President William Clinton - in his State of the Union Address, asserted that we have about 1,000 days remaining in this century to accomplish the goals outlined in his challenge to all of us.

Action -- rather than a Constitutional Amendment -- is required of all of us. Together. And, in spite of Andy Rooney's mild criticism of the redundancy of those, and other words in the speech, the substance and the clarity of the proposals made came through loud and clear.

Education -- the central component of the means to achieve the goals that the president outlined -- applied to each and every age group -- must consist of truth -- scientifically established facts -- as best they can be determined -- both experientially and theoretically.

The proliferation of junk science, largely purchased and promoted by those hoping to gain financially by such distortion of truth needs to be sharply reduced.

1. The attempts to hide the very serious health hazards by non-scientific information about tobacco, paid for by the tobacco companies, and supported by a congress -- effectively bribed by those same companies -- to the detriment of the voters and their children -- demonstrates how truth can be and is manipulated.

2. The intentional withholding of the results of federally sponsored research reports, such as the details of the successes established by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the ACES** project illustrates another way in which vital information does not become common knowledge and does not reach the people who could use it as soon as it was proven to be fact.

*See Nucleus - Magazine of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Vol. 18, No. 4, Winter, 96-97, p. 1-4.

**See the January 1997 Report -- Ice-Maker Heat Pump, a new tool for energy conservation, by H. C. Fischer, Energy Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Operated by the Union Carbide Corporation, Nuclear Division, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

The Annual Cycle Energy System Report, has as its introductory summarization, the following statement:

The high energy efficiency of the ice-maker heat pump makes it an attractive source of heating and cooling for buildings at current electric rates. When combined with heating storage and cooling storage, which make it possible to take advantage of time-of-day interruptible rates, no system on the current market can beat it. An examination of the resource energy requirements of several systems shows that the Annual Cycle Energy System (ACES), which uses the ice made during the heating season to handle the cooling load in the summer, has the lowest resource requirement.

The ACES demonstration building, near Oak Ridge, and Knoxville, Tennessee, illustrated that the use of the latent heat of water provides the means for storage of excess summertime heat in an underground, insulated, storage tank. This warmed water, in turn, was cooled by the ice-maker refrigerator system in the winter just following, and used to heat the house.

Using the long established principle of the heat pump, an ice-maker refrigerator compressor extracts the heat from the warmed water, first cooling it down to freezing temperature, then freezing it. As the volume of fluid water is converted into ice, it is stored in the well -insulated underground tank, is available for summertime air conditioning without operating the refrigerator compressor at all during the following summer.

While this appears to violate the basic physical concept that the Thermal Efficiency (TE) of any system cannot exceed the value of 100% -- (the first law of Thermodynamics) -- the fact remains that the ice-making refrigerator has been used for more than 75 years -- to extract heat from water with what seems to be 200% efficiency. Engineers have simply labeled it differently, calling that capability of the machine its coefficient of performance (COP). The economic fact is that the ice-maker requires only one (1) kilowatt hour of electrical current supplied to the compressor, to extract (2) kilowatt hours worth of heat from the water in the conversion of liquid water to ice.

The heat energy equivalent of one (1) kilowatt hour is 3413 British Thermal Units (BTUs). The extraction of 6,426 BTUs of heat from the liquid water is accomplished by only one (1) kilowatt hour of electrical energy that powers the motor driving the compressor. Furthermore, when used as a heating device for home heating, a total of 10,239 BTUs is removed from water in the process of ice formation, at the expenditure of only one (1) kilowatt of electrical energy. Therefore, a COP of 3 is factual -- when the ice-maker is used as a heating device. (When you feel the hot condenser coils of the back side of household refrigerators or freezers, your sense of touch verifies this is happening -- and is the source of heat utilized in heating the house with the ice-maker refrigerator of the ACES equipment.)

The overall result of the ACES concept -- on the annual basis -- is that the stored block of ice accumulated during the winter in the house heating phase of its operation, provides the cooling medium for the summer-time air conditioning of the house. Circulation of ice-water around the huge block of ice, and pumping it through finned-tube heat exchangers located at the picture-molding location in the rooms to be cooled, replaces our window type air conditioners (usually noisy ones at that) with the cooling effect of ice-water flowing through the pipes. This also eliminates the need for any (often unsightly) solar collectors mounted on the roof of the house, since the un-avoidable heating of the building accomplished by ventilation of the house, leakage of heat into the house through windows and doors, the body heat of people, cooking, dishwashing, lighting and all other sources of heat within the building, as well as incomplete insulation of the walls, windows and roof -- provide the interior heat which is extracted by the circulation of the cooling water. When this unwanted summertime heat is transported by the warmed ice-water back to the underground storage tank, it melts some more of the ice, and thus stores the heat that can be pumped out of the warmed water, frozen and used during the winter heating season.

The beautiful result of this is that since the refrigerator compressor is not needed during the summer, the air conditioning cost for the summer is virtually eliminated. The economic result is the production of an Annual Coefficient of Performance (ACOP) of 3 + 2 + = 5. This is the same as 500%-- thermally considered impossible, but economically factual, as demonstrated by the test houses near Oak Ridge Tennessee. It was my privilege to visit this demonstration house in the summer of 1978.

The enclosed tabulation of the Heat Storage Potential (latent heat of water) that I prepared in 1975 provides the mathematical proof of the tremendous capability of the systems using the heat of fusion of Water-Ice incorporated in the ACES concept.*

This energy storage capability provides the means for storing summer-time heat for winter-time use, and storing the ice so formed for cooling in the summer. When this Annual Coefficient of Performance provides the established potential of making 1 kilowatt hour of electrical energy do the work of 5 kilowatt hours of heating and cooling, this simply means that the energy cost for the year can be divided by 5.

When the known fact that it takes approximately 3 kilowatt hours of fossil fuel or nuclear fuel energy to generate, transform, and transport 1 kilowatt hour of electric energy to the point of use at the refrigerator compressor, it is quite obvious that 3 X 5 = 15 !! Fifteen kilowatt hours worth of fossil or nuclear fuel must be provided to accomplish the same job on the annual cycle of heating and cooling. It then becomes obvious that when wind energy is available to replace the fossil and nuclear fuels, the use of this continually renewable resource is the ultimate answer to many of our ecological problems as well.

It is recognized, of course, that the materials of construction and the energy required to manufacture the windmills must be considered as a part of the cost of producing the output, whether it is electricity, or hydrogen or the prime-mover energy to drive a refrigerator compressor directly. But, the well proven longevity of refrigerator compressors, the safety of underground pipelines for transporting gaseous substances or the physical durability of managing radioactive materials all combine to make the windmill the economical choice.

Quoting again from Windpower Monthly, the Jan. 1997 issue, page 6: If the mind power now devoted to fossil fuel and nuclear energy exploitation were put to devising a long-term framework for sustainable use of energy, the job is well within the bounds of man's intelligence.

*Tabulation of calculated value of the Heat of Fusion of Water-Ice, which provides the storage potential for cubes of ice of various sizes, prepared by Curtis A. Johnson, at the University of Massachusetts in 1975.

A variety of references have quoted the fact that the annual energy available from wind alone can readily be obtained from the mid-western states -- from North Dakota on down to Texas -- sufficient to completely replace all of the annual energy requirements of the United States currently supplied by the combined oil, coal, nuclear and biological source materials.

The intermittent nature of wind energy has often been the stumbling block in the technical development process -- where the attention has been directed largely toward the conversion of wind energy into electrical power, for harnessing it directly to the grid systems with specific Hertz (60 or 50 cycles per second) alternating current.

When we are willing to abandon complete tie-in to the grid system, it opens up new concepts of energy conversion, distribution, storage and the related ecological advantages and efficiencies.

THE ROUTE?

1. Concentrate upon initial generation of direct current electricity.

2. With permanent magnet rotating elements, the DC power need not pass from a rotating commutator to stationary brushes. Even though the initial output developed is alternating current, integral rectifiers convert AC to DC current, with a pulsating, but uni-directional flow of electricity.

3. By means of the electrolysis process, the direct current can disassociate water molecules (H₂O) into hydrogen (H₂) and oxygen(O₂ ). Both of these molecules as gaseous products are storable, wither under low pressure, high pressure or, with the hydrogen, into metallic hydrides, as the ultimate use may require.*

* Documentation of this is detailed in Solar Hydrogen -- Moving Beyond Fossil Fuels, by Joan M. Ogden and Robert H. Williams, World Resources Institute. Princeton University, 1989.

4. Pipeline distribution of hydrogen fuel has been demonstrated to be a lower-cost energy transmission system than the electrical grid system. This would not immediately eliminate the grid system, of course. Pipeline transmission of hydrogen to major electrical generation locations would need to continue -- but with the hydrogen powering the prime movers that power the AC generators. Thus, much of the smog and CO₂ can be quickly eliminated at that point source of pollution, since combustion of hydrogen has as its primary waste product -- water.

5. Hybrid systems, in which windmills and photovoltaic cell systems, both producing direct current, when combined to have an output product of hydrogen gas, foster almost round the clock* energy harvests. Various combinations of electrolysis systems, capable of operating at several voltages and amperages, will allow for various wind speeds without attempts to keep the rotor shaft RPM at some precise level. Therefore, from the lower wind speed that produces significant amounts of energy, to the highest velocity that can be designed for, all of the available wind energy may be harvested. Since the output wattage itself provides the brakes to manage the rotor velocity, no energy wasting friction brakes need to be applied to control the rotor speed. The armature of such a generator, since it consists of powerful permanent magnets, is the moving part of the generator. The stationary coils (that are connected internally to rectifiers which change the induced current in the coils to direct current) allows for simple external connections to the electrolysis systems. Voltage or amperage controlled switching devices can then connect the output energy to whichever equipment is suited for the available power.

6. The above combination of devices then combine to be, in effect, a dynamometer, since voltmeters and ammeters can measure instantaneous digital readings of the output. When volts x amperes = VA = watts, very accurate output energy can be recorded. Since the electrolysis system, through its switching arrangement, can vary the electrical loading, the reduction in the rotor rpm can be controlled, electronically, to absorb the maximum power output of the windmill. When the wind velocity decreases, the electronic controls can change the electrical loading to conform to the instantaneous maximum power that may be produced at the lowered rpm.

*See Natural Energy for the People concerning WISH (Wind and Solar Hybrid Turbine) I Windpower Monthly Magazine, June 1995, Vol. II, No. 6.

7. Initial storage of hydrogen gas produced may be in floating, inverted tanks, comparable to the temporary natural gas storage units associated with pipe line supplies being distributed to branch lines to its various users. To the extent of available markets for oxygen gas, similar temporary storage may contain as much of the O₂ as may be profitably sold, with the balance simply released into the atmosphere. Pressure gauges and pressure switches, controlling compressor pumps for delivery of hydrogen to high pressure storage cylinders, or to intermediate pressure gas line transportation systems, all may be off-the-shelf, standard, available components. With the pumping energy derived from the hydrogen being produced, from either the wind or PV source, no fossil fuel is needed for the compression of the gas for transport.

8. Pipeline delivery of the hydrogen gas, via systems presently available for natural gas transportation, would require relatively little modification to handle the hydrogen. Consequently, adding hydrogen to the mixture will probably be an interim transport technique, until available hydrogen production reaches rates sufficient to warrant distribution in the pure hydrogen form.

9. Present electric (60 Hertz) generators, equipped with natural gas fired boilers, with probably slight modification, could use the hydrogen enriched natural gas, until the distribution lines are converted to hydrogen only delivery.

10. Fortunately for both human kind, and all other forms of animal and plant life on planet Earth, as progressively more hydrogen gas replaces all fossil and nuclear fuels, the liberation of carbon dioxide from the combustion process declines.

With the greenhouse effect diminishing, the climactic cycles can begin to return to normal. With the elimination of the reliance upon nuclear energy, the hazards of radioactive substances may make possible the goals of peaceful relations among the diverse populations of the earth. The sources of necessary energy for whatever purpose needed can be wherever there is wind or solar energy available, and the have-not nations -- with widely scattered windmills freeing them from the domination of the fossil or nuclear fuel magnates-- can release them to rely upon themselves with energy itself replacing the need for foreign currency, as expended normally for fuels of any kind.

11. While the changeover to a hydrogen economy cannot be an instantaneous one, a sustainable future for life upon earth requires that all nations, all industries, all educational bodies from kindergarten on through the advanced degrees concentrate upon spreading the knowledge that it can indeed be done, and work together to help make it happen -- as indeed, it must, if humanity is to survive.

12. Quoting from The Windicator, page 50 of the January 1997 Windpower Monthly, the current total of wind turbine -- wind power capacity stands at 5,839 megawatts (5,839,000 kilowatts). The U.S.A. portion of that is only 1,660 megawatts or 28.43% decline from the 47.45% portion that existed just one year ago.

13. This drastic reduction in the share of the development and production and use of windpower in the United States should be warning sufficient to both government and industry. Falling way behind in this manner can only mean losses: (A) industrial decline -- of peacetime production capacity; (B) decline of job opportunities for people -- as work prospects are destroyed for very capable individuals, dumped out of companies that have merged; (C) unadmitted failure to come to grips with the environmental damage resulting from the combustion products of fossil fuels; (D) the inability recognized world around that technology has come up with no safe methods of assuring our own or future generations that radio-active wastes can be stored, or that we can educate future generations sufficiently to keep them from releasing those wastes into soil, water or atmosphere.

14. If government and industry awakens in time, and recognizes that enlightened self interest and the inevitable popular pressure that can develop with widespread education of the foregoing possibilities, perhaps the greenhouse effect may be brought under control.

15. Consequently, the job is well within the bounds of man's intelligence -- to get the U.S. industry going:

A. With all deliberate speed, to become the world's No. 1 manufacturer, distributor and installer of windmills of all sizes.

B. To adapt the ice-maker refrigerator compressor industries into the No. 1. manufacturer, distributor and installer of these refrigerators, reverting back to the use of ammonia gas if necessary, if the replacements for freon 11 or freon 22 are not proven desirable.

C. Adapt the compressors to be adaptable to various prime movers -- electric motors, direct drive from windmills, or driven by internal combustion engines using hydrogen fuel. Adapt these engines for salvaging the exhaust gases -- incorporating them into the heating of tanks of water for domestic use -- with these insulated tanks inserted into slightly cooler tanks that provide the hot water for baseboard circulation in the building for space heating. The usual thermal efficiency of gasoline internal combustion engines is 25% (TE), rarely over 30%; and of diesel engines, in the range of 35%. The balance of the energy supplied to such engines is wasted as heat released to the cooling water, and lost, at the radiator -- plus the energy released at the exhaust system. With a hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine adapted to the ACES system, the radiator heat can be salvaged by incorporating its heat into the hot water heating system for space heating of the house. The exhaust gases, since they contain no CO₂ , and primarily water vapor, can also be added to the hot water heating system for space heating. Therefore, the overall thermal efficiency may reach into the vicinity of 90% ± for the hydrogen powered prime mover of the ice-maker refrigerator.

D. Design the windmill supporting structure for attachment of photovoltaic cells. While the cost of electricity developed by PV cells is currently in the range of five times as much as the cost of electricity produced by windmills (in the range of $0.04 to $0.06 per kilowatt hour) the provision for their attachment to the windmills should be made so that if/when the PV cells become economically feasible, they may readily be added to the combined equipment, wind and Solar Hybrid as previously described.

E. Develop the hydrolysis systems that can be appropriately sized to absorb the Direct Current energy from either the wind or PV cell sources in all of the practicable size ranges for the wind mills being built.

F. Associated with the above, manufacture and install the storage tanks, the compressed hydrogen systems, the metallic hydride systems, and the pipeline distribution systems, to prepare for the utilization of and storage of the excess hydrogen produced during the various periods when wind power is available, but energy use (night, or weekend) is minimal.

G. Also, develop the many presently dry wells of the petroleum fields, for pressurizing hydrogen into them for long-term storage.

H. Adapt the present natural gas pipe line systems for handling of hydrogen -- directly to the electric power plants. As the proportion of hydrogen increases, the CO2 output can progressively be lowered, and ultimately, to zero emission.

I. Accelerate government and industrial funding of additional research and development of some of the more recent concepts relating to the harnessing of wind power.* One such turbine is claimed by New Zealand researchers to generate electricity at half the cost of conventional wind technologies, by means of a diffuser-augmented wind turbine (DAWT) -- initially developed by the Grumman Aerospace company in the 1970s, as part of a US Department of Energy funded project. The advanced Windpower Ltd. (AWL) recognizes that its claims are rather radical, but is confident that the demonstration machine will live up to its billing.

J. Follow through with research on our own suggested in the December 1996 Windpower Magazine** relative to Desert Downdrafts -- if water is sprayed into the top of a hollow cylindrical structure it will tend to evaporate immediately, thus cooling the surrounding air and increasing its specific gravity. That will cause the air to fall in the chimney, setting up a considerable downdraft. If turbo-generators are placed at openings near the bottom of the structure, that downdraft will activate them to produce electricity. If such a concept is indeed a realistic one, the various desert locations through out the world could become immense resources -- sources of tremendous amounts of renewable energy, where it would seem that few if any of the ecological disadvantages would apply -- bird populations, desecration of beautiful scenic areas, costs of land involved, etc., that are frequently used as excuses for preventing the installation of windmills.

*Windpower Magazine, December, 1996, page 27.

** Windpower Magazine, December, 1996, page 16.

K. When, and as, the hydrogen production from such potential renewable resources becomes commonplace, the automotive industry should be ready to provide electrically operated vehicles in quantity, at the earliest possible moment. With the electricity provided by generators powered by hydrogen, street-side convenience outlets can become as commonplace as parking meters. Then, alternating current would be available for rapid recharging of batteries at the deposit of a coin or credit card. Because renewable energy would be supplying such battery chargers, virtually every parking meter could become a source for filler-up energy with no qualms about pollution of the atmosphere.

L. As new designs of batteries of the lead-acid type, or the nickel-cadmium, or the lithium, etc., are developed, the above technique of providing parking-meter type filling stations supplied by renewable fuels, may be appropriate for short-run, around town usage. Then other combinations may be produced, such as the fuel-cell type, which can convert hydrogen fuel carried in the vehicle to direct current for instantaneous use to drive the motors at each wheel, or the hydrogen powered small internal combustion engines fitted with a DC generator to recharge batteries that have been discharged when exceeding their stored capacity. With these, the final few miles to the next recharge station, can be made without being stalled on the road waiting for some help to arrive.

M. The filling stations (as we think of them now) would become the providers of replacement tanks of hydrogen gas, or of metallic hydride containers, as well as the fast, high amperage recharge station, to supplement the parking meter type of fuel supply.

N. As pure hydrogen gas becomes a widely distributed fuel, replacing the natural gas in city and urban locations, the hydrogen then can be utilized in the several ways, such as may be found to be most economic for the given situation. Direct combustion in gas fired hot water or hot air space heating systems, may require only changing of jets and making a few adjustments appropriate for the new fuel. Or, internal combustion engines, now having only water as the product of combustion, can be highly efficient units -- salvaging the radiator heat and the exhaust heat as well, such that conceivably an overall 90%± thermal efficiency (TE) may be attained. Or, with the internal combustion engine hydrogen fueled, it may be the prime mover for a complete ACES system, as described above. The completely self-contained ACES system for either individual homes (for new construction), would therefore have no need to be connected to the grid systems for source of electricity, since the hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine could also power an AC generator as needed. Retrofitting old homes by means of excavating for installation of the insulated ice and hot water storage tanks may well provide jobs for many in the construction industry. Similarly, with all other types of buildings -- schools, churches, manufacturing buildings and governmental structures, vast new opportunities for productive work would become available.

O. All of the above will produce the need for large numbers of skilled workers to complete the changeover to the new way of life. New small enterprises will spring up, in producing, distributing, servicing and educating the public in how best to choose or manage the systems. These, in turn, will generate an earlier balanced labor market, in which there are as many unfilled openings as there are unemployed seeking work. An economy with an expected steady 10% inflation rate and a 1% unemployment level would be a prosperous economy, automatically eliminating most welfare as we know it and alleviating poverty, homelessness, drug addiction and crime.

P. In summary, the combination of the greenhouse effect upon our planet Earth's atmosphere, the problems of the ozone holes developing over both the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the globe, the acid rain with its damaging effect upon many of our forests, the depletion of the several fossil fuels, (coal, oil and gas supplies; and the rather complete ignorance of all of our scientists concerning the safe disposal of radioactive wastes of our nuclear power systems, to say nothing of the military wastes, or the Three Mile Island nuclear power plants -- or the far shorter actual life of many of the nuclear power plants-- all of these must drive us to begin at the earliest possible date to reverse the damages of all of them. Few people can supply adequate arguments for continuing in such inevitable destruction of our ecological system.

Q. I submit that there are relatively few of the concepts contained in this proposal to embark upon the hydrogen fuel era -- beginning at the earliest possible moment -- that can be labeled as impossible, or uneconomic -- in the long view. We are presently allowing European and Chinese production of windmills to out-produce and out-utilize the renewable energy supply. Since we are not likely to be able to build a fence around the sun, or determine where the wind will blow, it is high time that we cooperate with nature in every possible way.

Energy, in the form of how many cubic feet of hydrogen gas, at a standardized pressure level, will become the monetary unit of the future. As the hydrogen is produced, it should have a fixed value as delivered into a pipeline system for distribution, no matter how small or large the delivery rate may be. Likewise, when that supplier has no available wind, the repurchase of the hydrogen gas should be available to him at some small fixed percentage above the cost he received when selling it.

A tax deduction type of subsidy of about 30% of the new investment that individuals or companies may make that contributes to the development of wind, solar, hydrogen production equipment, hydrogen using facilities, should demonstrate governmental approval of such steps toward building a sustainable environment. This subsidy (tax deduction) should only be allowed upon the proof of the actual construction and use of the equipment claimed as a deduction.

May the new hydrogen era begin now!

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