Balance of Power Shifted

by Karl, Victor

  Billy Boy asked me to call an electrician in to install a small sub panel near the main electrical panel and wire the panel to the roof for a connection to the Power Mat. The sub panel would have both AC and DC connections. He also wanted us to have the ability to run power back into the main panel for future testing. I thought this was a great idea and immediately called Soros Electric who I had used extensively to help remodel my humble abode. After a quick call to the Soros owner, they could have someone here either tomorrow or Saturday. Since we were not going anywhere, I told him Friday was fine. Taking care of this issue, I headed off to the local market for tonight’s dinner of barbecued ribs and chicken, homemade pasta salad made with Italian dressing, pepperoni and chunks of fresh Romano or Parmesan cheese and grilled asparagus in a balsamic vinaigrette marinade. A couple of cases of cold beer were in order, since we were down to our last couple of bottles.

  I rushed back to start dinner since I slow grilled ribs and chicken so not to burn my special barbecue sauce with a honey base. I never cooked it at high heat, since anything with sugar in it would normally turn black and bubble off the food. I took the long road, cooked it at very low heat to avoid flare-ups, and continuously turned over the ribs and chicken while applying a new coating of sauce. While Bill puttered around the lab, I took complete care of dinner and stocking the roof refrigerator. Looking down from the rooftop, I saw everyone who walked nearby on the street crane his or her neck to see where that wonderful smell was coming from. Carrying up a few items from the kitchen, I pressed the intercom button and yelled, “come and get it!” It was less than 45 seconds before Mr. Bill appeared at the roof doorway. He must have run up all the stairs since he was obviously out of breath.

  After we each had seconds and were on our third beer, I steered the conversation back to business. “I think we are on the threshold for a viable business that has the potential to be monstrous for making money and might possibly be one of the greatest discoveries of all time.” Pausing for Bill’s response, he simply shook his head yes and smiled. “Since we are in agreement,” I continued, “I will personally visit Jeremy tomorrow and give him a letter of resignation and fully commit to our endeavor.” “Yup,” Bill responded. “I don’t know how we can pursue anything else. Everything else is trivial to what we can accomplish.” Nodding my head in agreement, I started to lay out some next steps and recommendations regarding things that have been percolating in my brain for the last couple of weeks.

  The first thing I hit Bill with was the need to come up with a company name and a name for our precious little organisms before leaving the rooftop tonight. Next, we need to go back east and talk to lawyers on how to incorporate, protect our intellectual property and copyright or patent anything and everything we can think of. This part was to be a little tricky, because we did not want to divulge our ‘secret sauce’ so to speak. Looking right into Bill’s funky greenish eyes I said, “You know we need to get other people involved to work with us on this, and I believe the information we have uncovered is so sensitive, that we must only deal with people we trust completely, which means we should see if our friends want to go into business with us.”

  Bill’s initial reaction was just to raise his eyebrows, but I could see that he was really considering all the ramifications of what I had just said. “Rico, I agree with everything you’ve said, but I also know we are going to need many more people by the time we are ready to go to market. I also just had a chill up my leg thinking about the possibility that we may become targets since our discovery has the ability for changing the balance of world power, as we know it. We cannot be naïve about this and must take every precaution to protect everyone involved.”

  “Once we get our prototype working I want to schedule a meeting at my shore house on Long Beach Island and meet with Julius Filamore, my grandparent’s lawyer who helped me out tremendously to settle the estate. Once we have a discussion with him, I want to see if we can get our friends together, make a sales pitch, and see if we can get them onboard. I can put up the initial money after we incorporate to help with paying salaries and buying whatever we need, but at some point in time we need other means of funding to help pay for buildings, materials and fabrication of our future products.”

  Out of nowhere, Bill says the word efficio or at least that is what it sounded like. “I would like to call our company Efficio” he said. “Sounds like something from a Queen song” I said. “No, no” he argued. “It is Latin for bring about, do, or produce. When we show to the world what our new company produces we can bring significant and positive changes in the world, and good old Mother Earth, if she could speak, would be saying amen. This is the perfect clean energy solution and all natural to boot.” “Did this name come off the top of your head or what?” I asked. Sort of, he responded, while researching Latin words for naming our organism, I came across this term and it just stuck in my head. While I am on a roll and at least for now, let us call our discovery Electricus Plankton. I repeated Bill’s words slowly “E l e c t r i c u s P l a n k t o n” and then repeated “Electricus Plankton, Electricus Plankton. I like it” I said, “but why do you say it is only for now?” “Those academics,” Bill replied, “they have all kinds of rules regarding naming and I have no idea if this is even close.” We were so jacked-up, that we shook hands for 30 seconds to signify our agreement on the names, and then concluded our evening’s roof top board meeting.

  Chapter 11: Leap of Faith

  I must have been tired from the night before and I am usually an early riser, but this morning my phone rang at around 7:15 and woke me up. It was one of the electricians from Soros and he was standing at our door. I quickly stumbled out of bed and headed downstairs. A quick look around the lab showed that everything was neatly stowed away except for the material to make the power pad. When I opened the door, I recognized one of the electricians as Pedro. He had supervised much of the previous work here and was very competent as well as an amiable sort. “Pedro, how the heck are you,” I said as we shook hands. “Come on in and I will show you what I need.” The other person with him must have been his helper or apprentice since he turned around to the van and started to unload some gear. Walking over to the main circuit panel, I repeated to Pedro what Bill and I had designed yesterday. I also gave him our cover story that we were going to play around with solar gear and wanted to have it wired for a variety of options. He checked the metal conduit that already had wires running up to the roof and shook his head affirmatively indicating that there was still space for the additional wiring.

  We headed up to the roof so he could see the cable installation area which was alongside the framework of the door leading to the deck. Bill and I figured we would use the frame around the door to hang or drape the Power Mat over when completed. Pursing his lips slightly, and bobbing his head up and down, he said “no problem Mr. Carter. It should take less than 2-hours.” “Excellent” I said and left Pedro to do his thing.

  When I came back downstairs, Mr. Bill was in the kitchen scrounging in the refrigerator for some grub. “Can you watch the electrician while I run out to the office to give Jeremy my official resignation? Pedro is the supervisor and has been here a few times. If there are any questions give me a call on my cell and they should just bill us by mail.” “No problem dude, I’m going to start laying out the Power Panel and see how that goes,” Bill added.” In less than ten minutes I had showered, shaved and threw on a pair of Dockers and a golf shirt for my visit with Jeremy. In some respects, I was over dressed as shorts and sandals ruled there. As I was grabbing my keys, Bill hit me with “do you mind if I use the Hummer for a special project?” Taken back a little, I responded with “what project?” “Never you mind,” Bill said, “you’ll like it and that’s all you need to know.” Not caring about the H2, I said “sure and I won’t ask any more questions other than how much?” His only reply was to say he would keep it reasonable. Shaking my head, I headed for car.

  The closer I got to the office th
e more nervous I became. As positive as I felt about how things were going with our project, I was walking away from a perfectly good, exciting and well-paying job and this was causing some trepidation and self-doubt within me. Sitting on my passenger seat, was my typed and signed resignation letter. I thought I got too emotional in the letter mentioning the great people there and great working atmosphere. I think it might have just been my way of saying thanks to Jeremy for being a great boss and mentor. Since I was getting here late, the only parking spots available were on the upper deck of the parking garage, which is never good because of exposure to sun and elements. Getting out of the car, the only thing I had to grab was the letter and my badge. Other Clavis Aurea Inc. gear never left the office.

  Coming out of the elevator and scanning the reception area, I walked up to Susan, and handed her my cell phone and scanned in again to access the work area. I was right on schedule for my 9:30 meeting with Jer. I walked up to his doorway where he saw me and waved me in. “Mike, I see that letter in your hand and I know what you’re going to tell me,” he said sounding crestfallen. “Jeremy, you don’t know how much this is killing me to hand this to you, but the venture I have been working on is so mind boggling and exciting that I wish I can give you some details.” “You have me very curious Mike. You’re a well-grounded guy so when I hear you talk like this I can hardly suppress my curiosity.” “Jeremy,” I said and paused as I chose my words carefully. “Bill and I are anticipating that we may need to become clients of yours in the near future. Rock solid security at all levels may be the difference in our venture being successful or not. We expect that we will make many powerful people very nervous because we hold the key to the economic future of many countries”. I could see Jeremy trying to fathom what I was talking about without pressing me with questions. “Bill and I are going back East soon to formalize our new company and recruit some trusted people to come on board with us. I would like to circle around with you and see if you are interested in working with us.” “By all means” Jeremy said, “if for nothing more than to see what all this intrigue is about.”

  Jeremy continued by saying, “I know you have some money resources behind you from your inheritance and other stuff, but let me know if you get into any money difficulties.” I handed Jeremy the letter and my company identification and pumped his hand with an emotional handshake. He escorted me to the front desk and informed Susan that I had just resigned to “follow a rainbow” as he phrased it. Susan came around the desk and gave me a formidable bear hug saying that she and everyone else were going to miss me. Echoing the same sentiments, I said one more goodbye and headed into my future.

  Chapter 12: Prototyping

  When I returned to the lab the electricians were gone and I could see a new sub panel mounted on the wall. Bill was looking like a seamstress with vinyl material strewn all over and a large pair of shears in his hand. He looked a little frustrated to me. “Man this is a lot more work than I thought,” he said. “Inserting these wires into the 8 ounce bags and sealing the holes took a lot of trial and error. The first glue I used actually melted the vinyl, so I had to look around for a different type. It looks like I found a good adhesive that provided a leak proof seal without dissolving the.” Working the rest of the day, we created our first Power Pad.

  The most confusing part was wiring the panel. We had no idea what total voltage or amperage we were looking for and decided to revamp our Power Panel concept. We agreed on a hardwired circuit board for every Power Cell. After some thought, we added some components that allowed us, by throwing some switches, to vary voltage and amperage by changing the number of Power Cells in series which made the voltage cumulative. We also could organize cells in parallel allowing for higher power ratings. The result looked like a poor attempt at a high school science fair. The Power Pad actually looked good, but the hodgepodge of wires connected to circuit boards and miscellaneous switches looked insane.

  Bill gave me the job to fabricate a rudimentary chassis and mount the components inside. Using some of the machine shop equipment that came with the building, I was able to bend sheet metal, and after many wasted attempts, made a cabinet. Since the wires were already connected, I needed to drill access holes to mount the circuit boards and decided to leave the front open. Drilling screw holes into the back, I was able to mount the circuit boards to the back panel using Teflon standoffs. Next, I mounted switches to the left side panel as well as DC output jacks and testing points. With a little silicone gel, I tried to make the unit moisture proof by sealing the front panel and screwing it in place. Liberally using the silicon, I sealed all the seams. By now, it was two in the morning. Bill had hit the sack about an hour before after creating diagrams and working out the math on our electrical capacities.

  After hitting the sack, I found I could not go right to sleep. Tomorrow or actually later today, we could put everything in place and test out our prototype. Over the last couple of weeks, I had been boning up on solar power and battery systems including electric cars. Slowly but surely I was formulating applications for our product in my head. The obvious and most simple application was to use our Power Panels in a manner similar to how solar panels work. Due to the characteristics of the organism, low light situations allowed for power generation, which changed the dynamics resulting in no need for power companies in the future.

  The entry costs could potentially be the lowest of any alternative power system and the return on investment could be exceedingly quick. A typical home currently using electric for heating and cooling would have almost no other additional costs, where as a home using natural gas or heating oil would need to replace those systems with an electric equivalent. I also envisioned a whole cottage industry springing up to do gas to electric conversions of automobiles. My basic Internet browsing showed me there were numerous companies already specializing in it. In contrast to pure battery driven electric cars, no mysterious charging stations were required and drivers had unlimited mileage. Damn, those poor convenience store owners could suffer big time if drivers did not have to come in and pump gas. Somewhere during my nocturnal day dreaming, I fell asleep.

  I woke up close to nine the next morning and grabbed a quick shower. I decided to drink my morning Amp pick-me-up and headed down stairs to see what Bill had been doing. “Yo Billy Boy” I called halfway down the stairs, “what’s shakin?” Now Bill is not one of those calm and collective sorts, and when he looked up and said, “Check this out” with that ‘mad professor’ look back on his face. Walking over I saw the electrical meters hooked up to our Power Panel with different levels showing. Pointing to one meter, he said, “I’ve configured it so that we have three serial strings of 46 power cells. Each of the stings connects to the others in parallel. This gives us about 100 volts DC output. Pointing to a second meter, he showed me a meter that indicated just over 24 amps. Next, he stated, “calculating voltage times amperes for wattage, we have about 2400 watts of power. Once we have it on the roof in actual daylight, I expect the amperage to double, or so I guess.” Are you hungry,” Bill asked with a grin, which I replied “sure.” He walked over to a small microwave we kept in the lab, placed a Jimmy Dean sausage biscuit in the microwave, and set the cook time for 2-minutes. While it was cooking, I was looking at other things he had been playing around with and noticed he had an extension cord plugged into the DC to AC power converter which was plugged into the power panel. Tracing the cable with my eyes, I was shocked to realize that my good friends at Electricus were helping to cook my breakfast.

  While I finished my breakfast we discussed how best to carry everything up to the roof. We both agreed that the final design would utilize modular plugs to make assembly and disassembly easy. For now, we decided to gently fold up the Power Pad and place the Power Panel on top of it. We then carefully lifted up everything and placed it in a giant Coleman cooler, which had heavy-duty handles. It was no small feat carrying it up the spiral stairs to the roof. There were a few gallons of liquid involved and whi
ch made it heavy as hell. We simply draped the pad over the roof of the doorway hut and placed the panel on the side of the same hut near where the electricians had installed our wiring. We interconnected the panel to the house wiring and 10 minutes later were done. After a short discussion on where to place the inverter, we decided to leave it where it was.

  Back downstairs, we plugged the meters in and saw that the unloaded DC connection still showed the same voltage level, but the amperage reading was close to double just as Bill had calculated. We connected the AC into the input side of our new UPS. This would help us to get a cleaner power signal and reduce noise and spikes. The UPS batteries allowed for the disconnection of Electricus while allowing any device connected to the UPS to continue running. The UPS batteries were not fully charged but would be eventually. Being a brave soul, I connected one of the lab laptops to the UPS without the laptop battery installed. All the data was stored on the server, so I did not think there was much risk. The laptop worked flawlessly.

  In another ten minutes, we had connected all kinds of miscellaneous test gear and PCs to the UPS. We avoided anything that had an electric motor for now or created any real surge or electrical noise. While I caught up on logging my last 2-days of activity, Bill used my Canon 7D camera to take both still pictures and high definition vignettes of Electricus in operation. Using a tripod, he also narrated an introduction and explanation of what we were seeing. We had agreed to do this as one way to show our friends, and hopefully future coworkers, what we were selling. Under no circumstances would we divulge details on the “secret sauce” other than it was a living organism that made the impossible possible.