Michael Brachman's Blog: Tales of the Vuduri, page 42

An unexpected ally

After Rome and Rei had discovered the useless probe on the far side of the Moon, they decided they might be able to figure out where the containment vessel for Darwin Virus Strain 5 might be stored by following the historical movements of the Erklirte, the Ark Lords, when they first arrived on Earth 600 years earlier. They knew that the Ark Lords did not retrieve the vessel because they were defeated and the people who would eventually become the Vuduri lived on.

Rome was certain that the historical records they sought would be available on Earth but currently they were banished from the planet. Rome had no friends on Earth, save one and she decided they had to trust in him:

     Commander Ursay stood up from his pruning, sensing a vibration in the ground. He looked around and noticed three peculiar indentations in the field to his left. He cupped his hand over his eyes scanning the field to the left and right of the fresh divots but nothing else out of the ordinary drew his attention. Something wasn’t right. He focused carefully in the direction of the newly formed spots. He heard a soft whirring noise that seemed familiar but he could not identify the sound.
     He set down his shears and started walking toward the sound then stopped when he heard crunching noises coming toward him. He still couldn’t see anything causing the sounds. A slight breeze drifted by him. Ursay whipped his head around.
     “Please disconnect from the Overmind,” a voice whispered to him.
     “I am disconnected most of the time,” he replied to the empty air.
     “Good,” said Rome. She and Rei deactivated the invisibility cloaks that had been the gift of the Deucadons and appeared standing in front of Ursay. He was dressed in a dirty jumpsuit and wore a wide-brimmed hat to protect the crown of his head. What little hair poked out was completely white.
     “Rome?” Ursay asked, confused. He looked from one to the other. “Rei?”
     “It is good to see you again,” Rome said, walking up to him and hugging him. Unlike their previous encounters, Ursay accepted her hug and even reciprocated.
     “Sir,” Rei said, offering his hand. Ursay reached out and shook it.
     “To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked. “Last I knew you were still banished from the Earth.”
     “Can we go somewhere and talk?” Rome asked, looking around furtively.
     “Of course.”

It is good that they can trust Commander Ursay to not give away their presence but he has something in store for them completely unexpected yet wonderful. You'll see that tomorrow.

Above Unity - The Rabbit Hole

As I was doing my research into above unity devices, that is devices that produce more energy than they take in, I kept falling into rabbit holes. It appears that the appeal of free energy draws in hucksters, lunatics and sociopaths.

Cold fusion, the hope of a table top power generator that uses LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions) has been bound to improper science and crackpots for so long that scientists had to rename the field to keep them from being ridiculed. According to the New Energy Times, Andrea Rossi, inventor of the E-Cat device, has been in serious legal trouble several times for swindling people. He was sent to prison twice and convicted of financial fraud. His first conviction was for promising to extract oil from trash. He never did. His second run-in with the law was with the U.S. Army. He claimed he could produce a new type of thermocouple with tremendous efficiency. He never did. Bad place to start. Even if the E-Cat were real, would you trust someone who has such a checkered past? He has been sued by his main investor, Industrial Heat, for failing to produce substantive, reproducible results in three years.

When I was researching BlackLight Power now renamed Brilliant Power, I discovered that they have not produced a working or deliverable device yet. The purported hydrino creation was discovered in 1991 yet here we are 25 years later and still nothing has been put in the field. Dr. Mills was unable to obtain a patent on his device because the Patent Office felt it contradicted known laws of physics.

I reported on the Shockwave Power Reactor but no one involved will admit to it being an above unity device. In theory, multiple people have measured this gain yet it has not found its way very far outside of Rome, GA as a super-efficient source of heat. You would think that a heating device that is 150% efficient would have become more widespread.

Every time I type these search terms into Google, I get redirected to web sites about free energy, cars that run on water and so on. One of the most professional sites is PESWiki.com but not one of the sources they cite have been absolutely or independently confirmed. I've watched videos of these magical devices yet not one of them has found their way into commercial distribution. There is even this thing called a Joe Cell which generates anti-gravity and free power called Orgone Energy from water using magnetism.

My one conclusion is that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. So far, nobody has produced an above unity device that you or I can get our hands on and produce energy. I've decided I am going to stay out of the rabbit hole for a while and watch the Chinese launch the EmDrive in space. It, too, has not been proven but if it ends up being real, maybe some of the backwash of the physics will shed light on the above seemingly impossible devices.

Above Unity - Cold Fusion

Everybody remember cold fusion? In 1989 Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons reported that they were able to generate heat from an apparatus that they believed was using a palladium catalyst to fuse hydrogen atoms together at room temperature. So their name cold fusion didn't mean it was cold. It was just to contrast it to the type of nuclear fusion that requires millions of degrees such as occurs within stars and Tokamak-style reactors.

However, there were no accredited replications of their experiment and within a few years, the entire process and the experiment was relegated to crackpot science and reputable scientists started distancing themselves from the concept. There was a small band of scientists who quietly continued to research this and renamed the field LENR/CANR for Low Energy Nuclear Reactions and Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions so as to create separation from the now pejorative term Cold Fusion.

However, certain events have caused the field to move forward, even forcing the Department of Defense to not deny the phenomenon categorically. As the U.S. was replenishing the tritium supply in its thermonuclear arsenal, they found that the palladium elements were pitted in a manner that was consistent with the finding that cold fusion had occurred. Also, briefly during 2013, one scientist was, in fact, able to reproduce the original Fleischmann-Pons experiment recording frequent periodic bursts of high energy neutrons from the apparatus. Another experiment only recorded a modest amount anomalous heat but showed that the concentration of helium rose in direction proportion to the heat output. There is no known way to "make" helium in a sealed compartment other than fusing together hydrogen molecules. If this were true, then the fusion process was absolutely occurring.

Today many countries including India, Japan and Italy have vibrant, active research programs studying cold fusion. Several of the programs have reported success, especially when they use deuterium which is an isotope of hydrogen. Andrea Rossi's Leonardo Corporation claims his E-cat MW generators should be on the market by the end of 2017.

This is no longer considered fringe science although a working, reproducible setup that generates power has yet to hit the market. There are numerous conferences every year attended by hundreds of scientists and yet we are still way for proof positive. This is not zero point energy. If nuclear fusion is occurring, then it is an above unity device but not magic. The jury is still out.

Above Unity - BlackLight Power

Yesterday, I introduced the first of three theoretically above unity devices, the ShockWave Power Reactor. Above unity devices are those that produce more energy than you put it. Today's post is about a company that calls itself Brilliant Light Power, Inc. Their current flagship product is called the SunCell® power generator. In theory, their device creates power directly from ordinary water. How is this possible?

The principles behind this remarkable device were discovered in 1999 by Dr. Randell L. Mills of Cranbury, NJ. His original company name was BlackLight Power but has since renamed it to Brilliant Light Power. Dr. Mills claims that the each single electron that orbits the single proton of an ordinary hydrogen atom has a lower energy state. Dr. Mill states that his catalyst-activated process drops the electron into a lower energy state releasing energy in the form of a photon, light. Dr. Mills calls the resulting atom a hydrino and likens it to dark matter.

Hydrinos are a new form of hydrogen theoretically predicted by Dr. Mills and produced and characterized by BrLP. Hydrinos are produced during the BlackLight Process as energy is released from the hydrogen atom as the electron transitions to the lower orbit. The amount of energy produced, if true, would be incredible. It would solve the world's energy crisis overnight. After all, what is more plentiful than water?

And what can you do with the stuff, hydrino based material, after you make it? Dr. Mills claims it can be used to make explosives or propellants. It can make ships rustproof and endowed with stealth properties, and even wilder things like an anti-gravity effect that will allow a vessel to elevate, and even crazier stuff.

If this turns out to be true, this would be a remarkable discovery indeed. Here is an image of the SunCell® power generator courtesy of Brilliant Light Power, Inc.

Above Unity - Hydrosonic Pump

A few days ago, I raised the issue of Above Unity devices that produce more energy than you put in. These are not magic devices, the energy comes from somewhere. You know full well if you light a charcoal briquette with a match, the match does not supply the energy but rather the Earth did when it compressed trees and dinosaurs during the appropriately named Carboniferous Era. However, coal is boring. I want to focus on some modern technologies that appear to be Above Unity but are based upon sound science.

We all know that if you concentrate a ball of tritium, an isotope of hydrogen and push it together using an ordinary atomic bomb, you get a thermonuclear reaction which is certainly above unity. That is a big boom but there is no magic. However, tritium is hard to come by. We know that the Sun fuses ordinary hydrogen and converts it to helium because of the tremendous pressure and heat there. So could we convert ordinary hydrogen here on Earth into helium? There may be a shrimp (yes, you read that right) called the Pistol Shrimp that might be doing just that. Here is a picture:



The shrimp cocks its large claw and snaps it closed so fast that it creates a cavitation bubble which then collapses so rapidly, it generates temperatures nearly as high as the surface of the Sun. The shock wave generated is used to stun or kill its prey. And many times, the shock wave is accompanied by a flash of light, called sonoluminescence, which may be a couple of hydrogen atoms fusing, a tiny thermonuclear explosion at the bottom of the ocean.

This concept was developed and exploited by a man named James L. Griggs who created the Hydrosonic Pump which has since been renamed the ShockWave Power Cavitation Reactor. The generator spins rotors to create cavitation bubbles which collapse and generate heat. Some people believe that his machine is an Above Unity device, in that it produces more net energy that it consumes. Mr. Griggs is a businessman and knows that if he were to claim that, he immediately would be escorted to the place reserved for fringe scientists. So he does not. Instead, he focuses on the uses for his ShockWave Reactor for heating, mixing and extraction. His company, Hydro Dynamics, concentrates on the following:

-Hop extraction for beer
-Biodiesel reactors for transesterification
-Scale free heating (no fouling)
-Polymer and gum hydration
-Mixing thick and viscous liquids
-Gas-liquid mixing
-Extraction
-Increasing mass transfer, process intensification and acceleration
-Ethanol yield enhancement

Still, in its heating configuration, if you measure the amount of energy put in and the amount of energy that comes out, it looks suspiciously like an above unity device (some measures show it at 150% or more) but if this is true, it is based upon sound scientific principles and not fringe science.

Happy Asteroid Day 2016

Every year, on December 25th, I wish you a Happy Asteroid Day. The reason I do this is because on this date, in the year 3476 AD, an asteroid was supposed to slam into the planet Deucado and kill everyone there. Rome and Rei interceded in the middle part of the novel Rome's Revolution and turned things around. After establishing a cease fire and preventing a war, they sent up an army of VIRUS unit-laden livetars who flew out and destroyed the asteroid thus saving the planet.

Here is my standard greeting:



Image my surprise when I found out that Asteroid Day is a real thing. The actual date is June 30th and this is not arbitrary. According to Wikipedia, June 30, 1908 was the date of the Siberian Tunguska event, the most harmful known asteroid-related event on Earth in recent history. According to the Asteroid Day group's web site, the four official co-founders of Asteroid Day are: Dr Brian May, Danica Remy, Grigorij Richters and Rusty Schweickart, the former astronaut.

The date may be different and the planet may be different but the cause is the same: raising awareness of the dangers that large asteroids pose for inhabited planets. The Asteroid Day group is more concerned with asteroids hitting Earth. I guess when you think about it, it is probably more important for the next few hundred years that attention is focused here rather than around a fictional planet in the Tau Ceti system, roughly 12 light years from Earth.

So if you get a chance, check out the group's web site and see if you get behind their charter. After all, remember the dinosaurs. A big asteroid would be far more fatal to our species than war, disease, climate change or any other disaster you can imagine.

Above Unity

Yesterday, I discussed the concept of zero point energy, that is, pulling usable energy out of nothing such as the vacuum of space. However, I cited a case where there is an apparent creation of energy, that of thermonuclear fusion, where the energy released is completely explained by physics.

In the world of Rome's Revolution, the Vuduri have limitless, free energy using the Casimir Effect to split ordinary, neutral space into positive and negative energy. The negative energy is harmlessly dissipated or turned into a PPT Tunnel. The positive energy is used for propulsion or conversion into matter. You can read the story of the scientist who invented the underlying principles of electrogravity and the Casimir Pump in my new collection of short stories entitled The Vuduri Companion, on sale now.

Regardless, this raises the broader topic which is particularly relevant today as a solution to the climate change crisis. What we are really looking for are devices that are above unity in energy production. That means they produce more energy that they consume. Nuclear fusion is one of them. However, there are quite a few other avenues of research which may yet lead to this seemingly impossible goal.

This equation:

tells us that matter cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change form. It also tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It, too, can only change form. For example, you can convert mass to energy in a hydrogen bomb. Some of the mass becomes the blast wave, the rest of the hydrogen/deuterium/tritium mix converts to helium. Everyone knows that energy can be changed from usable form to an unusable form called entropy, typically released as heat. It is also possible that the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland produces matter by using tremendous amounts of power.

So back to the topic. There are several technologies I will be exploring over the next few days that may truly be creating energy out of seemingly nothing. They appear to be above unity devices. However, if they are proven to be real, then there is a real explanation. There is no such thing as magic. And if even one of them turns out to be real, then using solar power as the input and the above-unity output as a source of power may solve our energy needs for all time.

Sounds exciting, huh?

Zero Point Energy

Since the beginning of recorded history, mankind has always wanted to believe in magic and things that are too good to be true. Belief in a higher power is one. Such was the subject of my previous novel The Milk Run. Others take the form of physical objects which contain some mystical power. Many of these objects have been romanticized like the Lost Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Arthurian knights spent a lifetime searching for the Holy Grail. It was supposedly a chalice that held Jesus' blood and it was supposed to have the power to heal all wounds. The Knights of the Round Table themselves have taken on a romantic glow partly because of this. Today, we don't have a Holy Grail but we do have stem cell research which might end up with the same powers.

Another mystical object is the Philosopher's Stone. During the Middle Ages, alchemists either searched for it or claimed to have found it. It was supposed to be able to able to transmute base metals, such as lead, into precious metals like gold. Today we have nuclear fission and LENR which may very well be able to transmute elements but we aren't quite there yet.

Consider the aforementioned Lost Ark of the Covenant. It was supposed to imbue the possessors of great power, the power to vanquish their enemies. Today we have drones and nuclear weapons. Not quite as mystical but powerful in their own right. And the list goes on and on. There is the remains of Noah's Ark, the Shroud of Turin, the Spear of Destiny. All are romantic, never proven to truly exist yet everyone knows what they are.

What I wanted to do is enumerate a modern day myth that may or may not come to fruition in the near future. That is the concept of Zero Point Energy. This is energy that comes from nowhere. The caveat is that it comes from nowhere apparent. I submit that nuclear fusion and the thermonuclear bomb demonstrate energy that appears to come from nowhere but the science behind them is impeccable.

Even in the 35th century world of Rome's Revolution, I postulate that the Vuduri use zero point energy to create limitless, free energy and get to travel much faster than the speed of light by exploiting the well-documented Casimir Effect. It makes for a great story.

Tomorrow I will discuss the state of cold fusion, hydronium atoms, hydrosonic cavitation pumps and other methods of extracting energy out of thin air. Researching these things takes you down a deep rabbit hole as you go farther and farther afield. I'll try and focus on items that appear to actually have some basis in science.

Where it isn't

In the middle section of The Ark Lords, after Rome and Rei recovered the useless communication beacon placed within the Perepelkin Crater on the far side of the Moon, MINIMCOM transported back to its original spot once they determined it had been rendered useless. As predicted (and necessitated by a plot twist later in the book), the probe disintegrated, leaving, as Rei called it, "just a small pile of space junk."

But now they were in a quandary. The probe could not reveal the location of the store of the Darwin Virus Strain 5. Our heroes would have to use their deductive powers to figure out where the virus was stored. Rei couldn't figure out where it was but he thought he might be able to figure out where it wasn't:

     Rome turned to Rei. “I am drawing a blank. You know your people better than I do. Do you have you any thoughts or guesses as to where they stored the virus?”
     Rei shrugged. “I have no idea where they put it but I can tell you where they didn’t.”
     “What do you mean?”
     “Well, they were heinous individuals but they weren’t stupid. They would store it someplace that was not readily accessible. Like underground as opposed to in the trees somewhere.”
     “Trees?” Rome asked, confused.
     “Naw,” Rei said. “And they’d have to store it someplace that was geologically stable. No way they’d store it someplace just to have some earthquake knock it loose. And away from the ocean, away from hurricanes. Plus it would have to be fortified. You wouldn’t want somebody stumbling across it, not knowing what it was. So I’m guessing it’s in a bunker somewhere, pretty deep underground, somewhere in the middle of the country. They were Americans so they wouldn’t store it in Mexico or Canada or Europe.”
     “That does not seem to narrow it down all that much,” Rome said.
     “I know,” Rei replied. “But it’s all we’ve got to work with right now.”
     Rome cocked her head. “Maybe not,” she said.
     “What?”
     “We know that these Darwin people successfully placed the probe on the Moon.” Rome pointed out the windshield. “In the ensuing 14 centuries, a meteorite came down and destroyed it. There’s no way to know exactly when. It might have been the day after it landed or it might have been last week.”
     Rei turned to her. “What’s your point?”
     “If we play the odds and guess that it happened later rather than sooner, then it’s possible that the Erklirte picked up the coordinates of the storage vessel before the probe was destroyed. Even if that were not true, it is obvious that your Captain and his people were briefed on Virus 5. They may have been informed of the virus’ location before they left on their mission. I would assume the Erklirte received similar instructions.” Rome pointed to the pile of space debris that had been the probe. “They may not have even needed the probe. When they got to the Earth, perhaps, eventually they might have tried to retrieve the virus containment vessel. Their actions may give us a clue as to where it’s stored.”

Ah, don't you love it? This line of thinking opens up a whole new avenue of research. On Earth. Unfortunately, Rome and Rei were banished from the planet at the end of Rome's Revolution. They would have to think of a clever way to retrieve the information they required.

Trump and Musk 2

Yesterday, I laid out the case that the appointment of Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA under the Trump administration was going to be a complete disaster for the environment and the world. But then I showed you that Mr. Trump also inducted Elon Musk into his council of advisors. Mr. Musk has the complete opposite view point on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Shockingly, there are two other members of Trump's inner circle who may be our best advocates yet acknowledging climate change. To me, their names are completely counter-intuitive yet if they are true to their word, they will be staunchly in the climate change camp.

The first is Ivanka Trump, daughter of the President-elect. I read that she is going to make climate change her signature issue during Trump's turn. How is this possible? The President's own daughter claiming climate change is real and is going to advocate strong measures to reverse the tide? And this when her own father believes climate change is a bunch of bunk? I remain hopeful yet skeptical. Or am I skeptical yet hopeful? I don't know.

Second, there is Rex Tillerson, currently CEO of Exxon-Mobil as Trump's candidate for Secretary of State. Up until Tillerson took the helm, Exxon-Mobil had steadfastly denied climate change. They make gasoline for heaven's sake. But when Tillerson took over, he reversed the company's position 180 degrees. He stated "there was no question that human activity was changing the environment". He further went on to state that “the appropriate debate isn’t on whether climate is changing, but rather should be on what we should be doing about it,” through his then-spokesman Kenneth Cohen.

So while Mr. Tillerson is an entrenched proponent of Big Oil, it would appear that he, too, acknowledges that humans are changing the climate and not for the better. And he is going to be Secretary of State. I am so conflicted on this but if he supports changing our energy habits from burning fossil fuel to utilizing renewable sources, how can I complain?

I don't know what to make of all of this but I can say the dynamic is mind-blowing. Pruitt and his team versus Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump along with Mr. Tillerson. It should be fascinating.