Irish Company Claims Free Energy

raghus writes "An Irish company has thrown down the gauntlet to the worldwide scientific community to test a technology it has developed that it claims produces free energy. The company, Steorn, says its discovery is based on the interaction of magnetic fields and allows the production of clean, free and constant energy — a concept that challenges one of the basic rules of physics." I can't wait until I can use this free energy to power my flying car and heat my aquarium of mermaids.

Comments

You can tell something about these people

[ackthpt]

They talk in circles and can't provide any definite explanations as to how something like this would work.

About 7 years ago I worked with a fellow who absolutely was buying into some black box he would just plug things into and it would harvest energy from the earth's magnetic field. Sounds about the same thing. If there was enough density of magnetic fields to run a toaster, odds are you'd be suffering some serious and potentially fatal side effects.

"What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy," McCarthy said.

Moving around in circles to gather energy, what a neat idea! Um, where do we get the energy to run around in circles? Sounds like that net forces thing, the sum of all forces acting upon my car at the moment are zero, but if I could just remove those coming from one direction, it should move in that direction, right? Hey, how about something that runs on gravity, since there's an unending supply of that, eh?

I'm also of the opinion if we started using something which was naturally in abundance, like earth's magnetic fields, it would cumulatively and ultimately affect something we'd regret later.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[snowgirl]

"What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy," McCarthy said.

I have to agree with you here. To me it just sounds like electromagnetic induction. Move a wire through a magnetic field, and boom! It makes electricity.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[nizo]

From this article:

In order for such a revolutionary technology to have the public support needed for it to become used widely, McCarthy says that confirmation from the academic community will be crucial. "That is our focus at this point," he said.

McCarthy declined to specify how many prototypes they have built, or how long they have run, how much power they produce, and other details of the design.

All of this documentation will be presented in full to the jury of twelve scientists that are soon to be selected to analyze the technology. As of the time of this writing, 1,300 people have expressed interest in serving on the jury of scientists; and 15,516 people have signed up to be notified of the results.

The selection of the jury will screen out anyone who has past involvement or other indications that might be construed as showing support of the technology in some form or other. "We want cynics," said McCarthy.

"We are not seeking validation from the court of public opinion. What we need is validation from the academic world," he said. Once that has been achieved, then the public can know.

It really sounds to me like they want outside verification, and are willing to pay for it themselves. Shouldn't we let that take place before we fry them in oil?

Re:You can tell something about these people

[uradu]

Ah, magnets...the never-ending source of fascination for crackpots in need of remedial highschool science. If you just arrange them in the right configuration that no-one before has tried, align them just right... After all, you can push pins and stuff around with a magnet THROUGH a table top, there has GOT to be magic in there.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[LurkerXXX]

No. It sounds like they are looking to do some advertising, so they can rope in some not-too-smart-but-greedy venture captial investors.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[_Sharp'r_]

The process (assuming it work as described based on their publicised info) appears to have a simple energy source, magnetic fields.

Of course, any first year electronics or physics student should be able to tell you that when you pull/use energy from a magnetic field, it still comes from somewhere else rather than being created from nothingness.

In an electrical transformer, that source is the current passing through the wires and creating the magnetic field. In a rare earth magnet, the energy has been used to properly line up the atomic structure and gradually demagnitizes the source as it's used up. In the case of the very weak Earth's magnetic field, the main source is the Earth's rotation and the magnetic contents that are thus flowing/rotating inside. The Earth's magnetic field has decayed about 10-15% over the last 150 years, so I wouldn't count on that as a long-term source of free energy anyway.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[darkmeridian]

Technically, the company is correct. Generators produce electricity by moving metal through a magnetic field. The trick is making the metal move through the magnetic field.

Personally, I'm going to use my perpetual motion device to run my Pentium IV Extreme computer powered by Windows Vista while I play Duke Nukem Forever on the Phantom Labs produced graphics card.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[nizo]

After further rummaging through their website, I think you are correct. Sadly I won't be able to use my flying car for free :-(

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Rakshasa Taisab]

"I'm also of the opinion if we started using something which was naturally in abundance, like earth's magnetic fields, it would cumulatively and ultimately affect something we'd regret later."

If we were to start tapping into the magnetic field at such a scale it would devastate the field of magnotherapy. When traditional medicine fails you, where will you turn if the magnetic fields were practically gone due excessive exploitation?

Re:You can tell something about these people

[ArsonSmith]

"Don't worry, we're going to give the energy away for free but we'll make up for it in volume."

They would have to be even more "not-too-smart" then the average greedy venture capitalist investor.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Profane MuthaFucka]

You say it's not magic, but it is magic. Ordinary devices like electronics have smoke in them. If you let the smoke out of a CPU, for example, it no longer works. In all of my experiments with magnets I have not been able to detect smoke of any kind! NO SMOKE! It's magic.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[thatguywhoiam]

I've heard stories about made-up claims of free energy all the way back in middle school. Looks like they didn't pan out. I have little confidence in more of the same. And yet, I'll bet a conspiracy theorist will come along and blame the failure of this magical technology on big oil hitmen.

You take a sensible approach. After all, the odds that this is real are astronomically low. But if it actually is some new miracle technology, existing energy companies will certainly try to destroy it. So you are covered either way.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[IAmTheDave]

Ya know, our (yours, mine, /. in general) skepticism is unquestionably well placed - free energy would collapse some economies, invigorate others, bring about new business opportunities, advance the living conditions of people stuck in third world countries - the actual ramifications are impossible to really get a grasp on.

My thoughts are twofold:

1) Man, if it's true, how awesome would that BE?! I'm the kind of person that - as skeptical as I am - always holds out hope for discoveries like this. There is more clean energy in this universe than we'll ever need - harvesting it is the difficulty. If someone discovered a way to do it - man alive that'd be sweet.

2) If it's true, someone will patent it and it won't be free - on the contrary, it will still somehow cost me as much as energy does now, as greed seems to outpace progress these days.

Since it's probably BS, I don't really have to worry about either one of those two thoughts, but seriously - #1 - how cool would that BE??

Re:You can tell something about these people

[nizo]

The Earth's magnetic field has decayed about 10-15% over the last 150 years.

Does anyone have a source for this besides Wikipedia? Wouldn't this be a serious problem when the weakened magnetic field stops shielding us from the solar winds??

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Anonymous Coward]

I really really want to laugh, becuase it's a funny concept but you don't apply any humor to your post.

WHAT DO I DO?

Re:You can tell something about these people

[johneee]

We do actually have electrical generating stations that run with gravity... In fact there's a huge one at niagara falls.

You could argue I suppose that they run on the evaporative cycle, but I prefer to think of them running on Gravity.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[stefanlasiewski]

Shouldn't we let that take place before we fry them in oil?

That depends. How much energy is required to fry them in oil? Is this energy free?

Re:You can tell something about these people

[susano_otter]

Actually, people think of more efficient ways to do work all the time, with the result being that things are constantly getting cheaper, and the savings are being passed on to you, because of human greed.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[ConsumerOfMany]

I think its great that everyone thinks Venture Capitalists are complete idiots. If thats true then where did they get the money to invest in the first place? If venture capital never had any returns, then venture capitalist would not exist.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[hcdejong]

In all of my experiments with magnets I have not been able to detect smoke of any kind!

You must have not been applying enough power.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[pixelpusher220]

From the article:

"For the first six months that we looked at it we literally didn't believe it ourselves. Over the last three years it had been rigorously tested in our own laboratories, in independent laboratories and so on," he said.

Roughly translated:

We can't *believe* how fscking stupid our neighbors are...we ran a power cord from their external outlet 3 years ago, and they haven't even noticed!

Dude....free energy!

Re:You can tell something about these people

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

In modern society, the best and easiest way to acquire large sums of money is to inherit it. Donald Trump could have invested in munis and done just as well.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[snowgirl]

Vacuum energy comes close enough to being. Now if only we could figure out how to harness it.

I actually make very effective use of vacuum energy while I'm vacuuming my carpet...

OH, you mean that other vacuum...

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Ironsides]

It's believed to be due to an upcoming polar switch (North and South switch polarities). It's nothing new, it's happened many times in the past.
National Geographic
NG#2
CNN
Space.com
New Scientist

Oh yeah, magnetic north (and probable south as well) is moving at an accelerating rate. The Magnetic North Pole is leaving Canada on it's way to Siberia.
CNN

Enough sources for ya?

Re:You can tell something about these people

[HaMMeReD3]

Validation in the academic world, free or even cheap power has never done well because it's not money. Since the 1900's there have literally been thousands of perpetual motion and free power devices. Who's to say that every single one is bunk, I think it's equally likely that the rich are smart enough to do whats in there power to prevent any kind of serious progress that would hurt there ability to make money. The GM EV1 electric car as an example, a production quality electric car the owners loved, and they took them all back and crushed them.

Lets just hope that when things get really bad, one of the many free power devices actually was not bunk, because to believe in conservation of energy itself is bunk. The universe has been showen to expand at an exponentially rate from it's creation, the distribution of a fixed amount of energy evenly throughout the expanding universe would mean that we wouldnt be moving for much longer.

Conservation of energy is more of a crutch to help explain what's happening in small scale physical interaction. Things like dark matter are just proof that the systems of energy in the universe are not a static one but dynamic.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[AugstWest]

I'm sorry, but did you sleep through the 1990s?

Re:You can tell something about these people

[jo42]

"Why do you keep on turning that hand-crank on the side?"

Re:You can tell something about these people

[back_pages]

2) If it's true, someone will patent it and it won't be free - on the contrary, it will still somehow cost me as much as energy does now, as greed seems to outpace progress these days.

If "it" is a natural phenomena, it is not subject to patent in the United States. Manual of Patent Examination Procedure - Section 2106 If "it" is a machine that converts a natural phenomena into traditional energy like electricity, then that machine could be patented but nothing stops you from developing improvements to it or an entirely different machine. Regardless, the patent for that machine would expire 20 years from its filing date and would then become public domain.

If you have a computer system on your desk, there are probably at least 100 different patented products on your desk. That hasn't barred you from owning and enjoying the technology, however. There would be an incredible demand for "free" energy, and therefore market forces would provide ample incentive for competing scientists to develop non-patented devices to harness that energy. Sure, there might be some nasty legal battles, but in the end the original inventor will be able to patent at best what he has contributed to the technology.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[antifoidulus]

where do we get the energy to run around in circles?

Gerbils dude. Lots and lots of gerbils.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[frisket]

I'm as skeptical as the next nerd, but it's still essential for respected scientists to conduct the tests, do the math, and come up with an answer, even if just to debunk it formally.

Anything less is a negation of what science is supposed to be about, and reduces scientists to the level of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, condemning a theory without testing it.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[hackstraw]

I think its great that everyone thinks Venture Capitalists are complete idiots. If thats true then where did they get the money to invest in the first place?

Their father.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[LurkerXXX]

Sigh. Of course not all Venture Capitalists are complete idiots. Many are mucho smart. Some, however, were either lucky, got good advice from others (but might not every time), or inherited their money.

Smart venture captialists will always be around. But so will stupid ones for the above reasons.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Anonymous Coward]

"...people think of more efficient ways to do work all the time, with the result being that things are constantly getting cheaper..."

A few things, no doubt, and mostly a result of the technology maturing. But if I walked into Walmart, I'd most likely see the end results of this "more efficient" new way all over the shelfs -- efficently cheap slave labor.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Kadin2048]

If it's true, someone will patent it and it won't be free - on the contrary, it will still somehow cost me as much as energy does now, as greed seems to outpace progress these days.

Right; because damned if human greed hasn't kept the price of those computer chips right up where they always have been, $60 per 1000 transistors [1], keeping all the profits for themselves. Corporate bastards.

[1] Intel 8080 retailed for around $360 IIRC and had 6,000 transistors. http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickreffam.ht m#i486

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Anonymous Coward]

> 2) If it's true, someone will patent it and it won't be free
> - on the contrary, it will still somehow cost me as much as
> energy does now, as greed seems to outpace progress these days.

If the device is priced fairly, then no big deal. People will buy it, the company will get rich, and everyone will be happy until we discover the awful enviromental effects (like everyone going bald... or growing hair.)

If the device is priced unfairly, then fuck 'em. People will steal the tech, and use it for themselves.

Kind of like software piracy.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[doodlebumm]

Equipment to gather the energy - $5000 installation + $300/month subscription fee

Re:You can tell something about these people

[ISoldMyLowIdOnEbay]

Re: Siphoning off the rotational energy of the Earth

This of course, is exactly what a Tidal generator does. Watch out as the earth's rotation locks to the moon's orbit and we have 696 hour days...

Re:You can tell something about these people

[gad_zuki!]

>free energy would collapse some economies, invigorate others, bring about new business opportunities, advance the living conditions of people stuck in third world countries

Not really. Unless it could compete on price with gas, oil, or nuclear power then it will just be a curiousity. We already have various "free-ish" energy sources out there like wind and water. The problem is that they cost too much and don't produce enough power, thus tradtional power-generation wins out. These methods have specialized applications, but unless these things can seriously compete on price then they won't change the world at all.

  Also, its worth noting that a great deal of poverty in the third-world is not a technological problem but a social one. Its not tech holding them back its their corrupt and incompetent warlords running the show. Money better invested in local hostpital, clean wells, etc then in getting 220v AC to everyone out there. Political incentives (slave labor, international aid monies) to keep people poor. etc. etc.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Alan Hicks]

In modern society, the best and easiest way to acquire large sums of money is to inherit it.

While inheriting wealth is certainly the easiest way to be rich, it isn't the "best" way as the vast majority of wealthy people did not inherit their money. From a quick google search I found this from globalpolicy.org.

The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 24% last year, while many overseas markets rose even more, accounting for much of the gains for the wealthy. In the U.S., the Bush tax cuts, which included a reduction in the top tax rate, as well as reductions in taxes on estates, capital gains and dividends, also helped bolster the fortunes of the fortunate. A 2002 study by Capgemini found that more than half of the high-net-worth individuals in the U.S. were "new money," or self-made millionaires. Inherited money is declining as a share of wealth in the U.S., according to the study, accounting for less than 20% of high-net-worth individuals in 2002.

So 80+% of all millionaires in America are "new money".

Re:You can tell something about these people

[ConsumerOfMany]

I'm glad you were able to pull out such a specific rebuttal, but my point remains. The mere fact that venture capital money is still around means that it is pulling returns greater than its inputs, regardless of pets.com and other attention grabbing headlines shoved out by the media. Just because some lost money on dot.coms doesn't mean more made it on biotech and others...

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Prof.Phreak]

...patent for that machine would expire 20 years from its filing date and would then become public domain

Yeah, just like Disney's copyrights!

Re:You can tell something about these people

[DerekLyons]

Validation in the academic world, free or even cheap power has never done well because it's not money. Since the 1900's there have literally been thousands of perpetual motion and free power devices. Who's to say that every single one is bunk,

Who is to say? Anyone who paid attention to the their physics classes in High School.
 
[snippage tinfoil hat ravings and handwaving nonsense.]

Re:You can tell something about these people

[AJWM]

Now if only we could figure out how to harness [vacuum energy]

Oh, that's easy. You just need to find something with less energy than the vacuum and tap into the flow.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Traiklin]

Regardless, the patent for that machine would expire 20 years from its filing date and would then become public domain.

hahaha, your serious aren't you? look at some of the stuff "Patented" today, how much of that stuff do you honestly think will fall into the public domain in 20 years? hell how much stuff has tons of prior art and is already in the public domain that companies and patent leeches are trying to patent & have succefully patented?

if the ones that came up with it patent it and it turns out to be true, how many energy companies would throw billions at these people just so they can aquire it for themselves? and then the technology just never seems to meet their expectations or just vanishes all together.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[julesh]

You know what... most of those venture capitalists actually made a profit. How? By selling all those ridiculous startups off to other suckers before the end came. A few were still holding on at the end, but most of them had wised up.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

It's believed to be due to an upcoming polar switch (North and South switch polarities).

Hey. HEY! That's it!

Or if this isn't Steorn's method, it'd certainly do an interesting job. Not sure how much useful energy it would get us, but it would work.

How do we induce electric current? With a changing magnetic field. What's the Earth's magnetic field doing? Changing.

Technically it still obeys the laws of thermodynamics: the movement within the Earth's core is doing the work. It's the same as waving wires in the air and extracting a little current thence, but we don't have to do the work of changing the magnetic flux. And yes, it's a very small amount of energy, but it would work.

Re:You can tell something about these people

[shadowbearer]

  Centuries worth of students relying on Newton's discoveries thought the same way.

  Sorry Derek, you don't understand the concept of theory. It does NOT mean that this is Truth, it means that it is true as far as we currently understand it.

SB

Re:You can tell something about these people

[Omnifarious]

And they still think the same thing today - because Newton's Laws still hold.

The equations and ideas are still around, sure. But, we know they're wrong. Not wrong enough to be important much of the time, but they are still wrong. For example, they presume that we live in a 3 dimensional space that has no curvature in any other dimensions. And numerous experiments in the past few decades have confirmed that this is definitely not the case.

So, Newton is wrong. Einstein likely is too. All these ideas are just the best approximation we have for modeling various phenomena. That's all.

Now, I personally am extremely skeptical of anybody who claims they've managed to contruct a device that violates such a cherised and well-tested principle of physics as the conservation of energy. But if they can provide a repeatable demonstration of this, then I'll be forced to change my view of the world.

I think the people mentioned in the article above are little more than snake oil vendors conning unwise investors out of their money. I think that's much more likely than the idea that they've found some interesting bit of physics which everybody was heretefor unaware. Especially physics involving magnets, which have been studied very carefully for a long time. But, I could be wrong. And any true scientist would admit that though one possibility was far more likely than the other, the chance for the other is not 0.

don't think so...

[professorhojo]

This is ridiculous that anybody is taking this seriously. Look at the team bios or company history - they provide no information that lets you actually look into the history of the company or any individual's work history. Every single person was "at an Irish technology company" or "at a big 4 accounting firm", but never enough to actually do a Google search on them.

However, they did leave some clues. If I look up the domain registration, the two addresses on the domain registration actually exist. One appears on a patent application from 6 years ago for credit card systems. The application was rejected for failing the "nonobvious" criteria and being too vague. This fits with their story of being a (apparently failed) technology company doing transactions.

(The other address, by the way, is now the Gay HIV clinic in Dublin - I suspect that the CEO just used to work out of there, and it is now used for another purpose).

So I'm with this either being a wacky publicity stunt. The names are too perfectly chosen so that nobody can actually research them, and the people look too much like actors...

Re:don't think so...

[Mr. Underbridge]

Seriously, could someone explain to me the slashdot editors' obsession with junk science, specifically perpetual motion and free energy machines, and the like? This is not news. This is not for nerds, except to laugh at. This certainly doesn't matter, since variations on this crap have come around every few months for millennia.

This is for idiots.

Re:don't think so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because dipshits like us read the stories and post angry comments.

Re:don't think so...

[Cheap Imitation]

Free energy is the scientific community's equivalent to the "winning the lottery" dream. The odds against it actually happening (to you) are insanely long.

But the payoff is so huge that the speculation is fun. How would our lives change? What would we do with it all? What COULD we do with it all?

Sure, it'll probably never happen. But I'll read the articles for the same reason I occasionally buy a 1$ ticket. It's cheap admission for the chance to dream big for a little while.

Re:don't think so...

[Red Flayer]

1) It's funny. Laugh.

2) If we let it fester, you might never know how quickly an infection of belief growst. Look at ID.

3) It gives everyone posting righteous indignance a sense of mental superiority that fuels the nerd ego-drive. That, my friend, is a source of 'free' energy.

And, given your nick 'Mr. Underbridge,' perhaps your grumpiness is due to the fact that you've been out-trolled by the editors, a cut to your own ego-drive?

Re:don't think so...

[Politburo]

Easy. These stories always generate a lot of discussion (306 comments at my post). Discussion implies readership. Readership implies ad views. Ad views equal money.

Re:don't think so...

[iphayd]

Of course, you've just explained how to get "free" energy.

New from Foo State Lottery - Generator! For every $5 _and_ five minutes on this exercise bike hooked up to the power grid, you have a chance of winning over $30.

Not only would the energy be free, the masses would be paying us to generate it!

Re:don't think so...

[ebuck]

Err....

Galileo's claims were not scoffed at, he did a very good job of presenting his evidence.

Unfortunately, the Church (the Catholic Church, the only Church of mention at that time) took his theories very seriously, and that's why they put Galileo to the test, demanding that he basically rebuke himself. When they discovered that they couldn't put the cat back into the bag, they basically asked for an apology. None of this would have been necessary if the Church didn't act as the supreme authority for all physical knowledge, but hey, God is omniescent and the Pope is the mouthpiece of God, and there you go.

Columbus wasn't scoffed at when he said the Earth was round, that is a common modern misconception. In Columbus's time, approximately 50% of all Spanish citizens believed that the Earth was round, based on the excellent Porteguese and Dutch map-making skills, it was hard to NOT notice the only way to make coasts meet was to project them on a sphere.

Quantum Physics wasn't scoffed at for scientific reasons, it was scoffed at because a religous believing super-star of physics wouldn't accept a theory that allowed randomness to drive the lowest basic forces. Ironically, it was Albert Einstein's early works that opened the door for seeing physics through "Quantum Physics" eyes, but the same Albert Einsteins decried quantum physics as being too random, and not capturing the "devine design of God", leading to the famous quote (which has never been proved or disproved) that "God does not play dice."

So basically, all of your examples belies a mis-understanding of history, and you admit the company has shady looking characters, and you STILL expect us to hold out hope that they aren't out to fleece VC investors of hard-earned cash? Hope springs eternal, but so does stupidity. Don't promote things that even you feel a reservation in promoting, be true to yourself.

How long before Exxon Mobil...

[sugapablo]

...puts out a bounty on these guys? ;)

Something Very Fishy & Patent Info

[eldavojohn]

I read about this many days ago and tried to register on their site as an academic tester. I never received log in information so I could not partake in reading their white papers. They had posted the challenge in the Economist and on their website, they claim three accomplishments which define their "free energy":

1. The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%.
2. The operation of the technology (i.e. the creation of energy) is not derived from the degradation of its component parts.
3. There is no identifiable environmental source of the energy (as might be witnessed by a cooling of ambient air temperature).

I hope the coefficient is greater than 0.0001% over 100%. Although all their technology page says is that this alleged free energy solution has to do with magnets. Not much else.

Furthermore, they claim they approached universities and educational institutions about validating their findings and recieved little or no support from them. Why wouldn't a university be eager to attach their name to it? Is it because of the patent?

If you're interested in reading their patent, here is the application (pdf warning). If you just want to get the gist of it, visit the Pure Energy Systems Wiki complete with diagram. It looks like a way to block and unblock a strip holding magnets, thus creating magnetic flux around a piece of metal (driving the current I believe).

Re:Something Very Fishy & Patent Info

[jonnyelectronic]

From a quick shifty of that patent, it looks like it's based around the "If I just block the magnets, I create energy!". Just like the idea that one of the guys in my secondary school got excited about when he's invented a perpetual motion machine. If they are so confident, and having been spending the last 3 years on this project, why haven't they built a big one that outputs a reasonable amount of power, and powered something of a reasonable size. I expect they have been "tweaking" the design, and it's "just under the 100% mark", they just need to deal with some "inefficent" parts of the system. Or maybe they've invented unlimited free power.

Big deal...

[rthille]

Years ago, I harnessed the energy from the monkeys flying out of my ass, and I haven't paid an electric bill since...

Crackpots and Opportunists say Crazy Crap

[Distinguished Hero]

Crackpots and Opportunists say Crazy Crap (perhaps in hopes of securing some cash investments); Film at 11 on You Tube. Why is this on Slashdot?

check the site's forums

[X_Bones]

more than a few people think that the whole site is part of another viral marketing campaign by Microsoft and Bungie, this time for Halo 3. Don't take it as gospel quite yet, but it would explain the total lack of engineering and scientific detail that a company of this nature should be showing to the world.

Obligatory Simpson quote

[adamy]

Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics.

Is it marketing

[amliebsch]

Could this be a viral marketing gimmick? I couldn't help but notice that the "o" in the company logo (that is also the website icon) looks rather familiar in shape and color to the Xbox 360 spiral.

Re:Is it marketing

[XMyth]

Well, the site is still up from a Slashdotting...which is quite suspicious.

Good grief

[jmorris42]

Is it now the policy of slashdot to give headline coverage to every crackpot perpetual motion machine? It might have been mildly amusing had it been filed under humor, but as news? Even the snarky wisecrack from the editor doesn't make up for the misfiling.

But even as humor it should not have been posted since there was a similar one only a week or so ago and I really doubt anyone has a new joke to make about these assclowns that didn't get used then.

Listen up you primitive screwheads at /., there is no "Free Energy", no Free lunch, no tooth fairy and there ain't ever going to be flying cars. (We will eventually solve the tech for a flying car but the liability is insoluble.)

Re:Good grief

[emurphy42]

(We will eventually solve the tech for a flying car but the liability is insoluble.)

Depends how good your autopilot software is.

Noether rules the day

[Ckwop]

When Noether proved in 1918 that every conservation law must have a paired symmetry, physics was transformed for-ever. From then on whenever you saw a conserved quantity it implied there was a symmetry that could be seen in space-time.

A lot of physics courses focus on the conserved quality and not the symmetry. Perhaps it's because the maths is a lot neater with conserved quantities than with symmetries. But I argue that the real understanding of the physics is to be had in making sense of the symmetries.

Conservation of energy implies that the laws of physics are constant over time. This is why breaking the law of energy conservation is important. If even one pico-joule of energy is created from nothing in the universe, it destroys the constancy of physical law.

The theory of electromagnetism has been verified to factor of 10**-20. I find it highly unlikely they've found something new in theory to allow this.

The fact they've issued a press release rather than a research paper suggests they're cranks. Nothing to see here, move along.

Simon

Re:Noether rules the day

[Surt]

If even one pico-joule of energy is created from nothing in the universe, it destroys the constancy of physical law.

It's a good thing not even one pico-joule of energy has been created from nothing in the history of the universe, otherwise we might be here to appreciate this invention.

Yeah, good luck!

[Otter]

I can't wait until I can use this free energy to power my flying car and heat my aquarium of mermaids.

For the typical nerd, the outcomes in decreasing order of likelihood are:

• Perpetual motion
• A human female
• A mermaid
• Multiple mermaids

NO NO Really!!! This Could Work!!!

[ElboRuum]

I already have the patent on several "free" energy sources, but they aren't strictly free. There's the Feline Buttered Bread Commutator for example. It operates by strapping a piece of buttered bread buttered face up to a cat's back, then dropping it from a height. Since a cat always lands on its feet and buttered bread always lands butter side down, the whole apparatus simply hovers and spins in midair. By adding a wire coil to the cat and by putting a strong magnet in close proximity, voila! Free energy. Of course, it's not that there isn't any loss. For example, the cat needs to be fed and the bread gets stale. The cat tends to vomit occasionally, so there is some clean up involved.

Re:NO NO Really!!! This Could Work!!!

[IgLou]

I don't think you have to feed the cat or does the whole thing about cats landing on their feet only apply to living cats? Hmm, further testing is required. Anyone got a dead cat?

There is something disturbing about the image of this contraption though... Maybe it would be better to put the whole thing in a giant black box then it would be Schroedingers Feline Buttered Bread Commutator and it would spin endless because the cat isn't dead until you look inside the box! In your face laws of nature!

Re:NO NO Really!!! This Could Work!!!

[kirkb]

Anyone got a dead cat?

There might be one inside this box...

Re:NO NO Really!!! This Could Work!!!

[the Brightside]

Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, I think, is where it comes from.

NOBODY PANIC

[RyoShin]

I've alerted the authorities, and the Science Police will soon arrest them for breaking the Laws of Thermodynamics.

Coefficiency

[Khyber]

Most car AC units have an energy coefficiency of somewhere around 400% - for every one watt of power used four watts of heat are removed. So having greater than 100% isn't impossible.

Actually, my physics teacher demonstrated hos to get energy out of magnets. We took a low-power LED bulb, two magnets, and a stabilizing platform to hold the magnets. We set the magnet's south poles facing each other, and wrapped the whole thing in ultra-thin cooper bell wire, which was atached to the LED and a diode. By simply pushing the magnets together the LED bulb would every now and then try to light up, it would flash but we could never keep the light on.

Don't discount it. Remember it onyl takes a tiny weak spark to get massive amounts of power out of gasoline. It just depends on what form that 'spark' comes in, and what form of 'gasoline' you're using.

Re:Coefficiency

[MobyDisk]

Most car AC units have an energy coefficiency of somewhere around 400% - for every one watt of power used four watts of heat are removed

Apples and oranges. That "efficiency" is a completely different measurement than the efficiency of an energy generating system which is the amount of energy produced to the amount of energy consumed. Since air conditioners produce no power, they have an efficiency of 0%.

Actually, my physics teacher demonstrated how to get energy out of magnets.

I've never seen that experiment before. Based on what you said, the power is not coming from the magnets: it is coming from the force of your pushing. The energy to light the LED came from that burrito you ate earlier in the day. :-)

Don't discount it. Remember it onyl takes a tiny weak spark to get massive amounts of power out of gasoline.

It requires a spark, fossilized carbon-based life, and 100,000 years of the sun beating down on the earth to produce the gasoline. You just released stored potential energy from the sun. And we still haven't created an engine that can get 100% of the energy back out of that gasoline. And of course, in the end, the gasoline is gone.
A more complete analogy to what these guys are claiming is this: they can burn the gasoline, then still have the gasoline left over.

Re:Coefficiency

[Otto]

Most car AC units have an energy coefficiency of somewhere around 400% - for every one watt of power used four watts of heat are removed. So having greater than 100% isn't impossible.

No, AC units (heat pumps) are not more than 100% efficent. This sort of incorrect statement is a mistake of terminology.

A heating unit has a "Coefficent of Performance" (aka COP), which describes the ratio of heat output to the energy input. A resistive heater (say, your toaster) has a COP of exactly 1. Every bit of power going into it comes out of it as heat.

Your heat pump (a car AC unit is just a heat pump, pumping heat out of the car) has a COP of 3 or 4, thus leading to the "400% efficent" terminology. It's not 400% efficent, it's just 4 times better as producing heat (or rather, moving heat from one area to another) than a resistive heater would be. The reason is can do this is that moving heat around requires a lot less work than producing it does.

My point is that the terminology is not comparable. This sort of thing is claiming to produce energy without doing work, or at least, to produce more energy than the amount of work actually put into it. Not really the same thing at all.

Re:Coefficiency

[jimand]

Actually, my physics teacher demonstrated hos...

Really? I got that demo from my sex-ed teacher.

Top Irish Scientists

[lbmouse]

Maybe these guys are related to the scientists that lived in Ireland before Michael McCloud invented a new type of beverage in his basement.

Fry them now

[spun]

Exactly. Make it look like they are actually serious. How much VC cash do you think they will rake in between now and the test? After the scientific community announces that this is bullshit, they will claim to need more money to "fix" the issues that the scientists raised. The VC fools, not wanting to admit to themselves that they have been swindled with one of the oldest cons in the book, will happily throw more money at them. They will continue with this cycle until enough people wise up and the lawsuits pour in, then they will disappear to the Cayman Islands.

No, we need to bitch-slap these peckerwoods now, before they fleece too many dumb but wealt- Wait, you know, I think their ideas just might work. Send cash just in case.

Re:Fry them now

[IAmTheDave]

Man, can you BELIEVE this bullshit? This guy really wants us to believe that the Earth revolves around the SUN. It's unbelievable - I can practially watch the Sun go around the Earth, not to mention the pure and simple blasphemy that his statements bring with them.

Excommunicate this bastard NOW. Make it quick, painful, and public. We don't need a whole rash of people believing in this hogwash, undoing years of education about the creation of this planet and the Sun's role in God's plan for mankind.

Stomp him out now.

(P.S., I do believe it's hogwash, but a first-round verification can't hurt anyone but dumb-ass investors. If they've been "running it in the lab" for years, they obviously don't need cash to assemble a prototype, so let the verification go through. No harm, no foul - to us at least.)

Re:Fry them now

[Xerxes1729]

It would be nice to give everyone a fair hearing, but at a certain point, you have to just say, "Enough is enough." There are millions of crackpots all over the world who think that they're the next Einstein or Galileo or whoever. If you spend all your time fairly evaluating each of their claims, that's all you're going to be doing.

Re:Fry them now

[spun]

No, first round verification does not mean a world wide ad campaign to find a panel of scientists to verify this. There are proper channels. Look at their site for God's sake, this is a scam and that should be made painfully obvious to everyone. If it turns out it isn't, we can apologize later, after the world-wide fucking revolution this kind of technology would cause.

Re:Fry them now

[WormholeFiend]

And of course, if the next Einstein or Galileo is indeed among them, his discoveries will never see the light of day.

If it's spun right, it could be entertaining if aired on a tv show like Mythbusters or Patent Bending.

Re:Fry them now

[buswolley]

Crackpots don't usually own companies. Let them test. You guys act like the inquisition, revolutionary ideas in science always face inquisitions of one sort or another. Sure, they can be wrong, but they are aware of the scientific process.

Re:Fry them now

[Jerf]

Perhaps, but in the Free Energy domain there's a trivial path to "the light of day": Start selling your wonderful free energy device. If it works, it'll sell, because first crackpots will buy it, then they'll notice that it actually works, tell their friends, whom will satisfy themselves it works and order one, and it'll go from there.

Free energy ideas tend to stall at the "working" part. See the Mythbusters episode, for instance, not because they disprove the entire idea (technically not possible), but because the free energy devices are hilarious and obviously don't work. If they actually had, we'd know now.

Pshaw

[srussell]

I can't wait until I can use this free energy to power my flying car and heat my aquarium of mermaids.

Duh! Everybody knows there's no such things as flying cars.

--- SER

Here's how it works

[rice_burners_suck]

It's really quite simple. You build a water wheel. Water spills on it, turning a generator. The water spills below, where a pump, powered by the generator, pumps it back onto the top of the water wheel. Voila! Instant perpetumobile!

And all these idiot scientists think there's no such thing as perpetual motion.

They are a web marketting company!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2006/08/ste orn_and_free_1.html

Quote: "Recall that Steorn is a former e-business company that saw its market vanish during the dot.com bust. It stands to reason that Steorn has re-tooled as a Web marketing company, and is using the "free energy" promotion as a platform to show future clients how it can leverage print advertising and a slick Web site to promote their products and ideas. If so, it's a pretty brilliant strategy."

1. Pretend to invent an impossible technology that nobody will believe in.
2. Promote the heck out of it on the internet.
3. ???
4. Profit.

Well, the infamous missing step three is "Demonstrate to your web-marketting customers that you can market even such a preposterous idea as free energy successfully and they will flock to your doors".

Re:They are a web marketting company!

[brunos]

Exactly! A mate of mine actually did this same sort of thing in the Czech Republic: a massive advertising campaign for "the czech dream", which people were made to believe was a hypermarket with cheap prices.
The funny thing was that their entire advertizing campaing was "it does not exist", "don't come", "it's a waste of time", but at least 1000 people came to the "opening" they made a film of it, and of how advertizing companies can really make you believe whatever! It's great!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_dream

Re:They are a web marketting company!

[shadowbearer]

3. Get it vetted by real scientists who say it's bullshit, and

  4. Profit if he still decides to market it (wanna debate that?), because most people are FUCKING STUPID(tm)

  Which would still mean he proved something, eh? *snort*

SB

How you can tell this is bullshit...

[Xerxes1729]

...without having to know anything about physics.

During 2005 Steorn embarked on a process of independent validation and approached a wide selection of academic institutions. The vast majority of these institutions refused to even look at the technology, however several did. Those who were prepared to complete testing have all confirmed our claims; however none will publicly go on record.

Please. Any physicist who figured out how this miraculous technology worked would be more revolutionary than Einstein or Newton. Showing how to violate conservation of energy would be an instant Nobel Prize. If their data really support this, why won't they go on record and become famous? They could win at least $2,000,000 (from the Nobel committee and from James Randi).

"What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy," McCarthy said.

To me, this sounds a lot like a generator. You know, rotating a wire loop through a magnetic field to generate an electic current. That's only been around for, what, 180 years?

It may work, but here's the catch

[Animats]

What Steom is actually claiming is quite possible, but uninteresting. Steorn is making three claims for its technology:

1. The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%.
2. The operation of the technology (i.e. the creation of energy) is not derived from the degradation of its component parts.
3. There is no identifiable environmental source of the energy (as might be witnessed by a cooling of ambient air temperature).

The coefficient of performance is not efficiency. It's the reciprocal of efficiency. Most refrigerators and heat pumps have a coefficient of performance greater than 100%. 200-350% is typical. The coefficient of performance of an ideal heat pump, and the efficiency of an ideal heat engine, both working between the same temperature difference, will have a product of 1.

So Steom can meet its claims with any off-the-shelf heat pump.

Since they talk about "magnetics" so much, they're probably fooling around with something exotic like a magneto-caloric heat pump. This is a cute idea that's been around for a while, requires very strong magnetic fields, is sometimes used for cyrogenic cooling, and has been considered for auto air conditioners. There are buzzword friendly papers like "Preparation of Superferromagnetic Lanthanide Nanoparticulate Magnetic Refrigerants" on the subject. If they've made that work, they may have something with product potential. Maybe. But it's not "free energy".

The Emperor's Clothes

[snowgirl]

The VC fools, not wanting to admit to themselves that they have been swindled with one of the oldest cons in the book, will happily throw more money at them.

The magnets have no clothes! They're naked!!! *averts her eyes out of embarassment*

I have one and it works

[Flying pig]

basically a set of permanent magnets that are rotated inside a wire framework. When the magnets complete one full revolution, no less than 6 rectified pulses are produced. Just by turning it at a few thousand RPM, I get 45 amps out at 14 volts - that's nearly a horsepower.

What's more, it's easy to operate. I just have it on a bracket on my car engine and spin it up with a simple little rubber belt. Mind you, the Mk 1 has a few problems to iron out - I need to find a way of enabling it to keep running when the engine stops, at the moment it stops when the engine does and I think this might be the braking effect of the drive belt. Anyone got any ideas, or know where to get in touch with Mr. Bosch whose name is on the side of it?

You know a company's honest when.....

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

They're in the tech industry claiming revolutionary results and their, "About" page contains no less than five pictures of the CEO, three of the marketing manager, two each of their finance and operations managers, and NONE of their tech people.

Re:Bah, how can it be so hard...?

[jmorris42]

> Just create the devices, let's say five of them. Take them with you. Plug in normal devices.
> Let them run uninterrupted for weeks. Keep watch while they're running.

Exactly. Hell, just demonstrate more usable energy come out of a black box than could be supplied by an equal volume/mass of gasoline + generator and you could attract investors as long as they could stuff a meter up it's bum and make sure it wasn't a radiothermic generator. Because even if it weren't 'free energy' there would still be a pretty good chance of it being something commercially viable, at least for some extreme segment of the market.

But these perpetual motion con artists never do that, for fairly obvious reasons.

Maxwell's demon

[benhocking]

Maxwell's demon would never permit you to harvest vacuum energy.

Now you're just talking crazy...

[ElboRuum]

Of course it works... Both the cat and the bread WANT to LAND... It's what bread and cats DO... It's like... their overarching purpose or something.

While you're correct in theory, the problem is one of simple common sense.

Have you ever tried strapping a piece of bread to a cats paws without

a) cleaving the bread in twain?
b) the cat licking the butter off the bread?
or
c) the cat scratching the shit out of you?

If you have, well then you know what I'm talking about. Yessir.

No they don't

[Silent sound]

It really sounds to me like they want outside verification, and are willing to pay for it themselves.

Uh... no, if they wanted outside verification, they'd just plain go out and get some. This "jury" thing, on the other hand, is proof they DON'T want outside verification, because the whole thing is clearly designed specifically with the intent of presenting the appearance of allowing outside review of their technology while minimizing or eliminating the chance anyone will actually get a chance to see what it is. Seriously, they're inviting the world to come join a lottery in which the winners get to be told what their invention is after a long dramatic pause of unspecified length while public hype builds? And you think this is a form of public review?

What this "jury" thing actually DOES do is allow them to handpick people to give a dog and pony show to, afterward leave the world still unsure what their supposed invention actually is, and beforehand allow them to generate a gigantic mailing list of people to pitch to later on. The most important element is that "jury" thing allows them to brag-- as they do in a huge box on the front page of their site, as they do in your blockquote-- about the large number of people who have signed up to be on the jury, thus presenting the impression of great public interest in their invention. It's a hype-generating trick, and you have fallen for it hook line and sinker.

And did you not notice this piece of garbage on their website?

During 2005 Steorn embarked on a process of independent validation and approached a wide selection of academic institutions. The vast majority of these institutions refused to even look at the technology, however several did. Those who were prepared to complete testing have all confirmed our claims; however none will publicly go on record.

How can you possibly take seriously someone who writes a paragraph like that? If you look at archive.org you'll see that Steorn didn't even have an active web page in 2005.

Shouldn't we let that take place before we fry them in oil?

Shouldn't THEY let it (the academic verification) take place before they expect us to do anything OTHER than fry them in oil? Seriously, giving these people the time of day makes about as much sense as halting, before you delete your spam, to wonder whether maybe that e-mail really WAS sent by a Nigerian prince. The perpetual motion machine is after all one of the few scams that's been around even longer than the Spanish Prisoner.

Re:No they don't

[shess]

Uh... no, if they wanted outside verification, they'd just plain go out and get some.

Or, you know, just hook up to the grid and start selling power. Admittedly, it would be easier to get tens of millions of dollars and jumpstart things, but ... you hook it up to the grid, and start generating revenue at a couple cents per kilowatthour, round the clock. Since it's "free", your revenue is operating profit, and should add up FAST. After a couple months you build another unit, and another, and pretty soon you've bootstrapped yourself into a real company.

Well, unless your current prototype doesn't, you know, really provide free power. It will only do _that_ after you've built the $10M version, of course.

-scott

YAPM - Yet Another Perpetuum Mobile

[drolli]

Science - since a long time is based on the principle that you publish your information, and no matter who the other person is - he or she can criticise you (peer review). And, since theories can only be falsified (or to put it in words of a physicist: you can explore in which limit the theory holds), you have to provide openly what you want to falsify. The measure of acceptance for a theory in physics is how many people had the chance to falsify it.

What these guys so is the opposite. They do not publish any information WHAT they acually do. They do not go to a conference ans seek the open criticism. Thy do not go with this discovery to a peer-reviewd journal (this discovery would ensure the Nobel price to the scientist when it is accepted by the peers). No they want to set up a closed jury which they select. Are these people the advisory board or should they just convince the bank? If this circle is closed - may they report on a failure or are they, after beeing selected to be the "jury" only alowed to write positive things about the company. Do they have any kind of NDA? Wre they allowed to disassemble the technology? Will they have financial interests to say yes? Will they be taken to a brainwashing show in a nice hotel in the mountains or will they be sent to the lab? Open questions.....

They claim that Energy conservation does not hold. This either means that the Noether does not hold (and it holds since it is a mathematical law) or that space is not time invariant. An they are right. If you are moving some parts in circles the space is not time invariant. Thats the principle of a generator. But the thesis that the overall energy conservation does not hold is ridiculous - if stated in that way.

Perpetuum mobile exist for a long time and never any Joule of energy was won - still a lot of them are patented. That is because you can apply for a patent without proving that it works.

BTW.: I find it embarassing that perpetuum mobiles are even mentioned on slashdot.

Recreating their results

[drgroove]

requires drinking approx 6 pints of Guinness, at which point the core concepts of thermodynamics begin to blur a bit with the game of darts you're playing at the pub.

Popular opinion

[Y-Crate]

Disclaimer: I believe this,"product" like many other claims, is just a scam. Nothing more. I would like to address the distinction between obvious scams like this, and attempts by experienced scientists to pursue their ideas.

In the scientific community there is often an understandable impetus to wholeheartedly dismiss anything that goes against the established laws. This makes an enormous amount of sense, as scientific laws do not become laws without absolutely overwhelming consensus that anything else is not even remotely possible.

That being said, it seems to be absolute arrogance to assume that there is absolutely zero chance of a discovery that contradicts what has been well-established as being a hard law of science, and such an attitude that goes against the very ideal that has produced some of history's most innovative discoveries. Which is not to say that someone who approaches you with an idea that goes against every bit of science you have ever been taught should be given the benefit of the doubt, but on occasion I've seen reputable people propose the possibility of a dissenting theory only to be dismissed with "No, it's not possible, you are an idiot if you even look into the chance that science may be wrong."

Curtailing academic ambitions because you believe the human mind has figured out an aspect of the universe to such an extent that nothing can possibly challenge that belief is rather ridiculous. This is not to say that people should be openly accepting of radical ideas that attempt to dispel well-proven theories and laws, but if someone accepts that the burden of proof is entirely on them, and does not attempt to use it as a VC scam (like the one we are probably witnessing here), or a means to suck up more than a very modest amount of grant money, then I really don't see the problem.

You can say that they are wasting their time, and most of them probably are, but they should at least be given the respect one who chooses to test the frontiers deserves.

Announced April 1st?

[Zildy]

http://www.steorn.net/en/coverage.html

Press Coverage
Steorn Announce "Free Energy" Technology

Irish company Steorn have announced a revoloutionary free energy technology. More
The Guardian | 1 April 2006

Re:Announced April 1st?

[CyberLife]

Good catch. The press release was issued on April Fool's Day. Did the submitter or anybody at Slashdot check to see whether this was intended as a gag?

Not a new idea

[pseudorand]

This is hardley a new idea. I went to a talk in Oakland, California a few years back by some guy who claimed to have communicated with aliens. He described something similar for how UFO's are powered. Also, the idea of the N-Machine has been around for a while, as have numerous rumours of the oil companies supressing such technology. And who can forget little Lisa Simpson. (Homer: "Lisa, in this house, we follow the rules of thermodynamics!")

I think this claim should be given a serious look. It seems incredible, but such a technology would be so revolutionary that it's worth it anyway. Of course, assuming that the conservation of energy still applies to the devices that USE this energy, by generating all that free energy, won't we be contributing to global warming in a way far beyond just trapping solar radiation?

Theory

[MobyDisk]

I wonder if this is a startup company, and they are actually using this to hire people. Similar to how Google posted challenges on billboards a few years ago, as part of a pre-interview process. The people who solved the problems and contacted them were given job interviews.

Maybe they are looking for people who will come-in, prove why it won't work, then to hire those people.

Re:Waste of good oil. (snake)

[Pharmboy]

Were they bored and need a good laugh or is it a profit makeing effort?

No one takes out a full page ad "for a good laugh". For that matter, everything that everyone does is always for money.

And when someone says "No, I don't just do it for the money", then you KNOW they are REALLY just doing it for the money, and they are a liar to boot.

Re:I interviewed Shawn McCarthy this morning

[jcr]

Dude,

Forget how much you want this to be true: it doesn't pass the smell test.

Very nice guy.

That's what they said about Ponzi, too.

-jcr

My personal free energy invention

[popo]

... involves the opposing forces of:

(a) Smoke, and
(b) Some mirrors.

Oh, and I'll also actually need (c) A curtain.

Please send all VC monies to my address in the Caymans.

Thank you.

Free?

[8ball629]

Doesn't sound too free to me if you have to pay with your LIFE!

powered by the squad of irish leprechauns ...

[porky_pig_jr]

inside the spinning wheel, ehh make it 'magnetic field'.

Why the hostility?

[Forge]

I don't see why the hostility.

These guys claim to be doing exactly what a layman should do when he thinks he has discovered technology which challenges a fundamental scientific principle.

Invite as many credible scientific experts as you can find to test it and report the results of such testing in peer reviewed scientific publications and on the Internet.

Free energy is one of the biggest discoveries that people are seriously searching for. That and intelligent extraterrestrial life.

And yes, apart from free energy there is the promise of virtually free energy. I.e. If you could create a small (as in portable) device that can separate Water molecules into the atomic components and burn the resulting Hydrogen for energy, cool. If the energy generated in that process is significantly greater (1.5X to 2X) than what is required to run the machine, viola. Virtually free energy.

Bonus points if it runs on watter too impure to drink and still maintains a positive balance even with the purification process.

So let them be. If it's bogus that will come out in the testing. This has happened before, without the invitations. If it's legit. Whoopee. countries like mine which produce mineral raw materials (bauxite) but import all our energy needs could see a an economic bump.

A bump our politicians will work feverishly to squander, but that's a different story.

Re:Why the hostility?

[Forge]

Ohm... When you burn Hydrogen in air the "waste product" is water.

That's what makes this virtually free energy. At the end of the process you get back the water you started with.

Re:Why the hostility?

[flibuste]

There is no such thing as "free" energy. What you get is what you've spent somewhere else. The FA says their thing generates "energy" (electricity) when you move something around a magnetic field. The energy carried by the electricity generated by magnetic induction (moving a conducting object within a magnetic field induces an electric field in your object) is the energy you spent moving the object around the magnetic field. No gain, no loss.

What seems strange is that, without naming it, the FA says they've found something that seems to break the conservation of energy. I bet you scientific scrutinity will unveil a source unaccounted for in the first place.

Re:Why the hostility?

[Ed State]

There is a constant stream of water entering our atmosphere all the time... little frozen bits. From space!

Re:Why the hostility?

[The_Wilschon]

viola. Virtually free energy.

Ack! I hope we don't have to get free energy from violas! Those things sound awful!

Re:Why the hostility?

[Angostura]

Except the guys aren't doing that: They aren't inviting as many credible scientific experts as possible to test it - they are asking people to apply, from which they will select 12. What a layman should do (other than attempt to publish in a peer-reviewed journal) is supply the information needed for anyone to try to duplicate the machine and its results.

Personally, I think this is more likely to be viral marketing for a game or something daft like that.

Re:Why the hostility?

[lbrandy]

If you could create a small (as in portable) device that can separate Water molecules into the atomic components and burn the resulting Hydrogen for energy, cool.

Except that we're destroying the planet's water supply to get it.

Uhm, hello? My name is high school chemistry:
2H2 + 02 = 2H20

Please note that "burning" hydrogen doesn't "destroy" the water supply. It creates it.

Re:Why the hostility?

[DaoudaW]

I don't see why the hostility.

What hostility? All I'm reading is a healthy dose of skepticism. Those of us who have been observing the world for awhile, I'm 50, get tired of discrediting hoaxes. This is a hoax and it's unconscionable to encourage scientists to interrupt research which could decrease our dependence on fossil fuels. This is nothing more than a publicity stunt to attract investors.

According to TFA, (1)Steorn will pay for the research, (2)publish the research themselves and (3) develop products based on the research. Here's a translation: (1) We aren't applying for grant money. We know our "research" wouldn't stand up to the scrutiny required. (2) By publishing the research ourselves, we have complete control over it. (3) Okay, there won't be any products developed but if we can keep the research going for a couple of years, we'll get more victims^h^h^h^h^h^h^h investors.

This is so predictable... when will Slashdot quit falling for these stories.

Re:Why the hostility?

[soft_guy]

viola. Virtually free energy.
Ack! I hope we don't have to get free energy from violas! Those things sound awful!

Look, it depends on how its played. If I *have* to have someone play a viola in order to power my car to get to work, then perhaps I could chip in for lessons. Or else we could design a soundproof chamber for them to play in, possibly. You have to think creatively - that's what free energy from violas is all about.

Re:Why the hostility?

[stunt_penguin]

Okay skipping the whole thing about the fact that you have to separate the hydrogen and oxygen before burning them, and totally ignoring the fact you have no idea what you're talking about, I'd like to point out that 500MW is a unit of power (1 joule of energy produced/consumed per second), not energy (which is measured in joules).

You might get 500 megajoules out of a kilo of hydrogen, but (very roughly) that's nowhere near enough to last you through the day.

1 liter of petrol (gasoline) contains 34.3 million joules of energy. If I hand you a barrell of the stuff will that do you for the rest of your life?

The only way of getting enough energy out of a kilo of hydrogen to get anyone through a full day is fusion, and they're working on that, very hard in fact.

Re:Why the hostility?

[malfunct]

The problem is that the laws of thermodynamics say that if you had to put energy into the system there will be a net loss of energy over the life of the process. Means in this case that you are guaranteed not to get back more energy than you used to split the water into oxygen and hydrogen and in all likelyhood you would get significantly less back in a harnessable form. That said the beauty of hydrogen as fuel is that you can take hard to capture energy and store it as easier to use hydrogen. For instance hydro electric power is plentiful (yes it has environmental issues but I'm just being hypothetical) but can't be used to power a car. If it instead powered a electrolysis plant and the hydrogen was used to power the car that is workable.

Also for those who LOVE hydrogen as a fuel, remember, water vapor is a greenhouse gas.

Re:Why the hostility?

[sacrilicious]

I don't see why the hostility. These guys claim to be doing exactly what a layman should do when he thinks he has discovered technology which challenges a fundamental scientific principle.

The hostility probably comes from a commercial company seeking to make money off of something that runs against a basic (i.e. non-esoteric), foundational model of physics. That the model has been long tested doesn't mean that it won't ever be replaced by a better model, but it does call for skepticism. But the company isn't exhibiting skepticism. They're attitude seems to be, "After three years, we're convinced." Their attitude should be, "We know something's wrong, we just need to know what". In a commercial setting, anything else smells of upsell and false hype for personal gain. Whether strictly against the law or not, it's worthy of hostility in my opinion.

Invite as many credible scientific experts as you can find to test it and report the results of such testing in peer reviewed scientific publications and on the Internet.

I barely skimmed TFA but I only recall them seeking evaluations from 12 scientists. Whereas seeking as many experts as one can find would be better served by publishing the work on the internet.

Re:Why the hostility?

[Planesdragon]

The problem is that the laws of thermodynamics say that if you had to put energy into the system there will be a net loss of energy over the life of the process

Which means exactly two things.

1: Any "free energy" device is dependent on a system outside of its physical construction, just like hydropower or solar power is dependent on an outside source.

2: If (1) isn't the case with this, and the claim is valid, then we need to revise either the laws of theormodynamics or how we apply them. They weren't written by God, they just happen to be the best description of that aspect of physics that we have.

Re:Why the hostility?

[susano_otter]

Sorry, I'm not sure where you're seeing hostility in my reply.

I certainly didn't feel hostile when I wrote it, only helpful.

Why the paranoia?

Re:Why the hostility?

[shawnap]

I like the sound of this new viola energy idea. I much prefer it to the current method of securing energy by implied threat of violins.

Re:Why the hostility?

[rossifer]

On the other hand, FUSION is theortically possible, and that would 'destroy' its hydrogen fuel, producing worthless (you can't drink it) helium.

Oh noes! Panic! :)

Fear not! That "worthless" helium would be very useful to the mixed gas scuba diving market, which currently has to rely on the meager pickings of helium separated from natural gas.

No, really. Helium in your mixture lets you dive deeper with less mental confusion (and therefore more safely). This effect is noticeable even at deeper recreational depths (though there are not a huge number of injuries related to nitrogen narcosis in recreational diving).

At the moment, Helium is rather expensive to blend into your breathing mix. If there was enough of a fusion industry to knock the price down (though I suspect that even total conversion of all electrical production to tokamak-style fusion generation would not produce more than a few grams an hour)...

Regards,
Ross

Re:Why the hostility?

[electroniceric]

Also for those who LOVE hydrogen as a fuel, remember, water vapor is a greenhouse gas.

... with a 10 day or so residence time. I think your warning is legit, but for different reasons than the ones you cite. While I'm not holding out for a hydrogen economy any time soon (far too much infrastructure would need to be changed), I think the environmental problems you see would be mostly local - the relative humidity in places like Phoenix has already been driven up by the use of swamp coolers in people's house - waste steam replacing CO2 would take that to a whole new and likely detrimental level. But the variability of the hydrologic cycle and the short residence time make water a lot less powerful lever for pulling on the atmosphere than carbon, with it's much more stable cycle and long residence time. Confusion over this what allows people to make the bogus case that because water vapor is the most prevalent greenhouse gas, carbon-driven global warming can't possibly be anthropogenic.

Re:Why the hostility?

[It'sYerMam]

Slashdot didn't "fall" for it; if you read the blurb at the top there is an equally skeptical slant. Slashdot simply reports the presence of certain unlikely claims.

Re:Why the hostility?

[Euler]

The reason why everyone should be hostile to the claims of 'free-energy' is that it is physically impossible.
This is known by anyone who has a reasonable education in a scientific field. And I'm not talking about something like maybe it could be done if people
are clever enough... it's just impossible by the laws of thermodynamics. I'm kinda surprised that 99% of the posters
on Slashdot aren't saying the same thing.
It is amazing to me that in this current day that charlatans can keep using the same pitch over and over. It's like an Amway pitch,
you know it's BS, but you just can't believe that people keep falling for it.

If someone makes claims of free-energy and also invites the scientific community to verify his results, then he is just looking for credibility. In
reality, there will be excuses and foot-dragging. Prove me wrong, but that will be the end-result. There is nothing to see here.

Re:Why the hostility?

[schon]

worthless (you can't drink it) helium.

Just because you can't drink helium doesn't make it worthless. You can, for example, use it to make one awesome impersonation of a Keebler elf.

Re:Why the hostility?

[moonbender]

Also for those who LOVE hydrogen as a fuel, remember, water vapor is a greenhouse gas.

True. And it's released by normal combustion, too. That's what happens to the hydro in hydrocarbon... Water vapor release is mostly a problem when it's done at high altitudes, ie. by airplanes.

Re:Why the hostility?

[eric76]

Free energy is one of the biggest discoveries that people are seriously searching for.

What most of us are searching for are two women at once. With that, we can generate our own energy.

Re:Why the hostility?

[escher]

Viola energy is just a repackaged form of string theory.

Re:Why the hostility?

[BlueCoder]

You said it. From which they will select twelve, their 12. Not famous nobel winning scientists with something to lose. Hence their tech will be confirmed and enough people out of the people that register to recieve the results will be duped into developing the tech. Classic fud.

Re:Why the hostility?

[electroniceric]

Two reasons:
One is that it shows that water vapor is a feedback, not a forcing. If the supply wasn't constantly being refreshed it would fall out in a matter of weeks. That's basically saying it's a transient phenomenon representing an adjustment to equilibrium. This is unlike carbon, where if the supply wasn't constantly refreshed it would fall out on timescale far longer than those of present interest to humans (and as far as we know this essentially requires biota to sequester it, hence the Gaia hypothesis). This timescale distinction is frequently used to distinguish between forcing and response in a system (waves generally being considered response, and other changes forcing).

The second is that on human-centric timescales there is a clearly a large-amplitude "sink" of water (i.e. lots of water leaves the atmosphere). The amplitude of the natural sink of carbon is much lower and therefore we can accumulate a meaningful amount more easily.

Re:Why the hostility?

[WhiteWolf666]

If they are really unable to find scientists willing to test it, then perhaps they can send it to me. I'd like to power my computer and charge my mobile phone please, to save on my electricity bill. I'll test it for free.

I'll one up you.

I'll fly my investors out to their facility. If they can demonstrate the machine actually works, I'll raise them as much operating capital as they need. Of course, they'll have to accept being vetted by my choice of experts; however, I (and my experts) are more than willing to sign any NDAs/non-competes they might need.

More than that, we'd be willing to commit to funding the venture, and on their terms, too.

The problem is it is horseshit. Pure crap. Utter phooey. That's why we're spending the big bucks on other, less exotic, but real schemes like BioFuel. Hell, I'd believe the Helium-3 buzz over this nonsense.

Re:Why the hostility?

[WhiteWolf666]

On the other hand, the ability to blow up a small town could potentially make you very, very rich, as well.

Just pick the right town.....

Re:Why the hostility?

[UKRevenant]

Free energy is possible, if just 4 percent of the worlds deserts were covered by solar panels (yes I know that is still a lot of panels) enough electricity would be generated to fullfil the worlds needs.

As most of us already know you can run vehicle engines on hydrogen and that does include jet engines. The hydrogen economy has to arrive sooner of later.

Most people dont know of a Cornish generator, this uses aluminium wire and water to produce hydrogen. The oxygen is bound to the aluminium creating aluminium oxide, the wire and the oxide are easy to transport around the world if people are worried about transporting hydrogen.

There is of course another knock-on effect from starting to cover the worlds deserts with solar panels, that being economy of scale. The panels themselves would become much cheaper making it possible for the average person to install them on their house. The figure I read was that production needed to be up 100 fold to bring the price down enough for true mass market.

A little political will would kick start this process, you dont actually need to cover 4 percent of the worlds deserts when you have every home generating some of its own power needs. Any excess created could be stored as hydrogen until needed. You would still need a power grid, but that power too could be based around hydrogen technologies.

We are so close, but it feels like it is still so far away. Clean, cheap energy without sacrificing the car or the plane.

Simon.

Re:Why the hostility?

[StikyPad]

The third is this thing called "relative humidity," and whenever you approach 100%, it tends to do things like rain.

Re:Why the hostility?

[StikyPad]

That "worthless" helium would be very useful to the mixed gas scuba diving market, which currently has to rely on the meager pickings of helium separated from natural gas.

Man, you guys are missing the most plentiful supply of helium in the world. One word:

Balloons.

Re:Why the hostility?

[Stephen H-B]

Hydrogen peroxide is H2O2. 2*H20 is two molecules of water.

Re:Why the hostility?

[Fordiman]

Actually, the common way to separate water is:

2(H2O) + (elec) > 2(H2) + O2

Which is then burned via the reverse reaction:

2(H2) + O2 > 2(H2O) + Heat

(Not, of course counting the starter heat, and not specifying the electrical charge necessary.)

Here's a fun related project:
http://www.instructables.com/id/E0CW2Q49SAEPORT5QF /

Re:Why the hostility?

[g1zmo]

Ohm...

Resistance is futile.

Re:Why the hostility?

[mrchaotica]

Yeah, but that has the same problem as all the fuels we use now: what do you do with the carbon?

10 Bagger

[Forge]

There is another piece to the VC puzzle.

The sure fire, must win ideas (Like a fast food outlet in the middle of the business district) usually run into stiff competition and hence slim margins. What make spectacular 10 and 100 fold returns on your investments are those ideas that are so wacky they couldn't get a commercial bank loan..

You know ideas like "Lets get the same old books that people buy at brick and mortar stores and sell them online" or "Gee, how about if we sell the operating system like it wasn't a part of the computer, but it's own product".

Most of those ideas are actually Waco and money invested in them is lost. Occasionally one hits pay dirt and a VC makes a killing.

What they came up with for that is the "10 bagger". Bet on 10 ideas that _almost_ make sense to you. Fully prepare for 8 of them to completely tank and loose everything you invest, while 1 will turn a small profit and the other makes the kind of returns that capitalists of all stripes salivate over.

Sell the electricity.

[shoolz]

If the device really worked, there would be no need for scientific verification. They'd just hook 50 of them up to the grid and make millions generating and selling electricity to the power companies.

If it works, why does it need to be proven? Just go out and make billions with the device.

Re:Sell the electricity.

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I know how to send a rocket to the moon. Just stick some chemical propellant along with oxygen in a tube and light it. But if I actually wanted to send someone to the moon I'd probably have to advertise what I was doing to attract attention from people who could actually fill in the details and build the required rocket. This is no different. (Except for the small fact that these guys are lying...)

Sounds like an N-machine

[LiquidFaction]

N-machine (aka - Zero Point Energy or Vacume Energy), and things like the Homopolar Generator

The idea's been kicked around for a long time, and is not really new. Unfortunatly it looks as though if an idea is not patentable in the USA it doesn't exist. Start reading folks... this isn't anything new, it just that a company may have gotten enough attention to actualy get a non-oil consuming energy source off the ground (cause we all know what competition like this would do to Big Oil).

http://www.mufor.org/nmachine.html/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homopolar_generator/

Re:Sounds like an N-machine

[LiquidFaction]

Whoops... sorry. Duffed the links. http://www.mufor.org/nmachine.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homopolar_generator

Thermal run-away.

[Brit_in_the_USA]

Some people have been postulating the changes to civilization that such a device would pose.

In the sci-fi book "3001" references are made to a period of human history shorty after the roll out of nuclear fusion power stations (no the fission power used today). The near limitless supply of seawater to power the reactors and the cheap reactor designs with little of no waste to dispose of resulted in very, very cheap electricity. As a result everyone consumed as much electricity as they liked and Earth started warming as a direct result of electrical heating.

Something to think about - we can still cause global warming even without the use of fuels that produce emissions.

Maxwell's Vacuum Cleaner

[NotQuiteReal]

You know, when they are done building the space elevator, they could just run a hollow tube along side it.

Then, whenever you needed to suck things into the vacuum of space, just uncap the tube. Free vacuuming, with no annoying noises!

Also - that Beatles song - Maxwell's Silver Hammer - was that about special tools needed to build the elevator?

Mod down odious twat

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

I'm not going to follow in your footsteps by making any assumptions about your nationality, twerp, but here, for your edification...

Thats a list of credits that includes Boyles Law, high speed photography, modern electrocardiogram, X-ray crystallography, Boolean algebra, the basis of all modern computer arithmetic, the induction coil and discovering the principle of the dynamo, leading a team that discovered a treatment for leprosy, 'Fitzgerald-Lorenz Contraction', 'Stokes Theorem' and Stokes-Navier Equations', the hypodermic needle, Kelvin, aaaaand naming the 'electron' and measured its charge.

Here is your ass. You're welcome.

The energy *could* come from *somewhere*...

[mengel]

Actually, it doesn't have to violate any laws of physics, if it does something like:

• slow down the rotation of the earth
• slow the rotation of magma in the earths core
• drag the earth closer to the sun
• etc.

(assuming those sorts of changes are lower-energy states). Now how it would do any of those without forcibly sliding you along the ground/driving you into the earth if you were holding it is a mystery to me, but...) The problem is if it does do something like that, it's hard to measure at the 1kW level, but if enough people do it, the day starts getting longer, the earth gets hotter, etc.

Another possibility is that they've accidentally made a Really Good Antenna, and they're just receiving broadcast radio and converting it to DC...

Re:The energy *could* come from *somewhere*...

[Glonoinha]

They could hook up a big version of the device with some blades or something, let the wind push it around in order to move the different parts through the various magnetic fields - making a net positive return of energy...

Naw, that would never work.

Re:The energy *could* come from *somewhere*...

[igb]

The story circulates in Broadcast Circles --- which may or may not be true --- of the occasion when the 1500m LW transmitter at Droitwich was found not to be producing the propagation pattern that was expected. Droitwich operates on 198KHz (200KHz up until the standarisation of LW frequency allocations in the 1980s). It carried the Light Programme (later called Radio 2) until the 1970s, and since then has carried Radio 4 (nee The Home Service). Some claim that Radio 4 propagation is more important than other radio stations, acting as a dead man's handle for the nuclear deterrent: Trident submarines finding themselves out of contact with HQ are supposed to have orders to surface and tune to Radio 4. If aftersome suitable interval they can't get either The Today Programme (0600-0900) or The Archers (1900-1915, repeated 1400-1415) they are to nuke 'em til they glow (for some value of 'em). I'm dubious about this story as last week I couldn't get usable Radio 4 reception with an SW-100 near Brest, but I digress: Droitwich is rather more fun-sized in power than it used to be, in deference to some Polish station. Anyway, the story goes that Investigation showed that someone living nearby had filled their loft with coils of copper. Some versions of the story go into details about where it was stolen from, to provide spurious verimisilitude. It's then claimed to power anything from lighting (which you could presumably do pretty-well direct) through to a stolen IBM 360/168 (I exagerate, but not by much). I don't know how true the tale is (not very, I suspect) nor how practical this is (not very, I suspect). But it's a fun idea...

Why do you need validation, just make a product...

[bgog]

They say they NEED scientific validation in order to get this into peoples every day lives. WHY? If you create a laptop battery that never goes dead, people will buy it. Let them question how it works later. I mean really. Sell me something that can run my car forever for free and people will buy it. You are just copping out because the scientific community is never going to accept this until you simply prove it by releasing a product. It is too far from accepted scientific fact.

GAH! This is so wrong!

[wurp]

A magnetic field doesn't get "used up" by applying force to charged particles. I mean, it is possible for a magnetized object to become demagnetized by either the small magnetized bits ceasing to be aligned (in permanent magnets) or by the cessation of current (in electromagnets). But a particle moving through a magnetic field experiences a force at right angles to the motion and the field, and that force doesn't use up any energy from the magnetic field. (Work is done by a force acting over a distance, and when the force is at right angles to the movement it causes. This is the same reason no energy is taken from the earth's gravitational field (if that even means anything) by an object in orbit.)

My problem is not that you're claiming that a magnetic field can go away, and yield energy when it does - that's true. But that has nothing to do with the inability to extract infinite energy from moving something around in a magnetic field.

Another note - charged subatomic particles (and some uncharged) have a magnetic field that is utterly constant. This wouldn't be possible if "magnetic energy" was used up somehow by a magnetic field applying force to a charged particle.

When you "pull energy from a magnetic field", it generally comes from energy of motion of the objects involved, not from some kind of energy in the magnetic field. E.g. the energy of motion of electrons is confered to move some axle in a motor, or energy of motion of permanent magnets is confered to move electrons in a generator.

FFVF Commutator

[spun]

My patented free energy device is the "Founding Fathers-Vanishing Freedoms" Commutator. Everyone knows that our Founding Fathers spin in their graves when our freedoms are taken away, so we just add a wire coil and a magnet. Every so often we have to reinstate our freedoms or the whole thing will cease to work. I'm currently investgating other ways to piss off the founding fathers so we won't have any down time.

Re:People...come on...

[furriskey]

What a comic! You should give up your day job as a troll!

Science and Technology graduates per thousand in the 20-29 age group.
Ireland 23.2
France 19.6
UK 16.2
USA 10.2
Germany 8.2
Portugal 6.3
Netherlands 5.8

Source - IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, 2006

Don't forget about NOx

[JourneyExpertApe]

Nevermind the fact that the idea of burning H2 generated from water to generate energy is ridiculous. Burning H2 in air isn't totally pollution free. Some of the nitrogen in the air will oxidize to produce nitrogen oxides, which in turn form acids when they dissolve in water. Fuel cells, on the other hand, generate electricity by oxidizing hydrogen at low temperature, and don't pollute.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Not impossible

[elgatozorbas]

"What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy," McCarthy said.

This is quite possible, since the magnetic field is not conservative (=the energy energy is only determined by the position). Example of a conservative field: gravitation, because if a mass goes up and down a hill it has a net energy gain of zero.

Not so for movement in a magnetic field. You can compare this to a whirlpool: if you drop something in it will spin round and round faster and faster, so clearly its energy is not detemined by the position alone.n In fact this is more or less how electromotors/dynamos work (or could work).

"The energy isn't being converted from any other source such as the energy within the magnet. It's literally created. Once the technology operates it provides a constant stream of clean energy,"

This, however is bollocks: classical mechanics and electromagnetism form a pretty closed system. I'm not saying the conservation of energy principle cannot ever be broken (though this would be surprising) but in any way it can never be broken withing the classical system, i.e. using only mechanics and electromagnetism.

Well, anyone know what Steorn used to be? I do.

[dep01]

Well, the problem with The Internet today is anyone can put a very compelling and persuasive website together to claim anything they want to claim. Many people don't recall that Steorn is a former e-business company that saw its market vanish during the dot.com bust. It stands to reason that Steorn has re-tooled as a Web marketing company, and is using the "free energy" promotion as a platform to show future clients how it can leverage print advertising and a slick Web site to promote their products and ideas. If so, it's a pretty brilliant strategy.

And moreso as they published in THE ECONOMIST!

[spoco2]

Yeah, heaven forbid that the challenge be published in a SCIENCE journal, even a POPULAR one like, oh, I don't know, Scientific American or Discover.

"Steorn has decided to publish its challenge in The Economist because of the breadth of its readership. "We chose it over a purely scientific magazine simply because we want to make the general public aware that this process is about to commence and to generate public support, awareness, interest etc for what we are doing."

Oh, because the Economist has a broad, far reaching readership, not limited to only those interested in MONEY... unlike the science magazines who have a readership that actually may be interested, and, heaven forbid, know something about energy.

My god what a load of shite.

Claims like this should be easy to verify

[cayblood]

Many other charlatans and crackpots have made this claim. I have yet to see anyone publish a coherent layman's description of how to accomplish it.

I think the best way to disclose such an invention would be to post a web site with a list of parts to buy, where to buy them from, how much they cost, etc., and step-by-step illustrated instructions for putting it together. The end result simply needs to be a box that one could screw a light bulb into and keep the light turned on perpetually without an external power source.

If somebody did this, he would not even be a need to explain how it functions, because it would be impossible to refute. Scientists would eventually figure out how it worked.

Unfortunately no claimed free energy source that I know of passes this simple test.

Re:Mermaids

[w_albright]

Maybe the company will provide free tanks of mermaids to go along with the free energy.

Nice guy. NICE GUY??

[Ayanami Rei]

That's all you have to say in his defense?
Mod this down on principle, thanks.

I'd like to see the field equations where they show you being able to end up with more potential energy than you started with. You know, a time-parameterized finite element analysis in three-dimensional space with suitable boundary conditions. They say they accomplished this on paper "in software".
WELL THEY COULD JUST VERY WELL RELEASE THOSE RESULTS

But no. No. They want to do a "demo" with a "jury".

That's what magicians do in Vegas.

Utter bullshit. MOD THIS DOWN.

Wrong dream.

[abb3w]

Free energy is the scientific community's equivalent to the "winning the lottery" dream.

No. It's the equivalent to the "getting superpowers by being bitten by a radioactive spider" dream. Which is also cool, and great fun to hear about, and if it's going to be told well even qualifies as news for nerds... but doesn't deserve anything but ridicule when brought out in public.

If they were serious, everyone they were telling about it would be forced to sign some serious blood-oath NDAs. They wouldn't leak this much until they had a small-scale pilot facility ready to run their lab for a while... or perhaps after they had set it up and been selling power to the utilities in the US for a few years. This looks like just another variant on lost treasure maps, forgotten gold mines, wildcat oil wells, and Florida "real" estate.

bugs!

[M0b1u5]

No, that's not correct. Scientists have recently discovered bacteria which shit Hydrogen. From memory they eat rubbish too - so they are busy trying to genetically modify these little fuckers to shit more hydrogen, and faster.

Hell, with the right system, you'd pass your garbage through this system before taking it to a land fill, and the output would be fuel for fuel-cells - for Very Little Money (tm).

The other nice thing about the bacteria is that they could be used in small scale devices: at home, to reduce reliance on a national grid, and even to send power out of the house when usage is low. This would assist the decentralisation of power generation which is abolsutely necessary to get out from underneath the giant power and oil companies which rule western democracies.

*sigh*

Dreams are free I suppose.

FWIW

[jspayne]

Apparently, someone on Engadget (who posted this story two days ago) claims that a UK University put this device to the test - and it appears to do as it claims:

Hi, Let me tell you a little story - I am based in the Phyiscs Dept of a UK Uni (nameless as there are Non Disclosure Agreements in place), but we were asked to test this Steorn system - Now I wasnt working myself on this but was asked to look at the results - Simlpy put there was an "anomaly" in the results that we were at a lost to explain - this "anomaly" was that the design of the test system, (where we were given Steorn designs but purchased all components ourselves, biult it, tested, etc,) was that there appears to be a net energy gain when you move through the magnetics fields... We stated to Steorn that this "anomaly" required further examination. this was 6 months ago and we cannot find where this excess energy in the system is coming from... We are at a lost to explain it... But magnetics is admittently a bit of a grey area, we know the capabilities of electromagnetism but this is an area that hasnt had the same level of academic research as for example DNA sequencing, astrophysics, etc... the scientific community and industry knew how to create electricity and we left it at that - magnetics is a neglected part of our natural world and the Steorn "anomaly" has left our Dept quite baffled as we are left at a loss to explain it in Classical terms... I await what the rest of our community says when they have an opportunity to see this Steon system... S

Could be Astroturfing, but then again...you never know...

Re:FWIW

[geekoid]

"But magnetics is admittently a bit of a grey area, we know the capabilities of electromagnetism but this is an area that hasnt had the same level of academic research as for example DNA sequencing, astrophysics, etc..."

completely laughabale.
Clearly this person is lying.

Prove or Profit

[OverflowingBitBucket]

Don't know about you, but I'm thinking one of:

- Prove it. Publish your results and get it peer reviewed. None of this nonsense "people won't even take my claims seriously" nonsense. There is probably a reason.
- Profit from it. Free energy? Make a big bank of these things. Sell the power. There are plenty of buyers.

And if neither of these things are happening, I'm thinking one of:

- Crackpot.
- Investor scam.

Re:Not a scam, an ad campaign

[Sage Gaspar]

I'm not going to link up everything, especially since the page seems to be well and down just recently, but here's the plot thus far: company formerly specializing in tech promotions and stuff (not any actual development from what I've read) goes underground for a couple years and resurfaces on April 1 for a Guardian article as per their website. This article does not exist in the online archives of the Guardian. Other press releases are all listed as being announced today, even though they ostensibly happened since last Christmas -- this is one ramshackle website for a long-established tech company to be announcing a major technology on.

There is a website SteornWatch.com that came up seemingly hours after the initial press, was linked to in the forums available on the steorn website (why do they have forums again?), and contains absolutely no useful information or any popular theories about steorn.com. Steornwatch has a disclaimer saying they are not affiliated with steorn, Citigate D.R., or any of their subsidiaries. Who is Citigate D.R.? You'd have no idea from the steorn.com website, but "Citigate Dewe Rogerson is the leading international consultancy specialising exclusively in financial and corporate communications. Its work for clients, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to start-ups, focuses on developing and building corporate brands and actively managing corporate reputations, with all stakeholder groups from capital markets to consumers." How does steornwatch.com know about this firm, and why would they put it in the disclaimer and not mention what it has to do with steorn on their steorn exposé page?

Where are the actual people who came up with this? Did a group of marketing agents and publicists put their heads together and decide to create a free energy device someday? None of their "key players" is touted as being any kind of scientist or having come up with the machine itself.

All of this smells fishy even if they had something that wasn't an incredibly controversial scientific breakthrough up for grabs. And with people probing the viral marketing a lot now, this kind of thing is bound to come up. Burden of proof is on them, and so far I'm not impressed.

Read their patent application

[Animats]

Their patent application number is 20060066428, which you can look up at the USPTO site. The title is "Low energy magnetic actuator"

"A low energy magnet actuator allows magnetic fields to be turned on and off using a small amount of energy. The magnetic actuator according to the invention generally includes a base suitable for the support of a plurality of magnets. An actuatable shield is positioned in relation to the plurality of magnets so that it effectively blocks the magnetic field when it is positioned over at least one of the magnets. The magnetic fields of the plurality of magnets interact in a manner that allows low energy actuation of the shield."

It's just a thing for shielding a magnet with another piece of metal. The patent application does not claim an energy gain.

I was really hoping they'd claimed an energy gain, which might trigger the USPTO's answer to perpetual motion machines. The USPTO has the right to ask for a working model, but they very seldom exercise it. Except for perpetual motion machines and antigravity machines.

The application has been assigned to an examiner, and is in routine processing.

Remember who the Toyota Engineers are

[CrackBabyyy]

The first guys who took a stab and claiming to have free-energy, and were taken seriously did it on purpose just for the publicity. And despite being soundly disproven, "Third party results differed", they were still set up quite nicely by Toyota with research money. So the publicity track does pay off for these guys (just look at the South Korean cloning fiasco, where the lead scientist now has his own lab).