cryptogon.com

Some of you view collapse due to Peak Oil as a given. I understand that desire. Unfortunately, it’s just not going to go that way. The people of the “developed world” are going to be handled in a manner similar to the way conventional Western medicine treats cancer patients. We’re going to be kept alive only to the extent that corporations can lift our wallets. And somehow, guess what: This system is going to limp on, creaking and grinding and murdering and polluting all the way into the grim dystopia of clean, green fascism.

—Shell’s $30 per Barrel Oil Shale Process

Lockheed Martin has signed an exclusive international rights agreement to integrate and market Electrical Energy Storage Units (EESU) from EEStor, Inc., for military and homeland security applications. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

EEStor, based in Cedar Park, TX, is developing a ceramic battery chemistry that could provide 10 times the energy density of lead acid batteries at 1/10th the weight and volume. As envisioned, EESUs will be a fully “green” technology that will be half the price per stored watt-hour than traditional battery technologies.

“Lockheed Martin has a wide range of innovative energy solutions for federal, state and regional energy applications,” said Glenn Miller, vice president of Technical Operations and Applied Research at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “The EEStor energy storage technology provides potential solutions for the demanding requirements for energy in military and homeland defense applications.”

EESUs are planned as nontoxic, non-hazardous and non-explosive. Since the EESU design is based on ultra-capacitor architecture, it will allow for flexible packaging and rapid charge/discharge capabilities. EESUs will be ideally suited for a wide range of power management initiatives that could lead to energy independence for the Warfighter.

—Lockheed Martin to Use EEstor’s Ultracapacitors for Military and Homeland Security Applications

The water bottles, plastic foam plates and other trash discarded by American troops in Iraq’s mess halls may soon be serving double-duty — as an unlikely power source to illuminate barracks and power up laptops.

The Army is preparing to deploy to Iraq two 4-ton biomass refineries designed to turn piles of trash into electricity. Each can run for 20 hours on a ton of trash, producing enough power to light a small village.

The novel machines were built by defense contractors and Purdue University scientists as part of the Army’s push to reduce troops’ diesel fuel use in Iraq, where convoys are frequently targeted by insurgents.

Army planners say cutting the fuel needs of the generators that power military encampments will mean fewer trips into harm’s way for soldiers who drive tanker trucks. It will also free up more fuel for tanks, Humvees and other military equipment.