As the late Jewish-Polish aphorist Stanislav Lec once said: “It’s true that we’re on the wrong track, but we’re compensating for that shortfall by accelerating.”
Journalist Jeane Manning and industrial scientist Joel Garbon are on a mission to educate people on the current state of energy technologies, confident that there is light at the end of the oil pipeline. In Breakthrough Power, they provide simple explanations of energy technologies that fall outside the mainstream, in hope of starting the discussion for the prospect of cheap and abundant power. “In a time of weather extremes and disasters such as earthquakes, flooding and oil wars, a healthy nudge in the direction of ‘disruptive’ clean energy technology could be the global economy’s salvation rather than the harbinger of collapse,” they argue.
Non-conventional energy inventions are the focus here. With costly nuclear power plants actually decreasing in number and oil reserves destined to be consumed in the coming decades, Manning and Garbon believe the future is in technologies beyond the laws of traditional science. However, this is not wizards and magic: The authors provide numerous examples of distinguished inventors who, over the last few centuries, have pushed the boundaries of science using physical experiments, only to be ignored by the establishment. They cite Nikola Tesla as a major contributor to “Free Energy.” Responsible for electrical alternating current, his resonance-enhanced electrodynamic induction technology finds extensive use in cutting-edge products such as cell phones, laptop computers, pacemakers, and electric vehicles. Yet Tesla is far from lonely in the treasure chest of shunned inventors. From example to example, a disturbing pattern emerges, exposing the obstacles and perils of the breakthrough energy innovators of our age. Jeane Manning and Joel Garbon believe it is about time to change all that.
A poignant example of how achievable these technologies are is shown in the story of how ten-year-old Shawnee Baughman won top prizes at her school science fair with “an innovative motor and battery-charging device,” which she built herself using instructions provided to her by neighbor and inventor John Bedini. Breakthrough Power may very well become the textbook for a sustainable future.
Manning and Garbon go on to discuss ways that inventors and consumers alike can help transform their environment for the better by first asking, “Do we want a new-energy future of breakthroughs being widely used for the good of all life?” They urge everyone to become informed and to support these groundbreaking technologies.
Additionally, the appendixes provide a summary of the Energy Innovation Act of 2007, which was largely ignored by American politicians at the time author and scientist Joel Garbon presented it to Congress on behalf of NewEnergyMovement.org, a nonprofit educational organization, because there were no monetary contributions involved.
To fully understand the technologies discussed in Breakthrough Power, the reader must look further. But as a topical introduction, this book is an indispensable source for any serious discussion on the problem of energy domination and the various ways to free ourselves from the grid.
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the author will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.