Posted on by Gregory Goble

LENR NASA Google Cafe Foundation and Asphalt

“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” – Joni Mitchell

Ultimately we will want to do away with most pavement; considering that the fresh asphalt gassing off into our atmosphere is like millions of miles of tar sands being spread out yearly. Some even say asphalt is a rectal disorder and that roadways are a very primitive and destructive technology; it is thought to be an overly complicated and expensive travel infrastructure that is best done away with altogether. The first paving stones, so to speak, laid towards this end, were set in place in 2008 by the NASA contract envisioned within the Google CAFE Flight Foundation and the Cafe Flight Challenge. This may be as important as the NASA LENR Boeing 747 or the NASA SpaceWorks LENR Spaceplane contracts, which were initiated in 2007.

Imagine a world of personal transport and package delivery without roads, gridlock, or rush hour long traffic delays, no need for parking lots.

Tear up the pavement, create greenways which replace highways, paradise returned.

The folks bringing this dream to reality meet at the 8th Annual CAFE Electric Aircraft Symposium, held April 25th and 26th, 2014, in Santa Rosa, California, an incredible gathering of experts and thought-leaders in the areas of electric- and sustainable-aviation. Highly educated impassioned volunteers and industry leaders power the Café Foundation. Google and NASA provide key technical and financial assistance.

Enabling concepts, which they are working with, have long included the energetics of low energy nuclear reactions, improved thermo/peizo electric conversion technology, advanced nano-tube “structural/airframe” energy storage, and supercomputer navigation capabilities. Dennis Bushnell helped forge the CAFE Flight Foundation NASA contract and has presented important technical information to them over the years.

From the Cafe Foundation

Dr. Shin to Keynote Electric Aircraft Symposium by Dean Sigler

Dr. Jaiwon Shin, NASA Associate Administrator for Aeronautics, will close the Friday, April 25th session of the eighth annual Electric Aircraft Symposium with his keynote address, “The NASA Aeronautics Vision and Strategy – How It Relates to Electric Aircraft.”

Cafe History

5th Annual CAFE Electric Aircraft Symposium – 2011

Dennis Bushnell: Envisioning a Plausible, Positive Future by Dean Sigler

Consider that Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Benjamin Santer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) kicked off the first day of the 2011 Electric Aircraft Symposium with a highly-detailed examination of the issues surrounding climate change. That required an equally adept presenter to expound on possible solutions for worldwide problems, and EAS 5 delivered with Dennis Bushnell, NASA’s Chief Scientist at Langley Research Center.

His presentation, “Frontier[s] of Electric Aircraft Propulsion [The Responsibly Imaginable],” was far-ranging and wonderfully challenging, encompassing energy, aeronautics, and technologies from information technology (IT), bio, nano, energetics, and quantum mechanics, to societal technological systems.

Quoting Arthur C. Clark, “The roads to support autos cost as much as a small war and the casualties are on the same scale”, Bushnell looked at the 80-year dream of flying automobiles, and posited adaptations and alternatives such as robotic package delivery, 300 mile commutes, and flying shuttles for “the aged, the infirm, the young, and the inebriated.” Such personal air vehicle use, along with rail traffic, could constitute “a complete [physical] domestic transportation system,” according to Bushnell.

This approach would have enormous infrastructure and sociological implications, reducing the need for roads and bridges, built-up core cities, and allowing self-sufficiency in electronic cottages on their own large plots of land. Obviously, from this writer’s perspective, this would require a big change from the current 99-percent/one-percent economic dichotomy, because such alterations would require a greater prosperity for everyone, or a more layered society much like those in utopian fiction (or dystopian, as some might fear).

This will come about because navigation and control breakthroughs currently are being developed by the Department of Defense and package delivery companies; and ultralight, motorcycle-like flying machines will enable most to have a safe means of traversing space while avoiding downtowns and malls. These small machines would expand in size to include “Cadillac” level transportation and service delivery.

Bushnell thinks this is possible because the hardware and software Infrastructure involved would be “vastly less expensive than the current ground alternative.” He also foresees a demand for this based on “the HUGE markets [and] economic benefits,” and “because the People want the associated freedom/convenience/time savings/cost reductions” that could come from this visionary breakthrough.

He listed a promising number of ways to harvest energy, including wind, solar, wave power, geothermal, and biomass, but took them to the next level with suggestions for the extraction of atmospheric CO2, and using engineered microbes to convert the gas to fuel; low energy nuclear reactions (LENR and sometimes erroneously referred to as “cold fusion”); exploitation of energy potential in chemical bonds; and the use of positrons – the “affordable anti-matter.”

 

7th Annual CAFE Electric Aircraft Symposium – 2013

Beyond Chemical – Exotic Energetics/Propulsion

Presented by Dennis Bushnell, Chief Scientist, NASA

LENR [Low Energy Nuclear Reactions]

  • Originally dubbed “Cold Fusion”, an experimental discovery with replication issues and no acceptable theory
  • Now, Almost 2 decades of massive world-wide data collection/experiments indicate is “real”
  • Now, a viable Theory [ Widom/Larsen]
  • Not “Hot Fusion”, is electroweak interactions explicable via the “Standard Model” of Quantum Theory on Surfaces
  • Theory being used to increase heat “quality” and practicality, no radioactivity safety issues
  • Economics/Utility TBD…..

Frontier Energy Storage/ Release Options

  • Atomic Fuels, 20X Chem
  • SBER – Mechanical, up to 100X Chem Release rates
  • LENR – No radiation, up to E4-E6 X Chem
  • Fast Compression – E3-E4 X Chem
  • Isomers – Triggering?, E5 X Chem
  • P-B11 or D-He3 Aneutronic IECF – E7 X Chem
  • Positrons – Storage?, E9 X Chem
  • ZPE – ? [ E108 X Chem?]
  • SMES with CNT Magnets
  • Metal-Air Batteries
  • Nano tube energy storage [ H2, E-M] in skins/ structures
  • The “Exotic Exotics” – Theories relating E-M & Gravity

 LENR Utilization Approaches

  • LENR produces Heat, Depending upon design a great deal of heat
  • Can utilize the Heat directly as in open propulsion systems etc. or via such as Sterling cycles, Thermoelectrics, Pyroelectrics, T-PV etc. convert the heat into electricity
  • Heat produced at energy densities, depending upon design, of E3 to E6 times Chemical, high power density should be possible. All with essentially negligible radiation issues/ problems/ weights and inexpensive fuels/ systems

Alternative Heat Storage Options

  • Fulvalene Diruthenium, Via Molecular Rearrangements
  • Zeolite Pellets, Requires water to extract heat, “Infinite” heat storage life, 4X H2O heat storage [‘Sorptive Heat Storage]

 

2011 Green Flight Challenge Sponsored by Google

The 2011 Green Flight Challenge sponsored by Google marks an historic achievement in aviation—the first demonstration of practical, cross-country emission-free flight. Final results.

Years from now, these first Green Flight Challenge team members will be recognized as the pioneers of the Age of Electric Flight. CAFE is already discussing plans for GFC II and will publish more on that at their website soon.

CAFE Mission Statement

CAFE Foundation creates and advances the understanding of personal aircraft technologies through research, analysis, and education.

Aircraft are submarines that swim in a sea of air

—Lyle S. Powell Jr.

Besides overcoming the force of Earth’s gravity, aircraft must maneuver against the friction and pressures of a surprisingly viscous and powerfully turbulent medium—Earth’s atmosphere. By comparing how aircraft move through this ‘sea of air’, the enthusiast members of CAFE have pioneered valuable new ways to study aerodynamics and improve personal aircraft.

CAFE developed award-winning flight test equipment and software that records extremely accurate speeds, temperatures, weights, pressures, frequencies and sound levels. These suites of CAFE flight test tools have turned the skies above Santa Rosa into a kind of “Nature’s Wind Tunnel”. (See “Order From Chaos“). CAFE’s flight test expertise has become a national asset recognized by many of those prominent in the world of aviation, including NASA, AOPA and EAA. (See Sponsors)

The diverse members of the CAFE team each contribute a special talent and expertise to the organization. But it is the magic of enthusiasm that has turned these airplane hobbyists into respected aeronautical scientists. The CAFE team arose mainly from members of Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter (EAA) 124, where the passion for personal aviation is strong. Volunteers from EAA 124 have formed the backbone of CAFE’s success.

As we enter the Second Century of Flight, the non-profit, tax-exempt CAFE Foundation looks forward to enhancing its key role in advancing the science, education and growth of personal aviation for everyone. Learn how you can help.

EAS 2014 Registration

Members of the media, enrolled students or other special cases, please email a ‘request for special registration’ to: eas2014reg@cafefoundation.org

Cold Fusion Now

Educates and advocates new energy technologies based on cold fusion science and lobby to make cold fusion research a part of our alternative energy portfolio.

Safe and ultra-clean, from a water-fuel, cold fusion is the viable alternative energy that has the energy density to power a green technological future for all of planet Earth.

Cold fusion makes it economically-viable to recycle all waste. We can remove hydro-electric dams and restore the wilderness, saving species from extinction. No CO2 emissions puts a halt to further degradation of the atmosphere.

And no more dirty and dangerous radioactive nuclear power plants!

Low-energy nuclear reactions, another name for cold fusion, also show the ability to transmute elements, offering a path to clean-up the thousands of tons of radioactive waste that imperils our environment and health.

12 Replies to “LENR NASA Google Cafe Foundation and Asphalt”

  1. Thought provoking post Gregory. Take a look at how energetic and creative these radio controlled model jet plane builders are. Get these guys interested in LENR and maybe they’ll be the first to fly LENR aircraft.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlHLU_0BNLU&list=PLkfYdREELTSlAq4tukQybTKaYNUIOOZFg .

    These model planes have real jet engines.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3jE-PXV-68

    Perhaps they could be modified by replacing the combustion chamber with a small E-Cat, making it similar to the engine of “The Atomic Bomber” but without all the heavy shielding and plumbing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsCw0s0BJKY

  2. Carbon dioxide reduction
    Alan Brett

    CO2 reduction.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol

    From Alan Brett.

    A factory can suck in co2 from the air and make methanol from catalyst and hydrogen see equations in the link I have given. Selling the methanol pays for the manufacture. And the process is carbon neutral round a circle with no new co2.

    It seems co2 is too low a concentration in air so one needs to pipe it from the smokestack . Of a factory. After washing it. To also prevent embers from igniting things.
    The co2 will be captured into methanol—–other organic chemistry reactions can be tried. Also from methanol to something else.
    The hydrogen can be electrolysed from water with medical oxygen by product.

  3. The subject matter is LENR energetics, carbon capture is of import yet ending carbon fuel use trumps.

    Consider this… merged with LENR technology.

    Gizmag http://www.gizmag.com/mercedes-amg-cigarette-racing-fastest-electric-boat/26301/

    “AMG and Cigarette Racing Produce the World’s Fastest and Most Powerful Electric Boat”

    By Brian Dodson February 19, 2013

    Mercedes-AMG and Cigarette Racing (AMGCR) have launched their latest collaboration at the Miami International Boat Show. The 38-foot Top Gun Cigarette Racing hull is powered by an AMG electric drive pumping out 2,220 horsepower (1,656 kW) and 2,210 ft-lb (3,000 Nm) of torque for a top speed in excess of 100 mph (160 km/h or over 86 knots). The electrics are taken nearly whole from the SLS AMG Coupé Electric Drive – the world’s fastest and most powerful production electric car.

  7. The Unmanned Aircraft Systems Airspace Operations Challenge! – NASA
    http://uasaoc.org/
    With 7 Teams signed up, NASA and the Ohio/Indiana Planning Team have decided to extend the competition dates to September 10-17, 2014. Check their site regularly for competition updates, details on logistics for Camp Atterbury, and an new page coming soon to introduce the competitor Teams!
    Welcome to the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Airspace Operations Challenge! This competition is a NASA Centennial Challenge Program. Competitors in a Phase 1 competition will compete for $500,000 in prizes by demonstrating UAS technology and capabilities that are critical to their integration into the national airspace. The Ohio/Indiana UAS Center & Test Complex will host the Phase 1 Competition at Camp Atterbury Range, near Edinburgh, IN. Development Projects, Inc. (part of the Dayton Development Coalition) of Dayton, Ohio is managing the competition.

  8. DIENSTAG, 29. APRIL 2014 – http://martin-shogun.blogspot.com/
    How to Build a Spaceship and Get as Much Energy as You Need … All is Here

    The keshe spaceship institute’s knowledgeseekers workshops on YouTube:
    1st Workshop : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx2S3ek5IuQ .
    2nd workshop :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-rfCduQolw
    3rd workshop :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2U3qnJGHeo
    4th workshop :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUHFNQtx_g0
    Special knowledge seekers Workshop :
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfVZKFSqqho
    9th keshe public teaching Workshop: Solutions for Fukushima:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfV6YeWAu8E&list=PL6S-6M93qaWacm2WBB1EtNY-v6iWEBPcC

  9. To Pipistrel, Cafe Foundation, NASA, Google, Sausalito Seaplanes Adventures, and Enstroj Electric Motor Inc.
    .
    Congratulations to Pipistrel for the winning of the EAS Green Flight Challenge #1. I look forward to the next Google Green Flight Challenge, to be announced soon.
    .
    Cessna aircraft are certainly not very silent, also launch or air range is inefficient, consider this.
    .
    Recently I stopped in at Seaplanes Adventures and happened to talk to Charlie.
    .
    Charlie has a personal aircraft he was working on (attaching a new prop). He has one of the few pontooned Cessna aircraft in existence, which is berthed at Seaplanes Adventures in Sausalito. I talked to him within hours of attending EASVIII.
    .
    Charlie’s aircraft (due to being pontooned) is limited in both range, launch vectors, and other crucial performance.
    .
    He told me that if he flew up and landed on Lake Tahoe he would not be able to take off from the lake (6,224 feet or 1,897 meters) yet the plane can fly (pontooned) at over 13,000 ft. He would have to have the plane trucked from the lake to the airport, remove the pontoons and put the wheels on; and then take-off with a much easier, comparatively frictionless, runway based launch. Yet his Cessna can launch, land based easily, from a 12,000 or 14,000 ft. platform, in correct weather conditions.
    .
    Consider this… Overcoming The “HUMP”
    .
    How would you like to fly your silent two bodied, award winning, Electric Pipistrel to any lake (smooth landing and glassy smooth launch surface) within a 10,000 ft ceiling, and then take off after a few days of sightseeing, fishing, and hiking. Just bring along a roll of flexible thin film solar for your recharging power array. NASA has tons of the stuff available and this technology is gaining in lightweight and efficiency yearly.
    .
    Or, have your next plane fly from SF and land on Lake Tahoe, take off from the water two days later, without refueling or requiring the grid to recharge, completing the trip back to the bay with both grace, environmental beauty, and ease.
    .
    Overcome the Stickiness of Water Launch and the “HUMP”
    .
    To Pipistrel with LOVE from Me
    .
    Overcome Aqueous Aviation Launch Hump with Electric In-Line Hull WaterJets
    .
    I suggest that your next two body plane might have a slightly thicker, deeper, and wider joining wing form to:
    .
    1) Create an in ground wing effect for takeoff at higher lake altitudes.
    .
    2) To have the width between the airframe bodies adequate to provide a stable (distanced) base between the two hulls, which would eliminate the need for wing pontoons in order to avoid water contact with the wingtips. (the outer wings designed to remain high off the water from this extremely stable platform)
    .
    These two joined catamaran ‘airboat hulls” could be marine modelled exhibiting the performance of modern jet skis, with thrust provided accordingly, using in line in hull water jet turbines to provide thrust up to airlift speeds (100 to 200 mph).
    .
    Electric power to motors, providing required water thrust through simple water turbines, would only be required for tens of minutes. Airspeed to break the ‘hump’ is achieved and at the same time, the water turbulence created by the in-line water propulsion nearly eliminates the water suction against the hull, solving that which has often been a problem for water launch; which is overcoming every launch vector to overcome the “HUMP” for water aircraft.
    .
    I’ve studied years of early aviation (seaplanes and airboats) and cannot find even one of the engineered concepts proposing to overcome the “hump” (the energetics required to break free of the ‘thick’ and ‘full of friction’ medium of water) with an in line ‘turbine” water prop in the hull (hulls). Yet every engineer knows the thrust provided by a prop in water is more efficient than a prop in thin air, due to the thickness of the medium (of water) and inherent slippage (of air) when applied by for thrust by aero propeller.
    .
    Tell me if we are the first to consider this… or not. If not, remember this was brought forth, for the first time in aviation history, as a hybrid flight concept, at EAS VIII after the presentation by, Aaron Singer, Seaplane Adventures, “Electric Amphibious Aircraft—Getting Close to Downtown”
    .
    or ‘getting closer to the mountain lakes’ – op- e.d.
    .
    If you can find any aviation engineer that proposed overcoming the ‘hump’ by putting a propeller in the water let me know.
    .
    This seems obvious and very attractive, it may just simply be an overlooked solution to the problematic differentials facing us when launching an air/water craft. Considering the thrust problem, from the inherent resistance differential of the aero propeller ‘bite’ and ‘angle of attack’ while considering ‘air slippage’ in thinner airs, along with the friction of the water/aircrafts drag (friction) in water and wave action (when actually considered); the problem is therefore best to be better thought out. An in line water turbo prop easily meets the propulsion needs (actual thrust delivered) for the tens of minutes of water based launch, all power vectors considered.
    .
    As far as I can tell, engineers from the past just put on bigger and bigger airplane engines and variable props, along with improved wing shapes, better hull designs, bigger fuel tanks, etc. to create better range, improved take off parameters, load bearing capabilities, and fuel performance.
    .
    Name one seaplane or airboat that utilized an in water propulsion system for take off. If you could, they would most likely be in business, providing such capabilities today. As this would be for Charlie’s Cessna, it’s best to consider what this would mean for him, Tahoe and more.
    .
    He would probably be tickled pink; landing on Lake Tahoe and taking off from that same smooth body of water. If he had these capabilities on his Cessna seaplane now he would have that range. Synchronized in-line electric motors, providing torque to controllable in-line water jet turbines within each hull are the substance of modern electrical engineers dreams, we provide and acknowledge the merits of such advanced electrical technologies
    .
    In the beginning days of aviation we did not have (gasoline powered) jet skis or large (electric powered) model jetboats. There are, now available on the market, many simple and reliable in line (enclosed) water jet turbines, of any power output requirement. All they need is torque, as supplied by the electric motors presently used by Pipistrel, which are both marine and aviation certified.
    .
    I hope you will consider an, in-line water turbine hull powered launch, Twin Bodied Pipistrel as your next NASA Cafe Google Green Flight Challenge contender.
    .
    http://cafefoundation.org/v2/pdf_eas/2014/EAS.VIII.program.pdf
    .
    News 30 Apr 2014
    Taurus touches the sky!
    “Cockpit condensation made a fine mesh of tiny crystals on the canopy. I reached up and wrote the altitude with my hand wearing a black fleece glove – 8,800 meters! The analogue vario was still showing a climb of 2m/s.”
    PUSHING THE LIMITS … or how the Taurus was flying at 9,214 meters (30,229 feet)!“Cockpit condensation made a fine mesh of tiny crystals on the canopy. It was not just a layer of ice – it was tiny icy crystals. Not the usual form we were used to have at high altitudes. I reached up and wrote the altitude we thought we reached with my hand wearing a black fleece glove – 8,800 meters!!
    .
    The CAFE Foundation CAFE 400 Race Series
    http://vimeo.com/92213536
    This wonderful 47 minute video shows CAFE’s first tech prizes–the CAFE 400 races, which were conducted from 1981 to 1990 at the Santa Rosa Air Center. These 400 mile flight competitions were scored according to the CAFE Formula of Speed x MPG x Payload and attracted most of the famous aircraft designers from the world of EAA. It is amazing to see how many of their innovations were incorporated into GA aircraft of today. Nearly 50 aircraft competed including Roy LoPresti’s factory team from Mooney, Burt and Dick Rutan, Mike Melvill, Tom Hamilton, Gene Sheehan and the perennial winner, Gary Hertzler. The event demanded astute navigation and power management in addition to fastidious preparation of engine and airframe. In the 10 years of CAFE 400 racing, there was never an injury or serious accident.
    .

    Gregory Goble
    to: info@pipistrel.si,
    info@seaplane.com,
    tadej@pipistrel.si,
    brien@cafefoundation.org,
    gregor@pipistrel.si,
    enstroj@siol.net,
    Ruby
    date: Thu, May 1, 2014 at 3:04 AM
    subject: Upcoming NASA Cafe Google Green Flight Challenge II

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