An inverter is a device that converts direct current to alternating current and vice versa. All solar installations need an inverter to convert direct electricity from the output of a solar panel to alternating current that can be used by electrical devices commonly employed today. The capital cost of the inverter constitutes a significant fraction of the cost of a solar installation. The eRET eliminates the need for an inverter since AC and DC can be produced within the module. By altering the flow of electrons, alternating current can be generated.

The eRET - A Vision for A Low Cost Energy and Carbon Free Future  - by Ronny Bar-Gadda  (PDF, 290KB) 

Unfortunately, more than 589 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) live without access to electricity: only 35 percent of the population in SSA has access, compared with 96 and 78 percent in East Asia Pacific and South Asia, respectively. For most Africans, electric power is inaccessible, unaffordable, or unreliable. The lack of both quality and energy services and access to modern sources of fuel—such as natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), diesel, and biofuels—traps them in a world of poverty.

This inaccessibility to modern energy in SSA touches all sectors of society—health clinics cannot refrigerate vaccines, students find it difficult to read after dark, and businesses have shorter operating hours. Even Africans with up to date energy sources face unreliable and unpredictable supplies for which they must pay high prices.

Currently, the energy sector of SSA meets neither the needs nor the aspirations of its citizens. Africa’s development challenges will become even more daunting as population growth in many SSA countries is projected to outpace electrification efforts. If current trends continue, electrification rates will grow from 35 to 51 percent, but the absolute deficit of people without electricity will also grow from its 2012 level of 589 million to over 645 million by 2030. Clearly, action is needed to accelerate electrification beyond its business-as-usual pace.

Current uses of biomass fuels in SSA present grave health, environmental, and social concerns. As a result of indoor air pollution and chronic respiratory illnesses from the use of primitive cook stoves, the World Health Organization’s estimates suggest that between 2000 and 2030, 8.1 million premature deaths will occur among children and 1.7 million premature deaths will occur among adult women in SSA.

Examples of the above conditions can be illustrated with many countries. For example, the Republic of Benin, one of the poorest countries in Western Sub-Saharan Africa, has an infant mortality rate of 1 in 5 births before the age of five. It is believed many of these deaths can be prevented if adequate waste treatment and fresh water were available. In many of these countries, the cost of building an electrical transmission, waste water and fresh water infrastructure is cost prohibitive. Sub Saharan Africa does not have an existing infrastructure to service the electrical, waste treatment and fresh water needs of its population. The future for these countries is the adoption of localized and distributed electrical power production as well as waste treatment and fresh water generation. The eRET can fill this gap since the above illustration shows the various applications of its technology. In addition, the eRET has the capability of using its RF emission so that broadband and other communications are possible.

Other countries such as Nepal, where burning of wood and cow dung is prevalent can substitute these fuels for renewable electricity and hydrogen in order to satisfy cooking and heating needs.

Climate change has provoked our traditional attitudes toward these basic commodities. The eRET will smooth the way for that transition to a carbon free world.

An integration of geothermal steam and electricity generation can be used to produce hydrogen and oxygen from the waste steam of the turbine, representing both resource mining and refining at the same location. This concept is called "hydrofining", and the integration of the geothermal well/electricity generation/waste steam cracking to hydrogen and oxygen, a "hydrofinery".

The Generation of Fuels, Electrical Power and Chemicals from Geothermal Resources

Genesys, LLC has developed proprietary technology called eRET^™ (Electrical Radiant Energy Transfer) that enables additional electrical energy generation and new revenue potential from geothermal production well waste streams at highly cost-competitive levels compared with existing technologies. Our proposition is to integrate this proprietary system into the existing geothermal generation process, subsequent to all current commercial processes.

Our core technology uses new proprietary processes to produce high-output electrical power, hydrogen and chemicals simultaneously by using the eRET in conjunction with conventional solar panels as an energy source, at lower operating costs and higher efficiencies than any existing technology.

An integration of geothermal well emissions with the additional electricity generation from our system can be used to produce hydrogen and oxygen from the water vapour content of the turbine waste stream. Implementing both resource mining and refining at the same location is a concept known as "hydrofining". The integration of the geothermal well/electricity generation/waste stream cracking to hydrogen and oxygen would create a "hydrofinery". Carbon dioxide off gas from the well can be used as a source of carbon for the production of chemicals such as methanol or methane.

Economics for hydrogen generation utilizing eRET technology compare very favourably with conventional hydrogen production technologies such as steam methane reforming (SMR) or electrolysis – both of which are extremely energy intensive and inefficient. Our process uses a by-product of the proprietary electrical generation process - electromagnetic radiation - tuned to the resonant frequency of water vapour to break the OH bond with very minimal energy.

The new process would bypass existing systems such as the condenser, non-condensable gas removal and cooling towers, reducing operational maintenance requirements and costs for existing facilities, or substantially lowering capital cost requirements for new wells.

Due to the high flow rates of the steam (and also CO₂ ~1%wt flows) it is possible to make economic amounts of CH₄  and methanol. The commercial process for making methanol from carbon dioxide and hydrogen is: 

CO₂ + 3H₂ = CH₃OH + H₂O

By way of indicative example, if a steam from a geothermal well is about 300 metric tons/ hour or 300,000 kg/hr, with 1% by weight of CO₂ in the stream, we can , in one hour, about  52.3 metric tons per day of methanol, which amounts to about 19,112 metric tons per year.

Producing methane is a simpler process with very high yields (>90%). That commercial process is called the Sabatier process for synthetic methane and was invented and commercialized around the turn of the last century. It is represented chemically as:

CO₂ + 4H₂ = CH₄ + 2H₂O

Using specific figures for a typical New Zealand central North Island geothermal well could provide about 0.5 tons of methane per hour or 4,380 tons of methane per well per year. Also, any liquid portion arising from the condensing steam turbines at 35C can also be flash evaporated to provide additional water vapour for the methanation reaction.

If other sources of waste CO₂ were incorporated (avoided emissions from nearby geothermal facilities, industrial sources, forestry/timber milling residues, etc.) methane production could increase accordingly.

Since this could be considered as a free feedstock, the geothermal sector could actually compete with natural gas (fossil fuel) and biomass biogas on costs.

Our system is entirely independent, being powered solely by the eRET. Existing geothermal power generation would not be diminished in any way. On the contrary, additional electricity could be produced by incorporating more eRET modules to increase overall output supply to the grid, increasing revenues accordingly.