FARATEQ Generator

What is the problem?

Most conventional electricity generation technologies emit CO2 and SOX’es and NOX’es and they also contribute to global warming.

The cost of electricity is increasing as the cost of oil, coal and gas is increasing.

The World Bank estimates that 1,1 billion people are not connected to the grid (https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/rural-electrification-how-much-does-sub-saharan-africa-need-grid). 

Why does it matter?

Without electricity you are off the network and your employment and education is stunted; even as you struggle to cook food. Some ladies typically spend 5 hours per day on firewood. Even so, firewood cannot cool your food nor beer.

In South Africa, the grid-connected people must also face load shedding, due to poor management of our utility. Eskom warned that customers must prepare for another 25 days of power cuts in 2022 (https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/437770-eskom-load-shedding-forecast-2022-expect-at-least-25-days-of-power-cuts.html).

Whom does my solution serve (Customer Discovery)?

Initially, in field trials only 10 households in my community, which is Heilbron, South Africa.

The Farateq Generator will then be manufactured and sold initially in South Africa, and later rolled out globally.

How many people are affected (Customer Discovery)?

Almost all people on Earth, 7,9 billion, needs electricity. 

Farateq (Pty) Ltd develops electricity generation technology, with a view to manufacture and sell Farateq Generators, initially at household level. The technology will also be licensed internationally.

Further research and development must adapt the technology for larger scale generation in factories and mines, as well as for mobile applications in vehicles, ships and aircraft.

The Farateq Generator utilizes unique features of static electricity to generate electricity. It has an on board battery to start generation, and will then, within design limits, generate electricity. As more electricity is required, it will automatically generate more. Battery trickle recharged. The Generator may be switched off and restarted as required.
Base load and on-demand generation (no storage) capabilities. No noise, no fuel nor dependence on wind or Sun, no pollution nor climate warming. Mobile application potential.
No moving parts. Should thus last a lifetime. Solid state switches are used but at high frequencies, which may require replacement.

Does the Farateq Generator not exceed the Law on the Conservation of Energy? By Grace, there appears to be an exemption/window of opportunity for electrostatics.
The South African Journal of Science and Technology published an article, proposing a possible work-around enabling the generation of nett energy (http://www.satnt.ac.za/index.php/satnt/article/view/865).
Further research focussed on empirically validating the work-around. Initially approximately 91 % of input energy was lost – and then, by Grace, a way was found that yields significant nett energy.

Patenting underway. After protection, the achievement will be publicly disclosed, hopefully before mid-April 2022.

Whom does my solution serve (Customer Discovery)?

Initially, in field trials only 10 households in my community, which is Heilbron, South Africa.

The Farateq Generator will then be manufactured and sold initially in South Africa, and later rolled out globally.

How many people are affected (Customer Discovery)?

Almost all people on Earth, 7,9 billion, needs electricity. 

What ways are they currently underserved?

Without electricity you are off the network and your employment and education is stunted; even as you struggle to cook food. Some ladies typically spend 5 hours per day on firewood. Even so, firewood cannot cool your food nor beer.

In South Africa, the grid-connected people must also face load shedding, due to poor management of our utility. Eskom warned that customers must prepare for another 25 days of power cuts in 2022 (https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/437770-eskom-load-shedding-forecast-2022-expect-at-least-25-days-of-power-cuts.html).

How will the solution address their needs?

Customers will have cheaper access to electricity, which does not emit pollution and also does not contribute to global warming. 

By Grace we have the core of the technological solution. We can sustainably generate electricity ad infinitum. The challenge is now to effectively harvest and transform the electricity to household levels and perhaps also to enable synchronization with grid frequencies.

By Grace, the core energy generation module might be inexpensive with common materials and construction. The energy transformation module would be more complex, but is achievable with available technology.

To illustrate the point, a recent experiment yielded an energy gain of 871 364 %. The actual energy generated was 2.71E-06 Joule. In order to be able to power a small kettle, using 1 000 Watts – the generator must cycle at 369 043 531 Hertz. It must be switched on and off 369 million times per second, which is a challenge – but an achievable challenge using MOSFET and JFET and IGBT technology. Current practical switching rates may reach 70 MHz, but the generator design may be adapted to this frequency. A next challenge is to ensure that switching losses and gate drive losses will not absorb all the energy created.

Proximity to the communities you are serving?

I am part of the community undergoing load shedding in South Africa. It was ironic at times to work on an alternative mode of electricity generation, without utility power.

At one stage I was able to purchase electrostatic fieldmeters that could perform well. Unfortunately their software was not up to scratch. During load shedding, I was connected to the internet via battery powered modem and sitting in a room lit by batteries - working with my son in the UAE via Zoom and remote control of my laptop; to develop a Pythin recording solution.

I know we must do proper customer contact and properly consider all the details of the product design. To an extent we must do that during field trials, but we must asap engage with professionals for proper customer interfacing and engagement.

Fortunately electricity is a commodity and as such not impacted by fashion and customer perceptions. Also, the Farateq Generator should be non intrusive in customer's households; with respect to emissions, noise and heat. However, we must ensure that the packaging would facilitate transport to their homes as well as easy integration into households. This must also include safe connection to their domestic electrical networks.

MY TEAM

Background

I started my career as an industrial engineer. This basis set the scene for a multi-disciplinary, holistic systems perspective with a focus on increasing efficiency and effectiveness and reducing waste. My approach completely resonates with the current trend towards sustainability and care for the environment.

My first employment was in the SA Defence Force. This gave me insight into the interface and mutual contribution between small unit tactics and large scale operations. In business, this ultimately reflects as effective synchronization between the activities of a single employee and the overall corporate strategy.

I then worked as a consulting industrial engineer, first for a consulting firm and later as in internal consultant at AECI Modderfontein. Here I was fortunate to get two years of exposure as a senior superintendent, in charge of the Capped Fuse Plant with about 70 employees. We drove waste down to below 1 % of input.

I then worked at Kentron, managing manufacture and maintenance of short range air-to-air missiles. One of our projects, the industrialization of the V3E A-Darter missile, had a budget of R 70 million. Following PW Botha’s stroke, the defence industry went into the doldrums and I achieved being retrenched twice.

I then manufactured long rod insulators for use in the overhead electrical infrastructure by Spoornet, but demand was too low for sustainable manufacture. In 1997 I joined Vaal University of Technology as senior lecturer. Along the way I headed the Technology Transfer Office, stimulating innovation in the university and community and managing intellectual property protection. I was also blessed by acting appointment as Deputy Vice Chancellor, eventually managing 21 000 students. This was the most fulfilling period in my career, attempting to create value in their lives, despite the multiple obstacles created by mismanagement over many years.

Qualifications

B Eng (Industrial) at University of Pretoria.

GDE (Industrial) at University of the Witwatersrand. A Graduate Diploma in Engineering is an honours degree.

MBL (cum laude) at the University of South Africa. UNISA then awarded the Masters in Business Leadership, their equivalent to the MBA.

PhD (Mechanical Engineering) at the University of the Northwest.

Current employment status

I retired in May 2021 from Vaal University of Technology, and have been focussing on this research and development.

Roots of this innovation

I started PhD research in 2016, initially with the focus to develop a dual voltage (3 000 V DC and 25 000 V AC) section insulator for use in the overhead electrical infrastructure by Spoornet. During a course in Switzerland, I realised that the global section insulator market would be approximately $ 300 million per year, whilst a constituent technology in the section insulator would amount to $ 9 000 million per year. This was the ARCBAN technology, previously submitted to SABF. I then came across an existing patent that would have precluded successful protection of the ARCBAN technology, and pivoted to the current research.

Now, onwards to a team

As yet, Farateq is essentially a one-man team.

I have over many years been ably supported by my wife, Zani Jooste. She has sacrificed her house to be a laboratory and our children had very few holidays.

At the moment, none of our two vehicles can drive and we actually borrow a vehicle from one of our children. The research takes priority.

There are two reasons for the one-man team. One is that till now, there has not been any money to reward collaborators on a sustainable basis. The other is that my endeavour normally would attract scepticism from potential collaborators.

I am normally educated on the Law on the Conservation of Energy, as soon as people become aware of my dream. Here-in they do not recognise the parable of Mark 3: “No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house.”  Thus, if you endeavour to find a way around the Law on the Conservation of Energy, you must first become an expert on that Law.

The Law was however never directly my target. That would in any case have been a negative mission. The actual mission has always been to generate energy.

Interestingly, about the Law on the Conservation of Energy: It is actually the tale of Émilie and Emmy:

• -Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, did the first experiments to demonstrate the correlation between the gravitational potential energy of metal balls and the maximum kinetic energy attained during a fall. This became the basis of the Law on the Conservation of Energy.
• -The Law has by Grace never been directly proven.
• -The closest to a proof, has been Doctor Amalie Emmy Noether’s first theorem, stating “that every differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system with conservative forces has a corresponding conservation law” (Wikipedia).
• -Time crystals offer a back door to this Law.
• -I also believe that Doctor Faraday already generated nett energy in 1843, but did not realise it.
• -I also believe that careful review of the physics of the ionosphere, will indicate that energy is created and destroyed there on a daily basis. Interestingly for me, as the research focus on static electricity and capacitors, is that the combination of the ionosphere and the Earth, means that most of us (apart from astronauts), spend our whole life inside a capacitor.

This research has the potential to positively impact the lives and quality of life of billions of people and also to halt climate warming, which may destroy the lives of billions. Such an impact can never be attained by a one-man show. As soon as possible, the team must expand exponentially. The MIT Solve prize will enable that.

Specific financial, technical, legal, cultural, or market barriers to be overcome with Solve partnership, and how?

Funding is always welcome, for survival as well as equipment.

However, the right technical partners would offer skills as well as laboratory resources. Thinking here about refinement of the core electricity generation but also electricity transformation, such as switching MOSFETS at more than 70 million times per second without losing the energy being switched.

Marketing partners would also facilitate customer discovery and ensuring that we establish lasting integration into customer households.

Describe why your solution provides a new or significantly improved approach to the problem.

This is the first machine that effectively exploits a new back door to the Law on the Conservation of Energy.

No successful work-around towards nett energy generation has yet been exposed. Time crystals (Professor Frank Wilczek, 2012) already broke time-translational symmetry and thus also Dr Emmy Noether’s theorem on symmetry, which is closely allied to the Law on the Conservation of Energy. However, there has not yet been any proposal available on how to exploit this property for energy harvesting.

There are few solutions on the market, that does not create pollution nor contribute to global warming. These, such as PV panels and wind turbines; cannot work 24/7.

How it could be catalytic: do you expect it to change the market or enable broader positive impacts from others in this space?

God willing that the solution works well in practice (it has obviously not yet been tested even as a prototype); there will be a demand to apply the technology in all spheres of energy requirement.

I also expect that as it becomes commonly accepted that the Law on the Conservation of Energy can in fact be bypassed; more solutions will emerge.

How?

The nature and urgency of both climate warming and energy cost spiraling, will drive demand for a sustainable solution.

I want to establish a functioning Farateq Generator manufacturing line before the end of 2022. This includes interface with the chosen marketing channels. At that stage product design and testing must be concluded.

In five years, this technology should address at least a third of global electricity generation.

The Farateq Generator and its technology will, God willing, immediately generate the desired pollution and climate impacts as they are used and thus replace fossil fuel. It is not necessary to change customers' behavior; for instance by showering in colder water.

Here I am without words?

One metric that comes to mind is the number of Farateq Generators manufactured and sold.

Each Farateq Generator would save a certain amount of conventionally generated electricity, with associated pollution and climate warming. The amount of Farateq Generators sold, actually expressed as the capacity sold, also indicates overall success of immersing the new technology in Society.

I appreciate the fantastic teaching in your course about ToC - but my time is running out now. One hour left, including video.

As the Farateq Generator and Farateq technology is used, it replaces fossil fuels; for cooking and refrigeration and all other requirements (light, internet, etc).

The Farateq Generator utilizes unique features of static electricity to generate electricity. It has an on board battery to start generation, and will then, within design limits, generate electricity. As more electricity is required, it will automatically generate more. Battery trickle recharged. The Generator may be switched off and restarted as required.

Base load and on-demand generation (no storage) capabilities. No noise, no fuel nor dependence on wind or Sun, no pollution nor climate warming. Mobile application potential. No moving parts. Should thus last a lifetime. Solid state switches are used but at high frequencies, which may require replacement.

Does the Farateq Generator not exceed the Law on the Conservation of Energy? By Grace, there appears to be an exemption/window of opportunity for electrostatics.

The South African Journal of Science and Technology published an article, proposing a possible work-around enabling the generation of nett energy (http://www.satnt.ac.za/index.php/satnt/article/view/865).

Further research focussed on empirically validating the work-around. Initially approximately 91 % of input energy was lost – and then, by Grace, a way was found that yields significant nett energy.

Patenting underway. After protection, the achievement will be publicly disclosed, hopefully before mid-April 2022. 

By Grace, the core energy generation module might be inexpensive with common materials and construction. The energy transformation module would be more complex, but is achievable with available technology. To illustrate the point, a recent experiment yielded an energy gain of 871 364 %. The actual energy generated was 2.71E-06 Joule. In order to be able to power a small kettle, using 1 000 Watts – the generator must cycle at 369 043 531 Hertz. It must be switched on and off 369 million times per second, which is a challenge – but an achievable challenge using MOSFET and JFET and IGBT technology. Current practical switching rates may reach 70 MHz, but the generator design may be adapted to this frequency. A next challenge is to ensure that switching losses and gate drive losses will not absorb all the energy created.

The South African Journal of Science and Technology published an article, proposing a possible work-around enabling the generation of nett energy (http://www.satnt.ac.za/index.php/satnt/article/view/865).

Please provide an email address for an English version of the article.

Patenting underway. After protection, the achievement will be publicly disclosed, hopefully before mid-April 2022.

As soon as patents are finally accepted, possibly mid-April, I can provide access to data.

Also then, a follow up article will be rushed to print.

I love people.

I also believe in the "modified" Christian dictum: "Love thy neighbour, especially thy neighbor's wife.".

Joking - we are all on Earth. We need each other and must accommodate one another.

It is extremely sad that people harm themselves and others. It is also a waste of time and resources. Our solutions must intend to create better environments that will retard such behavior.

Farateq needs people.

As yet, Farateq is essentially a one-man team.

I have over many years been ably supported by my wife, Zani Jooste. She has sacrificed her house to be a laboratory and our children had very few holidays.

At the moment, none of our two vehicles can drive and we actually borrow a vehicle from one of our children. The research takes priority.

There are two reasons for the one-man team. One is that till now, there has not been any money to reward collaborators on a sustainable basis. The other is that my endeavour normally would attract scepticism from potential collaborators.

I am normally educated on the Law on the Conservation of Energy, as soon as people become aware of my dream. Here-in they do not recognise the parable of Mark 3: “No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house.”  Thus, if you endeavour to find a way around the Law on the Conservation of Energy, you must first become an expert on that Law.

The Law was however never directly my target. That would in any case have been a negative mission. The actual mission has always been to generate energy.

Interestingly, about the Law on the Conservation of Energy: It is actually the tale of Émilie and Emmy:

• -Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, did the first experiments to demonstrate the correlation between the gravitational potential energy of metal balls and the maximum kinetic energy attained during a fall. This became the basis of the Law on the Conservation of Energy.
• -The Law has by Grace never been directly proven.
• -The closest to a proof, has been Doctor Amalie Emmy Noether’s first theorem, stating “that every differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system with conservative forces has a corresponding conservation law” (Wikipedia).
• -Time crystals offer a back door to this Law.
• -I also believe that Doctor Faraday already generated nett energy in 1843, but did not realise it.
• -I also believe that careful review of the physics of the ionosphere, will indicate that energy is created and destroyed there on a daily basis. Interestingly for me, as the research focus on static electricity and capacitors, is that the combination of the ionosphere and the Earth, means that most of us (apart from astronauts), spend our whole life inside a capacitor.

This research has the potential to positively impact the lives and quality of life of billions of people and also to halt climate warming, which may destroy the lives of billions. Such an impact can never be attained by a one-man show. As soon as possible, the team must expand exponentially. The MIT Solve prize will enable that.

Develop technology.

Develop a Farateq Generator based on this technology, for manufacture and sales.

Sell IP licences.

Develop more applications.

Initially seek competition funding.

Then venture capital injections.

Then full IPO.

Along the way, derive income from sales of Farateq Generators and licences.

Thus far funded from my pension?

Cannot get the crying emoji here now.