An action thriller by Jock Miller


Fossil fuel has an ageless affinity with dinosaurs. To create oil, dinosaurs died.


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The perfect energy storm is sweeping over the United States: Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown has paralyzed nuclear expansion globally, BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill has stalled deep water drilling, Arab oil countries are in turmoil causing doubt about access to future oil, the intensity of hurricanes hitting the Gulf’s oil rigs and refineries has intensified due to global warming, and the nation’s Strategic Oil Supply is riding on empty.

As the energy storm intensifies, the nation’s access to Arab oil, once supplying over sixty percent of our fossil fuel, is being threatened causing people to panic for lack of gas at the pumps, stranding cars across the country and inciting riots.

The U.S. Military is forced to cut back air, land, and sea operations sucking up 58% of every barrel of oil to protect the nation; U.S. commercial airlines are forced to limit flights for lack of jet fuel; and businesses are challenged to power up their factories, and offices as the U.S. Department of Energy desperately tries to provide a balance of electric power from the network of aged power plants and transmission lines that power up the nation.

The United States must find new sources of domestic fossil fuel urgently or face an energy crisis that will plunge the nation into a deep depression worse than 1929.

The energy storm is very real and happening this very moment. But, at the last moment of desperation, the United States discovers the world’s largest fossil fuel deposit found in a remote inaccessible mountain range within Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve surrounding six and a half million acres.

Preventing access to the oil is a colony of living fossil dinosaurs that will protect its territory to the death.

Nobody gets out alive; nobody can identify the predator--until Dr. Kimberly Fulton, Curator of Paleontology at New York’s Museum of Natural History, is flown into the inaccessible area by Scott Chandler, the Marine veteran helicopter pilot who’s the Park’s Manager of Wildlife. All hell breaks loose when Fulton’s teenage son and his girlfriend vanish into the Park.

Will the nation’s military be paralyzed for lack of mobility fuel, and will people across America run out of gas and be stranded, or will the U.S. Military succeed in penetrating this remote mountain range in northwestern Alaska to restore fossil fuel supplies in time to save the nation from the worst energy driven catastrophe in recorded history?

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Nature Yields New Ideas for Energy and Efficiency: BioWAVE:

Capturing Ocean Power


Illustration courtesy BioPower Systems

BioPower Systems of Sydney, Australia, is working toward a $14 million pilot demonstration of its trademarked BioWAVE system off the coast of Port Fairy in the southeastern state of Victoria. Late last year, BioPower received a $5 million ($5.2 million U.S.) award from the Victoria government to help bring the project to fruition.

At 250 kilowatts, the planned pilot would have about a fifth of the capacity of a common commercial wind turbine. But it will be connected to the electric grid, and systems of this size in the past have been large enough to power neighborhoods or large institutional buildings, such as schools. It all depends on how much efficiency the system achieves. The company has spent five years performing multiple tests in tanks at increasing scale before ocean deployment.

BioWAVE's floats are designed to pick up the energy from the ocean's waves, while a flexible "stem" would allow the floats to pivot to catch the most energy. But the inspiration gained from seaweed must be tempered by practicality. Unlike kelp, BioWAVE is designed so its floats would flood with water during big storm surges. The floats would then sink to the seabed to await calmer seas. That's important because ocean-wave devices do not work if the waves are too rough. The costs of the system are reduced because BioWAVE does not require an ironclad grip on the ocean floor.

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