Free electricity: Is it fact or myth?

References continue to surface about the mythic magnetic power generator, a device that purports to produce "free" electricity.

The concept is fascinating. Proponents say these devices could create enough power to run the average home or business. Should that prove true, implementing the technology at homes and businesses across the United States could cast aside reliance on Middle East energy producers.

One reference comes from a tweet posted by Mike Stewart also known as @greenwind. Stewart gave heads up to a post by Tyler Thomas on articlebase.com that says, "Due to suppression of this idea from the big corporations, the plans for building a free energy generator which could change the world have never been out on the open."

That's not altogether true, at least from what I've been able to find in a rather unscientific search on the Web. There's a lot out there, most of it very grassroots, about the subject for and against it. Some deride the concept, while others hail it as the second coming and offer instructions on how to create a device.

Lutec Australia PTY Ltd. has been trying to get a product to market for years and at one point in a video posted to youtube.com said its magnetic generators would be available in 2008. That apparently never took place, and the company's one-time site, lutec.com.au, now shows nothing more than a picture of its latest prototype.

Scrambling across the Web for more references to this product will produce all sorts of hits. A circle of my friends and I from East High in Anchorage stay in touch via group emails and turn up this sort of thing frequently. A number of us are into clean energy and wild ideas.

The king of magnetic power has to be Joseph Newman, who appeared on the Johnny Carson's Tonight Show and multiple other programs with his free energy device decades ago. Newman lapsed into obscurity after his efforts to patent his device were rejected by the U.S. Patent Office and his creation was labeled a perpetual motion machine, according to wikipedia.org.

Who knows where the concept will go? I suspect a lot of static.

But I liked this quote from the narrator of a Lutec video post: "Come help us green up, and clean up, our planet."

Photo: Lutec Australia PTY Ltd. prototype.

Airship company seeks quiet domination of the skies

Airships haven't really had much going for them on a grand commercial scale since the Hindenburg disaster in 1937.

But people are making a go of it. An airship can be seen gliding over San Francisco.

Airship Ventures offers tours in California's Bay Area. Co-founder Alexandra Hall says she got into the airship business because of her husband. Brian Hall flew one while on a business trip in Cologne, Germany and was hooked.

The company says it works sports events and aids scientific missions. It plans to expand its fleet of airships to "support East Coast operations and expanded support of air shows, special events and scientific research missions" and intends to further develop its flight training and education capacities."

Mike Lawson, onetime chief executive of E-Green Technologies, was another player.

As reported by Alternative Energy news a few years ago, Lawson test-inflated an airship dubbed the Bullet 580 at Garret Coliseum in Alabama and says the 235-foot long, 65-foot diameter vessel "will usher in the return of inflatable giant airships."

San Francisco biogas energy conference highlights profitability & technology

The opportunities and payback for biogas development have never been better.

But don't take our word for it. Listen to what about two dozen experts have to say at the Biogas USA West Conference 2011 scheduled this fall.

The event is planned for the South San Francisco Conference Center, 255 South Airport Blvd., South San Francisco, Oct. 11-12. Attendees also can participate in a pre-conference seminar introducing them to biogas-produced energy and/or a post-conference seminar entitled "Biomethane for Transportation."

"This is a particularly good conference to attend because it has a strong international attendance, too, so attendees get to hear about what is really happening in the world of biogas and its technology," said Hanafi R. Fraval, chairman of Ag Biomass Center Inc. in Los Angeles and an advisory board member to the event.

Biogas has ties to the San Joaquin Valley, which has been called a Petri dish for clean energy. The region has sun, wind and a diversified agricultural base that makes it a natural for development of biogas and biofuels. The region already has a number of methane digesters, giving host farmers another source of income.

On the conference agenda is Lewis R. Nelson, public works director for the City of Tulare and a clean energy expert. Commissioner Jim Boyd, vice chairman of the California Energy Commission, is the keynote speaker.

The event is being put together by GreenPower Conferences. Organizers said world markets for biogas are booming and operators are continuing to increase plant efficiency.

According to the American Biogas Council, there are more than 160 anaerobic digesters on farms and about 1,500 more operating at wastewater treatment plants in the country. But only about 250 of those wastewater plants use the biogas produced.

For more information, go to www.greenpowerconferences.com/biogasusawest.

Professor says: Use solar to make hydrogen & power the world

On any given day, humans blow through millions of gallons of gas, untold tons of coal and scads of electricity from nuclear plants, hydropower dams and various other power-producing operations.

The cost is tremendous and its perpetuation a main driver of the global economy.

All that energy equates to about 15 terawatts, give or take, per year. A terawatt is a trillion watts. And demand, while stymied somewhat by recession-aided stagnation, is expected to grow.

The problem is that we humans are burning, churning and polluting our way through a finite fuel source. What if, on the other hand, we got handed to us a viable energy source that doesn't stink up the place?

We did. Or we do. It's the sun and an element six times lighter than air -- hydrogen.

FX's Wilfred may hold the key to clean energy challenge

Every episode of the half-hour emo-comedy "Wilfred" starts with a quote.

Theme music plays as a word is selected from the phrase illustrated on-screen in white-on-black lettering. All other words disappear, and veteran viewers know what follows. Series hero and pot-smoking former attorney Ryan (Elijah Wood from "The Lord of the Rings") will struggle with the subject for the next 23 minutes.

Episode 10 offers this: "Isolation is a self-defeating dream."

Key word: "Isolation."

Ryan and his neighbor's dog, the Australian accented Wilfred (Jason Gann in a dog suit), spend the show dealing with the fallout of our anti-hero ignoring Wilfred's advice and alienating the entire neighborhood.
Hardly the stuff dreams are made of, but I love this show, which airs on FX. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, my favorite reviewer, calls it the trippiest of summer comedies. He's right. Nobody sees Wilfred as a beer swilling, belching, couch potato human in a dog suit except Ryan (and another odd guy in a previous episode).

But what captured my interest in terms of this post has to do with the quotes in the intro. Simple white on black type, odd music box theme song. Kind of Fractured Fairy Tales for the 22nd century. (Except the Bullwinkle character is live action.)
I'd like to apply that same formula (as I start my own personal sit-com this week) to clean energy.

Cue music. Quote appears: "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." From the always relevant "Princess Bride." The theme is "challenge." (I realize it doesn't meet "Wilfred" quote standards, but I like Inigo.)

In that vein, the unassuming hero (me) of this mundane, unfilmed reality show that is my life issues this challenge to the nation's renewable energy companies:

• Reach parity with fossil fuels and win converts, clean air and another season on the same network. Maybe this one without commercial breaks.

My wish list would include the following:

• Solar that pencils so perfectly that even Bank of America would lend a low-interest loan to defray installation expenses.
• Cheap distributed solar installations producing excess energy that utilities clamor to purchase.
• Simple methods for turning excess solar energy into hydrogen, using no fossil fuels.
• Renewable energy that costs less than coal.
• Algae fuel for $30 per barrel, produced in waste water treatment ponds across the country.
• Wave energy that works.
• Offshore wind power that can harness hurricane power.
• Energy storage systems using a multitude of systems from water storage to batteries and whatever else is devised.

I'm sure others have better ideas. But that's my thought. For next week's imaginary episode I'll try to figure out a way to motivate myself to pull the 1600 dual port engine in my bug and string in a new wiring harness. All in 23 minutes. Ha! Prepare to die evil ancient wires!

Clean energy is serious, however. This is not optional challenge. Our air is nasty and it's not getting better no matter what any wishful thinker says. We only have this planet, and it's getting smaller. Air and water are limited resources. We can still find markets for all our fossil fuels, but let's stop wasting them for energy that appears cheap but in reality can cost far more.

Even Wilfred would agree. After he has another beer.

Sustainable: Tech companies move up list of green power purchasers

Tech companies Google and Ingram Micro have scurried onto a list of the nation's top green energy users.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its list of top 50 green power purchasers, and Mountain View, Calif.-based Google and Santa Ana, Calif.-based Ingram, a maker of information technology products, edged their way onto the charts.

The companies join others like Walmart and Intel that have embraced sustainability and are setting an example to others of balancing saving money with environmental stewardship.

"By making the switch to renewable power, these forward thinking companies are reducing greenhouse gasses and other harmful air pollution so that Americans can breathe easier.” said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest, in a statement.

No. 1 on the list is Intel Corp. with 2.5 billion kilowatt hours of green energy purchased amounting to 88 percent of its consumption. The rest of the top five include No. 2 Kohl's Department Stores with 1.4 billion kWh and 100 percent of its consumption, No. 3 Whole Foods Market with 752 million kWh and 100 percent, No. 4 City of Houston with 438 million kWh and 34 percent and No. 5 Starbucks with 422 million kWh and 52 percent.

PepsiCo left the top five this year, dropping off the list entirely.

EPA officials say the top 50 purchasers use more than 14 billion kWh of green power annually, "equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity use of more than 1.2 million average American homes." Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, and low-impact hydropower.

EPA says Google purchases green power from NextEra Energy Resources, Renewable Choice Energy and Puget Sound Energy and has helped create the largest residential solar fund in the country. It also has invested in the world's largest wind farm, the Alta Wind Energy Center near Tehachapi, Calif., and the Ivanpah Power Tower solar project in California’s Mojave Desert.

Ingram Micro's purchases of more than 3 million kWh of green power annually puts it low on the volume list, but it's enough green power to meet 107 percent of the company's electricity use.