Archive for the ‘Venture Capital’ Category

If an inventor falls, do we blame gravity?

Saturday, June 3rd, 2017

On February 24, 2017 another energy inventor died of a hemorrhagic stroke. He had been on hypertension medication, but stopped when he couldn’t afford it. He was only 53 years old.

Everyone has personal tragedies. Losing his wife to a drunk driver, his mother contracting diabetes and gangrene caused him to bury himself in his work. He created an electronic method to stop gangrene and saved his mother’s foot. Yet no level of ingenuity could stop the insanity of a drunk driver.

A personality conflict in the workplace ended his former high paying, classified government job, despite 17 years of accolades for high performance and creativity in an extremely technical environment.

As we’ve heard way too many times before, most all of his good ideas went to the grave with him. Paranoid that someone would steal his ideas, he seldom did off-site backup of anything. He never expected to have a stroke within feet of those who would grab his prototypes and computer. Characters who did not even inform friends of his passing for 2 weeks. Law enforcement knew nothing of what to look for. The coroner and sheriff report stated no evidence of foul play.

In the ugly world of R&D, there is NO venture capital to cover any expenses until something is shown working and marketable. Wages for R&D time and materials just don’t exist. Survival 2-27-2009 033money for food, housing or medication are a joke to those with the money to do something.

YouTube is full of videos showing promising ideas,  but no capital showing up from any source to allow an experimenter to put full time effort into proper research. Hobbies, after a daMtr5-9-2012expSm125y job, always seem to remain hobbies. Nothing ever completes.

Compounding this particular inventor’s obstacles, was that he used to work in a very classified environment. What did he work with or learn there that could be restructured into a consumer item, but not violate his security clearance? That was his perpetual challenge. He saw massive money spent on super weapons, but none on something to get people’s tasks done better.

3-8-2009 024Crowdfunding entered the scene in 2012. Yet thus far, even it only gets the attention of money once something is shown working. The countless hours of R&D to get to that stage are still not addressed, except in pet projects of the corporate world.

Steve Jobs wanted the Smart Phone to happen. He authorized the necessary million$ to make it happen. Government grants are supposed to encourage R&D, but only go to the politician’s pet supporters. Seldom ever are they directed to the true potential of an idea.

Who is to blame? Is it just the hardship of life? Is it normal resistance like gravity? Or is it a debt based economic system that demands immediate performance and payments on schedule or the banker takes everything as “collateral?” It is the latter.

R&D happens with personal money. That is where the phrase “don’t quit your day job” is exemplified. The inventor knows the potential of what he’s working on, but explaining it to anyone, well there aren’t enough hours in the day.

And what if the day job doesn’t even cover survival? What if technology eliminated the career one trained for, but no longer obtains a living wage? Minimum wage in Los Angeles will not qualify a person for a one bedroom apartment. Short sighted business people refuse the call for a $15/hour minimum wage, pointing out most businesses cannot afford to pay it. So is it the fault of the business manager, or is the system blaming the wrong people? Why can’t consumers afford the slightly higher prices to justify $15/hour to anyone diligent enough to show up for work daily and do what is asked? Trickle down economics never worked. Bankers and taxes strangle the flow at mid-stream.

As technology forces shifts, menial work is no longer just for teenagers. Responsible adults are often forced to take jobs far less than their abilities. But their adult responsibilities continue.

How much does the business owner have to pay the bank for flooring inventory, maintaining facilities, advertising, insurance, utilities along with a living wage to diligent employees? Is CAPITAL affordable? Banks print the money to loan. But employees have to learn skills and show integrity on the job to get the product to a satisfied customer.

Enter Bitcoin. A nerd project we all laughed at in 2010, when it cost 10,000 Bitcoins to buy one pizza worth $25 USD. But it is not just an electronic currency. It has other factors quickly being accepted on an international scale. When South Korea thought North Korea was about to bomb them in May 2017, Bitcoin jumped from $2,000 each to $4,000 overnight, then pulled back to $2,000 when word reached around the world of the sudden demand at that location. It recovered quickly and continued.

I don’t dare give the name of the inventor I speak of. His former “day job” classified work continues to carry a threat to anyone discussing it. I’ll just mention the coincidence of his initials being a nice way to reference Bitcoin. Bc.

Bitcoins are stated to 8 decimal places. The last 4 digits presently amount to about $24 USD, even with Bitcoin trading at $2,400 each.

I am now starting a Bitcoin coffee cup and asking for loose change from your Bitcoin wallet. It goes to a wallet that helps energy inventors. That is all I can promise. No 501c3 has been set up. This is not a deduction on your taxes. That takes attorneys and CPA’s who get more than the project is intended for. Whoever gets it, uses it as a gift or simple income. All I ask is please dump the last 3 or 4 digits of loose change into the Bitcoin cup, the next time you are poking around your e-wallet. If you got any value from any of the stories and information posted at commutefaster.com/Energy2.html , I hope it would be worth a few Bitcoin cents to you to keep efforts moving forward.

One public item the inventor did tell me he worked on while with a government contractor, was enabling the image collection on the Hubble Telescope to deliver consistent pixels. He was the engineer responsible for the data oversampling circuitry used. Anyone who has seen the spectacular images from the Hubble can thank him for adding that feature.

And one not-so public bit of trivia that gave us an odd common ground. We both had uncles on Tinian Island in August of 1945.  One machined the last part for Little Boy.  The other wired Fat Man. Those family members were paid quite well for their technology skills. But our sides of the families wanted to get clean energy to everyone.

Only Jesus Christ has shown power over death. We can only trust in Him for eternity, as Bc did.

RIP old friend, maybe now you can chat with Tesla as you often speculated.

Ken Rasmussen

6/2/2017

Electric Jump Start

Friday, March 15th, 2013

An innovative magnet coil component, created by Seanic View, Inc., can make a major change in electric motor efficiency.  Anyone can now make a difference.

 

The CommuteFaster Energy news site has been listing several energy related crowd funding projects since the first of the year, 2013. I need to focus on the Electric Jump Start program.

 

Full disclosure, I founded Seanic View, Inc., the company running the project. As founder I have compiled some of the most talented people I’ve met in my life, and we now have a technology that will change electric motors to levels of efficiency not yet seen elsewhere.

 

For years, everyone has looked at the battery to be the weakest link for electric vehicles. Electric airplanes with cargo and passengers were a pipe dream. Incremental steps have been accomplished with experimental aircraft using electric motors and batteries, such at this one by Chip Yates. But nothing practical has yet to fly that can carry a respectable load of cargo, much less passengers on a long safe journey.

 

A new magnet/coil configuration has been discovered which yields more torque per watt than anything previously attempted. When used in an electric motor, this drastically reduces the need for large batteries and the heavy current draw on them.

 

Two informative videos have been prepared explaining the trials and tribulations of doing Research and Development on this topic.

 

The first one is the one highlighted at their Indiegogo Crowd Funding Campaign site

 

http://www.ElectricJumpStart.com

 

The second, not so easy to find video is here and explains the massive size of the electric motor market presently and what is projected as electric vehicles replace hydrocarbon fuel engines around the world.

 

While safer applications of Lithium ion or better systems are always appreciated, the large storage factor is no longer necessary. This new component will enable electric motors to deliver torque using a relatively miniscule about of current to do it. The result means it nears the output of the latest generation of solar panels. Which makes Solar Airplanes a reality. Present technology batteries could take the plane long into the evening, after the sunlight has gone for the day.

 

How soon will this happen? It’s up to you, and the world financial community. This is not the pipe dream of Walter Mitty. This technology is solid and a Prony Brake test is shown in the Electric Jump Start video. But as the video points out, capital is necessary to bring anything to market. Parts don’t make themselves, nor deliver themselves to the shelves at your local store.

 

Why do we all have personal computers in front of us? They started in a garage, but I can now grab an 8 core fire breathing, number crunching, monster at WalMart. It started when an Angel investor took Bill Gates and Steve Jobs seriously. That has yet to happen with alternative energy. Many an inventor has made the mistake and taken investment from friends and family by selling them stock, only to discover they overlooked SEC compliance rules regarding security sales.

 

Rules changed this year. Here is the new way SEC and IRS view the transaction.

 

First off, NEVER SELL STOCK to anyone other than accredited investors, (rich people) or corporations.

 

BUT

 

Any company may now accept donations. Forget the tax right off aspect, that still belongs to churches and other charitable organization. It is merely simple income to the inventor and his company of any structure. They do pay income tax on it, but same with anything they sell.

 

While the Jobs Act is reviewing methods to eventually allow equity to small investors, major equity return is still a privilege of the rich. But getting something you want done is gratification itself. Do you want to bellyache about Big Oil profits the rest of your life, or would you like to toss a few dollars at a noble project, run by people with the necessary skills? Just sitting there hoping doesn’t help anyone, even you.

 

Long term readers of the CommuteFaster Energy page know I’ve reported on many inventors over the years. Some had viable technologies, some disappeared into history. One thing they all had in common is NONE had major R&D investment to iron out all bugs before releasing them to the public. Look at what Boeing had to spend to get the B-787 in the air. And now they are all grounded due to battery failures. Batteries that controlled things, not power the flight. Yet look how expensive that is for them to solve. Could any garage inventor weather such a setback? Details like that have bankrupted many an otherwise good idea.

 

Angel investors, properly accredited, are the ones who are supposed to show up and properly fund any good ideas and bring them to market. But economy as it is, they just are not doing their job. Some Venture Capitalists themselves admit there is a serious “lemming” mentality. All want to be first to be second. Let the other guy take the risk of being first. But the early bird gets the worm. Anyone who helped Gates and Jobs at the beginning saw tremendous payback over the years.

 

In crowd funding you will not have stock certificates, or bonds, but your name does show up on the exclusive list of early contributors. That means a lot to any inventor. Who do you think he will stay in touch with as his ideas grow? Who will get the first units? Who will get notified first of a pending public offering? Who will be offered dealerships when available? And if you live near them, and got laid off from your regular job, who will the inventor hire first as he can afford more employees? Those are the hidden benefits of showing a little compassion and tossing a donation to any start up at the right time. Donate early and often, you know, just like voting in Chicago.

 

Crowd funding through sites like Indiegogo enable anyone to do that now.

 

Please give my own favorite project, ElectricJumpStart.com a review at your first opportunity. It runs through April 26, 2013. But don’t wait on the crowd. Please show some support now. After that date, Indiegogo and their coordinated abilities step out of the picture and Seanic View will go back to needing accredited investors for help. Smaller contributions after April 25 will not be as simple.

 

Clean technologies need support from concerned people like you. When enough begins to happen, the slow to catch on financial community will eventually show up to take it to higher levels.

 

Indiegogo is international. Contributions can be made online from any country on earth. Denominated in US dollars.

 

And just in case Seanic View exceeds its goal, it has a long list of equally impressive projects on the back burner that could make major changes in energy usage world wide. They have a back room full of rabbits to pull out of a hat as soon as funding permits. Please help them make a difference.

 

Additional energy projects are continually added at the CommuteFaster Energy news page.

 

Ken Rasmussen

Web master http://www.commutefaster.com/Energy2.html

3/15/2013

Calibration

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

Calibration is the problem, the ENTIRE problem.

 

 

Engineers know this. Anyone who knows the difference between analog and digital equipment knows anything analog becomes worthless as soon as it goes out of calibration. Even digital equipment may continue to crunch the numbers properly, but when it converts its results to an analog form for humans to use, it MUST meet calibration reference standards.

 

 

A volt must be a volt. A pound must be a pound. An inch must be an inch. A minute must be a minute, etc.

 

 

When a person’s diet become lopsided over the holidays, colds, sniffles or weight gain results. Why? Your body has lost its calibration points, namely a consistently healthy diet.

 

 

When your car leans toward one of the tires. Check the air pressure, it must match the other 3 tires. Likewise, the air pressure gauge you use on one tire, should match the one used on the other 3.

 

 

Same thing with the economy. Its CALIBRATION, STUPID. It’s not any of the gazillion distractions that get the blame. It’s not union greed, corporate greed, peak oil, high or low interest rates, Reaganomics, Obamanomics, big box stores or small family owned business sticking it to the consumer. It is entirely calibration messing up the country and world economies. The distractions can AFFECT calibration, BUT the root problem is lack of CALIBRATION ITSELF.

 

 

We have DIGITS on the dollar bill for a reason. It’s called a denomination. That is supposed to be a statement of value. But currencies trade on a market. Markets depend on supply and demand, NOT fixed value. Unfortunately, and even Ron Paul doesn’t seem to know this, GOLD is a trade-able commodity on a market, thus is NOT a stable reference calibration point either. While it may have been a credible reference standard 200 years ago. A hundred years of every country in the world using a fiat currency system has allowed those who print the money to now own most all of the gold. Busted.

 

 

So what reference standard would stabilize ALL money, no matter what country? I’m only concerned about humans myself, not much else, selfishly because I am one.

 

 

How about taking a serious look at the cost of civilized living ANYWHERE on the planet, and standardize that? The Consumer Price index was a failed attempt to do that, until things got removed and other things added. Not much demand for buggy whips, but how long with plastic I-pads demand big bucks?

 

 

People need:

Food, clothing, housing, transportation, communication.

 

 

Nobody, no matter how handicapped or lazy deserves to sleep and die in the street. ANYONE willing to show up at a job and do what they are told, deserves to have all 5 issues met, no matter how menial their skill/task requirements are. If the job requires a human to do it, the human doing it needs all 5 of the above met in exchange for their labor. If your car needs so much gas to get to your destination, you either put it in the tank or walk. Same with employees. Pay them enough to live on or get out of that business.

 

 

Politicians invented minimum wage to accomplish that task. But it failed miserably. A 40 hour minimum wage job in Los Angeles will not presently qualify a person for a small one bedroom apartment there from any commercial housing firm, not to mention the other 4 needs. Why?

 

 

Total MIS-Calibration of wages to actual cost of maintaining a human.

 

 

Marrying and supporting a family should not be reserved to the elite either. That needs to be included, as does supporting elderly parents and savings for unlisted challenges.

 

 

As we look at manufacturing technology over the last hundred years, that has changed drastically too. But society is not all manufacturing jobs. Many jobs just require sitting in a chair doing some serious thinking, maybe with a computer in front of you, or a steering wheel, but time consuming none the less. Still, I feel the 40 hour work week should now be history. If a business makes widgets, forget tying your slave to a machine for 40 hours. Consider an 18 hour week. Yes, I said 18 hours. If the goal is to crank out widgets using all available machine time. Hire 8 times as many people, work them on 6 hour shifts. 4 shifts per day. 3 days a week. You may now do that again inside the same week. Result is your plant cranks out widgets 6 days a week, 24 hours a day, but no overtime expense. The hitch is you need to pay each worker enough to live on from only 18 hours of work. That is YOUR problem Einstein, not THEIRS. You’re the brilliant guy who runs the company and expects the big bucks yourself, right? Here is how to do it.

 

 

RECALIBRATE EVERYTHING or DIE when the present system explodes and takes everything down.

 

 

Bankers have known this fact of the universe since the start. They have continually nudged the calibration of EVERYTHING in the economy to their favor. The table has been tilted to make all the chips slide to their side of the table. Can anyone take multinational CEO, celebrity, or sports figure wages seriously? Or ANY executive banker wage? All they do is count YOUR money, and make it become theirs. They never worked to earn the money they loan you. It’s been a mafia racket since day one.

 

 

If a person cannot obtain your product or service in order to meet his 5 necessities of life, for the price offered, your product is OVERPRICED. Likewise if his 18 hour paycheck allows him to get too much of your product or service, you are UNDERPRICED.

 

 

This is where fiat currency becomes practical and harms no one, so long as it REMAINS CALIBRATED to the population at large. There has to be sufficient currency available for companies to pay employees enough to live on sufficiently from only 18 hours of work. This pulls the huge amount of unemployed off the streets. This also makes employers who have taken unfair advantage of slave labor wages, reassess their business plan.

 

 

Three industries need to do some soul searching immediately. Housing is too expensive everywhere. Maintaining a reliable vehicle is too expensive everywhere. Energy is too expensive everywhere.

 

 

Automation and other technology advances can and should affect all 3 soon, so long as the companies who make them don’t expect their present outrageous profit margins, which all flow to a small number of shareholders.

 

 

Seemingly converse. Corporate profits need to be included in necessary costs to continue to pay dividends to retirees and those taking the risk of helping the company get started in the first place, along with ongoing growth. This continues the good aspects of capitalism by both allowing and encouraging profits to those who deserve them.

 

 

Any honest person who studies the CAFR knows taxes have been unnecessary in this country for more than 50 years. Put some honest politicians in office and hire some honest accountants too. Government can run itself, WITHOUT INCOME TAX, either personal or corporate. Taxing the corporation means less they can pay their employees and stockholders. Both are counterproductive.

 

 

Bankers presently are aiming at something resembling what I say here, but not the same. They claim they need a one world government to enforce such ideals. Wrong.

 

 

Nations survive quite well in peace until bankers start wars. People gladly stay within borders until something forces them away from their natural habitat. China is the most populated nation on the planet, but still remains within borders. The United States still has enormous areas of unpopulated land, but continues to force its corrupted opinions on small countries throughout the middle east. It neither needs their dirt, nor its oil. Power monger mental cases rise to the top in government. They now have the triggers to the biggest guns on the planet, yet the American economy drops to 3rd world level in many states and counties now.

 

 

If calibrated properly, there should be no destitute starving anywhere, nor should there be fat cats making zillions/second while they sleep using phony debt as a threat against those who do work. There are PLENTY of resources in the world to do exactly as I suggest.

 

 

This is NOT COMMUNISM! This is simply CALIBRATION STUPID.

 

 

START with providing the basic needs for ALL employees, structured to create a product meeting acceptable market pricing, then let your automation equipment and marketing strategies create the profits.

 

 

No elite bureaucrats controlling the worker; telling menial labor to live in the slums, while they ride chauffeured limos to their estate. No corrupt labor union leader making more than the founders, demanding money that doesn’t exist either.

 

 

Recalibrate or face the consequences. The gauge on your boiler says normal, while the temperature inside is ready to rupture its container and take out a city in the process. Nature itself is constantly adjusting for imbalances. ALL factors of our economy need to also.

 

 

The ultimate reference point is not the weight of gold. It is the command to “do unto others as you want them to do unto you.” God put humans on a planet with plenty of resources to survive quite well. Whatever goes out of calibration and causes either extreme of poverty or opulence needs to be corrected.

 

 

Ken Rasmussen, editor: http://www.commutefaster.com/Energy2.html

12/26/2012

 

 

 

 

Clean Tech Open, 2012

Saturday, June 30th, 2012

On June 21, 2012, some of the most innovative inventors in America, with genuine concern for the environment, met with Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists for the first time that I have ever experienced.

 

 

While press releases for 2% or 3% better solar panels or wind mills have filled the press pages ad infinitum, ad nausea since the Jimmy Carter days, this is the first time in my experience that alternative capital has actually talked to alternative energy.

 

 

Conventional banking is dead. Corruption and graft killed it since 2008 or earlier. So in steps wealthy individuals who made a fortune or 2 from computers or software in Silicon Valley to solve the problem. Bankers have always demanded all you have as collateral. Miss a payment or 2 and they take everything. A Venture Capitalist agrees up front how much you want to sell to him, takes only that, and can’t have any more from you, until you really wish to sell it. Risk factors such as R&D time, market penetration, coordinating new supply chains, and learning curves of new employees make timely payment to a banker almost impossible, hence an agreement with a VC is much less stressful. VC’s have a vested interest in making your company succeed too. Bankers don’t. Bankers already have that signed piece of paper allowing them to take everything based entirely on their clock and calendar, not the start-up business owner’s.

 

 

VC’s want to lessen risk too. Can an inventor manage a business? Or is he just focused on one thing. That is one of many factors that must be ironed out before capital can flow and get the good idea onto the shelves at Home Depot for the public to find it.

 

 

The CommuteFaster energy news site generally aims at 2 areas. Exposing gross mis-allocation of energy resources by present monopolies or government, and trying to get ultra efficient energies both exposed and brought to market. Clean Tech Open is the first event I’ve seen making inroads to introducing genuine capital where it is needed most, the garage based inventor with the initial good ideas, and sometimes, an actual working model.

 

 

Clean Tech joined another group, Tech Connect at the Santa Clara California Convention Center to offer the most powerful compilation of technologies and business implementation imaginable. While over a hundred inventors were showing their prototypes and business plans at the exhibit hall, conference rooms were teaching classes on important issues like WHY major corporations are reluctant to invest anything in R&D.

Source of Ideas for Corporations

It all boils down to risk, or so they claim. Corporations get stuck in a rut very quickly. Find something that makes a profit, and they get afraid to even try anything different. While Steve Jobs is credited with using Apple’s capital for the R&D which brought the massively popular I-phone and I-pad to market, the speaker exposed some inside reluctance on Steve Jobs’ part to try several other things. Exactly what those techs were, nobody knows. But no big corporation is anxious to blow money on bad ideas, again, so they claim, so innovation more often comes from them talking to customers, rather than from their own in house resources.

 

 

The challenge to the inventor is they not only have to have a good, working device, they have to convince the VC or other type investor that they have what it takes to follow though in all aspects of business too. Which leads to a generalization by one Venture Capitalist, that all new start ups need 3 individuals. An engineer to make it work, a business manager to handle the financials and an adult to keep the other 2 in line. This of course references the few software companies started by a kid writing a killer software application while still living with parents. As software has negligible manufacturing and deliver expense, this has been the main driving force for many a fast-buck fortune. Silicon Valley is waking up to the near end of easy money, especially after the Fakebook fiasco, and is now taking a serious look at genuine needs, and with this event, beginning to apply funds to genuine solutions, especially in energy.

 

 

Now to some of the ideas shown, which were all looking for capital.

 

 

The company that headlined the bad news column at CommuteFaster just before the Clean Tech event, has to be top of the list. They request no name exposure yet, as they are frantically trying to get their stolen prototype rebuilt in time to stay in competition with Clean Tech Open. Efficient electric motor table 

 

And for good reason. Global winners are eligible for a $250,000 award this coming November. Proof of performance claims by 3rd party verification is part of the judging. But this much of their technology, they were willing to reveal.

 

 

A fuzzy image of the prototype was shown, but not distributed. It was the size of a soccer ball. Only 6 watts of DC input was creating well over 75 foot pounds of useable torque. This explanation was given.

 

 

All electric motors made to date ignore or mishandle the issue of back-EMF. Engineers are taught, even at university level to just discard it, shunt it to ground. This company took a different approach. They intentionally made the problem worse. The result is they found the components of an electric motor were throwing away a major, unrecognized source of energy. Their prototype was now generating extensive torque, using only a few watts of power as input, because the magnet and coil arrangement was kicking back “problematic, dirty energy” that everyone else to date, was throwing away rather than redirecting where it actually accomplished something.

 

 

Another inventor used a similar process to attack back-EMF in 1976 and obtained a few patents at the time. But the exhibitor at Clean Tech has the advantage of another 35 years of technology advancement, along with some of their own unique components, to handle the problem even more efficiently. As soon as 3rd party verification of performance is released, you will hear it here first.

 

 

This photo has been circulating the internet for a couple of months.

 

Ryno One Wheel Motorcycle

I first thought it was a computer simulation from some Hollywood cartoon. No, it’s real. The inventor, Chris Hoffmann was at the show. Ryno Motors is based in Portland Oregon. The unit is regulated to 12 MPH for in city use, but can do 25 MPH. It actually has preferable handling in many situations to the now common, 2 wheeled Segue. You sit on this. But you stand on the Segue.

 

 

http://rynomotors.com/

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1YoCfm7nxU&feature=related

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojv8vIRvf6A

 

 

 

A new wind blade design, intended to grab torque from low speed wind was shown. Pterofin blades

Inventor Wallace Kempkey’s website is at http://www.pterofin.com/

The insect-like shape has unique properties to make most efficient use of low volume air movement. A situation where conventional blade designs don’t even move at all, much less generate useable torque.

 

 

 

 

 

MagnegeneratorRegenerative braking is a term used by the hybrid automotive industry. Magnegenerator has a design intended for the aftermarket of golf carts, forklifts and other low speed electric vehicles which have just thrown away braking energy like the automotive industry did for a hundred years. Their website is at http://www.magnegenerator.com/

 

 

 

Another company working to grab wasted energy as we all bounce over bumps and chuck holes in the road is WattShocks. http://www.wattshocks.com/ Not enough energy to power a vehicle yet, unless you drive on Illinois roads. But it could extend range on electric vehicles as much as regenerative braking does.

 

 

Tackling the huge energy waste of idling diesel big rigs is Direct Drive Energy.

 DDE-APU

Their website is http://www.4dde.com/ They use a somewhat conventional technique of tapping wasted energy while the vehicle in is motion, by using an additional wheel, the net result is a charged battery sufficient to run air conditioning or heating for a rig’s cab during an 8 to 12 hour layover. This may not seem like much, until you realize the trucking industry has been idling their 400+ HP engines for the entire time to just run the air conditioning or heater. Imagine a 4 day layover in Phoenix during a 4th of July weekend in 104+ heat. I know a trucker it happened to.  Industry wide, the wasted fuel is in the millions of dollars of diesel a year, and creates totally unnecessary pollution.

 

 

Battery charging is another issue being attacked. While “Thor Charger” is primarily seeking development capital, and not wishing much public exposure yet, talking to their engineer, they have made tremendous advancement in the reduction of battery recharge time. A recent Jay Leno video reviewing an electric motorcycle spoke as if declining battery life and long recharge time were a limit of physics. No. It’s only a problem because companies like Thor, Bedini, or Novaplasma have, until Clean Tech Open, been unable to get sufficient capital to bring their faster/cooler charging technology to market. Things will be changing soon.

 

 

Being involved in the show myself, I regret not having time to talk to all the exhibitors. The few I did, revealed another surprise. The items they brought to the show were only one of their ideas. Usually the one most likely to generate investment the soonest. But what did they all have on the back-burner? One I talked to has a WORKING gravity wheel. I am now working with him to get a torque measurement on it and find the most efficient electric generator for it. Imagine a 4 foot by 6 foot space on the side of your house powering all your home’s electric needs. Another great invention you should be hearing about here at CommuteFaster.com as soon as it becomes available.

 

 

Why haven’t we heard of all these small companies before? Wisdom says you perfect something before you mass produce it. Better to find ample capital and iron out the bugs BEFORE doing a YouTube video and making a fool of yourself when something breaks at the worst possible moment. Clean Tech Open is making real business managers out of garage inventors. This is a new approach to the somewhat hobbyist mentality of many alternative energy projects in prior years.

 

 

And one last thing to report. You are reading about this on a rather low volume readership blog. Why didn’t you see this on TV? If you lived in Beijing, you did. Reporter Shanshan Song, DingDing.tv

Only ONE TV crew showed up to report the event…. one from China. Their video crew even has their own office there in Silicon Valley. Spying? No, more like performing as responsible human beings to confront pollution at the only place it can and has to be solved…..the FUNDING of INNOVATION.

 

Ken Rasmussen

http://www.commutefaster.com/Energy2.html

6/30/2012