Frank Walls, "Alter NASA mission to search for energy," The Arizona Republic, 7 Dec. 1998, p. B4.
Dear Editor, The Arizona Republic
In a recent contribution to "My Turn," Frank Walls suggests that NASA be turned into National Alternative Energy Research Administration. One of the missions of the current Department of Energy is to find, foster, and promote sources for new energy. DOE has funded hot fusion (about $20 billion) and funded solar, wind, tide, geothermal, and biomass alternative energy products by spending billions more dollars. The results have been essentially zero, as far as providing low-cost, alternative energy. Why would any living and literate person expect that a renamed NASA could do any better?
Almost no scientific breakthroughs are produced from government laboratories. It is the individual or small private groups that foster new technologies. Readers of The Arizona Republic may be interested to know that two such alternative-energy groups are now commercializing new-energy discoveries.
Example 1: The 1989 invention by Dr. Randell Mills is now being commercialized (defined as a company having developed its technology to the stage of providing engineering prototypes to licensees). Dr. Mills' invention obtains energy from catalyzing the hydrogen atom below its normal ground state. This process is accomplished in a hot gaseous environment and the photons of energy, in the collapsing of the hydrogen atoms, provide copious amounts of thermal energy. This is a revolutionary new form of chemical energy. After this process was discovered on earth, it was found to be a part of the sun's energy. For more information, see the following web site: http://www.blacklightpower.com.
Example 2: Kenneth Shoulders was issued a patent on May 21, 1991 as U.S. Patent 5,018,180. This technology produces both thermal energy and direct electrical energy. The ratio of the output to input energy ranges from 10 to 100. The source of the energy, according to the patent: "...In any event, energy is provided to the traveling wave output conductor, and the ultimate source of this energy appears to be the zero-point radiation of the vacuum continuum." This is the first patent (known to me) to describe the source of energy as coming from the energy that fills all space. In other words, this is the first technology to tap the vast energy available anywhere on earth or in space. Now that is something that NASA needs.
