Thomas Engel is a successful German inventor with more than a hundred patented inventions to his credit. He - like many of his peers - does not look back at a successful school education, but evidently that is not necessary for success if you are smart and, as some say it might even be counter productive, stifling creativity.
Engel has figured out the working principle of a type of motor many inventors and tinkerers have been working on - so far unsuccessfully. He found a way to make permanent magnets do actual work, transforming their attractive and repulsive power into the true motive action of rotary motion...
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
This is one of many ways that energy can be drawn 'from the wheelworks of nature', to paraphrase Nikola Tesla, the great inventor.
Thomas Engel shows, with his motor, an important principle. It is possible to use magnetic fields attracting and repelling each other in a dynamic configuration... and to draw actual motive power from this.
The Cyclone Engine is a Rankine Cycle heat regenerative external combustion, otherwise known as a “Schoell Cycle”, engine. In other words, the Cyclone is a 21st century, high efficiency, compact and powerful steam engine.
The Cyclone Engine is capable of running on virtually any fuel (or combination of fuels) including bio fuels, while emitting far fewer pollutants than traditional gas or diesel powered internal combustion engines.
It creates mechanical energy by heating water to steam and cooling it down for re-use in a closed-loop, piston-based engine system...
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
This takes known technology and updates it for 21st century use. The engine uses 'external' combustion meaning the fuel just heats up water in coils, which becomes steam and is used to drive a specially configured unit that converts the pressure to rotary motion.
Conceivably this motor could use any heat source, even those not based on combustion, to run. Great for retrofit and for trying out new types of technology.
In a world increasingly concerned with questions of energy production and raw material shortages, this project explores the potential of desert manufacturing, where energy and material occur in abundance.
In this experiment sunlight and sand are used as raw energy and material to produce glass objects using a 3D printing process, that combines natural energy and material with high-tech production technology.
Solar-sintering aims to raise questions about the future of manufacturing and triggers dreams of the full utilisation of the production potential of the world's most efficient energy resource - the sun. Whilst not providing definitive answers, this experiment aims to provide a point of departure for fresh thinking.
We have seen huge advancements in 3D printing. We’ve even seen oversized wrenches printed that measure 1.2 meters in length. Now, we can print an entire 2,500 sqft house in 20 hours.
"In manufacturing we use a process called CAD/CAM (computer-aided design / computer-aided manufacturing). 3D models are designed on a computer and then manufactured using computer controlled Machines or 3D printers."
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
A whole new era for architecture might open up with this when it becomes obvious that form is no longer difficult to construct...
Moscow-based IT start-up Intersoft Eurasia has developed a tiny mobile ‘radiation watchdog to monitor radiation levels and alert users to hazardous changes.
Its $10-50 Do-Ra dosimeter-radiometer can sit either inside or outside a standard cell or smart phone; helps check radioactivity in humans, livestock and property; and is GLONASS/GPS-compatible. With Sony Eriksson and Fujitsu already in the know and the market estimated in the “billions”, the 20-month-old startup looks like it may have a tiger by the tail.
Word came last week that Intersoft Eurasia was in talks with Sony Ericsson and Fujitsu over the embedding of its Do-Ra radiation monitoring chip and software into their cell and smart phones.
The Do-Ra dosimeter-radiometer was invented by the firm’s CEO and patent-holder Vladimir Yelin after the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. Armed with the new device, any mobile phone can be turned into radiation monitor to check on radiation levels.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
I believe this is a very much wanted piece of hardware extension, for people all over the world.
Governments are very reluctant to tell us about radioactvity their power plants emit, in the case of an accident, so the monitoring will in the future be crowd-sourced and shared...
In 1936, an inventor by the name of Robert Neal obtained a patent from the US Patent Office for an engine whose medium of exchange was compressed air, which was self-sustaining once it got started.The patent application was initially denied because "perpetual motion" was a category of application that the patent office had decided they would not respond to. So, as the story goes, Mr. Neal packed up his engine, took it to Washington [D.C.], put it on the desk of the patent commissioner, turned it on, and demonstrated it, after which, he got his patent.The story about what happened to the engine is a matter of record. Eventually, because of interference from people who wanted his engine and who kidnapped his daughter as a way of compelling him to relinquish it, he agreed that he would disassemble the engine and distribute the parts and not make it any more.In the 75 years since that happened, to the best of our knowledge, no one has succeeded in either identifying the specific set of principles that made it work, or recapitulating the engine or in a newer or similar kind of design.After about 10 years of research on this process, we know how his engine worked, and we understand the principles that are involved. And [with what] we have available today, with 21st century technologies and materials, [we have the ability] to operationalize what he created with much cruder materials a long time ago.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
Can our machinery be made to be self-sustaining, i.e. to operate without fuel input? Apparently there are ways to do this.
Unfortunately patents, originally intended to protect the inventor, are also a way to suppress new technologies from ever getting out to the public...
A sensor previously used for military operations can now be tuned to secretly locate and record any single conversation on a busy street
a Dutch acoustics firm, Microflown Technologies, has developed a matchstick-sized sensor that can pinpoint and record a target's conversations from a distance.
Known as an acoustic vector sensor, Microflown's sensor measures the movement of air, disturbed by sound waves, to almost instantly locate where a sound originated. It can then identify the noise and, if required, transmit it live to waiting ears.
Conventional microphones work when sound waves make a diaphragm move, creating an electrical signal. Microflown's sensor has no moving parts. It consists of two parallel platinum strips, each just 200 nanometres deep, that are heated to 200 °C. Air molecules flowing across the strips cause temperature differences between the pair. Microflown's software counts the air molecules that pass through the gap between the strips to gauge sound intensity: the more air molecules in a sound wave, the louder the sound. At the same time, it analyses the temperature change in the strips to work out the movement of the air and calculate the coordinates of whatever generated the sound.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
While this is an unwanted expansion of surveillance capabilities, there are also 'good' uses of this new technology. Quoting from the article...
"Ecuador is using sensors that measure airflow for something other than spycraft. The government is putting sensors in, around and near airports to form an acoustic air-traffic control system. The sensors pinpoint a plane's direction by analysing the air movement. Software can tell if a plane is climbing, descending or straining with cargo.
While geographical features such as mountains can play havoc with radar returns, the comparative simplicity of passive listening can make Microflown's sensors less easy to fool. They are also much cheaper than radar equipment."
The 1.5-megawatt ICAES system is located at SustainX headquarters in Seabrook, New Hampshire. It takes electricity from the grid and uses it to drive a motor that compresses air and stores it isothermally, or at near-constant temperature.
To do so it captures the heat produced during compression, traps it in water, and stores the warmed air-water mixture in pipes.
When electricity is needed back on the grid, the process reverses and the air expands, driving a generator. No fossil fuel is needed to reheat the air and no emissions are produced, making ICAES a safe and sustainable energy storage solution.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
It would be interesting to combine this with wind energy generation, which could be switched to directly generate compressed air, rather than electricity that has to be converted to compressed air.
Such a set-up would have the added advantage of making the windmills lighter in their construction and easier to maintain, as the heavy generator on top of the tower could be eliminated. A simple gear mechanism could bring the rotation to the bottom of the tower, where the compressed air can be generated, to be fed directly into storage.
Wind energy without the intermittency of low-wind times.
The Greyp G12 is designed from the ground up to combine the best of both worlds – motorcycles and bicycles. It is a bicycle when you want it, or a motorcycle when you need it.
With stunning performance for an electric bike – 65 km/h top speed and a range of up to 120 km without pedaling,. It can easily be recharged from 0 to 100 percent in only 80 minutes – from a standard 220V outlet.
You can pedal if you want, assist the motor or drive the G12 like a motorcycle. It will reach 65 km/h without any assistance by the rider.
You never need to sweat riding up a hill again and when you go downhill, the motor can recharge the battery with up to 2 kW of power while braking. Most of the time you – won’t even need the mechanical brakes – regen braking will do all the work.
Alas, it comes with a heft price tag of over $7000 USD.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
Now we are starting to talk. Finally an electric bike that seems fun to drive ...
Forget Mother Nature: when it comes to all matters matter, the sheer ingenuity of the human mind can give rise to some of the most insane--and useful--new materials you've ever encountered.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
It seems materials science is really rocking and is full of possibilities for the future ... making new materials out of stuff that is abundant in nature, or with the help of bacteria.
The ability to create our own unique materials will most definitely propel developments that have been put on the back burner. Many imaginative ideas have been left at the black board stage as the materials needed were unavailable or did not exist. Now materials of certain properties can be invented (within reason of course) through the combination of any number of existing elements. Products in the future may be lighter, stronger, and much more durable.
A GROUNDBREAKING new Irish technology which could be the greatest breakthrough in agriculture since the plough is set to change the face of modern farming forever.
The technology – radio wave energised water – massively increases the output of vegetables and fruits by up to 30 per cent.
Not only are the plants much bigger but they are largely disease-resistant, meaning huge savings in expensive fertilisers and harmful pesticides.
Extensively tested in Ireland and several other countries, the inexpensive water treatment technology is now being rolled out across the world.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
Conditioning water with radiowaves ... apparently very good for the plants that respond with increased growth and resistance to disease.
A way to get off chemical fertilizers, toxic pesticides and - why not - genetic modification altogether.
Redox says that it plans to bring to market a fuel cell that is about one-tenth the size and one-tenth the cost of currently commercial fuel cells by 2014.
The breakthrough solid oxide fuel cell technology is the brainchild of Eric Wachsman, the director of the University of Maryland’s Energy Research Center.
Redox says that it will provide safe, efficient, reliable, uninterrupted power, on–site and optionally off the grid, at a price competitive with current energy sources.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
Projected 25 KW power plant that is to run on methane.
BlackLight has achieved a proprietary breakthrough power-producing system continuously operating that converts ubiquitous H2O vapor directly into electricity as confirmed by six separate independent individual or groups of leading scientists from academia and industry with Ph.D.s from prestigious universities including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology.
Specifically, BlackLight has developed a commercially competitive, nonpolluting source of energy that forms a predicted, previously undiscovered, more stable form of hydrogen called “Hydrino” that releases two hundred times more energy than burning hydrogen enabling ubiquitous H2O vapor to serve as the source of H2 fuel.
The Catalyst Induced Hydrino Transition (CIHT) electrochemical cell invented to harness this fundamentally new primary energy source as electrical output uses a catalyst to cause hydrogen atoms of water molecules to transition to lower-energy Hydrino states by allowing their electrons to fall to smaller radii around the nucleus, resulting in a release of energy that is intermediate between chemical and nuclear energies.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
BlackLight Power has been around for more than a decade and has continually been developing their hydrino energy production method and getting results verified by university scientists...
Two researchers at the University of Toronto have found a new way to cloak an object using tiny antennas. They're not making objects invisible to the human eye but making them undetectable by radar.
The nanoantennas they used radiate an electromagnetic field that prevents waves from reflecting back to the radar detector. The small antennas can be even printed flat to create a flexible skin for the desired object.
While the technology only works for radio waves at the moment, the researchers say the same principles could be applied to other waves such as light waves, which could potentially hide an object from the human eye...
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
Nanoantennas can deviate electromagnetic waves, and hide what's behind them to Radar and in the future perhaps to sight.
I guess they could also be adapted to protect electrosensitive people from incoming waves that trigger discomfort ...
UK researchers say they have achieved data transmission speeds of 10Gbit/s via “li-fi” – wireless internet connectivity using light. The researchers used a micro-LED to transmit 3.5Gbit/s via each of the three primary colours – red, green, blue – combined that makes over 10Gbit/s.
Li-fi, or “light fidelity”, promises to be cheaper and more energy-efficient than existing wireless radio systems given the ubiquity of LED bulbs and the fact that lighting infrastructure is already in place.
Such a technique could one day work with existing (LED) light bulbs, promising higher speeds than current WiFi and increased security — since visible light can’t penetrate solid objects like walls...
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
Such a technology could take over from WiFi and be not only faster and more secure, but also be more compatible with human health as it eliminates microwaves.
Concerns over adverse health effects are hindering WiFi adoption in schools.
A team of students at MIT is working on a prototype wearable that asks one important question: Why heat or cool a building when you could heat or cool a person?
“The human body and human skin is not like a thermometer. If I put something cold directly on your body at a constant temperature, the body acclimates and no longer perceives it as cold.”
“The focus on our development thus far has been technical proof of concept. We’ve been thinking long and hard about the next best steps to pursue. One thing we’re really conscious about is the aesthetics of our device. It has to look good and it has to be comfortable.”
If it comes together, though, it would be a compelling sell – a wearable that offered personalized, dynamic climate control.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
Personalized climate control ... without having to heat or cool the whole environment.
Water fuel technologies are being worked on by many independent inventors and technical tinkerers. The hydrogen and oxygen that is emitted by electrolysis goes to the motor's intake manifold and it makes for clean burning, fuel saving operation.
The Philippine Dazo device is one example of this...
GravityLight is a revolutionary new approach to storing energy and creating illumination. It takes only 3 seconds to lift the weight which powers GravityLigh...
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
Those people are making stuff that will actually be useful in an environment where there aren't any electric power lines - you still get to read at night, without having to burn kerosene...
This type of product is a great reminder that innovation is everywhere and that ideas are never truly complete. A great example of forward thinking, the Gravity Light tackles the kind of problem that should be focused on more. Just because most people living in the United States can afford electricity does not mean there should not be alternative solutions available such as this. Although this device was created to help the less fortunate (and by the looks of it, it will) does not preclude the privileged from benefiting as well. Inventions such as this have the ability to not only promote the world's standard of living, but also stimulate the minds of others.
The Crystal Cell is a capacitor like device that generates a steady electric current.
Concerning its basic construction, the Crystal Cell is similar to an electrolytic capacitor which contains a solid polycrystalline silicate instead of an electrolyte.
The function of the Crystal Cell is related to a solar cell. Instead of sun light coherent quantum fluctuations are used to create a charge separation.
The emission free Crystal Cell can generate a direct electric current over an unknown period of time (since 1999).
Within the Crystal Cell processes play a role, which are similar to a hydropower plant. Just like a hydropower plant draws its energy from the flow of water the Crystal Cell draws its energy from an external source of energy.
Our hypothesis is, that the Crystal Cell extracts energy from the quantum vacuum. The power output is today at (10mW/kg/25°C).
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
For those who think free energy is impossible, this is a tangible proof-of-principle that shows that electrical energy can indeed be extracted from an as-yet unacknowledged source...
The world’s first low-cost atomic force microscope (AFM) has been developed in Beijing by a group of PhD students from University College London (UCL), Tsinghua University, and Peking University — using LEGO.
LEGO2NANO brought together students, experienced makers and scientists to take on the challenge of building a cheap and effective AFM, a device able to probe objects only a nanometer in size — far smaller than anything an optical microscope can observe.
The design brief for the student teams: build a functional nanoscope, using only LEGO, Arduino microcontrollers, 3D-printed parts, and consumer electronics.
It took just five days for the student team to demonstrate the scanning functionality of their AFM, earning them the award for Best Technical Design.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
Doing more with less.
"Research-grade AFMs typically cost $100,000 or more, and use custom hardware. The newly designed low-cost version could cost less than $500 to produce.
“Low-cost scientific instrumentation is can be a huge enabler for hospitals and clinics in developing countries too..."
Video on msnbc.com: How do you raise a genius? At age 11, Taylor Wilson told his parents that he wanted to build a nuclear reactor in the family garage.
How do you raise a genius? At age 11, Taylor Wilson told his parents that he wanted to build a nuclear reactor in the family garage. His parents never guessed he would do it, but three years later Taylor made history as the youngest person ever to build a fusion reactor.
Since then he’s continued to amaze everyone around him with inventions like a cheaper way to make medical isotopes to treat cancer, and a better way to detect dirty bombs. Rock Center’s Harry Smith hikes in the mountains of Western Nevada with this boy wonder to learn what makes Taylor Wilson tick.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
Encouraging, to see what some young people are up to these days...
Picture this. You have a motor turning an output generator, and the generator is producing enough energy to keep the motor running, as well as enough left over to power other things. (It's a little more complicated, but that is the general idea.)
And it's all built from off-the-shelf, readily-available components that are well-engineered for long duration running, and which have the needed certifications for power output suitable for home power.
This system generates power with NO fuel NO charging and little upkeep.
I know, it sounds crazy. But it works. Or at least that is the aim.
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
It might just work ... and if you have extra cash laying around trying to help develop tomorrow's energy sources, it would be worth a try.
Four years ago, then 66-year-old inventor from London, Dr. Christopher Strevens, began posting a website with instructions of how to build his "fusion reactor", which he says: "Creates helium from hydrogen.
It also captures the power given off during the reaction as electrical power."
He also posted several videos to YouTube showing his prototype in operation, and showing the different color of gas from before versus after; as well as showing spectral analysis that indicates that the hydrogen that he puts into the system has transmuted to helium -- a nuclear phenomenon.
He said: "I found that when I increased the exciter power to 800 Watts the output rose to 2,000 Watts [2.5-times overunity], and when I isolated the reactor from the exciter this power remained. The spark gap regulator became active keeping the power at this level. I only allowed this for a short time before reconnecting the exciter and turning the power down and the reaction ceased."
Sepp Hasslberger's insight:
Plasma fusion with transmutation of hydrogen into helium ... brings to mind the question: Why is it that garage inventor with limited means seems to be able to achieve what has been eluding the best of our fusion scientists with billions in funding. Are the scientists working on a wrong theoretical basis?
Quite a kitchen science here ;-) it does pretty much show that to pursue your scientific interests you do not need always a big lab with cohort of apprentices.
The project is said to be based on open design and open source principles calling for feedback. Here are the two related quotes:
“Hyperloop is also unique in that it is an open design concept, similar to Linux. Feedback is desired from the community that can helpadvance the Hyperloop design and bring it from concept to reality.”
“The intent of this document has been to create a new open source form of transportation that could revolutionize travel. The authors welcome feedback and will incorporate it into future revisions of the Hyperloop project, following other open source models such as Linux.
This is a really fascinating future way of transportation. Is really intriguing and make me recall about Brunel's high speed transport based on pipes pressure difference.
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This is one of many ways that energy can be drawn 'from the wheelworks of nature', to paraphrase Nikola Tesla, the great inventor.
Thomas Engel shows, with his motor, an important principle. It is possible to use magnetic fields attracting and repelling each other in a dynamic configuration... and to draw actual motive power from this.