Escape from the Petro Prison

Written by Kevin Flaherty

For at least the past 100 years, the world has been trapped in a prison built out of oil. Indeed, the primacy of oil in the domestic and foreign affairs of industrialized states is without question. But if one thinks the petroleum paradigm endures because there are no viable alternatives, one would be wrong. The barriers to the wide adoption of alternative sources of energy are political and economic in nature, not scientific or technical. This essay describes a clean, electrically generated synthetic fuel that could allow for a grass roots transformation of the global political and economic system; a system ruled by a corporate oligopoly who’s interests are inimical to those of people everywhere.

Oil: Control the World, Get Rich Doing It

Why oil? Why, after all these years, does the world still rely on oil and gasoline to power its industrial economies? There are two main reasons:

1) Oil, rather, access to oil, can be controlled by a handful of corporations with profound connections to the governments of the world. Therefore, oil can be used as a weapon to destroy economies, or allow them to flourish. Oil is a strategic commodity. No industrial state can function without large quantities of it.

2) The corporations that comprise the oil oligopoly make billions of dollars per year from the trade in hydrocarbons and related services.

Another reason for the importance of oil, from the U.S. perspective, is the interlocking scam between the oil companies, the Federal Reserve and U.S. Dollar-As-Reserve-Currency.[1] The dollar is the de-facto medium of exchange for global oil transactions. When Japan buys oil from Saudi Arabia, for example, Japan pays with dollars. This means that even when states other than the U.S. conduct oil related business, the U.S. dollar gets a boost due to the demand for dollars required to complete the transactions.

In 2000, Iraq decided to switch from dollars to euros as the medium of exchange for its oil sales. The U.S. recently invaded Iraq and thereby seized control of the second largest source of oil on the planet. The reason given to the public by the Bush administration for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that the situation posed a clear and present danger to the U.S. And despite the faint echoes of Donald Rumsfeld’s assurances that the invasion of Iraq, "Has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil," Iraq now stands to become the world’s largest producer of oil.[2] It’s probably safe to assume that Iraq will conduct its future oil business in dollars. In fact, you can bet your life on it.

De-Capitalizing Evil and Other Just Causes

Why use alternative fuels? The reasons will vary from one individual to another, but here are a few to consider:

Petroleum is a non-renewable resource. Petroleum extraction has peaked; this means that it will become increasingly difficult (expensive) to extract what remains buried in the earth.
Burning hydrocarbons pollutes the air we all breathe.
Buying gasoline directly supports violent criminal enterprises and people like Dick Cheney.
Countries fight wars for oil. If there was less reliance on---and demand for---oil, engaging in wars for oil would become unnecessary.
Some alternative fuels may be produced very inexpensively, allowing individuals and governments to use funds for other purposes. Note: ExxonMobile recently reported record earnings.[3]

Hydrogen: Part of the Problem, Not the Solution

Every couple of years, the media makes a great deal of noise about hydrogen; the wonder fuel of the future, etc. As a fuel, however, hydrogen has a key flaw. The short explanation is that hydrogen is extremely difficult to work with. Hydrogen transportation and storage requires very expensive and specialized equipment. Converting the public refueling infrastructure to support hydrogen would take years, if not decades, and cost billions of dollars. Ironically, this is why hydrogen research is allowed to flourish. In other words, hydrogen is a safe area of inquiry. Any research that promises to eventually secure elite control over technology that will be in great demand is considered safe. Corporations and their bought-and-paid-for “researchers” in universities have no interest in simple, inexpensive and egalitarian technologies.

We need a clean burning fuel that doesn’t require an exotic refueling infrastructure. We need to be able to produce this fuel on demand, wherever we happen to be, without supporting elites hell bent on enslaving us all.

Electrically Generated Synthetic Fuels

On April 26, 1898, Hillary Eldridge was granted U.S. Patent 603,058 for an invention called the Electrical Retort.[4] This was a device for producing a combustible carbon-hydrogen gas. The gas was manufactured by passing electrical current through two carbon rods immersed in a vessel of water.

Question: Why should we be interested in a device that was invented over a century ago?

Answer: The gas produced from Eldridge’s Electrical Retort, and devices like it, can be burned in modern, unmodified internal combustion engines.

French alternative energy researcher, Jean-Louis Naudin, calls the gas BingoFuel.[5] He is conducting extensive research into the manufacture and uses of BingoFuel.

Please see JL Naudin’s site:

http://www.jlnlabs.org

His BingoFuel research page is here:

http://jlnlabs.online.fr/bingofuel/index.htm

In one of the more incredible BingoFuel demonstrations, Naudin powers an unmodified Honda GC160 5kw generator with BingoFuel.[6]

Look at the specification for the type of fuel required to run that Honda generator. It's supposed to run on automotive unleaded gasoline (minimum 86 pump octane).[7] That's the same automotive unleaded gasoline that you put in your car.

BingoFuel is inexpensive to produce, burns clean and has none of the storage problems associated with hydrogen.

Photovoltaic BingoFuel Hybrid Car

A BingoFuel reactor system could be integrated with a standard gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle (such as the Honda Insight or Toyota Prius). This would produce a vehicle that runs essentially on water and electricity.[8]

Apparently, the beauty of this was too much for someone writing a dissertation related to the storage of hydrogen to comprehend. When presented with the idea of the BingoFuel hybrid car, the doctoral candidate wrote to me and asked:

"Assuming you have current available, why not input directly to an electric motor?"

This is what I wrote back:

Obviously, the electric only route is most desirable because electric engines are so much more efficient than internal combustion. The problem with electric is that you can't store energy in any effective way because the battery technology is so poor. Range becomes a problem.

There is nothing magical about the BingoFuel system, but it can be thought of as a way to get fuel for the internal combustion engine WHEN sufficient current is available. When the vehicle is parked in direct sunlight and the batteries are topped off, the BingoFuel reactor would activate and produce gas. This would obviously begin to use battery power, but the solar paneling system would supplement that. The solar system, however, would not produce enough current to make BingoFuel on demand. When people are at home, the vehicle could be plugged in, with priority given to producing more BingoFuel and then charging the batteries. Why produce BingoFuel if the electric engine is much more efficient? Because you can store the power as BingoFuel much more effectively than you can store the power as an electric potential in a battery bank. Note how the hybrids work. They never have to be charged. The entire thing relies on the internal combustion engine. I say, make a hybrid that you could plug in: TO MAKE BINGOFUEL. The power to make BingoFuel could come from solar, wind or other clean or dirty sources.

I think the battery bank in the EV1 contained about the same ability to do mechanical work as about 1/3 gallon of gasoline! The EV1 had a range of about 100 miles, depending on conditions. How far would 1/3 of a gallon of gas get you in a regular car??? The problem is the batteries.... Bad way to store power. Gasoline is a great way to store power. There are a few problems with the kind you get at the pump. Besides destroying our planet, it will run out and buying it supports evil. BingoFuel is also a great way to store power, except that it burns very clean and doesn't require payment of money to a handful of elites. Maybe you can tell me: Do you think BingoFuel has a fuel cell application? Obviously, that's where all of this should be leading.

I saw the title of your thesis:

[ Person's identity and title of thesis deleted. ]

Now imagine having a gas that anyone can make, from clean or dirty electrical sources, that can power a vehicle and is as easy to store as propane. But if you are going to base a career on new and improved ways to store hydrogen, hmmm, that might present a problem for you and cognitive dissonance might set in. Oh well...

But on the other hand, maybe you'll look at something just because it's there and it's interesting. If that's the case, I wouldn't start pushing this with any faculty unless you were DEAD SURE that they wouldn't sabotage you and require you to do more grad-student-as-slave work as punishment for another few semesters or so. Build the thing in your garage for god's sake! Nobody has to know about it if you're concerned about the thought police. <--- And with this, you should be concerned.

This graduate student did not contact me again.[9]

Wind, Solar and Hydro Power

If there was a serious push to make greater use of wind, solar and hydro power, the world’s dependence on hydrocarbons could be greatly reduced. While this statement may seem trite and tired, it is a fact, and must be kept in mind during any discussion about alternative energy sources. After all, one must have electricity in order to manufacture BingoFuel. It would be nice if that power came from clean sources.

The Perceived Prison

Have you ever heard the parable about the fly and the jar? It goes like this: Catch an ordinary fly and place it in a jar. Twist the lid on the jar. Poke some holes in the lid so the fly can breathe, but not escape. Notice how the fly vigorously crawls around the sides of the jar and the lid, surveying its new prison. As the hours pass, the fly will become accustomed to the lid being in place, preventing escape. When the fly has given up on trying to escape, it will probably sit near the bottom of the jar. Now, remove the lid. How long does it take for the fly to realize that it is free to escape the confines of its prison?

The lid has been off of humanity for decades, but since we have been told about the lid for so long, we don’t even question whether or not it’s there anymore. Like the fly, we wallow in our prison, because the urge to escape has been conditioned out of us. Therefore, what kind of energy systems should we expect to emerge under a political and economic order that has been controlled (built, in fact) by corrupt oil money? The “prison built out of oil” is, in fact, a perceived prison, not a real one.

So, let’s build a cars that run on water and sunlight. Why not?

There’s no lid on the jar.