ARTICLES

100 Years from Petrol to Air Cars....?

Want cheaper, environmentally, sustainable Power?

Peak Oil

What is Real Broadband

What is an IndraNet Minder

Intelligent Power

100yrs from petrol car to the air car.......?

Model T Ford The Air Car

100 Years

FROM PETROL
TO

AIR ?

Next year in October 2008, it will be 100 years since first Model T Ford car came off the world’s first production line. There have been few serious challenges to the dominance of the petrol-driven motor car, until now.
As petrol prices increase around the world people are looking for new, cost-effective energy sources. In France inventor Guy Nègre is in the final stages of testing a car that offers a way out of our current dependence on petrol and literally opens the road to fully sustainable transport. The engine itself runs on nothing but pure compressed air, the very air we breathe. The primary energy source used to make the compressed air can be any fuel derived from solar energy. Because Nègre’s thermodynamic cycle is so efficient, the whole power unit, including the engine uses very little fuel. It also burns it at relatively low temperature in a very clean way.

In 1987 Nègre stopped designing Formula One engines and decided to create a car to combat pollution. It is estimated that a shocking 60 percent of harmful emissions in urban areas are from motor vehicles. The idea behind the new car was to get rid of the highly inefficient fossil fuel combustion within internal combustion engines – because it is that type of combustion that creates pollution.
Nègre’s company is based on the Côte d’Azur near Nice. He has called it MDI, which has as its logo a flower - the daisy. This no “bunny-hugging”, little backyard operation that will disappear into oblivion. MDI is already worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Within the next few years there will be plants all over the world producing cars bearing the daisy logo. Guy knows that he has a ready market! Not only is this car pollution free, but it’s also cheap.

All this may sound like a mad utopian dream, but Nègre’s invention is generating a lot of attention. In February 2007 Tata Motors of India, the world’s 5th largest automotive manufacturer entered into an agreement with MDI to apply the MDI technology to the Indian market.

Together with his son Dr Cyril Nègre, an automotive engineer, Guy Nègre worked on developing his ideas. In 1995 they gave the engine its first test run. The Nègre's suspected that their laughter would be probably be echoed many times over by sceptics, but they knew that this invention was worth developing. Perfecting the engine for the air car was an all-consuming process for father and son.

The Nègre's had to design an entire car to carry the engine. To achieve higher efficiency and keep energy consumption down, the car had to be as light as possible. Guy Nègre simplified everything: at 12kg the engine for the first small car is light enough to carry in a suitcase. The electrical system consists of only one wire and the chassis is made of aluminum.

The two-metre long tanks contain enough compressed air to drive about 150km in an urban environment in a totally pollution free fashion. To run at faster speeds on the open road the car can use a wide variety of fuels (petrol, diesel, CNG, LPG, bio oils, ethanol from sugar cane, etc.) Running costs are expected to be five to ten times cheaper than at present. The energy efficiency is more than twice that of internal combustion engines. It is capable of reaching over 70% efficiency in subsequent release, unlike our current fuel driven vehicles, often less than 10% “well-to-wheel” efficient.

The engine is designed so that on the open road the surplus power available at the crankshaft can be used to recharge the compressed air cylinders in the car. Alternatively the car can be plugged into the mains at home and recharge overnight, or you will be able to eventually pull up to compressed air stations which would be all around town and refill in about 3 minutes.

Years of experience as a Formula One-engine designer taught Guy to protect his creation from predatory manufacturers. Every time he perfected a part he patented it. To ensure that there was no possibility of sabotage or theft from large corporations, Guy turned his back on traditional sources of financing also. His plan was to sell a few shares in his company to private investors. This way he managed to raise enough money to stay independent, and yet keep the project going.

Now keep in mind that this is not a vehicle for sports car enthusiasts. The applications of the MDI technology will be aimed at niche markets for private transport (including the small OneCAT 3-seater urban model, the 3-seater MiniCAT, the 6-seater CityCAT — CAT stands for Compressed Air Transport), utility services (trucks, vans, etc.), public transport (minibuses and large buses), farm machinery, marine applications, and light aircraft applications. Another exciting development is the use of the same engine for power generation, in the home, as standby generators, to power large building and shopping malls etc. What a huge difference this will make to our environment over time!

The car hasn’t even hit the showrooms and yet MDI has managed to sell rights to licences to more than 37 different companies around the world, including Australia and New Zealand.

Instead of literally spending billions of dollars on one huge manufacturing plant, licensed franchisees can build smaller, cheaper plants, which offer regional services. It is predicted that the factory will produce 3,000 to 7,000 cars each year, with about 70 to 90 staff; cars manufactured where you live, again reducing costs, what a great idea.

Will the air car be on our roads to celebrate the beginning of the next hundred years of motoring? 2008 could be an interesting year for our planet and for our survival?
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Want cheaper, environmentally, sustainable Power?
(-from a New Zealand perspective)

Do you want it:

without all the red tape of resource consents?

without more unsightly pylons and transmission lines?

without a huge carbon footprint (e.g. for Te Apiti Wind Farm the turbines were made in Denmark,the blades the Isle of Wright and the towers in Vietnam and Australia)?

without polluting the environment?

initially the cost 25% less than current power prices?

to eventually achieve 80-90% efficiency compared to today’s 20% efficiency

If your answer is YES to any of the questions above, then read on

Consider Intelligent Power - iPower

Revolutionary - distributed power generation, decentralised energy - using MDI’s CAE (Compressed Air Engine) & integrated into power grid through IndraNet Minder = iPower.

Generate your own power at home with a unit not much bigger than an air conditioner and link this unit to the power grid through an IndraNet Minder (communication device) and any excess you generate goes back into the gird.

There are larger units for offices, businesses, shopping malls, hospitals, schools, built in scale to suit your needs. And yes they run on compressed air!

If one (1) MDI manufacturing plant produces 25,000 power generators per year with the capacity of 300 KW, then think globally of what small factories worldwide could do, hundreds and hundreds of factories each adding 300KW per year to the power grid will do to replace and increase power generation for the planet. AND units will be produced at point of use, minimising the carbon footprint, as well as being environmentally friendly - Power generated from AIR yes AIR!

So how much is 300 MW? 300-megawatt is enough to power a city of 175,000 people

The generating capacity of New Zealand's power stations is 8,600 MW.

Tongariro Hydro Power Scheme with Tokaanu and Rangipo (North Island, NZ) power stations that have a combined output of 360 MW

The Te Apiti wind farm near Palmerston North, New Zealand has 55 turbines and a capacity of 90 MW.

There are seven wind farms in New Zealand, with a combined capacity of 167 MW

Waitaki River (South Island, NZ) Hydro Power station G enerating capacity

Tekapo-A 25 MW

Tekapo-B 160 MW

Ohau-A 264 MW

Ohau-B 222 MW

Ohau-C 222 MW

Ohau-C 222 MW

Benmore 540 MW

Aviemore 220 MW

Waitaki 105 MW

According to an article in NZ Herald 10 May 2008 for the third time in seven years, rain at the wrong time or in wrong place has left the country facing possible power shortages leaving hydro lakes lower than usual. This has meant the diesel-fired 155 megawatt power station at Whirinaki north of Napier has been used - burning over 7.6 million litres of diesel in the first 3 months of this year. It can burn up to a million litres of diesel a day of this precious finite resource and with soaring fuel prices this is an expensive exercise. Just over 6mths production of iPower generators would permanently give the same generating capacity. It’s food for thought!

Currently, e.g. in New Zealand, most power is produced in central power stations where 60% to 75% of the primary energy is wasted, then the power is then sent down transmission line where a further 10% is wasted. With a combination of the MDI power generation technology and the IndraNet networking technology this will be enabled by point of use generation which is more efficient, because it avoids transmission losses, generates far less waste heat and enables recycling any waste heat produced. A much lower grade of energy is needed for hot water and air conditioning and this can be achieved in part by recycling waste energy for initial power generation. Sounds good to me!

Coal pollutes

Oil is running out and expensive

Wind not reliable

Hydro depends on sufficient rainfall

Nuclear Power - uranium is running out - waste take 1000 yrs to dispose

Air is abundant as is solar, once we learn to use it efficiently & zero pollution

It is time to consider new complimentary power sources that are environmentally friendly, cheap to set up and produce. This opens the way to fully sustainable lifestyles for less than current power prices.

Intelligent Power will be obvious to everyone within a decade. It will be main stream within two decades.
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Peak Oil - An article by Karrde

Well there is a big misconception about what ‘peak oil’ really is. Many people believe that when we reach ‘peak oil’ the world will run out of oil. This is far from the truth and in reality we have more oil in this earth than we could use for centuries to come. What the term ‘peak oil’ refers to is how much of this oil we can get too in the near future before it is too deep to drill for! The closer to the surface oil is the easier and cheaper it is to get but the deeper the oil is the more it costs. Most of the oil wells near the surface around the world have now dried up and we have to drill deeper and deeper to find out new oil deposits. Now the deeper you drill the more it costs and when it costs $1 to get $1 worth of oil then there is no point drilling anymore. That is ‘peak oil’.

Now to give you some kind of perspective of this, the depth from the service to the earth’s core is about 6360km. The deepest cave in the world is only 2km deep and the deepest oil drill is 12km deep (average oil well is around 6km). We just can’t keep drilling deeper and deeper because it is becoming not very cost effective and as you can already see around the world the price of oil is climbing higher and higher everyday. Now because this is not a renewal resource, once we have drilled all the oil out of the earth we can reach, then there is no more!! This is why we need to find a real alternative now and not wait another 10 years. And this is where MDI AIR CAR and I-POWER GENERATION that MDI have created have come into the mix.

To give you some kind of idea of the destructive nature of us human beings in relation to oil consumption here are a few things to ponder.

The earth has been around for what some scientists say to be around 6 billion years (6,000,000,000).
We have a recorded history for about 2000 of those years. Now industry (the industrial revolution) has only really happened in just over the last 100 years or so.
This is where mankind found the use for fossil fuels like oil to help create steel, plastics, automobile fuels etc.
Now if you think that the Model T ford was only released in 1908 (just 100 years ago) and we have almost used up all our oil already (don’t forget this resourse won’t renew itself) isn’t that amazing?
Another amazing statistic to ponder is that just over 100 years ago there were just 1 billion people on this earth and today we have over 6 billion.

We are a world using recourses faster now, than anytime in the history of mankind and you would have to ask yourself, will our dependency on oil ever decline

Only if there is a real alternative to the problem and MDI and IndraNet are providing that solution for us.

Broadband: WHAT IS BROADBAND?
An article by Karrde

Broadband is a word that we hear all the time from marketing company’s trying to get us to sign up to faster internet speeds. But do any of us truly know what Broadband is? Well here’s my explanation for what broadband really is and how the IndraNet Minder can help achieve this.

Well there are a few things that make ‘Real Broadband’ and these have been defined in 2003 by the International Telecommunication Union [ITU]) that broadband begins at 2Mbps but up to 10Mbps is preferred. So it is preferred that Broadband be no slower than 2Mbps per second, must be ‘always on’, it must be symmetrical, have low latency and must be affordable”.

Sounds pretty complicated doesn’t it! Well let me see if I can break it down even more for you.

Speed
To start with let’s begin with speed. To achieve Real Broadband you must be able to achieve a speed of 2Mbps per second or higher. The average dial-up modem at home is what is called a 56kb modem; this means you can download information at up to speeds of 56 kilobytes per second (56Kbps). Now Real Broadband or 2Mbps means you can download information at up to 2000Kbps (2000 kilobytes per second) which as you can see is much faster than your standard modem.

Where the problem exists is there is a lot of company’s out there selling what they call Real Broadband to consumers but their so called Broadband can only reach maximum speeds of anywhere between 256Kbps to 500Kbps using copper cable (your phone line). Now yes this is much faster than 56Kbps but still well short of the 2000Kbps that is recommended. The IndraNet Minder is capable of achieving 2Mbps of speed and even faster in the future. Their plan is within three years to reach speeds of up to 15Mbps (15,000 kilobytes per second) and within five years to reach up to 200Mbps (200,000 kilobytes per second). Now this will surely keep up with people’s future internet needs such as VOIP (voice over internet protocol e.g. phone calls), video calling, movies on demand, online TV etc

Symmetrical
Also to achieve Real Broadband status your service must also be what is called ‘symmetrical’, what this means is the speed you can download information at should also be the same speed you can upload information at. So if you can download information at 2Mbps you should also be able to upload information at 2Mbps. Now once again these companies’ out there selling so called Broadband can only offer speeds of 256Kbps to 2Mbps OR Maximum as fast as your line allows (whatever that means) download and 128Kbps upload OR in some cases Maximum as fast as your line allows (whatever that means). This is still well short of the 2000Kbps that is required for upload and download. Once again the IndraNet Minder is capable of achieving the 2Mbps upload and download speed that is required.

Low Latency
Real Broadband must also be able to achieve what is called low latency (i.e. fast response times of 2Oms or less) for real time interaction . Now latency is a bit trickier to understand. Latency refers to the time it takes between you clicking your mouse button and how long something will happen on your computer screen (this is extremely important for online gaming). Latency is best seen when using a dial-up modem at 56Kbps, have you ever been surfing a website and you click on a link and you wait for 2 or 3 seconds for the webpage to even start to open up this new page? Well I certainly have! Broadband must be able to deliver latency speed also, if you click your mouse on a link, then you want to be taken straight to the page you clicked without waiting. Low latency is very important for fast, smooth and efficient internet surfing (and other applications). And as I was saying it is also very important for online gaming. Online gaming is one of the internets fastest growing areas and as well as download and upload speed (2000Kbps per second or higher) you also need low latency. Just Imagine for a second you are playing a car racing game against five other people from all around the world all at the same time. When you turn your steering wheel, hit the brake or throttle you want your car to react straight away, not a few seconds later. A few seconds later could mean you would crash or loose the race and then what’s the point of playing!!! With having low latency you would be able to play games with people all over the world in real time as though they were sitting in your lounge with you. You hit the brake pedal and your car brakes. You hit the throttle and your car accelerates.

Now this is true Broadband and you guessed it, the IndraNet Minder can deliver low latency as well.

Uncapped
Most providers only offer small data caps with their plans and once you have used up your small data cap your so called Broadband slows down to dial-up modem speed or you are charged for packets you use over your limit.

Always On
It must be ‘always on’, What always on means is you can have your computer connected to the internet 24 hours a day and it doesn’t effect your phone line so you can still receive calls (unlike dial-up).

Guaranteed Bandwidth
Guaranteed bandwidth is also very important for Real Broadband. What this means is if you are paying for a 2Mbps connection then any time day or night regardless of how many people are using the internet, you should be able to achieve speeds of 2Mbps at all times. Currently for most people on ADSL Broadband if they are paying for a 256Kbps connection and lots of people are using the internet (especially first thing in the morning or after school and evening times) then it will slow right down to a crawl (sometimes slower than a modem). I don’t really consider this ‘getting what you pay for’.

Affordable
And this brings us to the last piece of the puzzle the low cost of Broadband. There are some providers out there delivering low cost Broadband but the real problem is there not actually delivering Real Broadband, just what amounts to faster dial-up and calling it Broadband. You can get Real Broadband out there but it is very expensive. This is delivered through fiber optic cable but the cost of this is way out of reach for the average consumer.

With the IndraNet Minder you will be able to get, at a very competitive price, with no data cap, guaranteed bandwidth, always on, low latency, symmetrical upload and download speeds at minimum of 2Mpbs - Real Broadband yes Real Broadband well worth waiting for!
Quite a winning combination if you ask me!

IndraNet Minder WHAT IS AN INDRANET MINDER?
An article by Karrde

Well the IndraNet Minder is way of delivering high speed Wireless Meshed Broadband and information for the Internet and other applications. It does this by using a new kind of technology called a Mesh Network instead of using the traditional phone line. Now this is one of the most efficient ways to deliver broadband, not copper, not fibre optic, not cellular but mesh networks.

What is a Mesh Network I hear you say? Well a Mesh Network is a bunch of small computers (IndraNet Minder) all hooked up together wirelessly creating what would look like a large spider web (if you could see it) laid over a city all talking together delivering information like broadband. This ‘Mesh’ type of system similar to the Internet. There isn’t one main source (like one main computer or like a cell tower) but thousands of smaller computers and sources creating a much larger entity. This is known as a FraMe Network (FraMe stands for Fractal Mesh)

So what is the IndraNet Minder? Well the Minder is a highly sophisticated computer that sits on your desk and looks much like a traditional router in size. However when you link all these Minders together they form a ‘Mesh Network’ that is very powerful and will initially be used to deliver much faster speeds of Broadband than traditional means e.g. copper. The exciting thing about this minder is that it is capable of delivering much more. As the IndraNet Technology expands it will include internet phones (VoIP), power grid management, TV broadcasts and other emerging forms of entertainment, security systems, transport management and much more.

The Minder is best described as ‘Customer premises equipment’ (CPE) which means the Minder is located on each user’s premises and is fitted with a small antenna which delivers discreet Real Broadband wirelessly.

All the Minders are placed around the cities or countryside and talk to each other supplying the fast reliable Broadband to each household or business. Now all this information including E-mail’s, Internet web pages, music, video, computer games etc goes from an access point (the backbone being a fibre optic point) and then it goes wirelessly from Minder to Minder until it reaches its final destination. The data is routed around within the local FraMe Network or are routed through what is known as an interconnect with a long distance backbone connection. The software selects the most appropriate route across the mesh of minders. If you would like to learn more about the FraMe Network Click here to visit the IndraNet site for more information.

The main thing is there are

no towers

no cell broadcast sites

no cabling of the streets required

most importantly no central exchange is needed.

Fibre to the home can achieve this and is economically feasible in high density population areas such as in Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, or Hong Kong. Outside those areas, fibre faces the challenges of substantial costs and of the terrain.

Similarly wireless higher speed Internet of a cellular nature, that is to say supplied from towers and masts into a given radius around them, is also very costly and faces so many technological constraints that we fail to see, how it could ever meet our current market requirements.

It’s that simple; an IndraNet FraMe is just Wireless Minders sitting at the customers premises. A network of minders is a bunch of high-performance computers linked together wirelessly at very high speeds. These minders are both processor and storage devices, thus spreading the computing workload over dozens, if not hundreds, of devices.

In short, the market requires an infrastructure that has

bandwidth in abundance

easy to use

affordable as tap water

This is what the Indranet FraMe Network is offering.

iPower - Intelligent Power

In the near future we will begin to see changes in our power industry. Two of the firms leading the way in this change are MDI with its compressed air power generator and Indranet with its wireless meshed network. Combine these two technologies and we have a new era in complimentary power generation.

Now an interesting point to note is that Power generated at the ‘point of use’ is much more efficient than power being supplied from the grid, in fact it is up to 80% efficient, compared with power currently coming from the National Grid, at as little as 20% efficient.

Many countries around the world face power shortages, blackouts, storms that disrupt supply and not enough line capacity to meet current needs, let alone the future demands. We are certainly at a point where we need a new approach.

Now don’t think more pylons or more dams but move forward and embrace new innovations, new technology’s that will bring new possibilities. Look forward to new business models where consumers have more control over their power. Compared with a few years ago when we had few choices with our phones, now look at our phone market today, landline, mobile, satellite, VoIP, GPRS, CDMA etc

Power units can be small – sufficient to power a household – or large scaleable units for business and industrial use. They can be used for air conditioning, and also stand by generators. The household unit is about the size of and air conditioner and when installed with the IndraNet minder is able to power the household and put excess generation back into the grid and initially is expected to cost 25% less than our current power. Remotely monitored and no more need for meter readers to call, and in older houses we know what a hassle that can be.

It has been a cold winter in the south and power demands at high levels, often the night rate is cut back, you have a couple of showers in the morning and there is no hot water by teatime to do dishes, the under floor heating, feels colder than usual so you need to turn heaters on and I guess in a way use more power, consumers are at the mercy of the power companies – for now there are no choices.

iPower will be obvious to everyone within a decade. It will be main stream within two decades

Acknowledgements/Disclaimers