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Tuesday, April 16, 2024

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Tuesday, April 16, 2024
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$4m ‘superwire’ could blow offshore wind energy market wide open

Tina Casey
3
Researchers at the University of Houston have just won a new round of funding for a $4 million wind power project that is on track to solve a key wind energy transportation conundrum: how to use superconducting wire without running afoul of the magnetic field generated by wind turbines. The new grant of $900,000 from the Department of Energy comes on top of two earlier DOE grants totaling $3.1 million. If the project is a success, it will lead to the commercial production of low-cost superconducting wire for wind turbine generators, and that will open up the field for low-cost wind power, especially offshore wind turbines.Superconductors and Magnetic FieldsWire made of superconducting material can transport an electrical current with virtually no resistance, so it is far more efficient than conventional copper wire.

That would seem to make superconducting wire an ideal material for wind turbine generators, but the problem is that wind turbines kick up a magnetic field.

The field creates “flux lines” in the superconducting wires, resulting in significantly lower performance.

The University of Houston team, led by mechanical engineering professor Venkat “Selva” Selvamanickam, has the goal of developing a high-temperature superconducting wire that can achieve significant gains in efficiency despite the magnetic field, and compete with copper wire on cost.

The result will be a powerful but lightweight, low-maintenance, high-efficiency generator with a power rating of 10 megawatts or more, which would be ideal for use in offshore wind turbines.

On Track for Low Cost Wind Power

So far, the three-year project has far outpaced expectations. The end goal is to achieve a 400% performance improvement in superconducting wire, with an interim goal of 50% by the end of 2012.

The team beat the interim goal by a wide margin, achieving a 65% gain by the end of September.

The pace of progress was apparently so promising that ARPA-E, the advanced energy research agency that administers the grant, accelerated the grant disbursement ahead of schedule.

That doesn’t exactly bode well for foes of wind power, who have been lobbying Congress to hold off on extending a key tax credit for wind power. Though the lack of an extension will put a severe crimp in local wind power projects, it might not have so great an effect on massively scaled, high-efficiency offshore projects developed with the help of advanced superconducting technology.

We Built This!

The University of Houston project is yet another example of public funding for beneficial technology that makes the leap from laboratory to general use through a collaboration with private sector partners.

For this project, UH has partnered with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the companies SuperPower Inc. (UH’s Selva is also Chief Technology Advisor for SuperPower), Tai-Yang Research, and TECO-Westinghouse Motor Company.

Aside from leading to high-volume, low-cost wind power, the new superconducting wire could also be used to develop or improve other electromagnetic devices, such as the superconducting magnet energy storage system project already under way through another Department of Energy grant.

This article was originally published on CleanTechnica. Reproduced with permission.

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3 responses to “$4m ‘superwire’ could blow offshore wind energy market wide open”

  1. Mark Goldes Avatar
    Mark Goldes

    Ultraconductors are polymer equivalents of room temperature superconductors.

    They have been the subject of several government contracts and almost 1,000 samples were made for the USAF by a second,independent, company.

    Presently fabricated only in thin films, wire is on the horizon.

    See Cheap Green on the Aesop Institute website or go to http://www.chavaenergy.com to learn more.

  2. Kelfin Planck Avatar
    Kelfin Planck

    Mark Goldes’ “Aesop Institute” is simply an elaborate fraud.

    Mark Goldes, starting in the mid-seventies, engaged for several years in the pretense that his company SunWind Ltd was developing a nearly production-ready, road-worthy, wind-powered “windmobile,” based on the windmobile invented by James Amick; and that therefore SunWind would be a wonderful investment opportunity.

    After SunWind “dried up” in 1983, Goldes embarked on the long-running pretense that his company Room Temperature Superconductors Inc was developing room-temperature superconductors; and that therefore Room Temperature Superconductors Inc would be a wonderful investment opportunity. He continues the pretense that the company developed something useful, even to this day.

    And then Goldes embarked on the pretense that his company Magnetic Power Inc was developing “NO FUEL ENGINES” based on “Virtual Photon Flux;” and then, on the pretense that MPI was developing horn-powered “NO FUEL ENGINES” based on the resonance of magnetized tuning-rods; and then, on the pretense that his company Chava LLC (aka “Chava Energy”) was developing water-fueled engines based on “collapsing hydrogen orbits” (which are ruled out by quantum physics); and then, on the pretense that he was developing strictly-ambient-heat-powered “NO FUEL ENGINES” (which are ruled out by the Second Law of Thermodynamics).

    But of course, the laws of physics always make an exception for the make-believe pretenses of Mark Goldes.

    Goldes’ forty-year career of “revolutionary breakthrough” pretense has nothing to do with science, but only with pseudoscience, pseudophysics, and relentless flimflam, in pursuit of loans and donations from gullible people who never mastered physics very well.

    Mark Goldes’ “Aesop Institute” has engaged for many years in the very dishonest and unscrupulous practice of soliciting loans and donations under an endless series of false pretenses, that it is developing and even “prototyping” various “revolutionary breakthroughs,” such as “NO FUEL ENGINES” that run on ambient heat alone – or run on “Virtual Photon Flux” – or on “Collapsing Hydrogen Orbits” – or even on the acoustic energy of sound from a horn.

    Aesop Institute’s make-believe strictly ambient heat engine is ruled out by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This has been understood by physicists for at least 180 years. There is no “new science” that has ever determined such an engine to be possible.

    Aesop Institute’s make-believe “Virtual Photon Flux” engine is based on the idea that accessible electric power “is everywhere present in unlimited quantities” – which we know to be false.

    Aesop Institute’s make-believe “Collapsing Hydrogen Orbits” engine is based on Randell Mills’ theory of “hydrino” hydrogen, which every scientist knows to be false.

    Aesop Institute’s make-believe horn-powered engine is based on the pretense that a magnetized tuning rod could somehow “multiply energy” – a ludicrous notion, which is obviously ruled out by the law of conservation of energy.

    Aesop Institute’s very latest make-believe engine is a perpetual motion machine in the form of a self-powered air compressor, which proposes to use a turbine to compress air to spin the turbine to compress air to spin the turbine.

    Aesop Institute has never offered the slightest shadow of evidence that it is actually developing or “prototyping” any of these make-believe physics-defying “revolutionary breakthroughs.” All it has ever offered are mere declarations that it is doing so – unsupported by any proof whatever, of any kind whatever.

    There are no “revolutionary breakthroughs” to be found on Goldes’ fraudulent “Aesop Institute” website. There is only pseudoscience, relentless flimflam, and empty claims of engines that are ruled out by the laws of physics.

    http://physicsreviewboard.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/perpetual-flimflam-machine-mark-goldes-fraudulent-aesop-institute/

  3. WillliamJohnsonn Avatar
    WillliamJohnsonn

    After founding Magnetic Power Inc in the mid-eighties, Mark Goldes and MPI proceeded to develop most of the fraudcraftings which would serve as Goldes’ offerings in fraudcraft for the next thirty years, not only at MPI, but also at Chava Energy LLC, and at his so-called “Aesop Institute.” Goldes’ partnership with Hagen Ruff, the other Co-founder (as well as CEO) of Chava Energy LLC, gave the Goldes-MPI fraudcraft a new lease on life, and accordingly it may now be termed most properly the “Goldes-Ruff Fraudcraft.” For the past five years or more, while serving as a Co-founder and a Chief Officer of Chava Energy LLC, Goldes used his mgoldes @ chavaenergy dot com email address as his Aesop Institute email address as well, at least until his very recent ejection from Chava Energy. In practice, Goldes made continual use of Aesop Institute to bring investors to Chava Energy, which for five years has based its pretenses on nearly all the same fraudcraft used by Goldes at Aesop Institute. The common fraudcraft included the fraudcraftings of pretended development of water-fueled “Fractional Hydrogen” engines, of generators supposedly powered by Zero Point Energy, of “Ultraconductor” wire and “Ultraconductor” energy storage systems, and of strictly ambient heat engines – along with endless false claims that these concepts were currently being “prototyped,” and would soon provide wonderful alternatives to fossil fuels.

    For five years, Hagen Ruff allowed Mark Goldes, a Co-founder as well as a Chief Officer of Chava Energy, not only to use his mgoldes @ chavaenergy dot com email address to solicit loans to Goldes’ so-called “Aesop Institute,” but simultaneously to solicit loans to Aesop Institute and investments in Chava Energy in the course of discussions and communications with prospects who had reached Goldes by way of aesopinstitute. In effect, Ruff allowed Aesop Institute to become a fund-raising extension of Chava Energy. Starting in 2009, if not before, Goldes posted thousands of fraudulent comments advertising the aesopinstitute website and promoting the Goldes-Ruff fraudcraftings on dozens of different websites. On Huffington Post alone, as the user “Overtone,” he posted over three thousand such comments. When people contacted Goldes after visiting the aesopinstitute website, they would learn from Goldes not only about Aesop Institute but also about Chava Energy, and Goldes would solicit loans to Aesop Institute or investment in Chava Energy, whichever the prospect preferred, at the same time. This was his standard practice for years. By allowing this entangling of Aesop Institute with Chava Energy LLC, Ruff has incurred responsibility not only for the false and fraudulent pretenses of Chava Energy, but for those of Mark Goldes’ “Aesop Institute” as well. For this reason, although neither the Kenneth Rauen strictly ambient heat engine pretense nor the Boris Kondrashov self-powered turbine pretense have been directly used or presented by Chava Energy, as they have by Aesop Institute, they still deserve full recognition within the ensemble of Goldes-Ruff fraudcraftings.

    For five years since it was founded, Chava Energy LLC tried to promote itself chiefly by means of false and fraudulent claims and pretenses, that it was developing “revolutionary energy breakthroughs,” including “Fractional Hydrogen” engines utilizing nonexistent states of hydrogen, magical Ambient Temperature Thermionic Converters, and magnetic generators supposedly harnessing Zero Point Energy.

    An “MPI Overview And Summary” produced by MPI in late 2008 actually lists Hagen Ruff as the Chief Executive Officer of MPI, as well as a Director of MPI; Mark Goldes, who had been the CEO of MPI for two decades, is listed only as Chairman. This document also shows that a major component 0f the Goldes-Ruff Fraudcraft was already well developed in 2008: namely, the fraudulent pretense that the worthless “revolutionary breakthroughs” claimed by Goldes and Ruff could provide alternatives to fossil fuels and thereby shift the global economy “from one dependent on fossil fuels to one that exists on clean, fuel-free, distributed power” and thereby “help offset the consequences of global warming.” At the time when Hagen Ruff, as CEO of MPI, allowed this and many similar statements to be included in the 2008 “MPI Overview,” MPI was claiming among its “breakthroughs” all but one of the seven fraudcraftings – all but Kondrashov’s self-powered air compressor, which
    Goldes discovered in 2013. Ruff and Goldes knew perfectly well that not one of MPI’s six claimed “breakthroughs” represented anything more than an empty pretense.

    If Chava Energy’s claims regarding their pretended Revolutionary Breakthrough development of “Fractional Hydrogen” “SPICE” engines, Ambient Temperature Thermionic Converters, “Ultraconductor” wire, “Ultraconductor Energy Storage Systems,” and Zero Point Energy harvesting “MagGen” generators were not false and fraudulent, why did Hagen Ruff suddenly remove those claims from Chava’s website?

    In fact, all of those fraudulent claims came originally from the very same source: Chava Energy Co-founder and Chief Market Research Officer Mark Goldes, and Goldes’ previous company, Magnetic Power Inc.

    We do find and state that Hagen Ruff’s Chava Energy LLC has made a great many utterly false and fraudulent claims and statements, showing very unscrupulous dishonesty, on the matters of “Fractional Hydrogen” engines, Ambient Temperature Thermionic Converters, and “MagGen” generators that supposedly harness Zero Point Energy. Chava Energy’s claims and statements regarding “Ultraconductor” wire and “Ultraconductor Energy Storage Systems” were also false and dishonest in various ways.

    The relentless and pervasive dishonesty, fraudulence, and unscrupulousness, that characterized Mark Goldes’ use of his company Magnetic Power Inc for over twenty years prior to the founding of Chava Energy LLC, has also characterized Mark Goldes’ and Hagen Ruff’s use of Chava Energy LLC and Aesop Institute since 2009.

    If there had ever been any chance at all that Chava Energy LLC could be transformed into an honest and honorable company despite its five-year specialization in fraudcraft, that chance was wiped out by Hagen Ruff’s most recent communications, in which he embarked on some brand new pretenses, no less ludicrous than his fraudcraft of “Fractional Hydrogen.” He now wants to pretend that his very active Co-founder, Mark Goldes, the very same person who has been his Chief Liar for five years, was actually never a part of Chava Energy, at all! And he also now wants to pretend that none of Chava Energy’s fraudcraftings came from Mark Goldes or MPI – even though, in fact, they all did – every one of them.

    http://physicsinspector.wordpress.com/category/goldes-ruff-fraudcraft/

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