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Twenty-first Century Technologies: The Road to Reindustrialization -- From the Ground UpArtificial Intelligence expert explains the lag between scientific discovery and explanation; specifies a few promising technologies of note, including Brown's gas or hydroxy, Rossi's cold fusion, Turtur's zero point energy, Aviso's self-running electric car. by Lewey Gilstrap
What is Technology?
Science is the study of the natural world by observation and
experimentation. The end product of
scientific studies is knowledge of the properties of physical things and about
the behavior of systems of objects. Science
is also concerned with the development of overall principles and generalizations
that apply to many different types of systems.
Science is an activity; it is not the knowledge that is accumulated by
this activity, although the knowledge is what enables others, not necessarily
scientists, to address more effectively problems such as production,
transportation, communication, and everyday living. Engineering is the discipline for applying scientific and practical
knowledge to problems in the real world using techniques and technologies.
Given a problem and resources and a clearly defined objective to be
accomplished, engineers apply existing technology, sometimes developing new
techniques and technologies or refining old ones, to produce goods or services
to solve a problem. A technology is a set of techniques, methods, procedures, tools, and
materials that solve some specific problem or class of problems. While
scientists make discoveries that can lead to new techniques and new ways of
doing things, it is usually engineers and technicians that develop the
techniques and technology that exploit the scientific knowledge in the course of
meeting some specified goal. A
technology is problem-specific, and invariably is developed as a means to
produce a good or service wanted by the public or needed to solve a problem. The existence of a
comprehensive, settled, scientific theory is not a requirement for the
development of a technology, however. It
is not at all uncommon for technology to be developed years before science
arrives at a theory. As examples,
James Watt's contributions to steam technology, and his improvements to the
Newcomen steam engine were made long before Sadi Carnot developed the theory of
heat engines, and Michael Faraday invented the first electric motor about forty
years before Maxwell produced a comprehensive theory of electricity.
Indeed, it was Faraday's work that guided Maxwell and enabled him to
formulate the famous Maxwell equations for electromagnetism. Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Technologies
In the 19th century,
the idea of a closed system, i.e., one that does not exchange matter or energy
with its environment, dominated science and technology.
This idea led to the formulation of the great principles of Conservation
of Energy and Conservation of Mass in closed systems.
These principles were invaluable in enabling the expansion of science and
technology in the 19th and 20th centuries. The only problem with these
principles is that, while it is relatively easy to seal off a system so that
matter cannot enter or leave, it can be difficult to impossible to prevent
energy fluxes of various kinds from flowing through systems, possibly adding to
or removing energy from the system. Special
efforts must be taken to prevent magnetic flux from passing through systems, and
there is no way at this time to prevent neutrino fluxes or gravitational waves
from passing through systems. Because
no suitable sensors exist for some of these energy fluxes, it is not possible to
be certain that a given system has not absorbed energy from one of these fluxes
or given up energy to a flux. In
brief, it is difficult to establish that a system is truly isolated and for
which the conservation laws are directly applicable.
The conservation laws are still valid for all systems, but the manner in
which they are applied depends on whether they are open or truly closed. Technology of the Twenty-First Century
Partly because of the difficulty
in closing systems, scientists have long been interested in the properties of
open systems such as ones that are in contact with an energy reservoir and with
the amount of energy that must be supplied to the system in order to transfer or
utilize the energy in the reservoir. The
first of the three new technologies described in this article is just such a
technology. The third technology,
intelligent robot technology, is open to information, rather than energy.
The three technologies are: ·
Space energy conversion. So-called
"empty space" is filled with electromagnetic energy, often referred to as "zero
point energy" because the energy would remain even if the temperature of an
object or particles in space were reduced to absolute zero, and a number of
different types of devices have been built in an effort to tap into and collect
this energy. The obvious attraction
of these devices is that they could, potentially, replace all coal-burning and
petroleum engines and completely eliminate man's contribution to global warming
due to carbon dioxide. ·
Brown's gas. Brown's
gas is produced by a special type of electrolysis of water in which the gases
given off by the electrodes are collected in a single container, rather than in
separate containers for the hydrogen and oxygen.
What is important about this gas is that it is combustible and that it is
currently being used to extend the mileage of gasoline and diesel automotive
engines by 25% to 60%. ·
Intelligent robots. These
are robots that build information and control models of their environment and
use these models to make decisions as to how to achieve a specified goal
situation, i.e., they are open to information.
Such robots can be used to function effectively in environments that are
hostile to human beings, but they can also be used to perform complex tasks now
performed by humans and they could lead to reindustrialization on a large scale
in the None of these three technologies
are based on settled science. The
space energy conversion devices could, conceivably, be analyzed by a putative
Theory of Everything (TOE) in physics. At
present, there is no mainstream TOE, but some mainstream physicists, such as Dr.
Michio Kaku, believe that such a theory can be developed from string theory,
perhaps in the next 25 years, but the lack of an agreed on comprehensive theory
has not stopped enthusiastic experimenters.
While a settled theory may not be available, there are at least six
theories, none of which satisfy Dr. Kaku's definition of a TOE, that claim to
explain space energy conversion and a lot more. A theory of Brown's gas was
recently put forth by Chris Eckman, a student at the At least one theory for
intelligent machines does exist but it is not recognized by mainstream
researchers in artificial intelligence (possibly because it is a theory of
machines and not a theory of intelligence, artificial or human).
The theory, which was developed by the author of this article, defines an
intelligent machine as one that models information patterns in the environment
of the machine and transforms and analyzes those patterns to identify the
situation faced by the machine. The difference between the machine's current
situation and a desired goal situation is then used by the robot to select a
course of action to correct the situation, subject to a number of constraints
that prevent undesirable consequences of the action. The problem associated with
technology that precedes science is that totally novel results obtained by any
new technology, accomplishing something quite outside the accepted science and
technology of the day, is almost invariably viewed as simply mistaken or often
as outright fraud. This has been the
case with many if not most of the technologies that were ahead of the available
science, and it is the case with the three new technologies described in this
paper. Aside from the normal
skepticism of new things that slows acceptance of new technology, twenty-first
century technology is often judged by mainstream scientists as if the devices of
these new technologies are closed systems. Energy
conservation laws are only indirectly applicable to the task of identifying and
quantifying the properties of these open systems, and it is easy to come to the
wrong conclusion about the properties of open systems by misapplying the
conservation laws or by viewing intelligent machines as a collection of (closed)
algorithms. Three
New Technologies
Space
Energy Converters
Outside of the fields of physics
and electrical engineering, it is not widely known that in a simple electrical
circuit, such as in a flashlight, energy is not carried by wires that connect
the battery to the light but by the empty space around the wires.
The energy is created by the two terminals of the battery which form what
is called a dipole.
Once a dipole is created, it radiates energy into space.
The current in the wires does serve to shape the energy field and to
direct the energy to the bulb, but the energy does not flow through the wires.
In operation the flowing current destroys the dipole in one instant and
the chemical energy in the battery restores the dipole in the next instant so
that the light from the bulb appears to be continuous but energy is being
drained from the battery in order to continually reestablish the dipole.
Something similar happens in all electrical circuits, not just simple
ones. The fact that the power provided
by any electrical circuit comes through space has led thousands of individuals
all over the world to wonder if it might be possible to cause the current to
flow without destroying the dipole, so that power can be delivered to a load
without causing the battery to expend so much energy.
Current science and technology do not provide for such a possibility;
but, as it turns out, there are at least a half dozen ways to do this, including
the use of very short duration impulses, resonance, phasing, vortexes,
vibration, permanent magnets, or some combination of these methods.
Because electrical energy is already used in a variety of different ways,
the space energy captured by these different ways of doing things can appear as
heat, light, power, battery charge, or as chemical energy. In oversimplified terms, the
general scheme for tapping into space energy is essentially the same for all
applications: a circuit is used to excite the space energy by creating a dipole,
the space energy is collected and either stored in a battery or as a chemical or
sent to an application, such as an electric heater, a light bulb, an electric
motor, or a battery charger or to some chemical reaction.
The exciter circuit uses a small amount of power and the collector
returns a larger amount of power which comes from the energy radiated by the
dipole, and the ratio of the collected power to exciter power is called the coefficient
of performance, abbreviated COP. The COP is similar to a measure
of efficiency but is computed from the usable energy from the energy reservoir
and the input energy instead of from the input and losses in its use.
Efficiencies are always less than 1.
The COP ratios for reported space energy conversion devices range from
less than 1 (a waste of time) to as much as 1000 or more.
These systems are often referred to (inappropriately) as "free energy"
systems. The ordinary heat pump used
for home heating is just such an open system.
The heat energy reservoir for a heat pump is the heat energy stored in
the earth, rather than in space. The
electrical energy input supplied to a heat pump is enough to pump a working
fluid that collects three to five times as much heat energy from the ground as
the electrical energy supplied by the input, i.e., the heat pump has a COP in
the range of 3 to 5, although its efficiency is less than 1. What space energy converter
experimenters are aiming for, of course, is a design that produces enough
electromagnetic energy from the collector so that the power can be split into
two parts: one to feed back to the exciter so that no battery or other external
power source is needed for continuous operation and the other to power some
load, such as house lighting or an automobile.
Such devices are referred to as "self-running." The key to harnessing space
energy is to create a dipole (or in physicists terms, to "break the symmetry of
space"), which starts an energy flux in space.
The trick, then, is to tap the energy flux without destroying the dipole.
However, some strange results have been reported from the operation of
these devices, such as thermal effects: the devices got cold, not hot as would
be expected or else got much hotter than expected; or there was a decrease in
radiation; or even a levitation effect. Thus, it is possible that these space
energy converters could provide clues for a theory of more than just
electromagnetism, such as a theory linking electromagnetism and heat or
electromagnetism and gravitation, not a theory of everything, perhaps, but more
than what we have now. One group
refers to the theory of such devices as "connective physics" because of the
apparent linkage of the four fundamental forces of physics, or, rather, not the
static fields but the kinetic fields of the four that are generated by particles
in motion. While there is no
accepted general theory for all these effects, enough is known about all of them
so that properly designed experiments measuring the strength of the linkages
should be able to unravel a theory of the kinetic forces faster than a cheap
sweater with a loose thread. However,
exploiting and developing the possible applications would require an industrial
base, but, with money as tight as it is currently, it is unlikely that financing
for product development could be obtained. At present there is no
independent testing laboratory available to check out the performance or claims
made for any space energy conversion device, and without independent testing,
any potential investor is apt to be skeptical.
US Government labs are of no use because they are subject to political
pressure and to suppression of devices if there is a remote possibility that
such devices might be used against the Brown's gas
Brown's gas is a combustible gas
produced from water by a process similar to ordinary electrolysis except that
the gas produced by the process is collected in a single container and not
separated into two containers, one each for the hydrogen and the oxygen
produced, as is the procedure in electrolysis.
As produced, Brown's gas is [thought to be] a mixture of monatomic and
diatomic hydrogen, monatomic and diatomic oxygen, and, most important, a vapor
phase of excited water molecules. The
term hydroxy gas is sometimes used to
refer to this excited water vapor alone but the term is also used as a synonym
for all of Brown's gas The properties of Brown's gas
are so strange that, for the most part, mainstream scientists have dismissed
reports of the gas as being incorrect or simply falsified.
Nevertheless, for many years, Brown's gas has been used in welding and
brazing. Because the gas is prepared
by an electrolysis process, Brown's gas welding is often confused with
oxyhydrogen welding, which is welding using separate bottles of hydrogen and
oxygen that are mixed just before reaching the torch nozzle.
However, oxyhydrogen and Brown's gas welding are very different.
To begin with, the color of the flame of a Brown's gas torch is a bright,
opaque pumpkin color, while an oxyhydrogen flame is pale and translucent.
The ratio of hydrogen to oxygen in an oxyhydrogen torch is usually set at
4 or 5 to 1 instead of 2 to 1 to avoid oxidizing the welded material.
In a Brown's gas torch, the ratio of hydrogen to oxygen is exactly 2 to
1, the same as the water from which it was generated.
Further, Brown's gas flame not only does not oxidize a steel surface, it
alters any steel surface so that it becomes highly resistant to rusting.
This surface flame treatment is a common procedure in welding shops that
employ Brown's gas. From the
foregoing, it is clear that Brown's gas is certainly not the same as a mixture
of hydrogen and oxygen. The most unusual, if not
downright bizarre, property of Brown's gas is that the flame temperature is
cool, about 130 degrees C (266 degrees Fahrenheit).
The flame of a Brown's gas torch can be played across the palm of the
hand without burning the hand, while the flame of an oxyhydrogen torch used in
the same way will cause severe burns. Despite
having such a low flame temperature, however, a Brown's gas torch can easily cut
a thick steel slab, which melts at a temperature greater than 1500 degrees C,
and it can even cut tungsten, which melts at a temperature of 3400 degrees C.
Also, the torch can be used to weld dissimilar materials, such as brick
and steel or glass and steel or aluminum and steel or titanium and plastic,
which is impossible with an oxyhydrogen torch or any other type of torch, such
as oxyacetylene or inert arc. Another
strange property of pure Brown's gas is that it does not explode; it implodes,
although if mixed with air it can be made to explode. Because it is combustible, Brown's
gas is also used in automobiles and trucks as a mileage extender.
There are dozens if not hundreds of suppliers who sell conversion kits or
fully-assembled units for automotive use. Typically,
claims of 30% to 60% improvement in mileage are reported by users in addition to
smoother running and cleaner engines. Since
comparable improvements in engine performance can be provided by a spray
injection of a water-alcohol mixture for internal combustion engines, it is not
surprising that Brown's gas, which is combustible and does not need alcohol to
keep the combustion going, does about as well as water-alcohol.
One of the problems with using Brown's gas in automobiles is that it
contains oxygen, which causes the Engine Control Unit (ECU) to add more fuel,
which cancels out the mileage gain unless the ECU is modified to accommodate the
extra oxygen in Brown's gas. Since Brown's gas is
combustible, some experimenters have extended the automotive and truck
conversions to run vehicles solely on Brown's gas, no gasoline or diesel
required. However, the gas
generators useful for mileage extension do not produce enough gas to run the
engine much faster than idle. Some
reports of total conversion indicate that the engines may not start on Brown's
gas and must be started on gasoline or diesel and switched over after the engine
is running. In addition, the battery
current required for gas generation for mileage extension is on the order of 40
amps, which is within the capability of car batteries, while the current for gas
generation for full conversion is over 120 amps.
Also, the battery charging circuit for automotive use must employ space
energy conversion so that the battery can remain fully charged at all times.
Unfortunately, there are no kits available for the more ambitious application of
total conversion, although plans for the automotive conversion are reported to
be available on the internet. Fully
converted prototype automobiles have been reported in The community of do-it-yourself
types and engineers who pursue this technology is quite large.
The Yahoo interest group has over 16,000 members.
Interest is not confined just to the The fact that Brown's gas is
nonpolluting means that equipment could and should be developed for use in home
heating and air conditioning, home electric power, and cooking, as well as for
automotive and truck use. This would
completely eliminate the need for carbon tax for all home use, although the
technology is not fully developed for all these applications. Intelligent
Robots
An intelligent machine is one
that is open to information from the environment.
It is not a computer that executes fixed (or even adaptive) programs nor
is it an artificial or imitation human. It
is a machine that builds a model of patterns of matter and movement in its
environment, analyzes the patterns, and uses the analysis to make decisions
about what actions to take, plans the actions in detail, and executes the
actions. For the sake of a name,
call such machines intelligent robots or just robots. Just as with other types of
machines, an intelligent robot must be designed to satisfy requirements.
A function or capability should never be incorporated into an intelligent
machine just because it is clever or because it has been noted that human beings
or chimpanzees or octopi have such a function.
All the functions in an intelligent machine must be present because they
serve a purpose necessary to the overall information processing cycle of
sensing, modeling, mapping, analyzing, deciding, planning and action. The platform on which an
intelligent machine is mounted can be anything from an automobile or a ship or
an aircraft to a humanoid robot or even a non-mobile desktop agent case.
The method of locomotion varies from one platform to another but a
locomotion control program for a new platform for which no program is available
can be quickly learned using built-in correlating control algorithms.
A stationary intelligent desktop agent also needs to be capable of
interpreting information about movement and control of movement even if it is
incapable of movement because messages from humans may refer to actions and the
desktop agent needs to be capable of inferring the consequences of actions. At the most general level,
intelligent machine must be capable of identifying the situation that it is in.
For a robot, the physical elements of a situation can be divided into
three classes: terrain, objects, and agents.
Terrains for a robot come in four basic varieties: land, water, air, and
space. The nature of the terrain and
the means of locomotion by the robot determine how the robot can go from one
location to another. What is
important about the locations is that they are the sites where the robot may be
required to perform some action on or with one of the objects at the location or
to assist an agent (human or machine) in performing some task.
A basic task for an intelligent machine is therefore to construct a map
of the terrain and to identify the sites where relevant objects and agents are
located. Briefly, a robot must be
capable of orienting with respect to the terrain and sites on the terrain.
The things of interest at a location are the work objects, the tools and
machines, and the operations (tasks) to be performed with the work objects. The notion of a situation for a
robot consists of more than just the terrain, objects, and agents and the tasks
to be performed, however. It must
also include modeling the relationships among these elements, including human
relationships and human/robot relationships.
Thus, an intelligent machine must be capable of modeling and analyzing
these relationships and how they might affect the task to be performed, so the
robot must construct both a physical map of the world and a social map that
includes human motives. Because robots can be expected
to coexist with humans, animals, and fragile objects, the notion of a task for a
robot includes a set of preconditions that must be satisfied before the task can
be initiated, the operations to be performed, the objective of the task, any
path and position constraints that must be satisfied while performing the
operations, and post-task criteria that can be used to evaluate job completion
and job quality. The human/robot interface must
permit giving instructions to robots in a user's natural language.
The robot needs an internal language that is unambiguous and logical, and
the robot must have a set of translators capable of resolving the user's
ambiguous statements since all natural languages are inherently ambiguous.
The construction of a completely satisfactory internal robot language is
one of the most complex tasks in robotics because it must link the pattern
information from sensors with symbolic information. A more complete description of
an intelligent machine is given in my Machine Intelligence website, listed at
the end of this article. I have been
developing this concept of intelligent machines based on designing and building
applications of adaptive and self-organizing systems over the last 50 years.
With adequate funding, an intelligent robot could be prototyped in less
than two years. However, even if
this approach to robot design is not followed, the technology is developing at a
fast pace, anyway. As an example,
Georgia Tech engineers have constructed Cody, a robot able to give sponge baths.
This robot is not intelligent but it is capable of performing what for
robots is a very complex task. Similar
special purpose robots are being constructed not only here in the Other
New Technologies
The new technologies described
above are just three of many. There
are dozens more, all in different stages of development. The inventor, Raphial Morgado,
has invented the next generation of internal combustion engines, which he terms
the "MYT engine". The MYT engine is
more powerful but smaller, lighter, and more fuel efficient than current
engines. It burns any kind of
fuel--gasoline, alcohol, diesel or biodiesel--and it is cheaper to produce than
present engines. It also produces
considerably less pollution than conventional engines, and is ideal for the next
generation of automobiles and trucks. A Philippine inventor, Ismael
Aviso, has developed an antenna and electronic system that extracts
electromagnetic energy in a particular frequency band and converts it to direct
current. He has mounted the system
on an automotive frame along with an electric motor and has driven the vehicle
on numerous occasions. At present,
Aviso says that the coils in the device overheat when he steps on the
accelerator, and he is working with a Chinese firm to supply him with a hollow
conductor so that he can run a coolant through the coil to prevent overheating.
According to the Philippine DOE, the system currently has a COP of about
1.3, meaning it is tapping into space energy. Two Italian scientists, Andrea
Rossi and Professor Sergio Focardi of the Professor Claus W. Turtur, Ph.D.
from the The Lawrenceville Plasma
Physics, Inc. organization has solved the problem of magnetic fusion using what
is called a "Dense Plasma Focus Fusion Reactor."
The device fuses Boron and Hydrogen (both cheap and for all practical
purposes, inexhaustable) to produce Helium gas, none of which are radioactive so
there is no radioactive waste to be disposed of.
It produces much heat with very little radiation that is easily shielded.
The device is economical, compact, and an environmentally safe source of
energy. It is estimated to produce
energy for a tenth of current costs. One
Focus Fusion Reactor the size of a gasoline service station could produce enough
electricity for 40,000 homes. New technologies are concerned
with more than just power in the form of heat, electricity or mechanical motion.
One of the most amazing new technologies is the 3-D printer, a new way to
manufacture items. Instead of
starting with a chunk of material and whittling away what you don't want (called
"subtractive manufacturing"), a 3-D printer starts with powders of materials and
fuses them to form complex items (called "additive manufacturing").
Although most people have never heard of the technology, it is
well-developed. Critical titanium
parts for the Airbus are currently manufactured using a 3-D printer, and desktop
3-D printers are available at an affordable price, although some of the desktop
models are designed only for plastic prototypes or scale models.
One large industrial printer can print parts of Titanium, stainless
steel, glass, sandstone, and plastic. Desktop
machines are currently limited to only one or two materials.
For short run production the 3-D printer is the cost effective way to go.
The concept of 3-D printing has expanded far beyond manufacturing,
however, and 3-D printers for human skin or other organs have been in use for
wounded military personnel. Also, a
food printer that produces composite foods from canisters has been prototyped.
The RepRap, short for Replicating
Rapid-prototyper, is a
practical self-copying 3-D printer. The
machine is distributed under an open source license (GNU General Public
License). The second generation
model costs about $800. and it will copy its plastic parts, which make up about
half of the machine. The above examples are things
that are foreseeable. Based on some
of the observations of new technology devices and the theories that have been
developed to account for the observations, it appears possible that there are
some very exotic devices that can be developed, such as new communications
devices, gravity control, and new classes of weapons, such as interference
weapons low energy devices that stun or freeze people or automobiles or
machinery. How long before these
things might be developed we can only guess. Reindustrialization
Manufacturing
and Energy For a number of years, the This situation has led to the
loss of manufacturing jobs, but it has also led to trade imbalance--the The irony of the oil situation
is that the United States has more oil reserves in the Bakken Formation (which
also extends under Canada as well as northern US states) than any other country.
James B. Edwards, in his book, Silver Bullets II, cites the following:
The oil reserves in the Bakken Formation contain: ·
8 times the reserves in ·
18 times the reserves in ·
21 times the reserves in ·
22 times the reserves in ·
500 times the reserves in Further, Edwards points out that
the natural gas reserves in the Marcellus Slate Field is estimated to be 2000
trillion cubic feet, enough to last the It is unlikely that the Federal
Government will suddenly be afflicted with rationality or common sense, but,
fortunately, there are things that individuals can do to deal with the predicted
meltdown of the world economy. For
centuries, science and technology have led us toward greater centralization--of
population and industrialization. For
the first time, technology in the 21st century has the potential for reversing
this trend toward centralization. We
have the means for allowing families and even individuals to provide their own
necessities and even some luxuries. It
is possible for us to start moving off the grids of distribution created by
centralization, ultimately to survive and prosper by personal efforts. Why should we think about
getting off the grids? Because what
allows the grids to function is an exchange medium, i.e., money, and the current
practice of the Government of printing money to cover our national debts has the
unfortunate side effect of inflation, of deflating the value of money.
Also, events in the The
Grids Consider the basics.
In grade school, we were all taught that human beings need food,
clothing, and shelter to survive. Adding
in what we need for a comfortable living, we have: ·
Food ·
Clothing ·
Shelter ·
Energy ·
Transportation ·
Communication ·
Education ·
Medicine There are other items that could
be added to this list but this will illustrate the idea.
Note that there exists a web of raw material acquisition, preparation,
distribution, and consumption for each of these items.
Over time, these webs have grown larger and more connected, so that
everything we require to live comes to us over a grid.
This is both a blessing, because it allows us to spend less time on the
simple basics of food, clothing, and shelter, and a curse, because the grids are
sensitive to inflation. Energy So how do the 21st century
technologies, particularly the energy converters, Brown's gas, and robotics,
help get us off the grids? Start
with energy. Energy is needed to
support activities in all the other seven areas.
First, consider just Brown's gas. Currently,
conversion kits are available to use the gas as a mileage extender.
Using Brown's gas for mileage extension won't get you completely off the
petroleum grid, but it is a start. The
important thing is not that it saves money for gasoline, which it would, but
that it is a start for becoming familiar with the technology, with what Brown's
gas is and how it behaves and what kinds of things it can and can't do. If individuals are going to use
new technologies for survival, they will have to learn these technologies, and a
mileage extender is about the simplest and cheapest way to start learning about
Brown's gas, the circuits needed to generate it, how to handle it, and what it
can and cannot do. Some
do-it-yourselfers (DIYs) might be tempted to start out trying to run their cars
on nothing but Brown's gas, as some experts have done, but the installation of a
mileage extender alone might require the assistance of an expert mechanic or a
Brown's gas installation expert; you need to know something about an internal
combustion engine if you plan to modify one. Once basic familiarity with
Brown's gas is obtained, a more ambitious project with Brown's gas might be to
learn about welding brazing, cutting and polishing with a Brown's gas torch.
Note that a Brown's gas generator for welding may produce 10 times as
much gas per minute as a mileage extender, and another project might be to use
the welding gas generator to supply all the gas for a 15 to 20 horsepower
gasoline engine. This is still not enough power to run an average automobile,
but it is perfectly adequate to power a generator for domestic electricity.
By adding a condenser on the exhaust of the engine, the condensed water
can be added back to the water supply, so that water need be added only very
rarely. The key part of the technology
for Brown's gas is not really the gas, itself; it is the pulsed system for
recharging the battery system that supplies the electricity for the electrolysis
process that generates the gas. The
battery system is a form of zero-point energy conversion.
When the proper circuits are used, the battery is always kept charged and
the energy for the system comes from space energy conversion.
Once off the electric grid, the next project might be to convert an
automobile to run on nothing but Brown's gas, taking the individual off both the
electric grid and the petroleum grid with not insignificant cost savings. Space energy converters that
directly produce electrical energy could be substituted for the Brown's gas
system if they become commercially available.
In the meantime, the Brown's gas battery charging circuit and other,
similar pulse circuits, such as the Bedini battery charger and the Ainslie
heat-producing circuit, are informative projects that can be studied to help
understand how space energy conversion circuits work.
These projects are described in Kelly's Guide book. Manufacturing After energy comes the next most
important supporting technology: the production of goods.
Just as the printer attached to the home computer requires no user
attention once the print command is issued, the 3-D printer also carries out its
operation only under instructions from the computer.
This means that production of some goods can be completely automated, and
that the user is not required to master the technology in order to produce
complex objects. At least, the
production of some types of components for products can be automated.
The parts still have to be assembled.
Also, not all types of materials can be printed, and, of those that can,
the print head and fusing mechanisms needed do vary; fusing a titanium particle
to a work piece requires a high-intensity laser, which probably would vaporize a
drop of custard in a food printer. Nevertheless,
the need for a variety of manufactured goods to sustain and develop all the
technologies, old and new, needed for independent living, is obvious.
An irregular flow of goods, one that varies with the needs and the
experience of the user, is required; just the sort of thing 3-D printing can
provide. Even so, there will be projects
that require use of more than one printer or the services of a specialized
printer. One way to coordinate
capabilities and knowledge is to form a non-profit association of independents
in a town or local area. Members
could agree to devote some time to group projects, such as the production of
goods that could be traded for raw materials or other goods not produced or
available locally. Coordination and
management of projects could be handled via computer using software such as
Skype. The association could also
maintain information on all the technologies, old and new, required by
association membersinformation such as tutorials, detailed instructions,
experience by member with new technologies, current projects, members and their
experience and expertise, and so on. Robots Intelligent humanoid robots will
greatly extend the capability of one person to manufacture goods of all kinds.
Unfortunately, the cost for developing even a prototype robot would be
very expensive and it will take over a year to produce.
One seat of a software development system for my intelligent robot costs
$10,000: there are also licensing costs and costs for the operating system,
database management system, hypervisor, database management system accelerator,
and the hardware development facilities. (There
are cheaper software development systems, but analysis shows this is the best
approach.) At least 20 software
development seats alone are needed, and at least an equal number of engineers
are needed for the development of the android platform and the chip integration
facility. If the economy goes bust
by the end of this year as is predicted, it might be years before enough capital
could be assembled to develop intelligent robots.
However, the combination of additive manufacturing to construct parts and
intelligent robots to assemble them would mean that robots could construct more
robots and more 3-D printers, reducing all manufacturing costs to a minimum. Food Where food is concerned,
gardening or a greenhouse, even a relatively small one, can supply fresh
vegetables to supplement purchased foods. Some
hardy souls have gotten entirely off the food grid.
One Algae provide an even higher
density, faster growing, more nutritious food than common garden plants.
Over 100 varieties of algae are currently in the human diet all over the
world. The Chinese regularly employ
some 70 varieties in their diet. Two
of the most nutritious algae are spirulina and chlorella. Both
are high in protein and vitamins and both can be grown in simple bioreactors
made of glass or plastic pipes. All
they need to grow is carbon dioxide and sunlight, although they do require some
mineral addition. Some 50 years ago,
NASA investigated the possible use of spirulina as food for long-duration space
flights. It will support human life
and health indefinitely but it currently leaves much to be desired for taste,
texture, aroma, and color. Many local zoning ordinances do
not permit gardens or greenhouses, and an independents association could help in
getting such ordinances changed. Also,
an association could also coordinate efforts to have enacted local ordinances
making it illegal to destroy crops of food growing facilities in an individual's
garden. (This is not a hypothetical
example. Reports on the internet of
individuals who claim to be Federal officials have used warrants issued in one
jurisdiction to remove or destroy plants in a private garden in some other
jurisdiction. The claim is that the
garden violates interstate commerce regulations.)
Of course, gardens also need to be protected from animal as well as human
varmints. Eventually, and perhaps not to
long from now, someone will invent a science fiction style food replicator, not
just a food printer, which will solve the food problem once and for all. Medicine There are a number of advances
made and being made in medicine that would be consistent with a decentralized
population. Electronic vital sign
measurement via computer and networking is routinely done now.
With the aid of cameras, a physician can examine patients and get the
vital sign information from anywhere, which could save a trip to a medical
facility. Even more important, there
is a lot of focus on prevention, now, and fewer examinations might be needed
with a healthier population. Other
treatment alternatives, some using electronic devices for diagnosis and for
therapy, are also being explored. There
is even research being done on a device like the Star Trek medical tricorder, a
fictional device that could, in seconds, diagnose a patient.
If such a device could be produced cheaply enough, every household could
have one and could send its output to a remote physician, along with vital sign
information. Great progress has been made and
is being made in finding natural herbal or food products that cure a variety of
diseases and are superior to prescription medicines.
Unfortunately many of these products are not patentable, so they are
shunned by drug companies. Although
these products do make their way to the public by way of private companies that
sell nonprescription vitamins and food supplements, the products are often
touted very highly and the public has no way of knowing what the real efficacy
of the products are. The entire
system of patents and FDA has failed to provide the public with what may be
life-saving remedies where these products are concerned and the system should be
revised on a more rational basis. In
the meantime, anyone who wants to become as independent of the prescription drug
grid will have to do their own investigation of the efficacy of these herbal and
food products. Education For education,
home schooling is not only a viable option in a decentralized society, it is the
preferred option. Even today,
virtual classrooms are being used to provide service to students in remote
areas, and a combination of home schooling and virtual classrooms can provide a
first-class education. Consider that
one of the subjects students would need to learn would be new technology as it
would be adapted to provide food, power, and goods for individual families.
What better way to learn about the technology than for a child to assist
in using it? Above all, however,
critical thinking should be taught to every student; it will immunize the
children to the propaganda and indoctrination that floods many schools, the
entertainment media, and many sites on the internet. Communication Cell phones,
blackberries, the internet and the like are fine, as long as the cost of these
services remain within reason. An
alternative that does not require a central exchange is the amateur radio.
The American Radio Relay League offers courses and training in amateur
radio. Members of this organization
have provided excellent communications during many disasters in the past,
largely because they are already decentralized and independent.
However, this is 20th century technology.
Work at universities and research institutes on advanced brain-computer
interfaces is ongoing, but most of this research makes use of scalp potentials
(EEG) and brain scanning, which are also 20th century; also, the
brain scanners are not portable or wearable.
It is possible to use 21st century technology to construct a
transducer for brain waves that is both wearable and broadband, providing what
amounts to a machine-aided telepathy, a way of communicating without using a
keyboard or mouse or touchscreen. These
new transducers permit transfer not only of voice but also denotation,
connotation, affect, and sensory information.
Also, there is some indication that point to point communication
could be attained without a network of computers or communications relays.
It is uncertain when this technology will reach the commercial stage but
it is clear that such devices would make existing communicators obsolete. Transitioning How would you
know if you should or should not adopt 21st century technology and
start getting off the grid? Actually,
it all depends on how deep you or the expert economists you trust believe how
deep the coming recession will be. If
you think that the integrity of the grid will be compromised to the point that
it will no longer sustain all the population, you probably should make an effort
to have a Plan B. While it is not
necessary to be a scientist, engineer or technician to adopt an independent
existence, it would help, which is why joining an association of independents
would make sense. Anyone who is
family-oriented, independent, freedom-loving, self-reliant and self-managed
might want to have a go at independent living as an insurance policy against a
deep recession. Technology is a
very curious thing in one respect: it is often said to be exponential.
One final note
of warning. It took hard work and
centuries to build the grid. It will
also take a lot of hard work and time by individuals to get off the grid.
The hard part will be to learn all the technologies needed to support
independent living, not just at a subsistence level but with some degree of
comfort. The reorientation from
grid-centered to family/clan-centered is not easy.
One more thing: those who wish to become independent will have to face
severe reactions from those who wish to use the grid to obtain or hold political
power. As they say in the Boy
Scouts, "Be prepared." Further
Information
As pointed out in this article,
new technologies are received with great skepticism.
It is to be expected that this article will be viewed as so much science
fiction or fantasy or as failure of the author to understand and describe
correctly these new technologies. It
is recommended that the reader not take the author's or anyone else's word for
any of this. Don't believe what
anyone says about new technologies. Do
your own research on the internet; talk to current users of Brown's gas; and do
your own experimentation, so that you know what is true, not believe
some self-styled expert. The
following web sites are recommended as a start to learn about these
technologies, but internet searches using the keywords of "free energy," "zero
point energy," "overunity devices," "hydroxy gas," "Brown's gas," "3-D printing,"
"intelligent machines," and "androids" can provide hundreds of thousands of
sites with additional information. Energy Conversion Systems:
http://www.free-energy-info.co.uk/Intro.pdf http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/secret_projects/project117.htm
http://pesn.com/2010/11/17/9501728_Career_opportunities_abound_in_free_energy/
Brown's gas:
http://www.hho4free.com/browns_gas.htm
http://www.squidoo.com/increasegaemileagewater/ http://www.free-energy-info.com/Chapter10.pdf http://pesn.com/2007/01/08/9500445_Bob_Boyce_Electrolyzer_Plans/
Intelligent Machines: o
Machine Intelligence: http://machineintelligence.atspace.com/ o
Cody the robot: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20022305-1.html o
Japanese singing robot: http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-10-japans-robot-video.html o
Korean robot actors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG5zZV5Tw2o o
Androids: http://www.androidworld.com/ Reindustrialization o
Energy and Automotive: James B. Edwards, Silver Bullets II
(Available from Amazon) o
General: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reindustrialization o
Gardening: http://www.eldoradoheirloomseeds.com/ http://www.survivalseedbank.com/?gclid=CN-bpYGR2acCFcE65QodN0rN8w http://www.emergencyseedbank.com/seed-bank-ammo.html?gclid=CO_t-PiS2acCFcbc4AodTxcP-g Other 21st Century Technologies o
MYT Engine: http://www.angellabsllc.com/ o
Aviso Electric Car: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Ismael_Aviso_Self-Charging_Electric_Car o
Rossi LENR: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Andrea_A._Rossi_Cold_Fusion_Generator http://pesn.com/2011/03/17/9501791_Welcome_Worry-Free_Nuclear_Power--Rossis_Energy_Catalyzer/ o
Zero-point Energy: http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:_Claus_W._Turtur:_Zero_Point_Energy_Converter_in_the_Kilowatt_Range/ o
Focus Fusion: http://www.lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/ o
3-D Printers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing o
RepRap Personal 3-D Printer: http://www.techzonecom.com/gglrrk # # # What You Can Do
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