January 2016 – Bill Gavlas

Hydrogen power is dangerous

In the past I was fascinated with hydrogen power. It was so simple and no pollution. You simply burned hydrogen which consumed oxygen and the end result was water and power.

It is a fascinating idea!

In reality, it is not what it appears.

Hydrogen does not exist in our atmosphere. It has long ago left for space just as helium has. Hydrogen is captive on earth in many forms – water, natural gas, methane, etc.

The cleanest way to free hydrogen in water is to use electrolysis. But since electrolysis uses electricity, we would hope that we get the electricity from a clean source such as wind or solar. If we get the electricity from coal, oil or gas, we may be defeating the idea of “clean” energy.

As can be seen from the Wikipedia article, most industrial methods of hydrogen extraction use natural gas through a process called steam reforming.

According to the Wikipedia article on steam-reforming, the U.S. produces 9 million tons of hydrogen per year with this process. Given that hydrogen is the lightest of all of the elements; this is an incredible amount of hydrogen!

And, considering that the other gases that are produced in steam-reforming are carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide, this is a lot of CO and CO2 being dumped into the atmosphere which is really going to upset people who are concerned with “greenhouse gases”.

Doesn’t sound like hydrogen powered anything is really a good idea?

Perhaps the worst unintended consequence of hydrogen extraction is the hydrogen that escapes into space. As soon as a leak occurs, hydrogen is not going to stick around – it is leaving!

For every 2 hydrogen atoms that escape our atmosphere, there is one less molecule of water that will exist on our planet. While we could say that there is plenty of water to go around, what happens to the lonely oxygen atom that does not have hydrogen atoms to bond to? Is it possible that we will over-oxygenate our planet?

I’m just asking. I don’t know.

As far as I can tell, hydrogen powered anything is far worse than ethanol powered anything. Ethanol production in the U.S. is a joke on the American taxpayer for the benefit of the mega-corporations.

There are even worse problems than the disappearance of water in a quest to use hydrogen power:
1. Hydrogen, being the smallest of all elements is difficult to contain effectively. It permeates the metal it travels through. It can even destroy the metal that it is traveling through. See hydrogen embrittlement.
2. Hydrogen is extremely explosive! It readily combines with oxygen to produce an intense invisible fire and explosion.
3. Steam reforming of natural gas or methane still uses water at intense temperatures and splits the hydrogen from the water as well as the gas. Again, we are damaging the water supply on the planet.
4. Hydrogen, contrary to some beliefs, is not a renewable resource since a lot of it escapes the planet.

Consider your local garage, or backyard mechanic, working on your hydrogen powered automobile. If they are working on the hydrogen fuel system, do you think they will get it back together with no leaks?

I don’t think so!

© 2016 Bill Gavlas, American Professional Services – All content of this website is copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any manner without the express written permission of the author
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The Sun has no Gravity

The Sun has no Gravity?

I am missing something here. In old Star Trek episodes, Captain Kirk and Captain Picard were often caught in the gravitational pull of a nearby sun and had to really turn on the engines to escape this terrible force.

Where on earth did this concept of the sun’s gravity come from?

In case we have forgotten, the Sun is an enormous explosion. Explosions exert outward force from the object that is exploding. If it was an inward force (like gravity) it would be an implosion and we would be in serious trouble.

The Sun certainly does have mass just as a bomb does. But when the bomb is exploding, the mass is insignificant compared to the outward force it exerts.

Granted there has to be some force keeping the sun together but is it gravity in the same way as we perceive gravity on earth? Or is it some other force that we have yet to imagine?

So if the Sun has no gravity, what is going on in our solar system?

The Sun is pushing the planets out into space.

So how do the planets stay where they are in orbit about the Sun?

Iron, the metal that comprises at least some portion of the core in most planets, is attracted to electrons. The primary output of the Sun is electrons! The electrons released from the Sun comprise the entire electromagnetic spectrum. The iron attraction to electrons is much stronger than gravity.

The planets stay in orbit around the Sun due to the attraction of the planets to the Sun and not the gravitational pull of the Sun!

From time to time, you can visit the vacuum cleaner department of a major department store and see that they will sometimes have a beach ball floating in the air that is being exhausted from a vacuum. This is not proof that the vacuum cleaner is any better than any other vacuum, since it does not take a lot of air pressure to cause the beach ball to float, but it is an attention grabber to get you to notice the vacuum cleaners.

The beach ball is affected by the gravitational pull of the earth, yet it is suspended in space by the force of the air exhausting from the vacuum. The picture this produces is exactly the same way the planets and the Sun are related. The planets are attracted to the electrical output of the Sun, yet the Sun is forcing the planets into space by the sheer force of its’ explosive power.

A number of interesting observations can be made when viewing the relationship of the Sun to the planets in this manner.

First of all, the collapse of the Sun will occur much sooner than previously estimated. As the force of the Sun diminishes over time, Mercury will enter the outer edges of the Sun, and, if the surface of the Sun is not hot enough to vaporize the entire planet and blast its’ elements back into space, Mercury may initiate the collapse of the Sun. If the Sun is strong enough to blast the Mercurial elements into space, then Venus may be the culprit to cause the collapse.

Secondly, it is easy to calculate the density of a planet, thereby calculating the gravity of the planet. The surface area of a planet, in conjunction with its distance from the Sun can be used to determine the gravitational field of the planet. A planet with less surface area but a higher level of iron will be closer to the sun than a planet with a greater surface area and a lesser amount of iron.

At one time, I had posted similar thoughts on a Physics Forum website and what a torrent of hatred was unleashed. Unbelievable! I took it personally at the time because I doubted my observations.

I no longer doubt that the sun has no gravity. I am convinced that it does not.

The belief that the sun has gravity is based on scientists estimating the mass of the Sun and applying Newton’s Laws of Gravity.

Oddly enough, scientists have chosen to ignore the characteristics of the celestial body when determining gravitational attraction. Using Newton’s Laws, gravitational attraction can be successfully calculated for objects like the earth and its moon where the Celestial body does not produce an outward force but rather a gravitational force. It cannot be applied to a star that is constantly emanating an outward force. An outward force has no relationship to gravity.

For the Star Trek Fans: Not to worry, the Starship Enterprise would not have been sucked into the star. As it got closer and closer, the ship would have been disassembled, atom by atom, and the atoms would have been blown into space. Does that make you feel better?

More proof of the non-gravitational force on external celestial bodies

I recently saw a report from NASA claiming that, at one time, Mars had an atmosphere but due to the force of the Sun, the atmosphere was blown from the planet.

Have you ever heard of Solar Wind affecting the trajectories of objects in space?

© 2007-2016 Bill Gavlas, American Professional Services – All content of this website is copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any manner without the express written permission of the author
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Electricity

It is known that electricity is simply the movement of electrons through or around a conductive material. The protons and neutrons that make up the nucleus of the conductor do not move, only the electron moves.

The current scientific consensus is: The most conductive materials (copper, silver and gold) have only one electron in their outer orbit. It is assumed, in a conductor, that the bond from the proton to the electron in the outer orbit is weak so it is easy to bump the electron from the nucleus of one atom to the nucleus of the next atom.

The electrons that are traveling on a conductor are bound electrons.

Even though we most commonly see electricity travel over wires, electricity can travel through the air and through radio waves.

By using electrical power, we don’t burn out electrons. Except for resistance, we don’t lose electrons. We just borrow them for an instant. Resistance causes electrons to move from a bound state to a free electron state (normally heat). Temperature affects resistance. The lower the temperature of the conductor – the less resistance. The higher the temperature – the higher the resistance.

By arranging the path of the electrons, through resistive elements like tungsten, we can produce light. If we cause the electrons to pass through a resistive structure, the electrons are forced from the material and we have heat.

Since the time that Michael Faraday discovered a method of capturing electrons from a magnet on a copper plate in 1821, the basic principles of electrical power generation have not changed. The process of capturing electrons on a copper wire is still mechanical for much of our electrical use. In almost 200 years we have not come up with a way to improve the methods by which we generate electricity. That is unbelievable! Why haven’t we come up with a better way?

Our electrical generating system is fragile. The second that the turbines stop turning at the local power plant is the same second that electricity in your house or business will stop. There is no backup. There is no reserve power. We are so dependent on this fragile system. But, if it breaks, you are on your own!

When Nikolai Tesla discovered a method of producing AC current, the power companies began transmitting a radio wave over the electric lines. We do not receive electrons from the power company. We receive a signal from the power company that simply causes electrons to move back and forth on a conductor.

The methods we use to produce electricity are primitive. A magnet (permanent or electromagnet) pass by copper wires flooding the copper wires with electrons. Because electrons move from a greater concentration to a lesser concentration, the electrons disperse evenly along the length of the wire. The copper wire is like a sponge.

Picture for a moment how efficient your water company would be if they simply took a fire hose and sprayed water into a quarter-inch pipe leading to your home. Do you think some of the water would be wasted? That is the same method we use to generate electricity. Terribly inefficient!

There are other ways to capture electrons on a conductor.

Picture two buildings connected to each other with a copper rod. The copper rod extends through the walls of the buildings and extends into each building. The temperature in one of the buildings is extremely hot. The temperature in the other building is extremely cold. Electrical current will flow from the hot building to the cold building. While this would not necessarily be an efficient way of producing electrical power, it will produce power.

Nikolai Tesla predicted that, if you had a metal rod extending from the earth into the outer reaches of the atmosphere, you would have continuous electricity.

Several years ago, I reproduced an experiment that Tesla had done. While Tesla used capacitors, I used a meter. I mounted a copper plate on a rail about 20 feet above the ground. I placed a grounding rod in the ground and ran a wire to a terminal block that was also connected to the copper plate. I then began to measure the current flow from the plate to the ground. I fully expected that I would measure more current across the terminals on hot days. Surprisingly, I found in excess of 2 volts across the terminals on the coldest days and very little current on the hot days. The temperature differential between the grounding rod and the plate is what caused the increased electron flow – thus the increased voltage.

Conceptually, it is also not impossible to pull current directly from a magnet. Since a magnet is a perpetual motion object, perpetual power would be produced if this method could be perfected. In addition, refrigeration and heat can also be accomplished directly from a magnet. The challenge is to stop the flow of electrons exiting one pole of the magnet from being sucked in at the other pole of the magnet. The flux lines must be broken!

Breaking the flux lines of a magnet would cause electrons to flow continuously in one direction and electricity would be produced with no moving parts. Current would be produced at the sub-atomic level.

Other interesting observations about electricity

One hot summer day, a friend of mine called and was complaining about his computer overheating all of the time. He claimed his disk drives were running at 130 degrees F and alarms were going off from the processor and the motherboard. I knew that he always ran a software program called BOINC for SETI. BOINC uses available processor cycles to run programs for different research groups.

I told him to turn off BOINC since he did not have enough cooling inside the computer case. He didn’t believe me, but he turned it off anyway. Within 30 minutes the temperature of his hard drives dropped 30 degrees. Besides using more electricity, BOINC produced more heat as the electrons were released from the processor.

Heat

What is heat?

We know that heat rises. Why?

At an atomic level, what is heat?

In order to melt an element, such as iron, heat must be applied to the raw material.

It is interesting to note that it doesn’t really matter what the source of the heat is, just that a specific amount of heat is required to make iron molten.

Iron can be melted with wood based fire, coal based fire, gas based fire, oil based fire, a solar furnace or electricity.

Why does iron turn from a solid to a liquid simply by applying heat regardless of where the heat comes from?

What is the common denominator (at an atomic level) of all the sources of heat that can cause iron to melt?

Analysis of Electric Heat

It is known that electricity is simply the movement of electrons through or around a conductive material such as copper. The protons and neutrons that make up the nucleus of a copper atom do not move, only the electron moves.

The current scientific consensus is: the most conductive materials (copper, silver and gold) have only 1 electron in their outer orbit. It is assumed, in a conductor, that the bond from the proton to the electron in the outer orbit is weak so it is easy to bump the electron from the nucleus of one atom to the nucleus of the next atom.

If we can use electricity to melt iron, it follows that melting occurs when there is a specific number of electrons present in a specific space. Electricity has nothing else to contribute to the melting process. It only consists of electrons moving through a conductor.

In order to convert the electrons from bound electrons to free electrons, electricity must pass through a resistive material. Electrons are forced out of the resistive material as free electrons or what we commonly call heat. The free electrons are then absorbed by the iron and bound to the iron atom allowing the iron atom to release from the atom next door.

Since we know that an abundance of electrons will cause iron to melt, (based on our observation of electrical heat) then it follows that, at an atomic level, wood based fire, coal based fire, etc. are all producing the same abundance of electrons that electricity produces.

It also follows that if a solar furnace can melt iron; then there is an abundance of electrons in light as well.

When iron is exposed to this abundance of electrons, the bonds between the atoms of iron are released and the iron turns to a liquid. When the iron cools (electrons are released) the bonds between the iron atoms are reestablished and the iron turns back into a solid.

So what is the atomic bond that causes iron to become a solid?

We believe that protons repel each other just as electrons repel each other. Protons have the same charge and they naturally push away from each other. Electrons also repel each other due to the fact that they carry the same charge.

Consequently, the protons in the iron cannot be attracted to each other. So how can they bond?

The protons in the iron are attracted to electrons.

In a solid, such as iron, in our normal atmosphere, there are an insufficient number of electrons to satisfy the demands of all the protons. When iron is a solid, it is borrowing the electron from the neighboring atom, periodically, which causes the atomic bonding to occur. When iron is a liquid, there are more than enough electrons present so that the electron bonding to the neighboring atom is no longer necessary.

So why does heat rise?

Since electrons flow from a greater concentration to a lesser concentration and heat is simply an abundance of electrons, the electrons are flowing out to space. It is leaving an area where electrons are abundant to go to an area where electrons are not as abundant. This is the process of heat moving to cold.

In space, heat does not rise. Heat only rises in a gravitational environment. A gravitational environment, such as the earth, has a mass of protons and neutrons that cause excess electrons to be accumulated.

Since electrons obey different rules than protons and neutrons, they defy the laws of gravity. Since they defy the laws of gravity, they have no mass using Newton’s Laws of Gravity.

Since the human body is electrical; heat is sensed by electrons flowing through nerves towards the brain. Cold is sensed by the flow of electrons out of the body away from the brain. Many science centers/museums have warm and cold plates where you can place your hands on both plates at the same time and you will feel the net result of both plates. If you touch the warm plate with only one hand, the plate is warm. If you touch the cold plate with one hand, it is cold. But if you touch both plates with both hands at the same time you will feel something totally different. This means that the nerve endings from both hands are connected to the same area of the brain.