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Who in thier right mind would actually pay to be insulted like this?

The same people that purchase patents on things like This

If this article at Open Source Energy Network is to be believed, a new alternative form of turbine will solve a lot of problems and might get them all on the same page.

But this submission is from the same Sterling D. Allan who gave us such other fine stories as Wilma the Capacitor and Particle Accelerator and often submits links to the Open Source Energy Network, a site that covers such reputable and proven technologies as cold fusion and extracting the zero point energy*. Are you suggesting that he may be a less than reliable source of information? I am shocked, simply shocked.

Why on Earth do they keep taking submissions from this guy? There are a lot of good articles about real science and technology out there, so there's no reason to waste time with BS.

* For those less familiar with quantum field theory, this means getting energy out of thin air. While things like the Casimir effect exist, then can't be used as a source of energy. This is a fact that essentially every physicist who uses quantum field theory in their research would agree on.

This is the third post I recall by Stirling D. Allan recently, the others being

• Wilma the Capacitor and Particle Accelerator
• Alternative to Tokamak Fusion Reactor

The first in that list featured complete crackpot pseudoscience. The second seems to be of dubious scientific merit. A quick look at Mr. Allan's website shows they are involved with a number of other areas of pseudoscience (or to put it less kindly, scientific hoaxes) such as "magnet motors" and "zero point energy" (as an energy source). That together with the two other submissions he's made leads me to doubt the validity of the information in these "stories". The main problem, however, is that these are not balanced informative articles, but rather they seem to be little more than ads seeking venture capital. Furthermore, it looks like Slashdot is soon to become little more than a mouthpiece for opensourceenergy.org at this rate.

Every page that /. links to gets visits from at least hundreds of /.ers. The bottom of Focus Fusion poses overwhelming competition to Tokamak has a comments section, but only six comments appear.

Thanks for pointing out the MSNBC story, based on the Norsk Hydro press release.

I've publish a version here:

Wind power project floating out to North Sea - Norwegian utility envisions a floating 660-foot-tall tower, tethered to sea floor, supporting 95-foot-long blades. Scaled-down 3 MW demo with 14-foot' blades expected in 2007. If the concept works, Norsk Hydro envisions parks of perhaps 200 windmills, in waters 700-2,200 feet deep. (OSEN; Nov. 3, 2005)

You've gotta see their video (linked in above story). It's like watching a 5-star movie trailer.

His reporti is about completely different site,
http://opensourceenergy.org/ != http://opensource.nokia.com/

This is total junk science. Why is this being posted as "news"? Paul claim "Without this electrical circuit, the storm would fail almost instantly due to".

The use of the word "instantly" when discussing any weather phenomena is not accurate. Everything takes time to form, or not - to use such terms indicates the author is over exagerating his claims.

Terms like "massive capacitor bank" and "harmonic circuits" are also used to wow the audience into thinking that perhaps the author might actually know what he is talking about.

Not only that but it's on "opensourcenergy.org" after poking around I felt like I should get my tin foil hat out, I'd be in good company. Check out this great piece of reporting: http://www.opensourceenergy.org/_layouts/apps/dp/i ndex.asp

During its transit of Florida, satellite photos showed that areas of the high clouds of Wilma covering more than 1/3 of the state were below -135 F. (The lowest temperature for the IR satellite chart). It was actually close in a large area to -175. Some areas exceeded that. This is what happens when you dump the arctic into the tropics. Explosions happen! The forecast of a weak Cat 1 became a strong Cat 3 due to this temperature shock.

None of this is strange physics. All of it is accounted for by current weather models. Talk of "particle accelerators" and "capacitor banks" is silly; there's a lot of energy converted to lightning in thunderstorms, but it's small and secondary compared to the heat engine which drives it.

The authors of this piece are first-class cranks.