Produce Revolution in the best way!
October 26, 2008
“The Live 8 concerts, Bono’s ONE campaign, Angelina Jolie’s work for the United Nations, and many other acts of leadership and grace, are drawing millions of eager individuals into a new commitment to work for the end of poverty, and thereby for a world of peace and shared well-being.”
(Jeffrey D. Sachs, The End of Poverty)
“It takes a Revolution to Make a Solution!”
(Bob Marley and The Wailers)
Gainfully, profitably, and happily, I have the best solution(s) in the best way to and for our and my problem(s)!
(Paul D. Francis)
My family, friends, and I are profitable and healthy. The Life of the Land is Perpetuated in Righteousness; Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka Aina I Ka Pono.
(Paul D. Francis)
Sinequanonology
September 10, 2008
Sinequanonology remains one of the greatest intellectual and practical achievements in the history of humankind. The courage to establish Sinequanonology is one of the best blessings that I have. At first, it was like going from being a dilettante rockclimber to being the first human being to reach the top of Mount Everest. Moreover, it occurred in an unprecedently short amount of time, as far as intellectual achievements are concerned.
The US Copyright Office registered Sinequanonology, and thus issued me a patent for it, on April 15, 2005.
The Meaning of the Best Life
April 1, 2008
Hydrogen Power to and for the People
March 29, 2008
Let’s embrace the wonders of the Hydrogen Economy. As you will see from this article, if you didn’t already know, hydrogen fuel cells are viable and may well prove to be the greatest, technological solution to our energy problems across the world. Please read and spread the information from Darshan Goswami’s excellent article:
Radical New Gas Alternative That Your Kids Will be Using
 By Darshan Goswami, M.S., P.E.Hydrogen, produced from tap water, could become the forever fuel of the future, generating power for homes, industry, and cars.A new day is dawning for a revolutionary way to generate electric power from renewable energy sources. Imagine a future where the electrical power needed to run your computer, TV and DVD is generated from a small appliance about the size of a dishwasher located in your home. Envision generating electricity without combustion, and producing heat and pure drinking water as by-products.
Picture a world powered almost entirely by an infinitely abundant and totally clean fuel. Hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, is that fuel, which can be produced from tap water to generate power for homes and cars. Imagine being able to drive your car more than 500 miles between fill-ups. The car you drive could become a “power station on wheels” producing about 30 to 50 kilowatts of electricity. At work the parked car in the parking lot could be making money for you by supplying energy to the power grid during peak hours. The same fuel cells in the car parked in your garage could provide power for your home use. In the new age of hydrogen, each individual could become the producer as well as the consumer of energy. Automobile, oil, and utility companies are spending billions to make this dream come true. Renewable Energy Source Hydrogen is “a renewable, versatile, simple sustainable domestic energy” and there is no danger of running out of hydrogen because it is the most abundant element in the universe. Hydrogen can be produced through a thermal, electrolytic, or photolytic process from fossil fuels, biomass, or water. Renewable and nuclear systems can produce hydrogen from water using a thermal or electrolytic process. People can even produce it in their homes with relatively simple apparatus. The Hydrogen Economy is the term used to mark the shift from fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas to hydrogen. The vision of a Hydrogen Economy is one of an unlimited source of fuel that would be used to generate energy without releasing carbon and other pollutants into the air. Hydrogen has the potential to do for the energy revolution what the computer and the Internet have done for the information revolution. Fuel cells are considered the “microchip of the hydrogen age,” the key to abundant energy from secure, renewable resources. Ultimately, fuel cells supplying homes, businesses, and industries could be linked to a national power grid allowing surplus power at one location to be transferred to areas experiencing power shortages. Hydrocarbon Economy Today, we have a “hydrocarbon economy” but the transition toward a “Hydrogen Economy” has already begun. In the very near future we will have weaned ourselves from carbon and we will live in a “Hydrogen Economy” powered by hydrogen energy from renewable resources. You will have access to hydrogen energy to the same extent that they now have access to petroleum, natural gas, and electric power. Some cities, such as Chicago and Vancouver, already have buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Ford, GM, BMW, Toyota, and Honda have prototype cars powered by hydrogen. Ford chairman William Clay Ford Jr. has declared that the fuel cell will “finally end the 100-year reign of the internal-combustion engine.” Such efforts are leading the world toward the “Hydrogen Economy.” The present fossil fuel economy has created significant environmental problems worldwide. The Hydrogen Economy promises to eliminate all of the problems created by the fossil fuel economy. The advantages of the Hydrogen Economy include greater fuel efficiency, elimination of pollution caused by fossil fuels, elimination of greenhouse gases, and elimination of economic dependence on Middle East oil reserves. Good for Developing Countries Specifically, the Hydrogen Economy may be even more beneficial to developing countries because it will generate more economic opportunities, reduce poverty and offer a dramatically cleaner renewable resource to bypass at least part of the expense of building a fossil fuel infrastructure. The Hydrogen Economy could produce total decentralization of the global energy market controlled by giant oil companies and utilities, and result in vast redistribution of wealth and power. In a Hydrogen Economy utility companies will become obsolete. The Hydrogen Economic revolution must overcome major challenges in regard to the safe production, storage and transportation of hydrogen, and in developing new sensor technology. “World Hydrogen Energy Roadmap” must be developed to address hydrogen production, delivery and transportation, storage, conversion, public-private partnerships, research, codes and standards, testing, public education, and end use products. This effort must include government, industry, universities, and research laboratories. Government subsidies and tax incentives could be used to encourage put the Hydrogen Economy on a fast track. The goal of the program should be to develop technologies to safely produce, store and transport hydrogen from water, nature’s abundant and virtually free source of hydrogen. New Energy Revolution Hydrogen has the potential to do for the energy revolution what the computer and the Internet have done for the information revolution. Global reliance on Middle East oil will come to an end and international trade balances will be realigned. Fuel cells are a “critical technology” that will bring a total revolution in the energy sector and change the course of history. President Bush has referred to fuel cells as the “wave of the future” and called for a “focused effort to bring fuel cells to market.” The ultimate goal is to use the renewable energy of the sun to split water into its basic components of oxygen and hydrogen. The Hydrogen Economy would open the doors for fundamental changes in our economic, political, and social institutions, similar to the impact of steam power at the beginning of the “Industrial Age.” The giant oil companies are investing heavily in a hydrogen future to control the design, production, and sales of the devices that produce and consume hydrogen. Fuel companies like Shell, BP, and Texaco are forming hydrogen and fuel cell technology divisions. The Hydrogen Economy is a bright vision for the future of energy that will revolutionize the world by reducing our reliance for oil from Middle Eastern countries. I envision hydrogen as the power generation fuel of the future that will wean the world away from oil, slow global warming, and lift billions out of poverty. If significant progress is desired, government and private partnerships must be established to concentrate development efforts. A “Manhattan Hydrogen Project” is needed to ensure the Hydrogen Economy vision becomes a reality soon. About the Author: Darshan Goswami has over 35 years of experience in the energy field. Until recently, he was the Chief of Energy Forecasting and Renewable Energy at the Rural Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, DC. Earlier, he worked for 30 years at Duquesne Light, an electric utility company in Pittsburgh, PA.
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Community Comments ( 46 )
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Might as well use the tap water for something since it’s not fit to drink.
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Guys, there is technology RIGHT NOW to double fuel economy, which would eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. This would be a huge shot in the arm to our economy. They are just having trouble getting it out there due to lack of funding, and a lack of infrastructure of trained mechanics that can do the conversions. Check it out here www.preignitioncc.com/pmAnd on roughly the same topic, people don’t think of laundry detergents at petrochemicals usually, but they are. Detergents are derived almost totally from crude oil, which is why the price has been going up so much lately. Gas might cost $3.50 per gallon, but detergent has gone up to $13 per gallon! And these petrochemicals are imbued in our clothes and on our skin all day long. I found the “hydrogen fuel cell” of the laundry industry, which happens to be out right now: http://www.magneticlaundry.comI can say after some strong initial skepticism that this is the real deal. If everybody used this thing, maybe gas prices would come down, because EVERYBODY is using these petrochemicals in their washing machines every day. God only knows what it is doing to our water supply.
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Sorry, but the Hydrogen economy is a LIE. The oil industry has been pushing hydrogen for numerous reasons:
1) Fuel cells are expensive and always will be for the next 100 years 2) Hydrogen fuel is more easily derived from oil rather than water 3) Hydrogen is difficult to store, transfer.These facts will keep us on gasoline for the next century. The whole idea of the hydrogen ‘economy’ is to keep electric battery vehicles out of the hands of consumers.Battery vehicles are the enemy of the oil industry because it essentially would be handing their business over to the coal, nuclear, and alternative energy producers. Don’t be fooled! |
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Peak oil is one of the biggest frauds next to AIDS. The Earth contuniously produces oil. Is there cleaner methods, there sure are, but they are expensive and less efficient. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/floy2.html
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Exactly. Terrestrially, hydrogen is not an energy source at all, but rather a problematic way of storing energy. I think the hype around hydrogen, just as with ethanol, is so that people will not be motivated to change their energy-consuming lifestyles, i.e., disrupt the profitability of the consumer economy.jonnysmith, don’t be deceived! Peak oil is here. It wears many disguises, such as the Neocon wolves at our door. The social unrest that follows will be blamed on everything but peak oil. “No, folks, it’s just hooligans/Islamics/Venezuelans/(your name here). We’ll stop them with a new tougher law/surge/protracted war/torture. It’s a temporary disruption. Go back to your shopping.” Take a hint and study up on how we lived 100 years ago.
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What Judy of ” Healthiswealth ” says about the technologies being introduced byDutchman Enterprises is totally true . On March 4-5 & 6th they attended the World International Renewable Energy Conference ( WIREC )in Washington , D.C. sponsored by the Government .They showcased two vehicles . One was a 2007 Honda 4 cylinder modified with their ” Hydro Assist Fuel Cell ( HAFC )” that prior to modification as getting 33 MPG and after modification gets 85 MPG . They ” GUARANTEE ” a 50% improvement in fuel economy or your money back . They can do this because they have experienced an average 95% on the few hundred already modified .
The other vehicle was a Dodge van with a 318 Chrysler V-8 engine modified with their ” Pre Ignition Catalytic Converter ( PICC ) ” . Because this technology was not yet approved by the EPA this vehicle could not be driven on the road . They had tested it on a dynomometer . Before modification with both technologies this engine got 22 MPG and after modification got 196 MPG . That , my friends is 9 X efficiency !! One mechanic who attended the training course returned home to modify a motor home with a 454 Chevy engine that was getting 6 MPG and now gets 22 with the HAFC Those of you who are skeptical should read ” EVERYTHING ” on the website and view the videos explaining the processes and technologies : http://shmyl.com/ojnpson . Do any of you think that the Oil companies , Auto Manufacturers , Utility companies and Government agencies are looking out for your interest . What do you think they would do to suppress such technologies ? This same company who has the World wide marketing rights for this and other technologies developed by Dutchman Enterprises and others has been the target of intense suppression and dirty tricks for over two decades . On July 10th they will introduce ” Free Energy ” for homeowners . Hydrogen is not a fuel , it’s a method of storage and transmission of fuel . |
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Seems to me that Henry Ford’s first car ran on water or something like that, and even back then, he was bought out by the oil companies. Sorry to sound cynical, but I’ve heard of alternatives for years, and if the money isn’t going into the right pocket, the inventors are silenced, either by threats or by strange accidents.
At the risk of sounding optimistic, I hope this comes through. I’ve heard that cars can run on just air, too. You think they’d figure out how to sell the air, too? |
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The first Fords ran on alcohol. No oil company bought out the patent. Petroleum was much cheaper and STILL is cheaper than ethanol. It takes more energy and water (1700 gallons per gallon) to make one gallon of ethanol than one gallon of petroleum. That is why it is heavily subsidized, just like solar, wind, etc. If solar and wind were viable on a large scale, then there would be plenty of people willing to invest and sell their products without being subsidized. That is the way the free-market works. Of course we don’t have a free market anywhere in the wor l d.
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As organizations such as NASA well know, hydrogen is close to the perfect fuel, the main disadvantage being the safe storage of hydrogen.As the article rightly points out:-
“The Hydrogen Economy could produce total decentralization of the global energy market controlled by giant oil companies and utilities, and result in vast redistribution of wealth and power. In a Hydrogen Economy utility companies will become obsolete.”This is a key point, and I cannot see this happening in the world that I am living in now. Greed and power (control) are far too prevalent in the energy industry (and for that matter Governments) for them to hand this wonderful ‘new’ power source over to the people. Perhaps they will introduce a tax on water? |
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What I find even more interesting is to consider the following statement of the late Ben Rich. Former Head of Lockheed Skunkworks – A division of Lockheed Martin defense contractors:“We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity….. anything you can imagine we already know how to do.”
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Lots of potential, but we need different people in leadership positions.Mary
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How about making a car that runs on HFCS? The stuff seems cheap enough to make.
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why not? they already have vehicles running on Mickey D’s french fry grease…
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HFCS in quantities enough to produce engine fuel would be very expensive.As far as used vegetable oil (something I have dabbled in with my diesel truck) is only viable because it is free. Restaurants have to pay to have it disposed of and will give it away if someone will pick it up. If more people did it then the expense would go above what petroleum is.
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I was kind of joking…
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Hydrogen fuel cells are definitely in our future. However, here is another source of fuel that is currently being developed and tested. If you are interested in alternative fuel sources you may want to visit here:http://www.petroalgae.com/
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In-car-produced hydrogen was patented by Garrett in USA in 1935. This was by electrolysis using platinum and palladium electrodes. Many electrolysis working systems are now available on the net to add hydrogen through the car engine air intake, that use only an amp or so of electricity from the generator/battery. Scientists Tom Beardon and Newmann have so called over unity designs working, but, as mentioned in many comments, nobody dare manufacture. The factory will burn down, working staff and families will be threatened, and the owner WILL most probably be murdered. The recent mysterious death of a hydrogen-fuelled-car website owner, and hydrogen engine inventer Meyer are examples. Big oil doesnt play clean games. Big oils continuous propoganda of one day, a fuel cell, maybe in 10 years etc..seems to have softened up a few commenters. Hydrogen was riunning 300 trucks and tractors in Switzerland in the mid 1970s using a radio frequency to break up the water molecule. (This was again recently demonstrated in USA). The corrupt Swiss government of that time ordeerd all these vehicles engines to be dismantled. Please do tell me that in an age when a color digital picture IS sent back to us from planet Mars, that our brilliant scientists cannot efficiently split a water molecule.
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Technology I first posted about last year.. that is usable on your car RIGHT NOW!
You can burn water and gas as a plasma.. getting over 100++ miles per gallon on ANY current or older vehicle.. specific applications being developed now..Using a magnetic and electrical reaction to break down the fuel molecules into their elemental state, the PICC creates a plasma, which burns super efficiently and cleanly! Our “Pre-Ignition” Catalytic Converter feeds the engine instead of the environment. So the gasoline you pay for goes further and the exhaust is so negligible it hardly registersPICC and HAFC http://www.energyempire.com/ See them run an engine on any liquid they can find.. kinda like back to the future when they put garbage into the fuel cell.. http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=6721937603190219038&hl=en ————- That’s what works right now! But on to the Hydrogen side.. If you create your own hydrogen you need not worry about delivery.. Xogen Technology has an efficient Hydrogen fuel cell.. |
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PICC is a con. Aside from blood plasma, how does the engine block not get slagged from the heat? From their web site they say they can get 9x fuel efficiency, that would give an internal combustion engine and efficiency of 225%- better then perpetual motion!
And catalytic converters break exhaust fumes down into water, nitrogen and CO2, not into smaller unburnt fuel particles. |
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Well I don’t think you know for sure.. I wish I had one so I could say for sure.. But The HAFC is real technology and is proven to work.. I meant to post this one above… http://www.energyempire.com/hafc.html
The plasma they are talking about isn’t going to burn much hotter but more efficiently.. and sorry to do this to ya but.. In physics and chemistry, a plasma is typically an ionized gas. Plasma is considered to be a distinct state of matter, apart from gases, because of its unique properties. Ionized refers to presence of one or more free electrons, which are not bound to an atom or molecule and are typically formed by heating and ionizing a gas, exaclty what they are doing.. … For another thing you must not have read the site well.. it doesn’t say that; it says “turns them into smaller particles” .. and the 9x- well your figuring on a totally different scale.. They used 1/9 of the gas.. Wish I had an HAFC it would be cool.. |
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Hiya Jeremy, I was being a little bit facetious about plasma slagging the engine- it is still hot. Here’s the quote from their site about plasma creation “PICC creates a plasma, which burns super efficiently and cleanly! “
“what if we “cracked” the gas and broke it down into smaller particles ” if we did that with hydrocarbons we get smaller particles, yes, with a lower energy potential. ” an increase in efficiency of 9x.” They said it, not me (I know it’s almost taken out of quote, but it proves a point.) An engine available now that does incredible things is the common rail diesel engine. I don’t know if you have them in the States, they are not that old. Wehave them here and I want one! Don’t get me wrong, free energy is the Holy Grail of powering things, but crimping the fuel line and mixing with alcohol slows the progress of attaining real power supplies. |
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Kiwimart the problem now in the states is we don’t refine enough diesel fuel as europe or other countries. It is now over a dollar more than gas per gallon. So the savings over gas is gone. I’m also suspicious of that PICC website. They say they get 22 mpg uphill with a old 318 Chrysler engine before they added anything!!! The new 5.7 Hemi with MDS which shuts down 4 cylinders under light loads only gets 23 HWY. And that’s on level roads. As for hydrogen my 10th grade chemistry teacher told us if we can find a cheap way of making hydrogen we’d be rich. That was 25 years ago. The problem is it takes more electric power to make hydrogen than the energy it produces. If we had more solar, wind or nukes than we could make it feasible. I wonder why they never suggest making a power plant that burns hydrogen. One way to help this country produce more power and use less oil is to change the building codes. Make it mandatory every new building and house must have either solar panels or up north windmills. This would also create new jobs. And right now the best car is a hybrid with a small engine used for a generator that you plug in at night. It uses electric motors and battery power from the overnight charge. If you go on a longer trip than the engine kicks in to generate the electric power. So even then the small motor is cleaner than todays engines. An added bonus is electric motors make full torque right away. There is one car that can go 0-60 in about 4 seconds which is faster than almost any car. All these great ideas , I should run for office.
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This “water fuel cell” bit is a decades-old story. Where is the car? If these characters are for real, contact someone in a position to reveal this thing to the public. “Coast to Coast AM” with George Noory would be a good place to start. Controversial subjects are the norm on that program.All the years that Art Bell did that radio program, he put this challenge to those making the claims. The callers always hung up because THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WATER FUEL CELL!There’s a lot of clever stuff on YouTube, but as they say, “show me the money.”
Where is this water car? Will the “inventor” show it in public? If not, it is a fraud. End of story. |
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The truth about H2 is that it is an energy carrier. Won’t find Hydrogen in nature, except by electrolysis of water at great expense or thermal catalytic cracking of hydrocarbons, Oil or Coal.Liquid sunshine that is environmentally friendly is known as Ethanol. It can be made from sewage effluent and fed into a man made marsh to grow Cattails for the starch and sugars. There is enough nutrients in sewage to feed over 20 million acres of marginal land, not requiring a single acre of prime cropland that is needed for corn, soy, or veggies. The over 1.3 billion acres of Ag land can remain for food and animal feed production.If 20 million acres were managed to grow cattails, the NET yield would be 50 billion gallons of ethanol and 100 billion gallons of methane. This equals all the piston powered fuel requirements of the U.S.
A realistic net yield of 7500 gallons per acre. Far better than corn’s 320 gallons per acre. The by products would be water coming out of the marsh treated to Tertiary treatment levels, fit to drink. Rivers and lakes would experience lower nitrate and phosphate levels. Oceans would be cleaner too reducing the dead zones near rivers. All of this and more can be learned in David Blume’s magnum opus on Ethanol and Permaculture called “Alcohol can be a Gas” Another detail that Big Oil does not advertise is the fact that the internal combustion engine is only 20% Thermal Efficient burning pump gasoline while VW and Mercedes have both surpassed 43% thermal efficiency using Ethanol, despite the lower BTU value of Ethanol. The Stanford Study predicts using a computer to guess air quality in L. A. in 2012 using Ethanol in place of gasoline , a tiny amount of Ethanol could leak out of rubber fuel lines and might kill 200 people. This is so scary! I’m sure glad Stanford got all that money from Big Oil recently to study Ethanol! L.A. currently looses 14,000 people a year from BTX and other carcinogens added to pump gas to raise octane. |
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Hydrogen is a wonderful thing, however, neither you nor I will live long enough to see it or use it unless we are filthy rich. Thats the ONLY way you will ever drive a vehicle powered by hydrogen unless you get a job working for a research group experimenting with the technology. Its all about the money and the monopolies that control oil and automobiles. Its fun to dream though. Try electric instead, it works, up to a point anyways. Its not viable for long trips but for local use it cant be beat.
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and while we are on the subject of wasting energy, how about the waste in going to war? There is huge fuel consumption, there is immense money destruction in weapons and ammunition. There is tragic loss of life, and all for what? In iraq it was for the weapons of mass destruction, all lies, and proven lies even before the invasion. In Afghanistan it was because of 9/11. And how about the fact that all three towers were brought down by explosives? If you want progress in the US you will have to get rid of a criminal government. See journalof911studies.com
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When it comes to using hydrogen in an auto with a gas engine —- it would be better to have a small onboard ” splitter ” to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen and then combine them with the vaporized fuel to increase M P G —- this would eliminate the dangerous storage tank problem — both at the ” pump ” and in the vehicle — I think there are some efforts being made along these linesChubby
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President Bush Calling for H2 and alternative fuel research is a bit like calling for your dog after its been hit buy a long gone SUV (aka Big Corporate Oil Companies). They may do some research, but it’s going to for appearances and more to increase profits that better the world.On a constructive note – private startup companies can step in and out compete these guys. Research and technology is one piece of the puzzle but business is the rate limiting step, implementation would happen if the will was there to do it.Similarly, Medical/Dental insurance could be returned to the original intent. Based on absolute statistics to set premiums, salary caps (no CEO taking home huge sums like 30 million in compensation packages a year). With proper use of technology to keep staffing costs down and salary caps and non-profit minded philosophy intending to increase access to care, it could done.
Sharks just don’t have a conscience – the answer don’t fight them, get out of their food chain. Dr. G |
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Good late eve,In another fit of restless sleep, I find folly populating my inbox. In response to “savagesteve13″, I would encourage him to think outside the box for a second and realize that hydrogen can be produced in the vehicle enroute- no need for refineries, distribution centers, filling stations, or fuel cells. No need for high-pressure fuel cells. No need for fear. If fear is your choice, feel free to remain a slave to what you are expected to believe.The 12 volts produced by the generator or alternator of vehicle is sufficient to generate enough hydrogen and oxygen to raise gasoline fuel mileage by 10 to 60%, while cleanly burning the fossil fuels in the process. A straight hydrogen-burning car can also operate cleanly and efficiently without fossil fuels.
If the oil companies would get out of the “get rich quick” mentality they are in, they would partner with manufacturers to make clean fuel a reality. Eventually, that will inevitably be replaced with clean hydrogen fuel that you do not have to stop and fill up on. For those politicians who think your economy of fuel- based tax gouging is doomed- you tax hydrogen vehicles based on engine displacement and GVW. Quit acting so stupid. Truckers have to cover their wear and tear on the highway infrastructure at a rate commensurate with they damage they cause. That will prevent more “I-35″ incidents in the future. Europe sends the bulk of it’s long-haul freight by rail. It is just more efficient. By getting long-haul trucks off the road, the more efficient railroad bears the brunt of the heavy loading better, and is more cost-effective. C’mon, don’t tell me you have never been caught behind a slow, long-haul truck!!!! They slow EVERYBODY down, which creates more pollution, and more wasted fuel. Take a couple chemistry classes. Perhaps you will then agree that we should be conserving the crude for lubrication purposes rather than fuel- every engine needs to be lubricated. cheers~ |
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There appears to be a lot of pointless semantics going on here…..If anyone can convert hydrogen back into sunlight then I would agree that it is purely a ’storage’ of energy.If not…then it is a source of energy as it cannot be converted ‘back’…Same goes for any other non-reversable ’source’!!
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Dr Mercola I am afraid you have done your reputation some harm by publishing, without question, this drivel. Hydrogen is not and never can be an energy source. It can be an energy store, as is a charged battery, and an energy transfer medium, like electricity. It cannot be an energy source because it takes energy to make it.It is interesting how this topic has produced such a range of comments. Many are talking about hydrogen in the same terms as people once talked about perpetual motion machines. Extraordinary.
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Another habit that makes no sense is to mix 1/3 of our drinking-water with excreta on a massive scale … see www.compostera.org
(http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/03/29/radical-new-gas-alternative-that-your-kids-will-be-using.aspx)
Things Millionaires Like
March 21, 2008
Progress with Work in Environmentalism
March 3, 2008
LOHAS is the way for me; it’s proving both intrinsically and extrinsically fulfilling for me. Writing about ecological issues and solutions and practicing LOHAS is providing me with great equanimity and joy. It’s encouraging to know that I’m helping to abolish pollution, poverty, and injustice in the process. I really love The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen. I thank them thoroughly for having created such an excellent work. I hope to improve upon their efforts in my own writing and life. I recommend Rogers and Kostigen’s Green Book as essential reading for those who want a work that describes practical steps for improving our earth.
The Energy Nightmare of Web Server Farms (originally published via greens.org, yes I too see the irony)
February 21, 2008
This is a great article; it really stunned me. I had no idea that server farms consume so much energy. Well, we truly need individual citizens to become more aware and change their daily practices so that we improve our environment(s). We can start by practicing the ways found in Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen’s The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet. As I have stated in previous articles, I am working on a book that analyzes our ecological dilemmas and provides solutions to them. We also need to cultivate an ecologically sustainable, technological culture. Maybe if the PC wizards like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (I’m surprised that Jobs, the “ex-hippie” wasn’t) and the founders of the internet, including Philip Emeagwali and Tim Berners-Lee, had been more ecologically aware when they first produced their groundbreaking developments, we wouldn’t have the server farm energy problem.
I am citing Rogers and Kostigen’s work, Vandana Shiva’s Biopiracy and Water Wars and the UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report in my next book. Here’s a motive phrased in a question before I finish my extended intro to Jane Ann Morris’ article: will fleeing our urban maelstroms and living off the grid in significant numbers produce the necessary improvements for Gaia’s and thus our own well-being? Well, I’m going to give it a shot. Still dropping out can only help so much. We have to be engaged and technologically savvy enough to improve and protect ourselves amidst the powerful military-industrial debacle that we call the modern world. Practice and have kaizen sk_bamher occurrences
© Paul Ainsworth Delano Francis.
All Rights Reserved.
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Synthesis/Regeneration 45 (Winter 2008)
Feet in the Cloud; Head in the Sand
The Energy Nightmare of Web Server Farms
by Jane Anne Morris
One distracted click during my Internet research for this article gave me instant access to 936 photos of Brad Pitt. According to people who know, that click activated some 7000 computers in the search, and perhaps twice as many more trying to induce me to buy something or type in my personal data. [1] And because I recycle, adjust my thermostat to save energy, and scrawl grocery lists on the backs of envelopes, I had to wonder what ecological footprint my peek at Brad had left behind. After considerable clicking and flipping (I still do hardcopy), I stared into the Internet and saw the car of the twenty-first century.
Let me back up and ask a question: Where do you think all your stored emails are? They’re not in the hands of tiny file clerks inside your computer — exactly. Nor in the library computer, where you can access them. Where are all those Bible-length attachments that nobody read but you’re saving anyway? The hot web sites and blogs? Where do we imagine all this stuff is?
It’s in the Cloud — the everything-seemingly-everywhere there-ness of the Internet. The Internet Cloud is generated and maintained by facilities called data centers or web server farms. These rustic-sounding server farms (think of a geek with a hayfork?), like Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), are tucked — if something that covers dozens or even hundreds of acres can be said to be “tucked” — here and there across the country, downplayed if not concealed in generic buildings.
At server farms, zillions of complexly linked computers constantly juggle electrons storing messages, texts, songs, web sites, advertisements, film clips, birthday cards and other cultural effluvia. The mission of each server is to prevent captive electrons from doing what all free electrons want to do: dissolve back into the electromagnetic ether to hook up randomly. All that data coded into electronic pluses and minuses enables you, at any moment, to get the latest information about a massacre in Colómbia, a cancer cluster in New Jersey, or the current address of your high school sweetheart. Considerable server effort is devoted to articulating Brad’s dimples.
The mission of each server is to prevent captive electrons from … dissolv[ing] back into the electromagnetic ether to hook up randomly.***
Server farms are double-dippers. There, colonies of warehouses packed with rows of racked, stacked computers draw electricity like black holes suck light. That’s the first scoop. Because the heat generated by this conglomeration of circuitry, unless dispersed, will damage the equipment, server farms are air conditioned to a brisk temperature. That’s the second scoop. A typical server farm uses at least half of its electricity for cooling. [2] Imagine a refrigerator wrapped around an electric stove, and you have the essence of a server farm: a pig-in-a-blanket that consumes electricity in almost unimaginable quantities.
… server farms are air conditioned to a brisk temperature.***
Given access to the right cable or wireless network, you tap into the resulting buzzing Cloud by means of a desktop computer or even a handheld. Gadgets so teensy, you could hide one in a coffee mug. Server farms so huge that one warehouse might be the size of several football fields. [3] And so needy that their electricity demand is measured in double- or triple-digit megawatts. A single megawatt (MW) can support about a thousand homes, on average. [4]
Server farm operators order up their electricity before they finalize their construction plans. In Sacramento, over 50 MW of capacity was requested. A server farm in New Jersey asked for 100 MW. In San Jose, 180 MW. [5] An Austin Energy utility spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that 200 MW (8.5% of its customer load) went to server farms. [6] A “farm” near Seattle asked for 445 MW. A California utility was asked for 340 MW now, to be expanded by a thousand megawatts in the near future. [7] At least three utilities have reportedly received requests for over 1000 MW of capacity, as reported by Susan Mandel back in 2001. [8]
Google Corporation alone reputedly already uses over 20 server farms, housing some half a million servers. [9] It is supposedly already the largest electricity user in one state. [10] The 2006 electricity demand of major search engine facilities (just a small portion of the Cloud) uses an estimated 5000 megawatts. [11] Converted to residences, that’s about five million homes’ worth of electric capacity. [12] Converted to electricity generation, that’s ten 500 MW coal plants. (Want one in your back yard? Wanna work in the mine?) A modest server farm that draws only 20 to 30 megawatts uses enough electricity to power 20 to 30 thousand homes.
The search for cheap land prices and low electricity rates has led server farm operators to site them in rural areas, towns and smallish cities, or near large hydroelectric plants that provide cheap kilowatts. Backup (and unregulated) diesel generators stand ready to power up during blackouts so customers don’t get irritated at having to wait 10 seconds for a download.
Server farms get cut-rate electricity: per-kilowatt-hour rates cited in recent articles range from 1.8 to 3.4¢. [13] You did read that right. If I divide my monthly electric bill by the number of kwh I use, it always comes to over 20¢ per kwh. But I don’t pay industrial rates, which average out nationally just over 5¢ per kwh, and I don’t get other special deals often offered to large users. [14]
A server farm might sport a nice corporate goose pond with a fountain. Or, it might squat in generic buildings in an old industrial district. The advantages of being inconspicuous have not been lost on server farm entrepreneurs: one company brags that its “low profile, non-descript building does not attract attention.” [15] But as Barry Commoner reminded us, there’s no such thing as a free lunch: everything has to go somewhere.
The ecological footprint of a server farm isn’t any prettier than that of a power plant, a toxic waste dump, a gigantic feedlot, or a freeway. The Cloud is floating on a cradle-to-grave network of wrecked aquifers, oily cormorants, radioactive tumbleweed, and melting icecaps. According to one analyst, ordering a book online burns a half-pound of coal. [16] The Internet seems clean because its ecological footprint is elsewhere.
The Internet seems clean because its ecological footprint is elsewhere.
The Internet Cloud’s supporting infrastructure is well nigh invisible to most of its users. Its costs — to earth, air, water, health, species diversity and future generations, among others — are externalized onto people “over there”: those who host the strip mines and nuclear power plants, whose soccer fields are brownfields if not Superfund sites, and whose children go to schools nestled next to high-voltage power lines. Many of them live in low-income communities, or low-income countries. This is what the so-called “Environmental Justice” movement was about: privileged people stow the unpleasant, unhealthful, and ecologically devastating consequences of their comfortable lifestyles on the usual suspects, the lower classes, wherever they may be.
Meanwhile, on the bright side of the tracks, we are in the process of uploading our whole society onto the Internet. With our encouragement, those geeks with hayforks at the server farms are working overtime pitching ragged clumps of cultural data into this great content provider in the sky. In electronic form it stores fluff from all of our cultural pockets: baby pictures, thoughts about the election, yard sale items, songs of rage and joy, video games, pornographic videos, environmental impact statements, recipes, home movies, bank records, herbal remedies, and come-ons to purchase any tchotchka ever imagined. Often, once is not enough: online backup services are proliferating. If there’s an ecological footprint — and of course, there is — it is not going to Pop Up on our computer screens.
… the story of the automobile offers a preview of where we are heading with the Internet Cloud.
With almost uncanny prescience, the story of the automobile offers a preview of where we are heading with the Internet Cloud. The Model T was introduced a century ago. It was a wonder, it was affordable, it got 25 miles per gallon of gas, it opened up hitherto unknown possibilities to the masses. [17] It would change the world, democratize transportation, and grant even those of moderate income unlimited horizons to explore. The cost? Apparently, just some cranking and a little fuel. If you had argued then that within a few generations the nation’s populace would rarely venture more than a quarter mile from their cars’ coveted parking spots, that world politics would be dominated by struggles to control petroleum deposits, and that chunks of the planet’s icecaps would be plopping into the oceans like so many frogs off their lily pads, people would have questioned your sanity.
James Howard Kunstler wrote a witty, melancholy, sadly fond memoir of the automobile’s stealth takeover of US culture (with infrastructure to match) that dropped us off in The Geography of Nowhere. Today, people say, “I’d like to stop using my car,” then add that unfortunately they can’t get to work, play, school, sports, yoga class, or the grocery store without it. And why is that? Because we’ve built our whole culture around it.
The car didn’t just penetrate our culture, it reconfigured its DNA. Like a retrovirus at its most efficient, it rewired our culture to serve its ends. Now, we’re up to our chins in smog and pavement and can’t quite figure out what to do next. Among other effects of our car addiction is cross-training in the art of externalization.
On the street, countless people sit in their idling cars, windows closed, with the heater or AC on, while passing pedestrians choke on fumes. That’s as good a model of externalization as any I know. Inside vehicular capsules, we can ignore not only our own immediate exhaust but also all the mining, smelting, refining, casting, and manufacturing, that make possible our automobile adventures.
Imagine if when you drove your car, you experienced the total consequences of your driving. The pollution from your tailpipe would be connected by a hose directly to your lungs. The waste from the manufacture of your car would be stirred into your coffee. The oil waste — all those -enes, -anes, -ones and -ines from the drilling, production, and refining of your gasoline — would be intravenously injected into your body. You would drink water contaminated with all of the wastes poured into waters around the country and the world so that you could fill up with gas. If we did this every time we started ‘er up and drove two blocks to the convenience store, we would certainly get around differently and drastically reduce driving time.
The consequences of dependence on the Internet Cloud are geographically, temporally, and socially displaced from users. The disconnect is almost absolute, leaving us leaning toward glowing, translucent screens emitting wind-chime notices that we need to save a document or check our mail. The terroir of a click is so faint at the screen end, and so diffuse at the footprint end, that we feel free to pretend that it is nonexistent.
The consequences of dependence on the Internet Cloud are geographically, temporally, and socially displaced from users.***
Like a single car’s exhaust that seems too insubstantial to matter, a single click’s contribution to any planetary ills seems to evaporate before it can be pinned down. Yet the impact remains.
I can hear the epithets. Luddite. Anti-Technology. Afraid of Change. Anti-Progress. Did I miss any? Oh, yeah, Stuck in the Past. I hear how much “we” need the Cloud and our computers. Activists offer horrifying online descriptions of clearcutting, five-legged androgynous frogs, and radioactive tumbleweeds pinned by prevailing westerlies against barbed-wire fences. We email each other about how bad the big corporations are: the stripminers of coal, the refiners of oil, the producers of chemicals, the manufacturers of land mines. The Internet Cloud, the argument goes, makes us more effective activists and provides unprecedented access to a wide range of information. Is this like saying we have to destroy a village in order to save it?
The automobile is the alpha and the omega of our daily fare. We will be locked in its embrace for some time to come if we do not first succumb to its strangulation. Shall we now do the same with the Internet Cloud?
Those 936 photos really are at the crux of the issue. Could I survive on fewer photos, say, half of them? Maybe if the consequences of my clicking for Pitt pics were dumped onto my kitchen table, I would settle for a tabloid stuffed under the mattress. Should the Pitt stuff be available on the same terms as the telephone numbers of my representatives, or my neighbor’s homemade mittens web site? That is to say, cheap or free to the users, thanks to government subsidies and the sloughing off of externalities onto the usual suspects: the distant, the poor, and the future.
I would like to help decide what my government subsidizes. Which raises the Censorship Bogeyman. With a past as a teacher, activist, and writer, I can hardly imagine any task force that I would want to determine the limits of my exploration. But some collection of task forces already does that. Why don’t we have a real public debate about it?
Like most technological innovations whose promoters promise social benefits along with profits, the Cloud has nearly everyone gushing about its democratizing effects and promises of greater freedom for all. Isn’t it about time for a Virtual Reality Check, as Stephanie Mills famously asked in her 1986 book, What Ever Happened to Ecology? Last century our society adopted the automobile as its soul mate and re-ordered everything from our eating habits and courtship customs to the landscape itself. Dare we apply to computers and the Cloud today the same critiques that we applied to the car culture only in retrospect? Why should computer use be off-limits?
When I hear a mouse click I hear a coal train, see a “reclaimed” wasteland, smell an oily rotting otter corpse, and think of what it’s costing us, and future generations for those 936 photographs. While screwing in that ultra-efficient light bulb, we might think twice about doing all of our shopping, courtship, research, communication, and “organizing” online.
Disclosure: Corporate anthropologist Jane Anne Morris typed this article on a new laptop, purchased because it has become nearly impossible to get a publisher to accept a manuscript in “hardcopy.” In the 1980s, she fought against lignite strip mining and power plants in Texas, wrote a dissertation on the quasi-public utility company involved, and served on the Austin, Texas, Resource Management Commission. She is the author of Not In My Back Yard: The Handbook (Silvercat Publications, 1994). Her forthcoming book, Gaveling Down the Rabble: How “Free Trade” Is Stealing Our Democracy, will be published by Apex Press. She bikes year-round in Madison, Wisconsin and her last electricity bill was for 78 kwh.
© 2007. (First North American Serial Rights to Synthesis/Regeneration)
Notes
1. Stephanie N. Mehta, Behold the server farm! Glorious temple of the information age, Fortune Magazine, August 1, 2006. The 7000 number is also cited by Ron Starner in Energizing the Internet, Site Selection, September 2006.
2. Kevin Fogarty, “The greening of the data center,” in Building: Design + Construction (2006), cites Jon Koomey, a consulting professor at Stanford University, to the effect that every kilowatt used by a server requires another 1–1.5 kilowatts for cooling. Mehta concurs.
3. Wendy Kaufman, NPR, July 10, 2006, Morning Edition, stated that a single building on a server farm might be the size of eight football fields.
4. Kristina Shevory, Cultivating server farms, New York Times, October 25, 2006, uses the one megawatt per 1000 homes figure, as does Fogarty, above, and David Kathan & Thomas J. Grahame, Internet data centers: Demands for electricity proceed unabated, Broadband Wireless Online, June-July 2001. People describing the electricity demand of subdivisions of large single-family dwellings sometimes use figures as low as 300 homes per megawatt of capacity.
5. Numbers for Sacramento, New Jersey, and San Jose from William H. Dresher, Copper in the new economy: The transition from an industrial to an information-based economy could increase our reliance on copper, Innovations (The Online Magazine from the Copper Development Association), January 2002.
6. Austin numbers from Kevin J. Delaney and Rebecca Smith, Surge in internet use, energy costs has big tech firms seeking power, Wall St. Journal, June 13, 2006.
7. Seattle and California numbers from Dresher.
8. Susan Mandel, Rooms that consume, Electric Perspectives, May/June 2001.
9. George Gilder, The information factories, Wired Magazine, October 2006.
10. David Kirkpatrick, Microsoft’s new brain, Fortune Magazine, April 18, 2006.
11. Gilder.
12. If each megawatt of electric capacity supports 1000 homes, then 5000 MW times 1000 homes is 5 million homes.
13. Delaney and Smith.
14. Delaney and Smith.
15. AIS Network Corp. advertising online in November 2006.
16. Dresher, paraphrase of a report by Mark Mills, cofounder of the Digital Power Group, a Washington D.C.-based technology assessment and forecasting organization, in May 1999 Forbes.
17. Car Mileage: 1908 Ford Model T: 25 mpg; 2004 EPA Average All Cars: 21 mpg, in “WantToKnow.Info” The reference is from Detroit News, June 4, 2003.
[4 jan 08] (http://www.greens.org/s-r/45/45-03.html).
Practice and have Kaizen sk_bamher occurrences!
© 2008 Paul Ainsworth Delano Francis. All rights reserved.
