The Future of Energy: An Emerging Science by Dr. Thomas Valone
A new 220 page softcover book discusses the latest emerging energy technologies and mankind’s history of energy and its future trends. Includes an examination of the sociopolitical aspects of man’s use of energy.
In a world of uncertainty about the future, The Future of Energy: An Emerging Science by Thomas Valone offers “…hope for solving the world’s looming energy shortage,” according to Science magazine, since it considers things we have barely imagined in search of new carbon-free technologies.
Containing a myriad of new energy technologies assembled into archetypal categories, a sociological perspective emerges along with the science. Well funded, emerging energy sources such as dense plasma focus fusion, powdered metal-burning engines, wireless transmission of electricity, space-based solar power, piezoelectric highway electricity generators and zero point energy are given simple and short summaries.
Recent Conferences on Future Energy sponsored by the author’s institute, offering the best examples of emerging future energy sources, are also listed and described.
“[I]t would be foolhardy not to assess a broad spectrum of advanced energy sources, converters, and enabling technologies.” - Martin Hoffert, et al., Science, Vol. 300, 25 April 2003, p. 581 (more…)
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Video: James Burke’s Knowledge Web
/Field Note
“Learners may study either history or physics, or perhaps only Renaissance history and astrophysics. People tend to become experts in highly specialized fields, learning more and more about less and less.”
James Burke
In following down one line of investigation for the first documentary I’m researching, I was reminded of an interview I did with James Burke for one of the first issues of Visions magazine.
In case you don’t know, James Burke is probably best known as the author and host of the television series Connections on PBS and The Learning Channel.
As it explains on his Knowledge Web web site (k-web.org), “James’ work explores the idiosyncratic relationships between technology, science, and social change throughout modern history. Through a variety of media—radio, television, print, and now the World Wide Web—James has brought the world a unique perspective on how all of history is interrelated and interdependent. (more…)
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Is Our Culture Stopping Disruptive, Revolutionary Science?
How do we support today's Einsteins?
Is today’s academic and corporate culture stifling science’s risk-takers and stopping disruptive, revolutionary science from coming to the fore? In April’s Physics World the science writer Mark Buchanan looks at those who have shifted scientific paradigms and asks what we can do to make sure that those who have the potential to change our outlook on the world also have the opportunity to do so.
When Max Planck accidentally discovered quantum theory, he kick-started the most significant scientific revolution of the 20th century; his colleague, Wilhelm Röntgen’s experiments with cathode rays led inadvertently to the discovery of X-rays, which ultimately revolutionised modern medical practice; and US physicists at Bell Labs, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, detected cosmic wave background radiation — the echo of the Big Bang — when trying to get rid of the annoying noise being picked up by their microwave receiver.
Would today’s physicists, plagued by the publish-or-perish ethic, have the same freedom to explore their findings? (more…)
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James Burke: Connections, World Views and Technological Innovation
/Field Note
James Burke: "There is nothing hard-wired about the human mind. Over long periods of time, I think what we do is alter our perceptions."
Again retracing my steps a little in preparing a launch point for the first documentary in the current series, I took a fresh look at an old interview I did with science historian James Burke. It’s got a lot in it that is still very relevant today and so I’m posting it below.
Burke is possibly best known for Connections, a ten-episode documentary television series he created and narrated. It first aired in 1978 in the UK. It took an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention and demonstrates how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events built off one another in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology. (more…)
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Jane Jacobs - A Dark Age Ahead?
/Field Note
Jane Jacobs on her front porch in Toronto Canada. Photo taken by Blake Harris during one of several interviews.
I just spent the last few days in San Francisco, meeting with CIOs from some of the of larger cities and counties in the US – all related to my day job as an editor at Government Technology magazine.
Of a little relevance here given the focus of this site, I heard about some of the political wrangling related to distribution of the US stimulus money for broadband and other IT related activities. And for all the talk of change, it is still very much politics as usual in Washington, DC when it comes to meeting America’s economic challenges and addressing America’s continued lagging behind in broadband deployment and usage.
This prompted me, on the plane back, to think a little more about some of the intellectual territory I had previously covered before launching The X-Journals in the first place.
Specifically, I began thinking about conversations I had previously had with the late Jane Jacobs as well as her last book, Dark Age Ahead. (more…)
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Blacklight Power’s Paradigm-Shifting Technology - New Mexico Commercial Projects Announced
In two rather understated press releases issued in the last couple of months from the prestigious Washington, DC-based PR firm of Hill & Knowlton on behalf of BlackLight Power Inc., two agreements were signed to license their technology to produce commercial electricity in New Mexico.
First, on December 11, 2008 the company’s first commercial license agreement was announced with Estacado Energy Services, Inc. in New Mexico, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Roosevelt County Electric Cooperative, (Estacado). This stated that, “in a non-exclusive agreement, BLP has licensed Estacado to use the BlackLight Process and certain BLP energy technology for the production of thermal or electric power. Estacado may produce gross thermal power up to a maximum continuous capacity of 250 MW or convert this thermal power to corresponding electricity.” (more…)
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Video: 900 Watt Zero Point Energy Generator Demonstrated
Timothy Thrapp stands next to his "900 Watt Fuelless Electrical Generator" demonstrated in the Fall of 2007.
Editors note: Mainstream science would view much of what is claimed here as impossible and an outright scam designed to seek millions of dollars from investors. Quite simply, it violates classical laws of physics. Nevertheless, at least on the surface of what is shown in this video, it is a story worth further investigation. If what is shown is accurately described, something is happening here involving zero point energy.
Timothy Thrapp is currently head of World Improvement Through the Spirit (WITTS) Ministries, formerly World Improvement Technologies (WITs).
For many years, the ministry has been claiming to have around 100 sundry exotic energy technologies for sale (multi millions of dollars), including versions of gravity motors, engines that run on water, radiant energy devices (solid state or mechanical), inertial propulsion devices, and pollution remediation. None of those has arrived in the marketplace yet, that we know of. (more…)
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“Spintronics” Could Replace Electronics
Many hopes are pinned on spintronics. In the future it could replace electronics, which in the race to produce increasingly rapid computer components, must at sometime reach its limits. Different from electronics, where whole electrons are moved (the digital “one” means “an electron is present on the component”, zero means “no electron present”), here it is a matter of manipulating a certain property of the electron, its spin. For this reason, components are needed in which electrons can be injected successively into the electron, and one must be able to manipulate the spin of the single electrons, e.g. with the aid of magnetic fields. Both are possible with a single electron pump, as scientists of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) have, together with colleagues from Latvia, now shown. They will present their results in the current issue of Applied Physics Letters. (more…)
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Declaration of Academic Freedom
January, 2006 PROGRESS IN PHYSICS Volume 1
Open Letter by the Editor-in-Chief, Dmitri Rabounski
Declaration of Academic Freedom
(Scientific Human Rights)
Article 1: Preamble
The beginning of the 21st century reflects more than at any other time in the history of Mankind, the depth and significance of the role of science and technology in human affairs. The powerfully pervasive nature of modern science and technology has given rise to a commonplace perception that further key discoveries can be made principally or solely by large government or corporation funded research groups with access to enormously expensive instrumentation and hordes of support personnel.
The common perception is however, mythical, and belies the true nature of how scientific discoveries are really made. Large and expensive technological projects, howsoever complex, are but the result of the application of the profound scientific insights of small groups of dedicated researchers or lone scientists, often working in isolation. A scientist working alone is now and in the future, just as in the past, able to make a discovery that can substantially influence the fate of humanity and change the face of the whole planet upon which we so insignificantly dwell. (more…)
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Honing Our Visionary Skills
An Introduction to an issue of Visions magazine: This issue of Visions springs from the general observation that much of government’s vision for information technology is aimed really at making government more convenient for citizens. Not that this is a bad thing at all. On the contrary, it is highly desirable. But if we look across the world today with its multitude of social, political and economic problems, surely the bar can be raised much higher than that
Even the goal of increasing efficiency and productivity within government, catching up with the private sector in this regard, while again desirable, can hardly be called visionary.
Our view can be summed up very simply: if we really are in the throes of an information revolution that will drastically alter our society – as many social scientists have predicted – then our aspirations for technology should be equally revolutionary, if not visionary. (more…)
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John and Nana Naisbitt: Unintended Consequences
John Naisbitt
John Naisbitt has been heralded as one of America’s leading thinkers on the future. He is the recipient of 12 honorary degrees, is a former executive with IBM and Eastman Kodak, and also served as a presidential appointee in the Kennedy administration and as a special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson. Previously, Visions talked with John Naisbitt as he was beginning work on a new book. That book, High Tech, High Touch: Technology and Our Search for Meaning, co-authored with his daughter Nana Naisbitt and Douglas Philips, has now hit the streets. (more…)
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Redefining Leadership in the Digital Age
“Each new age has required a new breed of leader to create and manage its success and progress.”
Government leaders and managers face unique and unprecedented challenges in the decades ahead. Some leaders, recognizing the extent to which times are indeed changing, will rise to these tremendous challenges. But many may not, something that should concern us all, for in times of very rapid social transformation, we need not just good government, but great government. (more…)
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Eric McLuhan: The End of Geography
Eric McLuhan
Much of what Eric McLuhan says about the social effects of the Internet — and much of what his father, Marshall McLuhan, said before him regarding the social effects of electronic media and computers — challenge some of our most basic assumptions about the fundamentals of democratic society.
Like his father, Eric McLuhan talks about many of the social effects of new media as if they already have happened. (more…)
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John Naisbitt: High Tech/High Touch
John Naisbitt
Futurist John Naisbitt’s insightful analysis of the primary forces shaping tomorrow’s world has earned him worldwide recognition. His books Megatrends, Megatrends 2000 and Global Paradox all have been international bestsellers.A new book, now in the works, is likely to have just as far-reaching an impact as his earlier publications. John Naisbitt took some time to share some of his latest cutting-edge thoughts with Government Technology’s Editor at Large Blake Harris. (more…)
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James Burke: Government for a World Long Gone
For more than 30 years James Burke has written, produced and presented television programs on science and society. He was the BBC’s chief correspondent to NASA’s Apollo space missions and is author and host of the highly acclaimed documentary series Connections 2.
Burke is also the best-selling author of Connections, The Pinball Effect and co-author of The Axemaker’s Gift — all books that, one way or another, change how we think about technology and our culture. (more…)
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Honing Our Visionary Skills
by Blake Harris
Originally published in Visions magazine several years ago.
An Introduction to an issue of Visions magazine: This issue of Visions springs from the general observation that much of government’s vision for information technology is aimed really at making government more convenient for citizens. Not that this is a bad thing at all. On the contrary, it is highly desirable. But if we look across the world today with its multitude of social, political and economic problems, surely the bar can be raised much higher than that.
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