As you may have noted (if anyone actually reads this thing) I’m not a big fan of our foreign policy. The war in Iraq is not about terrorism or Saddam, it’s about oil. This administration, even though their official policy is to cast doubt about global warming, knows we have a major energy problem. They went after Iraq because it has one of the largest oil capacities in the world and we needed to get our hands on it to avert a major economic catastrophe here in the US.

Proof? We are building the largest US Embassy in the world in Baghdad: 100 acres, capable of housing 3000 people at a cost of $600 million. It’s larger than Vatican City. We would not be building this compound if we were really planning on getting out of Iraq in the near future. While we invest nothing in alternative energy projects here in the US, we are ‘investing’ $1.5 billion (yes, billion) a week in the Iraq war. Do we really think this is anti-terrorism money? We haven’t spent anywhere near that amount on domestic security.

We’re investing dollars and lives to acquire an oil field.

An Irish company called Steorn has claimed that they have found a way to use magnetism to generate ‘free’ energy, i.e. a generator that creates more energy than you put into it. This kind of thing is generally considered crackpot science as it defies the laws of physics as we know them.

This one has an odd twist: They’ve run an ad in The Economist asking for 12 physicists to step forward and test the technology. Until it is verified to be real they don’t intend to try to commercialize it. I usually get my copy of The Economist on Saturday (tomorrow). I’m looking forward to seeing the ad.

Update: The ad and their various claims can be found here. They have forums which appear to be unmoderated which is a good sign. Most of the posters are sceptical to say the least. I will be following this issue to see if it’s a scam or the real deal. Of course if it’s the real deal a lot of other people are going to be all over it- imagine the kind of pressure the oil establishment would put on to quell something like this. Should be entertaining…

In Australia there are serious plans to build something straight out of sci-fi, a solar chimney as tall as the Sears tower. The idea is that you build a multi-story tall tube that fans out at the base to cover many acres of land. It is like a greenhouse and open around the edges. The air inside is heated by the greenhouse effect and rises through the tube which is lined with turbines that generate electricity from the rising movement of the air. New air is pulled into the base around perimeter creating a constant flow of air pressure in the tube. The Energy Blog has a great update on this crazy cool technology that generates electricity without any pollutants or fuel.

But what about at night? They’ve figured that out. the base is ringed by salt ponds that store heat during the day and release it at night to power the updraft. It gets even wilder- the Chinese are planning a solar chimney a half mile tall! Can’t wait to see that sucker. I wonder if it is constantly windy around the perimeter of these things.

This Wired article gives a peek into a major energy innovation project at MIT. Check out the list of things they’re working on: organic solar based on spinach proteins, cars that run on light, silicon superstrings. This is real egghead stuff. I’m glad the superbrains are on the job because it’s pretty obvious that the government isn’t.