is an under appraisal. The answer to the headline question is – both.  But for nearly [...]

Dec

23

A Partial Fix For the Fuel Cell Problem

December 23, 2011 | 2 Comments

Most folks don’t realize the depth of the economic problem that fuels cells pose for mass adoption.  Often there are price quotes running in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.  That’s because the catalysts of choice are the noble metals platinum or palladium.  These are very rare metals, more so than gold and [...]

Dec

9

The Ascendancy of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions

December 9, 2011 | 20 Comments

Brian Wang put up two posts today [(1) + (2)] that link to what should seen as seminal events in the basic view of LENR (low energy nuclear reactions). Time passing as more hard credence evolves into research and the results, will show us which of the various physics are the activities of nature in [...]

Dec

7

Better Storage Than a Battery

December 7, 2011 | 3 Comments

A liquid nitrogen powered engine could provide an energy storage alternative to batteries and fuel cells.   Such an engine is driven by the pressure created as liquid nitrogen (LN2) returns to its gas form and could provide a way of powering a vehicle with a longer range and faster refueling than a battery without producing [...]

Dec

6

A Better Way to Store Natural Gas

December 6, 2011 | 3 Comments

Natural gas needs to be very tightly compressed and cooling to very cold temperatures will help to get worthwhile volumes suitable for transport use. Those pressures and temperatures pose high levels of engineering and materials quality compared to a simple gasoline tank.  But the payoff for a low cost low-pressure ambient natural gas storage solution [...]

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