Palpable Positions

I was enjoying a delicious/nutritious burrito bowl last night at Chipotle with my Sister and soon to be Brother when an interesting point came to light. We were discussing the organic grade quality of all the ingredients used by the restaurant and how they sponsored the recent documentary, Food Inc.

Food Inc., which I recommend everyone see’s – it received a 97% on RT, essentially blames the entire degradation of the food industry on a 50 year evolution to its now industrialized state – all to meet the demands of the worlds largest buyer: McDonald’s. Considering McDonald’s was a majority shareholder in Chipotle until the end of 2006, I found this level of digression in their relationship to ironic not to mention here.

Another scary fact that I took away from this film, which I might add I had no idea was an issue prior to seeing it, is the legal implications of genetically modified organisms (GMO’s). GMO’s are genetically engineered foods. Since the FDA doesn’t require that a food be labeled if it contains GMO’s, the presence of them in the food we eat has exploded. This explosion has come from the ability of large food corporations to push their product into the market through the power they have gained from patent rights on GMO’s. The presence of GMO’s in today’s food supply is so abundant that I can almost guarantee you eat some type of genetically engineered food everyday.

The power these companies now have is just astounding. The fact that this is all happening under the radar is equally shocking as well. Some of the examples provided in Food Inc. and another documentary (on Hulu for free that has a 84% on RT) called The Future of Food are unbelievable. These companies exercise an absurd amount of power by making examples out of innocent farmers to scare the rest of the industry into using their product (power gained from their ability to patent their GMO’s). Food Inc. compares their presence to the likes of the top companies in the Tobacco industry during their hay day.

Overall, Food Inc. and The Future of Food are two great documentaries that everyone should see. Regardless of if you change your eating habits because of them, everyone should still be in the “know” of the reckless nature of today’s food companies, poor oversight from our government, and the potential deadly conditions people are exposing themselves to by blindly eating anything.

Here is worth while movement to check out if the words here sparked your interest… Say No To GMO’s.

Well it has been a little while but I’m back…

Today I want to share an idea that I cannot believe doesn’t exist through a practical application. “Green” has become big and I know it isn’t a trend. It’s simple, economics has brought awareness to a problem everyone knew existed but chose to deny. However, I don’t believe the critics who claim that once energy costs subside people will return to their previous behaviors of over consumption and wasteful habits. The issue is to mainstream now and is here to stay. Energy will only get more costly in the future as demand increases exponentially, making conservation and sustainability that much more important.

Now for the idea… The Magnet Car. In a former job I worked with the construction of generators. Specifically, the unit called an “exciter” which supplies electricity to a generator. Here is a simple physics lesson: If a magnetic field is in motion around a conductor, an electrical current is created. Here is an illustration and link:

An example of electromagnetic induction

This concept works in reverse as well: if you supply an electrical current through a conductor, a magnetic field can be created. This principal is a very, very rough explanation of how generators work. An electrical current is supplied making an enormous spinning electro-magnet (rotor) that is inside a huge conductor (stator) creating a very large amount of electricity. But how does the electricity get supplied to a rotor spinning at 3000 rpm or 3600 rpm in the first place? You can’t simply hook wires up to it, the answer is the exciter…

An exciter is basically a mini-generator. It creates electricity virtually out of thin air by use of permanent magnets. The permanent magnets are assembled on a diameter (PMG) that a stator (circular conductor) spins inside of, creating a small amount of electricity. This electricity is then delivered to the generator so a large amount of electricity can be created. This is a very crude and basic explanation of how the system works.

Now that you get the basics, the reality of a magnet powered vehicle comes from the PMG. The permanent magnets, whose charge can last for as much as 1,000 years, are stationary in the unit with a conductor spinning inside them.

Why not reverse this and have a PMG on a car with the drive shaft containing the magnets while the conductor (stator) is around it? A battery could maintain the electricity needed for low speed driving and turning on the car while the electricity created from the PMG could charge the battery. This is similar to current electric cars that need to be plugged in, except The Magnet Car wouldn’t require external charging… the magnets would provide the service. The current created would be AC, but this can easily be converted to the necessary DC current through diodes.

This is an idea that has been around for a while, specifically 1996 as this patent suggests. With the current mass attention to renewable energy, electric cars like the Chevy Volt, and an electric high performance car like the Tesla Roadster… why hasn’t the magnet powered car been given its fair shake? It is by far the most environmentally friendly option.