Developing Power Systems to Power The World

Laser Power Systems Developing Cutting Edge Energy Technology

Scientists have long been aware that the earth is immersed in an extremely dense sea of energy, which permeates every nook and cranny of the universe. It is only recently that it was realized that this huge reservoir could be an available source of usable energy. With some notable exceptions, we have been, like fish, unaware of the ocean.

Solid State Devices and Zero Point Energy

Science employs a variety of names to describe this new field: space energy, vacuum energy, dark energy, the quantum vacuum, and Zero Point Energy. Until about twenty years ago, scientists did not consider it possible to tap for practical use. Mathematics had suggested that great quantities of energy while theoretically present could not be released in meaningful amounts.

Nicola Tesla, the genius who gave birth to alternating current, said in a talk to electrical engineers in 1891: "Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point in the universe. …Throughout space there is energy.”

The Hughes Aircraft Corporation published a seminal paper in Physical Review, in 1984, suggesting that Zero Point Energy could be tapped for the direct generation of electricity. Two years later the United States Air Force sought proposals for the utilization of Zero Point Energy for power and propulsion in a Small Business Innovation Research solicitation. Since that time other physicists have published papers suggesting that there is nothing to preclude the conversion of ZPE as a source of energy for power and propulsion.

Aviation Week and Space Technology, in the March 1st, 2004 issue, published an article headlined: “Aviation Giants Eye Zero Point Energy”. The following line reads: “Zero Point Energy emerges from the realm of science fiction, may be key to deep space travel”. The article goes on to suggest that “Zero Point Energy power plants might result in Mach 4 fighters, quiet 1,200 seat hypersonic airliners that fly at 100 mile altitudes as far as 12,000 miles in about 70 minutes, and 12.6 hour trips to the Moon”. The article reports that at least two major aerospace firms, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, are studying Zero Point Energy.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has obtained U.S. Patents entitled: “Method for Energy Extraction”. States: “Zero Point Energy is expected to exhibit infinite density and to be universally present, and might therefore be a limitless source of energy.” Firm seeks to convert Zero Point Energy by means of the Casimir Force, a physical manifestation of Zero Point Energy discovered in 1947. Lucent’s Bell laboratories announced, in 2001, that it successfully harnessed the Casimir Force to operate a miniature teeter-totter useful in advanced computer chips.

Zero Point Energy can also be extracted magnetically. Nobel physicist Werner Heisenberg is quoted as stating that we “could utilize magnetism as an energy source”. Hans Coler, a German inventor supported by Hitler’s Navy, according to a long since declassified British Intelligence Report that has been posted on the web, succeeded in building a working 6 kilowatt, solid-state, magnetic "space energy receiver”. This remarkable generator was destroyed by an Allied bomb in 1945. At the time, there was no comprehension as to the source of the energy. Coler wrote: “These fundamental researches…have made the first real and large breach in the citadel of present scientific belief.”

Prototype Zero Point Energy extraction devices have been constructed in numerous laboratories, throughout the world, during the past two decades, but to date no ones has developed a feasible practical design. Therefore conventional wisdom suggests we will be dependent on oil, gas, coal and nuclear power for the foreseeable future. Alternative energy is thought to be limited to solar, wind, fuel-cells and biofuels.

Unlike these claims being making this technology is not pulling energy “Out of Thin Air”

LPS is developing a revolutionary family of energy conversion technologies that operates by using known and proven physics which convert matter to energy from materials that are non-polluting. Understanding these principles LPS is opening the way to power and propulsion systems that will turn around Global Warming, and opens a path to cost competitive electric power, automotive, and later aerospace propulsion.

At the present rate of progress, Laser Power  Systems, LLC could have a 10 kW Power system,  anticipated to generate electricity for less than one cent per kilowatt-hour, ready for sale by strategic partners next year.  "Nothing else would come close," says Dr. Charles Stevens. LPS has a number of designs under development, and has built a few working prototypes including rotating as well as solid state, no-moving-parts devices. Ten kilowatts would power 100, 100-Watt bulbs, for example.  Homes can operate on between 5 and 15 kW.

The Laser Power Units mentioned are not one particular modality, but refer to any one of a number of various methods being developed by LPS, from small, solid state versions, up to hundred-megawatt devices -- all of which use some of the same general principles.

In the near-term, LPS is focusing on pre-production prototypes demonstration devices, of 10 kW generator size.  LPS expects that these will be manufactured by strategic partners under license next year. Early application would be portable or emergency generators which would provide enough power for homes and small business.

In their early production runs, LPS expect to be able to successfully build most of the unit form off the shelf hardware, in large measure because of the added efficiency gained from not needing to tool up, not to mention the cost of machining new molds and parts. In fact, adapting existing parts as one of the best attributes of the technology, both because it enables a more rapid deployment, and because of the efficiencies represented in using what is already available.

Plugging Your House into Your Car

When a generator unit ready for use in a car, LPS would like to see U.S. auto manufacturers get with the clean-energy program so they too could benefit from these advances.  Later, optimized designs will begin to replace engines in every variety of vehicles. The world can then truly start to end its dependence on fossil fuels.

One interesting twist with this arrangement, rather than having to plug your car in at night while it is not being driven, the car could provide continuous power to the home from the LPS generator, or could be plugged in to the power grid earning money for the owner.
LPS envisions a time not too long from now when parking garages will advertise, "We pay you," as they try to woo you into their facility to let your car provide power to the utility grid, and pay you.