Marco's Comments

The previous writers made some good points:
1) The most important and immediate problem with electricity production in the US is not that it's too expensive, but rather that fossil fuels produce large amounts of CO2. So, inexpensive electricity in the future is not nearly as alluring as electricity with lower emissions of CO2, per MWe.
2) True, we are made of carbon based molecules, but I'm certain combustion of plastic does not yield proteins or fats. Also, I'm certain that a major product of combustion of any plastic is CO2 (assuming the students designed for complete combustion). So, burning waste plastics made from petroleum will do little to reduce petroleum-derived CO2 emissions.
3) Although the story is interesting, the technology (assuming combustion of petroleum based plastics) does not qualify as renewable, as in RenewableEnergyWorld.com.

Hello everyone,

It's January 31, around 1PM in California and I think the Counterpunch.org web site down -- any rate, I can't check the previous postion for substantiation (January 26, author George Fleming). However, I want to say this:

In the posting all the claims are very general, seemingly unscientific, and certainly unsubstantiated. Some of the claims appear to be purposely deceptive, but I'll reserve judgment until I can see what the web site offers.

My point is this: debates of science and engineering issues must include sound science and engineering facts, substantiation and footnotes. Otherwise we have a philosophical or political debate. Surely both philosophy and politics are important, but neither will change the combustion products or heats of reaction of coal or woody biomass with O2, and neither can change the cradle-to-grave carbon footprint of a photovoltaic cell.

I think a good approach to convincing someone that "Biomass Generates More Carbon Than Coal" is to explain how this may be possible and to even include the chemical combustion reactions. It's the burden of the author to prove or explain assertions.

Respectfully,
Marco Ramos

I haven't read the actual research article (only the intro/stub), but I have some background with the concept.

We're familiar with materials that "down convert" or fluoresce. For instance, a fluorescent yellow road sign contains yellow pigment that not only reflects yellow light, but it also converts some of the absorbed blue and UV light to yellow light. The effect is that if you measure the yellow light coming off the sign, it is more than 100% of the yellow light striking the sign. Of course, this does not defy the First or Second Laws of thermodynamics. It is "down converting" because the higher energy UV and blue is being converted to lower energy yellow.

An upconverting material is something that takes many low energy photons, maybe a wavelength in the infrared, and converts them to only a few higher energy photons. Again, this doesn't defy the First and Second Laws and it's the description of the complex mechanism that makes even the brief intro article so technical.

Examples of this are less familiar. Many world currencies (including US) have small marks of otherwise invisible upconverting pigments. When you shine a specific wavelength of IR laser on the mark, the mark shines green. IR is lower energy than green, so it's called an upconverter.

So, the research is probably focused on taking some portion of otherwise unusable light, and with the help of upconverting phosphors/materials, converting to usable light.

Yes, it does sound like a closed loop heat pump--the article is just too vague.

To the editor: You have an interesting site with an educated readership. Can you please add more engineering/scientific detail, when possible, to the articles? I think such details would be of interest to just about all readers: scientists, investors, environmentalists, etc.

Thanks, Marco Ramos

Yes, it does sound like a closed loop heat pump--the article is just too vague.

To the editor: You have an interesting site with an educated readership. Can you please add more engineering/scientific detail, when possible, to the articles? I think such details would be of interest to just about all readers: scientists, investors, environmentalists, etc.

Thanks, Marco Ramos

Both the article and the idea are interesting, but of more interest would be the technical paper presented at Wind Power Asia Exhibition, and ultimately the energy balance sheet. Can anyone point me to information on energy usage for the mag bearing and controlling system?

Is this a near-commercially-ready product? How large is it; in energy output, bearing size, and initial investment?