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Global Warming Alert * Stirling-Waste-Electricity * Bio-Fuels

08 July 2003




1) Global Warming Alert
2) Stirling Engine for Waste Heat Power Systems
3) "The Apollo Project" 10-point plan for energy independence
4) Process for New Sustainable Fuel Resources



Editor's Notes:

This issue of Flyby News is dedicated to sustainable energy resource solutions, and not a moment too soon. Item 1 begins with an astonishing admission by the World Meteorological Organisation. The weather is going haywire, and continued severe climate changes seem inevitable. As reported previously, besides publishing this news service, I am a founder of Stirling Advantage, Inc., a company that has designed a 200kW+ Stirling Engine to convert heat to electricity. Item 2 is on the patent issued for our design to convert waste and other heat sources for onsite commercial-industrial electric power generation. Item 3 is on a new initiative to help get government more behind sustainable and clean energy. Item 4 is a press release on a new project to process waste to fuels. There are a lot of heavy-hitters behind this project. James Woolsey, former Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, is a senior advisor to Changing World Technologies, Inc. They are funded in part by US government grants and a joint venture with ConAgra. Inc..Howard Buffett, who represents ConAgra's investment said, "We've got a lot of confidence in this… We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't anticipate success.." This is just one more example how innovative technological solutions can reduce pollution, and encourage the use of sustainable resources with economic and environmental benefits. Having these heavy hitters is not bad when the results will lessen CO2 output.

Please note a correction from last editor's notes. (Thanks for feedback from subscribers.) ‘Michael Ruppert was NOT ex-CIA.. Back when he was an L.A. cop, he was asked to work for the CIA but instead of joining up he discovered direct CIA involvement in the heroin trade and ended up dedicating himself to exposing such things. Somewhere on his web site is an article detailing those events.' I also learned that Ruppert's source with Mike Vreeland proved untrue, I will research this more, and a claim that he was unsupportive of sustainable energy programs, like The Apollo Project, perhaps over-relying on his focus on "peak oil." Perhaps it is too late to change the course of events threatening human and most all life-species now on Earth, but trying to make a difference is living a life with integrity and possibilities, which is a much better choice than going down the tube of indifference, denial, and ignorance.

Please note, the article by Malachi Roth in prior issue of Flyby News on why Dennis Kucinich will win, has been revised.

On the July 17 presentation of "What I've Learned About US Foreign Policy" Flyby News will also include the showing of a new film by Malachi Roth: "The Peace Candidate," which includes speeches by Dennis Kucinich, interviews with supporters, and clips of recent peace demonstrations. To order this film, you can contact Malachi by email at: malachiroth@mindspring.com

For more information on films and resources regarding Dennis Kucinich, visit
Flyby News updated resources on Kucinich for US President in 2004



1) Global Warming Alert

Reaping The Whirlwind

Extreme Weather Prompts Unprecedented Global Warming Alert

July 3, 2003

In an astonishing announcement on global warming and extreme weather, the World Meteorological Organisation signaled last night that the world's weather is going haywire.

In a startling report, the WMO, which normally produces detailed scientific reports and staid statistics at the year's end, highlighted record extremes in weather and climate occurring all over the world in recent weeks, from Switzerland's hottest-ever June to a record month for tornadoes in the United States - and linked them to climate change.

The unprecedented warning takes its force and significance from the fact that it is not coming from Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, but from an impeccably respected UN organisation that is not given to hyperbole (though environmentalists will seize on it to claim that the direst warnings of climate change are being borne out).

The Geneva-based body, to which the weather services of 185 countries contribute, takes the view that events this year in Europe, America and Asia are so remarkable that the world needs to be made aware of it immediately.

The extreme weather it documents, such as record high and low temperatures, record rainfall and record storms in different parts of the world, is consistent with predictions of global warming. Supercomputer models show that, as the atmosphere warms, the climate not only becomes hotter but much more unstable. "Recent scientific assessments indicate that, as the global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the number and intensity of extreme events might increase," the WMO said, giving a striking series of examples.

  • In southern France, record temperatures were recorded in June, rising above 40C in places - temperatures of 5C to 7C above the average.


  • In Switzerland, it was the hottest June in at least 250 years, environmental historians said. In Geneva, since 29 May, daytime temperatures have not fallen below 25C, making it the hottest June recorded.


  • In the United States, there were 562 May tornadoes, which caused 41 deaths. This set a record for any month. The previous record was 399 in June 1992.


  • In India, this year's pre-monsoon heatwave brought peak temperatures of 45C - 2C to 5C above the norm. At least 1,400 people died in India due to the hot weather. In Sri Lanka, heavy rainfall from Tropical Cyclone 01B exacerbated wet conditions, resulting in flooding and landslides and killing at least 300 people. The infrastructure and economy of south-west Sri Lanka was heavily damaged. A reduction of 20-30 per cent is expected in the output of low-grown tea in the next three months.


  • Last month was also the hottest in England and Wales since 1976, with average temperatures of 16C. The WMO said: "These record extreme events (high temperatures, low temperatures and high rainfall amounts and droughts) all go into calculating the monthly and annual averages, which, for temperatures, have been gradually increasing over the past 100 years.


  • "New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe, but in recent years the number of such extremes have been increasing.

    "According to recent climate-change scientific assessment reports of the joint WMO/United Nations Environmental Programme Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global average surface temperature has increased since 1861. Over the 20th century the increase has been around 0.6C.

    "New analyses of proxy data for the northern hemisphere indicate that the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest in any century during the past 1,000 years."

    While the trend towards warmer temperatures has been uneven over the past century, the trend since 1976 is roughly three times that for the whole period.

    Global average land and sea surface temperatures in May 2003 were the second highest since records began in 1880. Considering land temperatures only, last May was the warmest on record.

    It is possible that 2003 will be the hottest year ever recorded. The 10 hottest years in the 143-year-old global temperature record have now all been since 1990, with the three hottest being 1998, 2002 and 2001.

    The unstable world of climate change has long been a prediction. Now, the WMO says, it is a reality.

    Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=421166

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    Other related websites and resources:

    http://Global-Warming.net / http://GreenhouseEffect.net

    http://Acid-Rain.net / http://Extinct.net

    A July 2003 Commentary in the Guardian (London) by George Monbiot, called: "Shadow of extinction"
    States: "Only six degrees separate our world from the cataclysmic end of an ancient era." Monbiot's commentary concludes:

    "..Suddenly, the events of a quarter of a billion years ago begin to look very topical indeed. One of the possible endings of the human story has already been told. Our principal political effort must now be to ensure that it does not become set in stone."

    For the complete article, with links and resources, see:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,988380,00.html

    George Monbiot's book The Age of Consent: a Manifesto for a New World Order is published by Flamingo.
    Monbiot's website is: http://www.monbiot.com

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    Flyby News archives has excellent resources on
    The Mounting Evidence of Global Warming!!!



    2) Stirling Engine for Waste Heat Power Systems


    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    Stirling Advantage Announces Patent for Waste Heat Power System


    ATHOL, Mass. – June 12, 2003. Stirling Advantage, Inc., today announced the award of its first U.S. patent (6,568,169) covering large scale engines to convert waste industrial heat to electricity. The new design utilizes a fluidic piston to reduce unswept gas volumes, or "dead space", in the engine's cold-side heat exchanger. Dead space—technically, compressed gas inside the engine whose energy potential is unusable—saps Stirling engines of potential efficiency, and represents one of the classic problems in Stirling engine design.

    The company's patented method is a novel approach to the problem that holds the promise of both increased efficiency and lower operating costs. "Reducing dead space improves the volumetric efficiency of the engine and should lead to better fuel utilization," notes Stirling Advantage CEO, Ricardo Conde. "And fluid pistons offer other advantages, like reduced friction and better sealing properties, which lower operating costs."

    Fluidic pistons have been used in other Stirling engines but not for the specific purpose of reducing unswept volumes. "To use lower temperature waste heat effectively, we needed to take the technology further," says Conde. "Our challenge has been not only better efficiency, but also delivering it at industrial scale. We think we have done both with this design."

    Last year Stirling Advantage announced a new engine designed exclusively to convert waste industrial heat to electricity. Industries using very high temperature process heat—glass, ceramics, cement, metals, petrochemicals—waste massive amounts of heat that remain after the processes are completed. In addition to improving industrial fuel efficiency, the added electricity will require no new fuel to be burned and, thus, will create no incremental emissions. Applied globally this technology can play a significant role in cutting the growth of fossil fuel use and the associated greenhouse gas emissions.

    Stirling Advantage, Inc., is the leading designer of commercial and industrial scale Stirling engines. Its highly efficient 200kW and, later, 1MW engines will be used to produce electricity from a variety of heat and fuel sources, and to produce chilled water for large air conditioning applications.

    SOURCE: Stirling Advantage, Inc.

    CONTACT: Dick Meloy, Vice President, Stirling Advantage, Inc., 203-328-3045

    ###

    Ricardo Conde will be presenting a workshop at SolarFest in Poultney Vermont, at noon, Sunday, 14 July. The workshop is describe the development of a Stirling engine to convert waste heat and/or sustainable fuels into efficient and cost-effective commercial/industrial onsite electrical power generation. Stirling engines were prominently used in the 19th Century, and still in use today.

    For more information, visit www.stirlingadvantage.com
    or from FlybyNews.com or following link, see: "Stirling Solution for Onsite Electrical Power Generation"



    3) "The Apollo Project" 10-point plan for energy independence

    New Plan for Government Investment in Renewable Energy and
    Energy Efficiency Cuts Persian Gulf Oil Imports in Half.

    "The Apollo Project" is a 10-point plan for energy independence proposed by
    A HISTORIC COALITION of labor unions, environmentalists, and peace
    advocates. If adopted by our government it would:

    * Create three million jobs
    * Protect the environment
    * Improve public health
    * Cost $30 billion/year for 10 years (7% of the Pentagon budget)

    To send a message to all the PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES urging them to support this plan, link to this following URL:
    http://www.truemajority.org/ctt.asp?u=98401&l=42

    For more info on "The Apollo Project," see:
    http://www.apolloalliance.org



    4) Process for New Sustainable Fuel Resources

    Press Release from Changing World Technologies, Inc

    West Hempstead, NY, April 8, 2003 – Changing World Technologies, Inc. announces the first commercially successful application of thermal technology to convert organic waste into clean energy. Building on scientific research dating to the 1920s and human history extending from the Stone Age, CWT has patented, tested and deployed a technological process that has been awarded $12 million in grants from the US government and produced a joint venture with ConAgra Foods, Inc.

    Utilizing low-value waste by-products such as tires, plastics, municipal sewage sludge, paper, animal and agricultural refuse as feedstocks, CWT's thermal technology provides a commercially viable solution for some of the earth's gravest environmental challenges, including arresting global warming by reducing the use of fossil fuels, and reforming organic waste into a high-value resource. In addition, it has the potential to substantially reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

    "If the process works as well as its creators claim, not only would most toxic waste problems become history, so would imported oil," says Discover magazine, which features a full-length article on CWT's thermal process in the May 2003 issue.

    "From the point of view of pollution and the point of view of energy production, this is a remarkable story. This technology offers all of us an opportunity someday to have a more peaceful and a freer world, a world that is not dependent on turbulence and chaos," said R. James Woolsey, former Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency and a senior advisor to CWT.

    Cornerstone Technology
    Where earlier attempts at thermal conversion failed, CWT's thermal process succeeds in breaking down long chains of organic polymers into their smallest units and reforming them into new combinations to produce clean solid, liquid and gaseous alternative fuels and specialty chemicals.

    The conversion process emulates the earth's natural geothermal activity, whereby organic material is converted into fossil fuel under conditions of extreme heat and pressure over millions of years. The cornerstone technology, called Thermal Depolymerization Process or TDP, mimics the earth's system by using pipes and controlling temperature and pressure to reduce the bio-remediation process from millions of years to mere hours.

    The process entails five steps:
  • (1) Pulping and slurrying the organic feed with water.

  • (2) Heating the slurry under pressure to the desired temperature.

  • (3) Flashing the slurry to a lower pressure to separate the mixture.

  • (4) Heating the slurry again (coking) to drive off water and produce light hydrocarbons.

  • (5) Separating the end products.


  • TDP is 85% energy efficient. The process has very low Btu requirements, due to the short residence times of materials at each stage and to the holding of water under pressure. In addition, it generates its own energy, utilizes recycled water throughout, and uses the steam naturally created by the process to heat incoming feedstock, thereby recapturing expended energy. In addition, TDP produces no uncontrollable emissions and no secondary hazardous waste streams.

    "This is not an incremental change. This is a big, new step," said Alf Andreassen, a principal of Paladin Capital Group and former Technical Advisor for Naval Warfare and Science Advisor to President George Bush. "In Europe, there are mountains of bones piling up" due to new regulations for handling bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, he says. "When recycling waste into feed stops in this country, it will change everything."

    Plant Commercialization
    To test and refine the technology, CWT established a Research & Development plant at the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) Naval Yard in partnership with the Gas Research Institute, which opened in December 1999. There the company successfully applied its thermal conversion process to a range of feedstocks, including animal waste, tires, mixed plastics and paper.

    "This project and the work that Changing World Technologies is doing in Philadelphia will revolutionize the way we deal with waste products on a broad commercial scale, the production of energy, and the reduction or elimination of waste by-products which enhances economic development… improving air quality, our quality of life as well as our environment," says Denise Chamberlain, former Deputy Secretary for Air, Recycling & Radiation Protection for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

    "The Environmental Protection Agency doesn't even consider us waste handlers. We are permitted as manufacturers. Our process has undergone the scrutiny of an Environmental Assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and received a Finding of No Significant Impact, or FONSI," said Brian Appel, CWT Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "This process changes the whole industrial equation. Waste goes from a cost to a profit."

    ConAgra Foods was one of the first enterprises to express early interest in the commercial application of CWT's thermal process. A joint venture between the companies was entered into in December 2000 for the first commercial application of the technology for the conversion of poultry offal at one of ConAgra's large Butterball Turkey plants. When it is commissioned later this month, the $20 million facility in Carthage, Missouri -- funded in part by a $5 million grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency -- will process 200 tons per day of fats, bones, feathers, grease and oils.

    "If the technology is successful, it could offer enormous opportunities to address farm waste problems in the Midwest. It could be applied to all sorts of other wastes. This looks extremely positive," said William Rice, EPA Acting Regional Administrator.

    According to Howard Buffett, who represents ConAgra's investment, "We've got a lot of confidence in this… We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't anticipate success."

    "This is a remarkable opportunity to use new technology to turn a troublesome liability – waste – into a valuable asset – renewable energy," said Senator Christopher (Kit) Bond of Missouri, when construction of the Carthage plant first began.

    For more information, visit CWT at
    http://www.changingworldtech.com
    or call (516) 486-0100.

    Contact:
    Julie Gross Gelfand
    CWT Press Office
    (516) 536-7258
    jgelfand@hldcreative.com


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