FREE ENERGY FOREVER

“All good things are wild and free” (Thoreau)

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Paul H. Carr

AF Research Laboratory Emeritus

MIT Lincoln Laboratory Auditorium

30 October 2008, 3:30 PM Refreshments, 4:00 PM Talk

The $700 billion per year we spend to import oil from countries, often hostile and politically unstable, puts our national security and economy at risk. This money could create renewable-energy jobs in our own country. Wind and solar energy is FREE, after the up-front cost is paid off, and will last until the sun burns out. The US, with 5 per cent of the world’s population, is guzzling 20% of its oil production. This and a renewed appreciation of the intrinsic beauty of nature can motivate its conservation (1). We must balance economics with ecology.

Global climate change, driven largely by the combustion of fossil fuels and by deforestation, is a growing threat to human well-being (2). Significant harm from climate change is already occurring, and further damages are a certainty. The challenge now is to keep climate change from becoming a catastrophe. We need to manage the unavoidable and avoid the unmanageable.

The solution to climate change and national security is the same: wind, solar, biomass, and nuclear energy. Wind power is rapidly becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuels. The First Solar Inc. proprietary technique of making solar cells, by depositing CdTe/CdS films on large sheets of glass, promises to be competitive with coal within five years.

(1) Carr, Paul H. 2006. Chapter 9 "The Beauty of Nature versus Its Utility" of "Beauty in Science and Spirit," (www.BeechRiverBooks.com/id08 Center Ossipee, NH).

(2) Executive summary, Scientific Expert Group Report, "American Scientist," May-June 2007. http://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/unseg/index.shtml

Paul H. Carr, B.S., M.S., MIT; Ph.D. Physics, Brandeis U., led a branch investigating microwave ultrasonic surface acoustic waves (SAW) and superconductors at the AF Research Laboratory, Bedford, MA. His 80 scientific papers and 10 patents have contributed to new components for radar, TV, and cell phones. He was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers in 1979 "for contributions to microwave acoustics and their use as signal processing components."  He is a life member of the American Physical Society and has been a member of Sigma Xi, The Research Society, for over 50 years.  He received a grant form the John Templeton Foundation for his philosophy course "Science and Religion: Cosmos to Consciousness" at U Mass Lowell. This gave birth to his book, Beauty in Science and Spirit, described on his web page www.MirrorOfNature.org .1