I remember a satirical barb in John Howard Kuntsler’s book, The Long Emergency. Anyone wishing for a technological fix to the problems of the world was investing in the magic of Jiminy Cricket. Not anymore.
At the time of the publication of the book (2005), I wholeheartedly agreed. While renewables were steadily making progress and there was at least some discussion about Kyoto Accords and carbon credits, the outlook on the tech front to solve food issues, transportation issues, environmental issues, and socio-political confrontations was mired in places like M.I.T. and Berkley, or at unattainable, unreachable, think tank towers. At times they sprung a leak and local food movements, green chambers of commerce, and innovative builders reaped the harvest from the ‘way ahead of us’ crowd and brought back some practical solutions implemented on the local level. Everything from water harvesting to cold frames to homemade solar water heaters re-emerged from their developmental cocoons woven back in the 1970’s. Tech solutions generated in the abstract, far away from the problems that everyday people experienced, were not the answer. And as for oil…..the peak was inches away, and the collapse soon to follow.
I was a believer. Dyed in the wool. Farmer’s markets. My own goat cheese. Big raised beds. Lots of chard. Canned tomatoes. Frozen tomatoes. Trading basil. This is the way the New World Order is to be and if you can’t see that, well, there must be something fundamentally wrong with you. And that’s that.
And that was that, until I took a plane trip that took me over Phoenix and Los Angeles and San Francisco and Portland and Seattle and finally, Vancouver. I was reintroduced to a much larger world than my vegetable garden. And the problems of that world, which I thought I could solve to a limited extent in my own back yard, were suddenly thrust against the reality of my inescapable connection to those larger, much more complex world workings in those big cities on the coast and everywhere else on the planet. Solutions, obviously, were local to start, but if they didn’t encompass the Big Picture (and I was still plugged in to the Big Picture with every breath, meal, and drink I took), then failure, really big failure, was assured.
I don’t know about you but I used to like to play Pick-Up-Sticks. If you remember, they all fall down on each other and you carefully lift each one back up, one at a time. Where several sticks cross over one another, that for me is the model for where we are. Each stick is both a problem and a solution, and the intersection where the most sticks touch is where we should address our brightest brainpower. For me, that spot is energy.
Let me first say that I believe in renewables and conservation. They are front row in the energy problem solving equation. And that equation is fairly straightforward: you solve energy, you solve environment (fossil fuels/carbon), you solve energy, you solve transportation, you solve energy, you solve economy, you solve energy, you solve population (ease of existence depressurizes population). It is the hub solution, the center of the wheel, and as the I Ching says, it will not hold.
It won’t hold because the problems are outstripping the technological progress that has been brought to ‘market’ in the last seven years. A Tesla sportster at $150,000 isn’t going to help solve transportation much, even if they plan to bring cheaper products to the streets. And it’s the same with solar panels. Kept alive with tax credits and green commitments, they are not advancing fast enough to stop the hemorrhaging of our planet from the greed and need. And the farmer’s markets and local cheese….artisanship is excellence, but it isn’t survival. Small is beautiful, but our problems far outstrip the potential.
All this is said, of course, as a set up for what I think is a real turning point in the crisis. A real Jiminy Cricket moment. I thought I was going to wish upon a star, instead, a galaxy opened up. There are black holes, all right, but there are also magnificent suns.
A company called Intelligentry is one of those suns. I know they should shoot the PR firm that came up with the name, but if you can overlook that for a second, I will help you pick up your jaw from the floor. I have been following the ups and downs, the good news/bad news of product development, the scientific claims and the howls of fraud about this company and its product for a while. I am now convinced its time has come. So let’s play a game….
What if you could run ten houses using 10 kw per house for seven years for $7.00? What if you could have an electric car with 275 horse power that could run for 18 months without filling up, and when you did, it costs as much as a six pack of beer? What if you could operate planes, trains, freighters, well pumps, power grids, buses, just about everything that is currently run on fossil fuels today, on a new type of engine that ran on air? Right now, your bullshit meter is off the charts. I know, mine was to. But now, the biggest problem is how to face a fact that what was impossible, is now possible. And it’s scary.
The engine developed by Intelligentry uses what they term a ‘plasma transition process’, or pseudo plasma. The fuel used is a combination of noble gases (helium, argon, neon, etc.) and isn’t a perpetual motion machine, it transitions the gas into plasma and back, driving a piston creating torque and electricity at the same time, like a car piston and alternator. The gas, however, isn’t burned (consumed) in the process. There is no heat. There is no exhaust. Only an abundance of useable power.
You can Google them. You can see the motor (about the size of two garbage disposals with a gear box in between). You can read the crazy history of the motor and its original creator, Joseph Papp. You can read about the challenge posed by Nobel physicist Richard Feynman, his attempt to discredit the machine, and his failure to do so. And you can also read about a dozen very radical Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) and new forms of solid state energy producers (like small batteries that never run out), or Defkalion reactors or cavitation energy generators…..all mind blowing, under radar, some hypothetical, some nuts, but all seemingly wonderful and spanking new solutions to the most vexing energy problems of our time. Right at our door step. Right now.
The ‘tell’ in a scam is usually when they ask for money. They show you the peas under the walnut halves, you put your money down. You lose. Intelligentry isn’t taking more than the 120 stockholders it has right now. It starts manufacturing this year in Texas, Utah, and Washington state. There is no ‘tell’. There is no shuffle. It is going to be able to master the production of 2 cylinder engines that produce 275 hp. and 205 kws for $275 in three years, and a 6 cylinder engine producing 1,100 hp (820 kws) that is the size of a small kitchen table.
These innovations are not miracles. They are not ‘new physics’ but new frontiers within the scope of existing science. Just as cigarette lighters appear to be magic to disappearing jungle peoples, these advances thrill us with both magic and wonder. They hold endless possibility and they hold the possibility of sham. But that is the nature of wishes, on stars and everything else; they expose our vulnerability to hope.
I stand in wonder at these new developments that have come at the precise time in our history to make a magnificent difference. It is not wishful thinking or putting all our eggs in some bizarre technological basket. We created the atlatl to stun rabbits. We made the friction to make fire. We carved the wheel. We mapped the stars, and we can get back on the road to getting to them when we solve the energy crisis of our time, leaving no one behind to struggle for light, heat, food, and the movement that weaves us together.
R. Earnheart
Silver City