Storms hit the US hard this past year.
In August, a large hurricane took an unusual path and dumped record amounts of rain up the whole of the eastern coast, saturating grounds and leaving more than 6 million people without electrical power.
Just days ago, an early snowstorm in the northeast of the country broke tree limbs still full of leaves, downing power lines that left 3 million without power.
A surprise two-feet of snow hit some areas and brought business-as-usual to a halt as residents were trapped in their homes, without electricity, and in some cases without heat. Consequently, schools, shops and businesses were closed and billions of dollars of economic damage is added to the infrastructural damage. Close to a dozen people were reportedly killed by fallen power lines and other storm-related circumstances.
As climate change brings more severs swings in weather, from extreme heat and drought to early frost and bitter snowstorms, we enter into the waning moments of both the current economic model and energy paradigm. The confluence of environmental crisis meets economic and energy collapse in what some call a Clusterf**k.
Dismay and despair fill the minds of those who’ve lost everything amidst the crises. Occupy Wall Street is criticized by the corporate media outlets as having no clear demands, but they’re just not listening. The ills of this lifestyle are too complex to be managed by a talking head in 5 seconds.
Or is it? The simple solution to our ecological, economic, and energy problems may be described in two seconds or less.
Cold fusion.
The radical new energy that can be generated on location, as needed, without the requirement of power lines and substations. That’s right, cold fusion technology means you generate your own power in your own house when you need it, not connected to any grid or centralized power plant. Robust and resiliant, cold fusion technology will be our energy go-to as the fossil fuel infrastructure fades away into ruin.
Cold fusion energy means:
NO centrally located coal plants.
NO centrally located nuclear plants using dangerous radioactive fuel.
NO high-voltage electricity substations.
NO power lines across the wilderness, in town, or on your street.
NO power companies monitoring your consumption and dictating your bill.
Cold fusion is disruptive technology that will change the energy industry from a centralized corporate hierarchy to a decentralized individual network. It is for this and other reasons that cold fusion science has been abandoned by the Department of Energy, a federal entity populated with oil and coal industry veterans as well as hot fusion enthusiasts.
Looking at all the power plants along the eastern US coast that were in the path of Hurricane Irene this year shows the risk that large centralized power plants pose.
Dangerous toxins from coal and coal ash, radioactive fuels, oil and gas pipeline ruptures, all pose a threat to the environment we live in.
Losing services due to weather related events risk the well-being of residents who relay on electricity to power medical devices, food refrigeration, and other important needs.
The economic toll becomes incalculable when homes, businesses, schools and government offices are without power.
This past August, as a hurricane hit the coast, the state of Texas was suffering from a long drought with more days of 100-degree-and-above temperatures than any year since records began. With the drought, farmers lost crops and cattle, wildlife suffered from lack of food and water, and costs shot up when electricity needs increased.
As our economy runs down the peak oil slope, higher fossil fuel costs, loss of jobs coupled with the exponential growth of paper money create human and ecological tragedies that are sure to continue, unless we change paths.
Cold fusion is a reaction that takes place between hydrogen and the atoms inside a solid metal. The metal is “host” to the reaction, but the atoms of the metal also take part in the energy-generating process.
The first commercial device to be released for industrial use runs on simple hydrogen, the main element in water, along with the metal nickel, just like the nickel in your pocket. Called a nickel-hydrogen exothermic reaction the device makes steam heat, heat is clean. There is no carbon dioxide emitted during the reaction.
A single 1 Megawatt nickel-hydrogen E-Cat, the cold fusion-based steam generator created by inventor Andrea A. Rossi, would consume about 20 kilograms of nickel powder and 36 kilograms of hydrogen each year with the only by-product is steam and hot water. The nickel is recyclable after six-months of operation.
On the other hand, a 1 Megawatt coal-fired power plant will burn 20,000 rail cars of coal each year. At 183.65 metric tons CO2 per railcar [see here], that’s 3.7 million metric tons of CO2 for 20,000 railcars.
Since a metric ton is 1000 kilograms, that 3.7 billion kilograms of CO2 emitted annually from a single 1 MW coal-fired power plant.
Nature is not finished with us. In fact, she’s only just begun. With 7 billion people on this planet extracting resources exponentially, climate change and extreme weather add another layer to the stressed social and economic systems.
Cold fusion offers a path to navigate the near-future crises that inevitably will affect our planet to a greater degree. And when storms take the power out, it offers a safe, clean, energy that you have the perogative to turn on and off at will, your will.
Cold Fusion Now!
Related Links
Edmund Storms on “Transition” Cold Fusion Now video October 24, 2011
The Answer to All Our Energy Problems video by Alien Scientist transcribed by Sterling Allan PESN
CO2 Emissions Report July 2000 from EIA
Emissions from Energy Consumption at Conventional Power Plants from EIA
A really great post!
Thanks Gerard.
Ruby, I’ve seen a marked increase in “trolls” on LENR threads. This is reminiscent of threads on global warming, which we’ve always wondered is really the fossil fuel industry implementing a reasonable doubt strategy like tobacco companies used to combat sciences on the health hazards of smoking. If the trillions of dollars in fossil fuel infrastructure is really being defended using the same playbook but this time against LENR, then it is going to get ugly. No amount of proof will satisfy such “critics.” Maybe Rossi is right and there is a war being waged against him (although frankly, on the surface his statement sounded paranoid).
It’s so frustrating. Don’t some people have anything better to do?
I have to remind myself that this is the type of treatment that these scientists have received for TWENTY YEARS!
It only seems like more of it to us because of the recent positive developments on the commercial front, and the number of new websites devoted to E-Cat energy.
When I got on board May 2010 with this blog, there was only a couple of sites posting regularly on cold fusion/LENR. Now, there’s alot more attention, and it’s a good thing!
But it’s definitely hard to understand why people who believe that this doesn’t exist, and is a waste of time, would spend so much time battling the tide.
The fact is, we’re going to have to wait until this permeates the market, and only then, will the majority of people see the validity and power (literally) of cold fusion.
Solar Superstorms can bring down critical power grids for years according to NASA. Since nuclear plants cannot go one month without grid power without a meltdown, decentralized power is an urgent priority.
The NOAA sees the maximum threat in the next 2 to 5 years. Any such storm would make the power failures so far experiences seem trivial. These would be life threatening to millions of people all across the globe.
See http://www.aesopinstitute.org for additional information. CHEAP GREEN on that website contains some information about four Nickel Hydrogen fueled systems, one of which is not nuclear.
MOVING BEYOND OIL on the same site outlines other potential breakthrough systems which could also prove extremely important.
The grid has outlived its usefulness. It seems to me as the infrastructure degrades further, and without money to pay for needed repairs and upgrades, the whole system is going to fall away. Hopefully, the gap between the end of the Oil Age and the Era of Cold Fusion won’t be too long.
Thanks, Mark. real nice website.
Great post Ruby. This reminds me of an episode from James Burke’s 1978 series Connections (The Trigger Effect). It shows how civilization could collapse if the grid fails.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcSxL8GUn-g&list=PL79184D14F872B80D
Science quite rightly has become the laughing stock of the modern World, it’s incompetent closed-minded desperate clinging to 19th. century reductionism and mechanical cause and effect is comical and sad.
The average factory worker has more sense than a degree owning twerp who thinks that with a degree in how to use a Bunsen burner he now knows everything that could ever be known.
Science is run by a group of establishment and academic dictators who impose Dogma and how to think to an army of small minded followers incapable of thinking for themselves.
The second half of the 20th. century to be known in the future as the wasted years will be written up in comic books and not history books.
Use one to replace the hot water source of a low temp( 95c to 98c) geothermal electric generator station for 6 months and you will have the proof needed and customers will line up.
Let’s look at the energy cost of the inputs for a moment.
I found an article which listed a worst-case price of hydrogen gas at about $12 / kg. Another website showed the highest price of nickel over the past five years was just shy of $25 / lb. (or about ~$54 / kg.).
However, I believe some reports have said the hydrogen needs to be free of deuterium, so that implies some processsing: for lack of a reference price, I’ll estimate a processing cost premium of 150%, for a total of $30 / kg.
The nickel will also need to be processed into nanoparticles, and we do not know the precise cost of this processing. for the sake of argument, I’ll estimate the same processing cost premium of 150%, for a total of $135 / kg.
We have figures of 20 kg Ni and 36 kg H for one megawatt (1MW) for a year.
20 kg Ni (nanoparticles) @ $135 / kg = $2,700
36 kg H (light) @ $30 / kg = $1,080
This seems a lot. However, this is 1MW for a whole year, which means 365*24 or 8,760 MWh of heat.
$3,780 (inputs for Ni-H cold fusion heat) = 8,760 MWh heat.
Dividing both sides by 8,760 gives:
$0.43 (inputs for Ni-H cold fusion heat) = 1 MWh heat
In comparison, coal (a relatively cheap heating fuel source) provides 6.67 kWh / kg. A look at historical prices of coal has shown them to be, at lowest, around $10 / short ton (2000 lb., ~920 kg), or about 3.08 kWh / lb. This would produce about 6,158 KWh heat (not considering the pollution cost, transport costs, etc.).
$10 for 1 short ton coal (inputs for coal burning heat) = 6.158 MWh heat.
Dividing both sides by 6.158 gives:
$1.62 for 324.8 lb. coal = 1 MWh heat.
This means that a relatively high estimate of price of the Ni-H inputs is still less than 27% the cost of a relatively low estimate of price of coal for 1 MWh of heat. This does not take into account pollution, transportation costs, or maintenance costs – certainly much higher with 325 lb. of coal input – let alone health or other environmental costs. Admittedly, the efficiency of a smaller-than-1MW unit may not so high at first, but then again, a small coal-based boiler or generator isn’t exactly without shortcomings, either. In addition, real world efficiency of coal usage is probably far worse than these figures would suggest, yet coal technology has been developed for a long time: it may be that LENR cold fusion technology could still gain in efficiency.
Note that rather than scale it to the 1MW year that the article uses, I scaled it to 1MWh, which is probably far more useful for domestic / commercial consideration.
Dear Ruby, can you please mention one proven case of a succesfull implemented cold fusion. And than I mean fully described and completely verified by independant 3rd parties with the proper know how? Do you realy believe that the big oil companies and other suppliers of energy like to spent billions of dollars in exploration and production of resources that are bound to cease to exist, knowing that they could supply the same energy at a fraction of the cost? I love to believe that something like coldfusion would ever exist. But why is it that the so-called inventors of new energy sources don’t bring their products to market but always ask for investors since their product seems never completely ready for household use?
Keep up the good work but also show some more critisism.
Reinier
Hi Reinier, Thanks for your thoughts. Cold fusion has been a perplexing science, that is only now emerging as a technology. For two decades, scientists couldn’t even reproduce the “excess heat” effect on demand! It’s taken twenty years to develop a few necessary but not sufficient conditions to reproduce the effect. Still scientists in labs around the world have trouble creating the effect when they want. When they can get the reaction to work, most of the time is not a large enough amount of energy to be usefu
However now, an Italian named Andrea Rossi found the secret sauce, what he claims is a catalyzer, that makes heat on demand, and in large quantities. He built upon the work of Francesco Piantelli and Sergio Focardi, who worked with the nickel-hydrogen systems for many years. Sergio Focardi has been a lab partner to Mr. Rossi, as well.
What did Mr. Rossi do differently? He filled his gas-loaded reaction chamber nickel powder, instead of solid bars or foils, and, he added a catalyzer which remains secret to the rest of us.
His demonstrations were attended by scientists and high-level government officials, and they have verified that the excess heat effect was demonstrated.
Still, some are not happy with the secrecy, and want to know more about the technology and process. They don’t like the way the demonstrations went, and are unhappy that more scientists were not involved.
But there’s nothing to be done about it. All we can do is wait. Time will tell.
As for myself, I have confidence that his technology is the real thing. The scientists who attended the demonstrations are not joke; several of the Italian researchers who were there have been investigating nickel-hydrogen exothermic reactions since the mid-90s. They have extensive experience in measuring heat. How can I disregard their conclusions?
I can’t.
I believe Mr. Rossi has what he says he has.
Is it verified according to mainstream science standards? Maybe not.
But after learning about the history, and learning about the character and experience of those who have seen his technology, I am very excited that this just may work. And when it does, there are many more companies who’ve labored long and hard on this very problem, and they will finally get the funding they need to develop and make better new and as yet un-imagined devices that will run forever with no pollution and no excuses for war.
I’d say, “Let’s be patient.”, but I am hardly so.
I’ll try to push this forward at every moment I can.