I wasn't sure where to put this but its FACINATING. My scanner ain't working so I hope you can read it. All I can say is WOWOWOWOW. I hope this is verified. It'll change the world. Watch this space!...and oh yeah....watch their movie on the site aswell. :D WOW!

http://www.steorn.net/en/technology.aspx?p=5

Edit: Wow!

Edit2: I don't know why this wasn't on the front page???

Edit3: The article is from the Irish Independant. NOT some crazy tabloid or weird paper. It was published Fri 18th Aug 2006.

Clearly the Irish, or at least some of them, still believe in leprechauns and pots of gold at ends of rainbows.

lol. I hope your wrong Geof! :D Once upon a time the world was flat. Not "oh it might be flat", "It IS flat and it is the center of the universe". Mankind has always had to change their own laws every few centuries as new discoveries were made. Look at quantum physics and quantum theory, a lot of it contradicts the 'laws of physics' as we know them today. ;) Im almost giddy at the thought of this.....just imagine if it works.....wow...

PS: I emailed them to register to get all test results. I'll keep this thread updated if they keep me updated! :)

Suprisingly (or not) lacking in details,

My guess is the leprichaun needs to quit making scientific "therory" while sitting on his pot of gold and get up then Flush and go do some work! :D

Probably a pipe dream (most likely where they came up with this stuff) but One can hope.

lol :)

I'll take a bucketload please :D

A long time ago I was a research associate in a university Physics Department working with a very clever fellow. He made a comment once about people who invent perpetual motion machines: "There are two types: The ones who sincerely believe they are onto something but their machine is only 60% efficient. They figure if they go and consult with a Physicist who knows more than twice what they know and is more than twice as clever then they can easily double their efficiency. The second type is the shyster who knows all the jargon to delude gullible journalists and investors. Their favorite phrase is 'you cannot prove it will not work' from which they imply the corollary that it will work.

Honest; TANSTAAFL is true.

From the Steorn forum page. This ones for Geof! ;) :D

"CommentAuthor: MrGrynch
CommentTime 15 hours ago

You can 'prove' many times over that a thing is true, but it will only take one thing to prove it is not. What you are referring to is not proof, but merely agreement with a prediction. It appears to be a law since it has never been observed to be other than predicted, but that is not an indication that we are correct under all circumstances.

Theory cannot render observation invalid. Instead you should be endeavouring to find a way to fit these observations into theory. If there is an apprent violation, then our understanding is what is flawed.

I can make no claims of the Steorn device, but I know for a fact at least one such device does exist and has been independently verified. A large scale correction to current electrical theory is presented by the inventor of this device. Please look into Dr. Tom Bearden."

Also interesting, just looked this up.
http://www.cheniere.org/

Even if the thing did work (highly doubt it)
Nothing is FREE, they will just charge two arms, two legs and a torso for the device.

What I like is a few of my nieghbors think they are on to something when they try putting a hydrogen generator on their cars to make hydrogen that they put into the airstream of the engine because it will increase fuel milage. When you try to tell them that it took energy to make the hydrogen and that the increase in fuel milage (if any)won't make up for the alternator having to run harder, it just goes over their head because they must be right.

JP

Thats true JP and I do agree Geof TANSTAAFL. But 'IF' this works (Whatever 'this' is because no they dont go into much detail) it wont have to cost an arm and a leg because the demand will make the inventors overnight trillionaires anyway at a low price. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see....but I for one am keeping my fingers crossed. :)

.....You can 'prove' many times over that a thing is true....etc...etc...

Do I need to repeat myself? I will anyway; "The second type is the shyster who knows all the jargon to delude gullible journalists and investors."

Back in the early 1980s not long after the first 'energy crisis' this type of thing bubbled to the surface frequently. For a period of time there were abundant tax credits for companies developing all manner of things. I had firsthand experience with the second type I refer to in the quote above. I had founded a company making prototypes and scientific equipment and was well know in the local scientific/engineering community. Twice I was approached by entrepreneurs and inventors who had something that sounded plausible but scientifically was a bunch of nonsense. They wanted to get me involved as a director and receive shares in a company they were floating on the stock market. I asked one group why they approached me because they must surely have known I would tell them their invention was worthless. Their response was; 'yes but you will give it scientific credibility' and can sell your shares when we go public. I am not a shyster so I never took up any offers.

Interesting, but I'm skeptical. I've not closed my mind to think that over unity can't be achieved, as I believe there are physical laws we just don't understand yet. I suspect we will see some channeling of existing energy we know exists in nature such as gravity, infared, magnetism to create harnessable mechanical energy sometime. That byproduct won't be free in money terms, but maybe be cheap in net energy consumed vs produced. We've been stuck in this have to have it now mentality, and it has to be perfect now and we shouldn't be.
The Hoover Dam for instance has produced an average of near 5000 gigawatthours of electricity over the last ten years and has been producing electricity for 60+ years. Resources and costs were high in its creation, and it has recurring costs to operate, but it also has an extremely long life span. It took fossle fuels to build, and it costs some fossle fuels on a recurring basis. (moving people and parts....for upgardes, maintenance and so forth) But comparison to consumed energy, I think it should be considered an over unity machine. Not from a physics point of view but a practicle point of view.

The site is almost interesting but so scarce of details that I must believe that it's a hoax. I'd be willing to admit there there COULD be some logical explaination as to where the energy comes from (magnetic, EM, etc) but it's certainly not *FREE*. Their reluctance to provide any details at all is very damning to their credibility. If their claims are true they should have waited until there is some sort of proof.

For a much, much more detailed and interesting treatment of physics try http://rodinmath.com/

At least that guy is willing to actually provide information on his theories!

Warning though, the website is very very STRANGE. Maybe the guy is on to something or maybe he's on something. At least you get to really find out what he's trying to say.

Warning though, the website is very very STRANGE. Maybe the guy is on to something or maybe he's on something. At least you get to really find out what he's trying to say.

"donut, donut everywhere, yet never one to eat" ..... and yet intriguing.

Keep your mind open, but not so wide that your brain falls out.

John

hmmm...I stopped reading at MATHEMATICAL FINGER PRINT OF GOD and the adapted ying/yang! But it has me interested enough to go back later! ;) :)

hmmm...I stopped reading at MATHEMATICAL FINGER PRINT OF GOD and the adapted ying/yang! But it has me interested enough to go back later! ;) :)

Yeah, believe me, his explaination of what his theory is is very left field. But it's incredibly interesting nonetheless. If you can get past the weird fingerprint of God and Spirit eminating from the center of the donut talk then you get to some very interesting information. The freaky part is that he's got endorsements from some high up people including a researcher at Microsoft and scientists at NASA. Maybe he is on to something at least. At the least it appears that his rodin coil does actually work better than previous technology.

Gentlemen,
This story was on digg.com a few days ago.
After a little digging, looking up cached versions of the website etc. It appears to be a great marketing ploy to gather email addresses and contact information of people in the related field. I hope you didn't sign up.....

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1784833525509845733
I especially like the demo with 3 horse shoe magnets and a little storm. That's convincing -- sorry, this isn't really even a good hoax, they need a box with sparks and stuff coming out.

But that is one really nice web site. If all the web designers in Ireland are that good, they will be taking over the web design world for sure. http://www.steorn.net/frontpage/default.aspx

While in college taking a course in business ethics, I was warned about ANYBODY who had stuff tested by un-named experts at un-named universities with unspecified results.

Yet on the very first page of the posted website for this ruse (IMO) we find the following claim:

"Our technology has been independently validated by engineers and scientists - always off the record, always proven to work."

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like one, it is hardly a swan...

BTW, I do seem to recall the nuclear power industry making the same claims about the "clean electric power" that they would create that would be so cheap that you could take the meters off the sides of houses. I still have my meter, do you???

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me....


BTW, there is a member selling some converted swamp land as beach front property elsewhere's on the site. He's assured us that the pumps will be there the second Tuesday of next week to make this a reality.

I'd be inclined to make sure your spam filters and virus filters are REALLY updated if you chose to sign up for this.

-- sorry, this isn't really even a good hoax.....

Hoax? How dare you say that? This is going to SAVE THE WORLD :D :D :D

I just dont know.....but they did just take out a 100k ad in The Economist in an attempt to find scientists who will be independantly verifiable and are willing to give their names publically. Im buying the magazine tomorrow to verify this. Watch this space!

Yes it is a nice website, but like everything in Irelands economic boom these days, you'd pay an arm and a leg for it aswell. :)

Turning it on its head - how would YOU launch your idea/device ?
Start by assuming the extremely unlikely, that yours actually worked, what would you do next ?

I think I'd probably just use it for myself and the kids, and let the news leak out round the neighbourhood. Then move ?

BTW, I do seem to recall the nuclear power industry making the same claims about the "clean electric power" that they would create that would be so cheap that you could take the meters off the sides of houses. I still have my meter, do you???


Well, to be fair, nuclear power gives off less radiactive spillage than a coal plant (the coal contains some radioactive elements that pass through unburnt). The nuclear waste is minimal compared to the energy output. It really IS an excellent solution to our energy needs but tree huggers are always up in arms about it and the NIMBY syndrome has limited adoption. If people would give it a chance we'd all be better off and power prices WOULD drop. Unfortunately it has a large aura of politics around it. I don't forsee any time where the meters won't be on the houses. Even if fusion from sea water is perfected we'll still see companies trying to make a profit on it.

Not necessarily. I'd want to get it independantly verified then let all the major corporations come to me and offer a nice fat percentage for using the technology! Something like this actually working would have so many applications that you couldn't possibly produce ALL the products yourself without becoming a bigger and more diverse company than the world has ever seen. :)

re. No meter on the house. Search google and build yourself a nice wind turbine to get off the grid. Throw in some solar panels. Theres some great sites out there.

Yeah that works great in a temperate climate where we don't get a ton of sun and the wind usually doesn't blow that much. Michigan is no friend to solar or wind power regardless of what those silly dutch people in Holland,Mi might have thought when they built windmills on the lakeshore. ;)

Give me nuclear power any day.

re. No meter on the house. Search google and build yourself a nice wind turbine to get off the grid. Throw in some solar panels. Theres some great sites out there.

Death Adder
Nuclear power is widely recognised as the MOST dangerous potentially polluting power generation system in existance. Its a horrific invention that should be wiped off the face of the earth and use the raw materials to build more important stuff. The people who support nuclear are idiots who are going to get us all killed and poisoned by a slow radioactive death! Some people call them nuclear idiots. DOWN WITH NUCLEAR POWER IN ALL ITS FORMS. And no NOT IN MY BACK YARD!

:banana: hehehe.....just stirring the pot, I actually support nuclear power...sorry... :banana: :D

:banana: hehehe.....just stirring the pot, I actually support nuclear power...sorry... :banana: :D

So do I and the Fusion Power Generator that we are using and have used since the Dawn of Time is just the correct distance away for me to feel comfortable.

Here is what concerns me about nuclear power:

FACT: The nuclear plants are ALL built by the lowest bidders.

FACT: At one time, the nuclear power industry was found to get defective welds to pass by doctoring up the x-rays with magic markers.

The waste has a radiation half-life of (enter huge number here) that goes beyond the life of ANYBODY. You can't admit that you know everything about what radiation will do to the materials used to make the containment vessels. Even the welds and exotic metals in the water tube in nuclear plants were found to be deteriourating at an unexpectedly accelerated rate, supposedly due to previously unrecognized affects caused by radiation exposure.

At one time, it was OK to dump the stuff in land fills in lead containers - boy, have they learned a lot since. Even LEAD is now rated as a toxic substance and we used to solder our water pipes with it.

I'm not against nuclear power per se. However, I have a problem believing that the "experts" who CLAIM to know all they NEED to know about the long term issues that WILL have to be dealt with. But what if the waste is NOT handled absolutely properly or is messed with by accident in the future?? What may be state of the art could become hard core dangerous tomorrow. Then what happens???

Besides if 2 educated experts (both pro and con) can NOT agree about the dangers of how to handle/treat the waste, why take a 50-50 chance that the way to go could ultimately be wrong???

A one word explanation as to why you'd advertise the viability of a doomed, over hyped enterprise: "ENRON".

Another scam that Diarmaid should also be able to find data on, that interestingly was a very big scam perpetuated in Ireland, no less: "DeLorean"

DeLorean was not a scam, just a very badly managed business venture. There was no communication from the shop guys to management, and even though management was 'told' several times that the builds were wrong and couldn't be sold no-one ever wrote it down in an official memo. Then the whole thing went 'poof'!

Here is something to consider about nuclear power waste.

We don't actually make nuclear waste it just happens.

We just move the stuff around a little and where we put it is the important stuff.

Now granted if it comes from a uranium mine in nowwheregypte or anyplazackstan, I would prefer it be stored there as well. But we for the most part just make it work for us.

......Now granted if it comes from a uranium mine in nowwhere.......I would prefer it be stored there as well. But we for the most part just make it work for us.

Well some of it does come from nowhere - we call it Saskatchewan (apologies to all the Saskatchewans on the forum) but if you want to benefit from it you can keep the waste in your own !@#$%^&*() backyard.

And well away from the border and in a place where all the winds blow South and the rivers run South!!

smart move to export all of the waste from sakquachuwon as "nuclear" power cells! :D

Diarmaid:

QUOTE: Nuclear power is widely recognised as the MOST dangerous potentially polluting power generation system in existance. Its a horrific invention that should be wiped off the face of the earth and use the raw materials to build more important stuff. The people who support nuclear are idiots who are going to get us all killed and poisoned by a slow radioactive death! Some people call them nuclear idiots. DOWN WITH NUCLEAR POWER IN ALL ITS FORMS. And no NOT IN MY BACK YARD!

Do you have a fine pitchfork and a nice pitch-soaked torch to go with that quote? I think of your kind as part of the rabble that that storms some unfortunate scientist's castle in innumerable bad movies.:-)

You don't understand science at all. You think science is done by consensus, kinda like voting shall we grow lettuce or carrots on some hippie commune. 99 scientists say we should, 1 scientist saying we should not. It's just not done in that kumbaya way my freind.

Galileo, Newton and Einstein come to mind. A thousand scientists disagreed with each in their time but all had to come around and march with the one that was in step with a different drummer. No consensus with 1,000 scientists taking out a $100K ad helped there.

I cannot argue science with you because you are singularly unequipped to do so. Your quote speaks that better than any objection I could make. You are a religious person and logic can inflict no dent in faith.

Leftists believe in a religion and that religion is called Enviromentalism. There is no difference between it and the religion challanged Galileo with death until he recanted.

I am greived to see Leftism and its corrosive religion branch out and poison science. The 'soft' sciences submited first; all that's left is physics and mathematics. The progressive zeolots are fast at work corrupting even these last bastions.

I reserve the right no to submit to a forcefully imposed religion. I do not buy it's beliefs, I do not buy it's solutions for salvation and I do not buy it's claim to moral supremacy.

I do not belive in: Global Warming, The Evil of Nuclear Energy, Every Stupid Species Must Be Saved, We Are Being Poisoned by Everything Technological, Humans Are Not a Part of Nature, DDT is Bad, or in short the entire cactacism of your religion of Envioromentalism.

Instead I have a depthless contemt for all of Enviromentalist beliefs.

Your kind have bullied reasonable people for over 40 years now. What your kind practices is intellectual Jihadism, a dillitantism of the worst kind. You use the fruits of what you condemn to promote these regressive views that would destroy them. The silcon in your PC that is powered by your windmill or dung-powered, enviroment-freindly generator could never be fabricated in the world you promote.

I hope true science never bends to the Luddites.

I also hope you take in the spirit of a lively dispute of what you claim is "widely recognised" in your original quote. It's not.:-)

Mariss

As is obvious from his post, Mariss is an engineer, not a scientist. Sorry Mariss, science does not get poisoned by politics for long, it's self correcting. Today's scientists did not chose to be leftists, and are not leftists. That's just a fiction of people who hope to make money from confusing people. Scientist's pursuit of knowlege made them the enemies of the right, certainly not by the choice of the scientists. Many American scientists are Republicans, at least those that haven't been run out of the party. Sad that the mind of a person of your stature has been poisoned by religion of a different type.

Let's look at the alternatives:

1) Re-newable rersources:

1a) Direct conversion (solar cells). Our misfortue (actually fortune) is we live 93 million miles away from the sun. Solar irradiation is about 100mW per square inch. It keeps us from cooking but it's lousy for energy extraction.

Let's say a car needs 100HP available to be decent. That's about 75Kw. It is also about 750,000 square inches of solar collector area. Throw in 30% as the best conversion efficiency and you get 2.5 million squre inches of collector area. To make it real, 100HP needs a collector 132 feet by 132 ft, (40m) per side. Kind of laughable when you think of a solar collector 4/10 of an acre in size perched on top of your car.

1b) Ethanol. Corn is used. Still solar driven to the tune at 100mW per square inch but it grows leaves, a stalk and incidentally a an ear. That ear holds a small percentage of sugar of which a some percentage can be converted to ethanol. Long and short, the conversion efficiency is much less than a solar cell. All arable land converted to ethanol production would service 10% of the vehicle fleet. Everyone would starve but one in 10 people could drive an ethanol-powered car in search of food.

2) Wind energy, geothermal, tidal energy, ocean thermal difference energy. Lump them all together and it's far less than power than the solar schemes. Discard.

3) Nuclear. The hippies in the '60s and '70s nearly destroyed this option. France today gets over 80% of its electrical energy from nuclear. Today's hippies love France, they do not mention this fact though. Funny.

Nuclear is an excellent and safe energy source. It is a high density energy source just like oil is but much more so. By comparison all the alternatives are very low energy density sources. Energy-density refers to who much of the stuff do you need to have to do what you need to do.

Once enough time passes that the fears and alarms of the Luddites will get laughed away, nuclear power will replace oil in our economy. Basically the voices of a few loud but persuasive idiots prevents this from happening now. Wait them out, all will be OK in the end.

Mariss

you realize he was joking when he wrote that?

by Diarmaid
hehehe.....just stirring the pot, I actually support nuclear power...sorry...

Unterhous,

Quote: As is obvious from his post, Mariss is an engineer, not a scientist. Sorry Mariss, science does not get poisoned by politics for long, it's self correcting. Today's scientists did not chose to be leftists, and are not leftists. That's just a fiction of people who hope to make money from confusing people. Scientist's pursuit of knowlege made them the enemies of the right, certainly not by the choice of the scientists. Many American scientists are Republicans, at least those that haven't been run out of the party. Sad that the mind of a person of your stature has been poisoned by religion of a different type.


I am saddened by your reply. You are infected by the very religious disease I speak of. You politicize and catagorzie me by makiking assumptions you honestly have no right to do.

I am a free-thinker. If there is anyone I serve then it is the handmaiden called nature. I am not the least bit concerned where she leads. She is apolitical and cares not whether I'm a Leftist, progressive or all the other crap or the opposite for that matter.

Let me tell you about my handmaiden. I design circuits. All in my mind are good of course. What seperates the actual good from the bad is nature. She is a very tough judge; she only graces my work that pleases her, the work I do that's wrong she rejects. She is the only one I sevre.

You on the otherhand think that objective reality can be argued with. You may not even believe in objective reality. I gather that from your derivative assemet of me or my presumed politics. Politics to me is the very gargement or bottom layer of existance. It's what you do if if you can't do anything else. It is the tattered window shades you put up in your miserable junkyard home.

I've read your posts, I respested you and I thought you were smarter than that. I'm sadly disappointed now. You judge people from your preformed stereotypes just like everyone else. Bummer.

Mariss

Joking? Ah, Ehmmm, What's all this egg on my face?

(Srapping sounds as egg is removed from face, face still red from missing the obvious)

Still I don't regret from from posting what I did. This subject is a boil that should be lanced. Look at what has come up from the woodwork. A whole fleet of termites.

Mariss

Joking? Ah, Ehmmm, What's all this egg on my face? (Srapping sounds as egg is removed from face, face still red from missing the obvious) Still I don't regret from from posting what I did. This subject is a boil that should be lanced. Look at what has come up from the woodwork. A whole fleet of termites. Mariss

An lnteresting mea culpa.

In your intemperate little offering you had:

"I do not belive in: Global Warming, ......"

Can you cite evidence that Global warming has not occurred over the past couple of hundred years or so?

Incidentally what is wrong with termites? They are accomplished structural engineers.

The French have a colorful history of dealing with unpleasant things, quite oftten with less than effective methods.

They "defended" themselves against the Nazi's with the Maginot (spelling may be wrong) Line. Worked real well didn't it?

They've done a remarkable job of acquiescing to some of the political pressures of late no? Did a masterful job of NOT selling embargoed stuff to people who probably shouldn't have had access to it.

They may have 80% of their electrons coming from nuclear plants but what, oh what are they doing with/to the nuclear byproducts that is so novel??? I hope they are not storing it in underground wine cellars. Sure would kill demand for imported French wine being slurped up by the tree huggers.

Whether or not you favor nuclear energy is irrelevant. What the creator of the process that generates nuclear wastes does with the byproducts of the process is relevant to humanity as a whole IS ultimately of high relevancy.

It is one thing to play a shell game on the streets to con some stiff out of money. It is another to effectively play a shell game with nuclear byproducts as in move it to SOMEplace, ANYplace, usually NIMBY as the game is typically played. Ultimately, you get to the point where too much stuff is put someplace or you run out of place to put the stuff.

The realities are that the stuff that is GENERATED is dangerous. It has to be dealt with. It doesn't become benign over night. Finally, it is not easy for ANYONE to deal with.

The industry has had its share of folks who were less than honorable with the inspection and/or reporting requirements. Sadly, this may have occured during the formative years. Such memories make for perhaps overly stringent requirements thereafter. Too bad. We learned our lessons from strip mining and Love Canal - You reap what you sew.

But, even so, Three Mile Island occurred during the same time that "experts" said that the nuclear power industry was safe, the system had protection devices in place and they were fully functional, blah blah blah.

I lived thru that period of time - both the eppisode and the movie - and although we were up-wind of the plumes, I still was concerned about the ramifications of what could happen if the China Syndrome (which came darn close to happening) had come to bear.

ANY engergy industry has to deal with waste byproducts. Sadly, the need for energy will also spawn hucksters who will try to prove that efficiencies over 100% are possible to achieve. For some strange reason, these clowns always, ALWAYS have NOT been able to make their devices work as claimed. People are people, mistakes happen, not all technologies are fool/mistake proof nor do they work as claimed.

Why, oh why do I have this strong feeling that this Irish "invention" will be another one of those that don't/can't work as claimed???

Geothermal may be the ticket!

I say a "modern marvels" on a salt mine up in the chicago area that was impressive in its scope and magnitude. But one of the things I thought was strange and interesting is that so far they have dug down to 190ft (If memory serves) and probably wont go much further because its really hot down there (I think it was quoted at 120deg F.)

doesn't seam like too much work to dig a deep hole until its hot enough to do the heat exchanger deal. After all thats all that power plants are doing anyhow. Just one big steam turbine!

They may have 80% of their electrons coming from nuclear plants but what, oh what are they doing with/to the nuclear byproducts that is so novel??? I hope they are not storing it in underground wine cellars. Sure would kill demand for imported French wine being slurped up by the tree huggers.


Probably enriching it into plutonium and selling it to Syria and Iran.


Whether or not you favor nuclear energy is irrelevant. What the creator of the process that generates nuclear wastes does with the byproducts of the process is relevant to humanity as a whole IS ultimately of high relevancy.


The problem can be dealt with... By burying it way underground. That's where it came from anyway. And why are so many people up in arms about it anyway? Current coal plants spew an exponentially larger amount of crap out into the environment every year yet people seem to favor them over nuclear reactors. Is it really so bad to have to bury it? At least we CAN bury it. It's hard to collect all that carbon monoxide and soot that blow out of coal plants.


The realities are that the stuff that is GENERATED is dangerous. It has to be dealt with. It doesn't become benign over night. Finally, it is not easy for ANYONE to deal with.


It's expensive to deal with but not impossible. It's almost environmentally safer than coal or oil plants and can be positioned anywhere unlike solar, wind, or hydro. It's energy output is virtually unlimited unlike solar, wind, and hydro. The stuff generated is nasty stuff but where else are we going to get the weapons grade plutonium for the bombs we're going to have to launch at Syria and Iran once those yahoos finally lose it completely. ;)


But, even so, Three Mile Island occurred during the same time that "experts" said that the nuclear power industry was safe, the system had protection devices in place and they were fully functional, blah blah blah.

I lived thru that period of time - both the eppisode and the movie - and although we were up-wind of the plumes, I still was concerned about the ramifications of what could happen if the China Syndrome (which came darn close to happening) had come to bear.


Ahh... Look it up. Despite the media hype at the time 3 mile Is. was not in a huge danger of total meltdown. Nobody got hurt, the reactor was stabilized, and maybe ONE person is in danger of getting cancer over it. It was all a huge overreaction.

Current day reactor design is the pebble bed reactor and it's basically meltdown proof. I'm not saying that everything is going to be perfectly safe but NOTHING IS. You could die in a car accident later today. That doesn't stop you from going to work.

Geothermal may be the ticket!.......

Geothermal is used in Iceland, Italy (I think) and New Zealand; possibly other places but these are the leaders. It is low grade heat good for use as a heat source but not very useful for generating electrical energy because the temperature is too low for efficient steam turbine operation, and this is in places were the geothermal heat is available at temperatures in the few hundred degrees.

- Joking : Yes
- "Egg on face" : Yes :)
- Mariss opinions : Some are valid
- "No Global Warming"...."DDT ok" : Made me want to stop reading (Im sure asbestos is not really bad aswell?)
- Ethanol, wind, solar etc : No one is sufficient but the key is to use a combination of all including nuclear. And of course these all require raw materials in some form so they will never be perfect.
- "Politics is the process and method of making decisions for groups. Although it is generally applied to governments, politics is also observed in all human group interactions including corporate, academic, and religious." No-one likes politicians but what is your proposed alternative to politics? (Eye for an eye, World War maybe, Take out your shotgun?)
miljnor geothermal vent : Facinating would love to see that.

As an aside if anyone is still interested since this thread has become a little bit sidetracked, I have received no e-mail reply from our Irish crazy scientists. Oh well. Egg on my face too I guess! :)

..... "No Global Warming"...."DDT ok" : Made me want to stop reading (Im sure asbestos is not really bad aswell?).....


This would be a mistake; if you stop reading you can only assume that someone's opinions are idiotic but if you keep reading you know. Certainty is always better.

(Im sure asbestos is not really bad aswell?)

you do know that asbestos is a naturally occuring substance and can be found in most...... Dirt! yes dirt

hehehe

fuel to the fire!!!! (flame2)

ggrrr....yes I know all about asbestos being natural etc etc....too much fuel on the fire at this stage I think! :argue: :boxing: (chair) ....:D ;)

BTW, I do seem to recall the nuclear power industry making the same claims about the "clean electric power" that they would create that would be so cheap that you could take the meters off the sides of houses. I still have my meter, do you???



I still have mine, but it runs backwards during the day... ;)

I think we're a long ways off from free energy. We will get much more efficient at it long before we are able to produce it for 'free'.

Also, if by 'free' you mean completely free, it will never happen. You'll have to pay to build what ever method is used, hence it can never be 'free'.

The closest thing we've got right now, IMNSHO, is solar, geothermal and wind. Once the initial investment is made for the equipment, everything after that is free.

Maybe someday a 'controlled nuclear meltdown' will provide the means to drill a hole right into the earth's mantle, then they can tap the heat coming out of that. If, IF the hole doesn't just become another vent full of red hot magggma spewing onto the surface :D

Maybe someday a 'controlled nuclear meltdown' will provide the means to drill a hole right into the earth's mantle, then they can tap the heat coming out of that. If, IF the hole doesn't just become another vent full of red hot magggma spewing onto the surface :D

Radioactive red hot magma at that. Not really wanting to come across as a NIMBY; but perhaps we can do this in your backyard not mine.

Here is the fallacy behind geothermal:

The delta T (change in temp from hot to cold) ultimately limits how much power can be extracted from the deeply cold/hot water issue. We had this as a thermo problem in college literally decades a ago and the laws of physics and thermo don't change.

Here's the snag: the amount of power you can extract from the delta T potentail won't pump the water (or other working fluids) down to or up from the depths of where you need to exchange the heat from/to.

If you can't even gain enought power to pump the working fluid, how do you expect to extract any NET useable power from it????

Re: 3 Mile Island = That "oops" is still radioactive. And there have been other dumb mistakes made by so called nuke power experts since. As in, if I recall, a plant in California being built on a ground fault - great place to build a plant, on an unstable plot of ground. Pretty sure a plant in Ohio was also built on a plot of land that turned out to be a potentially unstable fault.

Yes, the industry is much better/safer than they were but still, even a 1 in 100 chance results in a potentially dangerous plant being dangerous enough 100% of teh time to wreak havoc on mankind.

I'm NOT justifying the coal fired stuff - the acid rain that they generate and the pollutants they otherwise emit are dangerous/unhealthy too. Fortunately (?) the coal emissions simply aren't as immediately dangerous from a CO spill or particulate outburst as that of a bunch or plutonium or radioactive gas the may inadvertantly get released from a nuke.

The more engergy we consume/use/waste, the more critical the waste bypoduct issue WILL become. Clean power, by all means, however, you still ultimately have to compy with the laws of physics and thermo to get it.

....If you can't even gain enought power to pump the working fluid, how do you expect to extract any NET useable power from it????....

You can gain enough to pump your working fluid because the only work done in this pumping is against frictional losses; you are not pumping against a head. The real fallacy in geothermal is that the heat supply is essentially limited; in practice it is not because the heat has to flow from the source to absorption zone where your working fluid is picking up the heat. This requires a temperature gradient and rock, whether it is just hot or actually soft, is a poor conductor of heat. What happens in a relatively short time, in some of the geothermal installations in New Zealand this was less than ten years, is the rock around the working fluid heat absorption zone has cooled too low to be useful.

Geof: in our problem, you were given a delta T. You had to consider the fact that the pump could be placed "low" or "high". If high, you had to get the fluid to suck up the working fluid while letting gravity sucked the fluid down.

IF you sunk the pump, you could let gravity suck the fluid down but the pump had to overcome the "head" of pumping the fluid up and then extracting enough power to be able to use AND to run the system. The amount of power available out of an infinite delta T is quite substantial - however, a forever infinite delta T of sufficient magnitude simply doesn't exist.

At the delta T given in our case, you were below the break even point that you'd eventually get at once the temp differential was deplete. If you have enough of a differential, yes you could have enough surplus power to use. BUT the issues you'd face with the corrosive effects found in some geothermal "heat" made it real hard to keep stuff alive. Then the "New Zealand effect" that you illude to comes into play and the party is over.

If you set/find the appropiate parameters, yes geothermal and whatever other magic free power source will/can work. Trouble is, they don't tend to be viable enough in reality or can make enough power in reality to pay for themselves or justify their existance/development.

Alchemy has been tried since biblical times. But for some reason, moving that one little electron and proton has been found to be impossible to do to turn Pb in to Au. I contend that "free power" research efforts is essentially today's version of alchemy.

NC Cams, could you not simply pour water down the hole and have it come back out as steam, without any mechanical pumping required? I'm not really serious, of course, but theoretically, I don't see a requirement for external energy input. The cooling off of the rock would be inevitable, I suppose. Maybe drop a live nuke down the hole once in a while to warm things up :D

This is all tongue in cheek, of course... ;)

NC Cams, could you not simply pour water down the hole and have it come back out as steam, without any mechanical pumping required? I'm not really serious, of course, but theoretically, I don't see a requirement for external energy input. The cooling off of the rock would be inevitable, I suppose. Maybe drop a live nuke down the hole once in a while to warm things up :D

This is all tongue in cheek, of course... ;)

Hu you seem to have a fetish for nukes :D . Please give me warning if you ever plan on moving to BC.

Regarding the water down a hot hole yes you do not need any mechanical pumping input. It can even be circulated by convection, cold dense down, warm less dense up, the flow rate is low but adequate if you are using the hot water for heat. A lot of btu's can be carried in a smallish volume of water; this system is used in Iceland.

Interesting that free energy snakeoil gets written about regularly, but i havent read a good article on fusion research in years (outside the scientific publications).

The problem about nuclear is that most people are oblivious to the simple fact that the powerstations they are complaining about were designed decades ago. Now imagine you take a car made in the 60s, and compare it to a current production model, the changes in technology have made the new one far safer, more efficient, cleaner. Any new nuclear plants are going to be vastly better then the ones designed in the 60s, but are still tarred with the same brush. Its like saying modern air travel is far too dangerous, just look at the hindenburg.

why what happended to the hindinburg???

I have a tour booked next week??? :D

....The problem about nuclear is that most people are oblivious to the simple fact that the powerstations they are complaining about were designed decades ago. Now imagine you take a car made in the 60s, and compare it to a current production model, the changes in technology have made the new one far safer, more efficient, cleaner. Any new nuclear plants are going to be vastly better then the ones designed in the 60s, but are still tarred with the same brush. Its like saying modern air travel is far too dangerous, just look at the hindenburg.

It does not matter how safe the operating nuclear plant is nor how clean it is during operation the big problem of storing the waste does not go away; that is the big hang up with nuclear.

and the same argument surely applies to nuclear waste storage, and nuclear waste processing. I am not suggesting that nuclear is the ultimate solution to everyones energy needs, but it is the best technology for the job at the moment, even with the waste produced. Yes nuclear waste is highly dangerous, but it is minute in volume compared to the waste generated by a coal fired powerstation generating the same power. And in many ways it is more convenient to store some barrels of waste then plant a new forest to lock the carbon emitted.

Without current nuclear, and probably new nuclear plants as well, there is little chance we will be able to keep up with everyones need for energy, and still keep commitments to reduce co2 output. (Im in England, not US)

Mariss said in defence of nuclear technology, in post 36I hope true science never bends to the Luddites.

I must be a luddite.

I look at Chernobyl. Did they build that thinking it would fail ? Definately not.

What is the potential of destroying a country by thowing burnt out solar cells at them,
as opposed to throwing nuclear waste or by product bombs ?

How many capitol cities will be destroyed if a terrorist bombs a solar field, as opposed to a nuclear power plant ?

How much does it cost, and how dangerous is it to store a redundant solar cell as opposed to a Nuclear fuel rod?

How many mines must be dug as opposed to waking up to another free day of sun shine.

Etc etc.

While the initial cost of solar may be higher, and the space it takes up may be greater. Overall it will be cheaper and cleaner.

We dont need the energy we used to use a few years ago. Technology has made many greatly efficient items. We have light bulbs that offer the same light at 80% savings. We have hybrid vehicals that drastically reduce fuel consumption.

With a combination of energy efficient items, and clean renewable energy generation, I think we can make the switch over time.

Science is not always about making ball breaker nuclear power plants, it can also be about increasing efficiencies with finesse and smart thinking.

I recently went to a CSIRO open day. They did a comparisom of a new design hybrid car versus a V8 5 Litre. The test was to see if it had the same acceleration, and what was the fuel usage differance if it did have the same acceleration.
Amazingly with the new capacitor hybrid system it had only fractionally less acceleration, and yet it used 1/5 the fuel of the V8.

This says to me, we dont have to live in clay huts in order to live cleanly. We just need to be a little smarter about it all.

You see luddites can hate nuclear, and still take a scientifc approach to things too.

Things are looking good for our future. :)

"Needs" are not always in tune with "politics".

Example: the diesel is the salvatory engine for the EU's propulsion needs. It is well developed and popular over there, in no small part to the legislation which allows it to have a different emission output LEGALLY than it can have here in the States.

Whereas you're more concerned about CO2, our legislative concernes are more focused on NOX and particulates - essentially mutually exclusive targets of achieveabilty. What you do do help one tends to detract from the other.

We have California and the rest of the world doesn't. They have a unique environmental situation there that makes NOX and particulates particularly bad for the local air quality and the development of photocemical emissions (smog).

Since their air quality legislation was used as the pattern for the rest of our nation, one could contend that their needs have excessively biased the legislation which parhaps it has.

However, after spending a day trying to breathe their LA basin air, I'd hate for the entire world to be subjected to such poor air quality and I'm a car guy who isn't a fan of all the emissions devices. But, you do need to breathe to live so you sort of have to make a sacrifice.

Sadly, be it emissions or nuclear waste, people tend to worry about their needs du jour - and screw the other guys. it is more important to fight and win than to resolve differences and provide for the common good.

At this point, the legislation here does NOT favor the creation of nuclear power plants. In no small way, I'd contend, the nuke industry put themselves into that position by slipshod management practices in the past. Had the earlier managers who tolerated the goings on thought more about the long term goal instead of the short term prize, things would be as they are. Unfortunately, they sleezed out and got caught/burned and we all will pay for it for a long time to come.

Oh well.....

I must be a luddite.



LoL @ benny! Had to look that one up.

Any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment.

HAHA, ye of little faith! :D Only joking, this doesn't prove anything but at least its progress. I received an e-mail reply from steorn. Here is what it said:

Dear Applicant,

Re: The Steorn Challenge
Thank you for expressing an interest in joining the panel of 12 jurors that will be selected to test Steorn’s technology.
Based on the initial registration details that you have provided we would be grateful if you could forward, by return email only, a synopsis of your academic career, including the following details:

Education/ Degrees (Name of University);
Current position (e.g. University/Institute);
Research areas (On whose behalf it was conducted);
Published papers;
Honours/Awards; and
Contact details (e.g. University/Institute department - email address and telephone number).

We will contact you again once we have had an opportunity to review all the synopses that we are expecting to receive over the next few weeks.
Thank you again for your interest.
Yours faithfully,
Sean McCarthy
Please note that we will treat your information under the strictest confidence and that we are bound, in any event, by our obligations under the Data Protection Acts 1988-2003 in respect of same.

Please note that this e-mail doesnt ask for any financial information or investment information etc. Also, I bought this weeks Economist magazine and there was a full colour full page advertisement which I will try to load up tomorrow fyi.

I acknoledge that we still dont know anything about this fantastic 'technology that may or may not exist but progress is good! :)
Bye for now.

Have you done a google on Steorn and read, for instance, the wiki describing the company background etc?

I wouldn't consider myself an enviornmentalist. I've never been anti nuclear, and was pro nuclear. But I do think you have to balance economics into any analysis. Today my position on energy is 180 degress from what it was 10 years ago. Considering aproximately a kw of energy per sq meter hit's this planets surface everyday, I'm kind of agast we aren't utilizing it.

Temperature differential engines just make sense:

"Initially developed in the 1980s by McDonnell Douglas (now The Boeing Co.) the Dish Stirling system was field-tested by Southern California Edison and Georgia Power for over 175,000 hours between 1982 and 1988. Edison's test data indicated the Dish Stirling out-performed all other solar-to-electric generating systems by a factor of two, yet had comparable start-up costs. SES optimized the McDonnell Douglas dish to operate with a 25kW Stirling power conversion unit (PCU) developed in Sweden by United Stirling, Kockums and Volvo. The resulting system, the "Dish Stirling", has fewer moving parts than comparable diesel engines and operates relatively quietly. The SES Solar Test Site and related tooling and equipment facilities are located at the Boeing facility in Huntington Beach, California. The 25kW SES Dish Stirling system has an operating track record of more than 17 years. Since 1984, it has held the world record for efficiency in converting solar energy into grid-quality electricity."

This is from a 39' diameter heliostat array!

Couple temperature differential engines with mechanical energy storage, and development of battery technologies, solar in this form just makes sense. If we can build a IC automobile engine that is affordable to the masses these engines are simple by comparison. So long IC engines, hello pluggable electric vehicles's.

Take the square meter to be a square yard instead. Not quite the same but just for argument. 39' in diameter is almost 1200ft^2. A square yard is 9 ft^2 so divide by 9. That's 133 square yards. At almost a kW a square meter that means (assuming almost means .9) you are getting only about a 1/5 of the incoming energy turned into electricity. Not a great deal but not terrible. I think that gasoline really only gives something like 10% real work. The rest is heat and incomplete burn.

Still, you'd need solar panels the size of your house to really get enough power. That's assuming you live in a place sunny enough to give you the needed amount of sunlight. I'm not saying it isn't a good idea because it is. But it has a lot of logistical problems. Not the least of which is that it takes up ungodly amounts of room. The other problem is what happens when it's NOT sunny for a while. Up here in Michigan we have that problem sometimes... Days and days of rain and gloomy stuff. Other times it's sunny for weeks. Your batteries would have to be very nice to accomodate that and you'd have to consistantly under utilitize your solar most of the time to allow for extra charging energy. Solar, if driven cheap enough, is a GREAT alternative to all other sources of energy, with the possible exception of wind. However, windmills tend to make a lot of racket and they are an eyesore. Not that a huge array of solar cells is very sexy either. ;) I think that a nuke plant still makes sense as there is bound to be some shortage of alternative sources. This would still mean *less* nuke plants however.

....I bought this weeks Economist magazine and there was a full colour full page advertisement which I will try to load up tomorrow fyi....

There is another quote from George Bernard Shaw which I think is even more appropriate than the one used in the Economist ad: “The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.”

At almost a kW a square meter that means (assuming almost means .9) you are getting only about a 1/5 of the incoming energy turned into electricity. Not a great deal but not terrible.

20% conversion of solar is pretty common.


Still, you'd need solar panels the size of your house to really get enough power. That's assuming you live in a place sunny enough to give you the needed amount of sunlight. I'm not saying it isn't a good idea because it is. But it has a lot of logistical problems. Not the least of which is that it takes up ungodly amounts of room. The other problem is what happens when it's NOT sunny for a while. Up here in Michigan we have that problem sometimes... Days and days of rain and gloomy stuff. Other times it's sunny for weeks. Your batteries would have to be very nice to accomodate that and you'd have to consistantly under utilitize your solar most of the time to allow for extra charging energy. Solar, if driven cheap enough, is a GREAT alternative to all other sources of energy, with the possible exception of wind. However, windmills tend to make a lot of racket and they are an eyesore. Not that a huge array of solar cells is very sexy either. ;) I think that a nuke plant still makes sense as there is bound to be some shortage of alternative sources. This would still mean *less* nuke plants however.

Point #1. If you look at unocupied desert land in the world, and consider those areas as useful commercial solar installations, you distribute power the same as you would with nuke plants.
Point#2. Your are reflecting Infared, which is more than visable specrum. True overcast days reduce infared, but there is still IR hitting the surface.
Point#3. In really rough numbers: My average electric usage is around 25kwh/day. Assuming 10hrs of peak IR hitting my roof, thats 2.5kw per hour needed. 100% efficiency at 800w per sq yard would need 3.2sq yards.
20% efficiency of 800w per sq yard isr 160w sq yrd. I would need 16 sq yrds or roughly an area 10' x 15'. A small portion of my roof. My home round numbers is 1500' sqft or 166sq yards. 165 sq yards, at 20 percent efficiency if the roof were flat and unshaded would be near 27kw per hour. 10% efficiency is 13kw. So to satisfy my usage, I could get by with converting 2% for 10 hours!
Point#4. Temperature differential engines don't need superheated dish mirrors. Its probably the most productive per sq ft. If you consider the earth several feet below ground level is roughly a constant 50 degrees F. How many hours of the year is 50 degrees outside? In the dead of winter, no sun on a 10 degree day, you have a 40 degree temperature differential. It's available to harness motive power.
Point#5. To store energy, you don't have to have batteries. There are mechanical storage methods. Heck the old grist mill water wheels used natures energy storage, water at different heights.

My point is that there is available energy virtually all the time, sun or no sun, winter or summer that can be turned into motive power. We are of the mindset to think in one box, fuel. Lets get out of the box. (group)

20% conversion of solar is pretty common........My point is that there is available energy virtually all the time, sun or no sun, winter or summer that can be turned into motive power. We are of the mindset to think in one box, fuel. Lets get out of the box. (group)

There is one 'efficiency' you have not included and that is the energy cost of making and installing the solar panels; this is an aspect that is often overlooked by advocates of alternative energy. I do not know the figures for either photovoltaic or Stirling solar electricity generation but have seen figures for windpower that claim it will take five years or more for a typical wind generator to replace the energy used for its manufacture. The five years comes from the (nearly always optimistic) assumptions of the generating capacity for a particular location and the or more comes from the real performance which is often well below the assumptions.

There is one 'efficiency' you have not included and that is the energy cost of making and installing the solar panels; this is an aspect that is often overlooked by advocates of alternative energy. I do not know the figures for either photovoltaic or Stirling solar electricity generation but have seen figures for windpower that claim it will take five years or more for a typical wind generator to replace the energy used for its manufacture. The five years comes from the (nearly always optimistic) assumptions of the generating capacity for a particular location and the or more comes from the real performance which is often well below the assumptions.

True, but on the flip side is total life cycle cost. Give me any energy source that doesn't have cost in recovery? Oil just doesn't vaporize into gasoline in my tank. Coal doesn't just vaporize into electricity. And once you "burn" that energy you have to expend more to create more of the same. Hoover Dam was completed in 1937. It supposedly took 50 years to recover the cost. Maintenance and upgrade costs are inline with any other fossile fuel. So from 1987 till..... it's energy production has virtually no nonrecurring cost per kw of energy. From 1947 through 2005 it produced an average annual power generation of 4.4 billion KWH. What do you think the yearly nonrecurring costs are for coal fire plants to produce the same 4.4 billion KWH? Man those big earth movers don't get very good gas mileage, the coal trucks to the plants are't much better.

The other point here is it doesn't have to be a roof full of panels. A single family home on a lot has the potential of a lot of the energy capacity you need. There is enough lot area to utilize ground cooling in the summer, so you don't have to have a energy consuming AC. Simply modifying how we design and build conventional framed homes, could eliminate a lot of heating and cooling costs. They don't need to look any different than they do now. If you pull your heating and cooling bill, your power consuption from the grid drops considerably.

Wow I sound like an enviormentalist, but I'm really just strting to think about how much we consume, how much we waste, and how little we take advantage of. BTW, I'm not a huge proponent of PV.

In Australia we populate a maximum of 10% of the land space. We have huge amounts of desert. Some of our farmers have to drive thier car for a day just to close the front gate.
I envisage that we could be the solar farmers of the future. With solar farms been 10s or 100s of square KMs. I believe we could become the fuel providers of the future that the middle east is now. Energy can be converted to clean burning hydrogen and shipped / piped all over the world to be used in either fuel cells of modified engines.
As for the initial energy that it takes to make a collector taking 5 years to recoupe, that only applies to photo voltaic collectors. There is cheaper and more energy efficient collection methods when used on a bigger scale. Reflector panels to collector towers, where the sun is concerntrated to make steam and then turn turbines. The reflector panels are made from a cheap mirror film that is glued onto a low energy built panel. Not only do we get clean energy, but we get de-salinated water from the steam too.

As I said in an earlier post, our energy needs, dont have to be the same as yesteryear.
We now have lights that use 20% the energy of incandecent lighting. Our Hybrid vehicle technologhy is rapidly evolving too.

I believe there will be a time in history where will will look back in astonishment at the amount of energy that was wasted in this brief period of 100 years of the planets existence.

Some of our farmers have to drive thier car for a day just to close the front gate.


I used to have truck like that! :D:D:D:D

JP

As for the initial energy that it takes to make a collector taking 5 years to recoupe,

The 5 year arguement is null and void. It may take 5years to recoup the initial energy, but the life of a solar system is decades with maintenance (Which all types of systems require) not mearly years.

Here is the ad from the economist below. Its not very clear, sorry.
It says:

"IMAGINE
A world with an infinate supply of pure energy.
Never having to recharge your phone.
Never having to refuel your car.

WELCOME TO OUR WORLD.
At Steorn we have developed a technology that produces dree, clean and constant energy. Our technology has been independantly validated by engineers and scientists-always behind closed doors, always off the record, always proven to work.

THE CHALLENGE
We are therefor issuing a challenge to the scientific community: test our technology and report your findings to the world.

We are seeking a jury of twelve-the most qualified and the most cynical."

Another example of "naive engineering", freely translated and compressed translated from today's newspaper:

"British know how to handle Madonna's magic fluid:

We don't have to worry anymore about nuclear waste, because there is a simple solution: a magic kaballa-fluid and lots of prayer. At least, if we believe Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie. The magic fluid is said to be tested in a contaminated lake in the Ukraine with amazing results. The Ritchie's are for years searching a solution for nuclear waste. Good, but it would be better to give this problem to the scientists. Out of politeness British Nuclear Fuels tested the magic fluid. They said there was no scientific proof the magic fluid worked. At the kabbala centre, where the Ritchies got their wisdom, they don't give up. They are now reciting mantra's with mentioning Chernobyl and other nuclear plants. Followers are absolutely assured this helps."

This proves how society confuses popularity with wisdom. Perpetual motion is off course something you do singlehandedly between the recording of two songs or movies. Avoid at all cost studying and critical thought! That's just useless negativity.

lol. I never liked Madonna. You just reminded me why! :D However, please keep an open mind, the folks from Steorn at least it seems, looking for credible scientific verification from recognised professionals.

According to wikipedia, the people from Steorn are waiting for the bailiff. What they are doing is "the big jump forward" and swim or drown, or it is some PR-trick.
It's better to see this fade away, instead of trying to form a fanatic, almost religious fanclub for what I see as "hidden, unproven and avoidance off normal scientific approach at all cost."

Hidden unproven etc etc......It may be so now, and it may turn out to be a load of bs, but we should at least wait and see what their panel of twelve scientists say.

Heres the info from wikipedia and a photo of their test rig (Not the actual device)

McCarthy stated in an RTE radio interview that, "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, [...] 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." [9]

In a demonstration to The Guardian at Steorn's office, a computer display reported the device to have an efficiency of 285%. The article goes on to say that Steorn claims to have measured efficiencies up to 400%. [10] The device has been reported to be an all-magnet motor, with no electromagnetic component. [11] Steorn also claims that according to their research the device can be scaled to almost any size, powering anything from a flashlight to an airplane. [12]

Conservation of energy
Steorn acknowledges that their claimed technology appears to violate the principle of conservation of energy, a fundamental law of thermodynamics. Steorn's claimed invention therefore appears to be a perpetual motion machine of the first kind. Given the long history of hoaxes involving such perpetual motion devices, claims of this sort have hitherto met with skepticism (usually flat-out denial) from the scientific community.

For this reason, major patent offices such as the U.S. Patent Office, European Patent Office and the UK Patent Office have a policy of not issuing patents for perpetual motion devices.[13][14][15][16] Steorn has stated that, because of this patent office policy, they are not filing for a patent for the whole technology, but are filing patents for its components individually, none of which of themselves constitute a perpetual motion machine.[17]

Steorn have stated that their first LEMA patent is completely unrelated to their test rigs photos and core technology. It is unclear which of the next six patents to be released apply to the free energy device.

Challenge to scientists
Steorn has posed a challenge to the scientific community (even counting the days since that challenge was made) and the company insists that that it seeks the support of the scientific community. As yet, however, the community has had no real chance to verify Steorn's claims. Furthermore, Steorn announced that only a group of twelve scientists, which Steorn will choose themselves, will have access to the technology. Therefore, the precise nature of Steorn's "challenge" remains unclear at this point.

Steorn claim that within hours of their advert in The Economist, they were contacted by hundreds of scientists world-wide and many thousands of other interested people. [18]

According to Steorn's CEO Sean McCarthy, "We put in a small amount of mechanical energy and we get a large amount out ... but until this thing is validated by science we won't be doing anything commercial with it."[19] In an apparent reference to the idea of free energy suppression, McCarthy has been quoted as saying "We have to fight public opinion, we have to fight the scientific community and we have to fight the energy industry. We couldn't pick a worse battleground." [20]

Steorn have said they will stop taking applications on Sept. 8 for scientists to serve on 12-member jury; expects jury-designed testing to begin by end of the year.[21] There is no fixed timeframe for the results of these tests and Sean McCarthy has said that it could take up to 10 years. They have also stated that they will not "pursue or accept" any investment until their discovery is verified by the scientific community.[12]

Inconsistencies
Several people have pointed out what they claim to be inconsistencies in Steorn's story and the background surrounding their claim. Many people on the internet are speculating that this is all some kind of marketing publicity stunt, partly because Steorn has not followed the conventional way of releasing such technology for peer review.

Steorn maintains that their invention has already been validated by no less than eight un-named independent scientists and engineers "with multiple PhDs from world-class universities", and found to work, but that none of them were willing to publish their results and Steorn refuses to name them.[10]

A page on Steorn's website titled "Press Coverage" had a non-working link to a news story claiming the discovery in the Guardian on April 1, 2006. The date "April 1" is commonly observed as "April Fool's Day" in many countries, including Ireland and Great Britain, and is often a target date for hoaxes. No such news story from the Guardian exists. The press coverage page was edited shortly thereafter but the earlier version was still available to see on their website for a number of days afterwards but was finally removed by Steorn on the 25th of August 2006. Steorn responded to this claim in the chat event, saying: "it was a placeholder left by the website designer." [8]

Steorn's marketing manager Richard Walshe mentioned a string of speculations and allegations going around the internet:

"We've been accused of being a publicity stunt for the next Microsoft Xbox gaming system because some of the artwork on our website was similar to theirs. [...] Some people have said our offices don't exist and one accused us of simply being a call centre in Australia because one of our telephonists has an Australian accent. My favourite is the one that says we are a CIA or oil-industry front intended to discredit research into free and clean energy. In other words, our claims are deliberately false and when they are found out to be, it will be a blow for all free and clean research."[10]

Steorn understands that failing to validate their claims could possibly destroy their business. Sean McCarthy has said: "Before we went public, we realised that if we're wrong it could have a very adverse effect on our business, so we're not doing this lightly"

but we should at least wait and see what their pane of twelve scientists say.
Now whe are getting somewhere, but make it a "chosen" panel of twelve etc. The outcome will be the same as "Convectron". And the creator of that debacle was at least an idealist.

Why would anyone risk a profitable successful business on a crazy technology without being sure that it works? The company consists of a number of people according to their website and Im sure at least one of them values their income. It wouldnt make sense for this to be a load of crap. Obviously, they could believe this, but could simply turn out to be wrong. When I get back from the USA in two weeks Im going to find out where their offices are in Ireland and pay them a vist.

Why would anyone risk a profitable successful business on a crazy technology without being sure that it works?

Many have preceded them, many will follow. Reasons are:
Not listening to sound advice.
Over estimating your own creativity.
Follow a wrong path too long, without seeing that it is the wrong path.
Not being able to admit, that you've been wrong.
This failure analysis can go on and on, you will see that your library has shelves full of it.

Hidden unproven etc etc......It may be so now, and it may turn out to be a load of bs, but we should at least wait and see what their panel of twelve scientists say.


Wait and see... do we have any other chice?

The whole thing is an absolute bunch of c***p. They will get people interested, probably get people to put in money. The old saying about a sucker being born every day means there are a lot of suckers in this world and some of them have money.

The whole thing is an absolute bunch of c***p. They will get people interested, probably get people to put in money. The old saying about a sucker being born every day means there are a lot of suckers in this world and some of them have money.

Not to mention those with enough money to effectivly oppose such technology!

Wait and see... do we have any other chice?

We can judge the technology as being a "bunch of crap" before we have waited to see. Lets reserve judgement for now. :)

I wasn't insinuating the "technology" was a bunch of crap, but dosn't it seem to good to be true? And furthermore, dosn't it seem like if we made somthing that would last forever it would have limited profit potential? Remember this world is driven by profit, and if this takes away from somones profit then somone will be against it. And the people in todays energy producing business have alot to protect, and alot to protect it with.

We can judge the technology as being a "bunch of crap" before we have waited to see. Lets reserve judgement for now. :)

Behind all technology is some science; in this case it is the science that is a bunch of crap. Do some googling using the words 'perpetual magnetic energy' and see what comes up. Also try 'gyroscope energy perpetual' and things like this. Perpetual motion machines based on gyroscopic energy or magnetic energy have bubbled to the surface periodically in the past several score of years since electricity and magnetism were discovered. Nearly always their appearance can be correlated with some broader happening in world; this time it is a combination of the fuss about cutting carbon dioxide emissions and rising fossil fuel costs.

I agree Geof, however I also recognise that what we accept as unbreakable solid laws of science have often throughout the millenia been recognised to be false as we have discovered hitherto unknown elements/forces/facts which alter said laws. If we didn't have people with open minds who refused to accept everything they are told, and who strive to push the boundaries, then nothing would ever be discovered.

I agree Geof, however I also recognise that what we accept as unbreakable solid laws of science have often throughout the millenia been recognised to be false as we have discovered hitherto unknown elements/forces/facts which alter said laws. If we didn't have people with open minds who refused to accept everything they are told, and who strive to push the boundaries, then nothing would ever be discovered.

Okay; give me a list of the "unbreakable solid laws of science (that) have often throughout the millenia been recognised to be false" and a list of the "hitherto unknown elements/forces/facts which alter said laws".

I learned something from TV the other night: there literally are people who believe that some people believe that in everyone's scheme of doing things, there are good intentions.

Ok, fine. BUT the problem is that one man's good intentions are another man's worst nighmare. Hitler made the trains run on time but look at what he did to the lives of so many other unfortunate people. We now have religious zealots who are looking at out Western culture as evil and we need to be killed to purge the world of evil as is the wish of Allah. Their 'good intentions' are my worst nighmares.

There are literally people out there who are literally naive enough to think that you can defy the laws of physics and/or thermo dynamics. "Give them time", "wait and see", "with a bit more development money, it will work" and all sorts of other rationalizations to get some pipe dream, vaporware to work.

"Why would anyone risk a profitable successful business on a crazy technology without being sure that it works?" Simple, it is a classic "ponzi scheme".

Here's where a scam artist, with the witting or unwitting help of others, sets up a scheme to steal money from a "mark" of "marks" by making it appear that the "investors lost their money" in a mere game of chance. A game that is "rigged", no less, but rigged all the same.

Essentially and exactly the same thing was done with Enron. The "profits" were all merely smoke and mirrors to keep the deal affloat for as long as possible. THe real scam involved getting more and more people to invest in the scheme thus giving the perps more money to skim off.

The scam artists ultimately rake off their monies and squirrel it away all the while bilking the public out of their moneys. Ooops, sorry, the business went bust due to "cash flow" problems, or " unforseen market changes". Problems or changes my a$$.

The reason these guys won't show their "technology" is because they f'ing CAN"T. The thing doesn't work. By hand selecting scientists, THEY will pick ones who THEY can convince will view the results THEIR way. Smells like a "ponzi scheme" a brewing to me.

There is NO SUCH THING AS MAGIC. It is all sleight of hand/trickery and/or optical illusions.

Did you ever think that by securing monies the way they are going about doing so, they might be trying to avoid the government scrutiny associated with stock sales??? Then again, there are some folks who think Enron can be turned around and that the Delorean fiasco was merely due to a poorly run business. Sorry folks but the "business' in these cases was mrely the operating cover for the underlying scam that was being pulled....

Vague unspecified performance from some vaporware technology in the past has inevitably been capable of demonstrating performance levels that are equally as vacuous.

The most recent in the USA was Enron. Before that, there was the savings and load debacle the people so conveniently forget. Before that, you had Billy Sol Estes selling empty oil farms in the 60's or so.

It is like REALLY hard when you work with the laws of physics day in and day out to believe crap like this. It is even harder to convince/explain to gullible people that these sort of scams are well planned and often well intended. Why? THere is a very fine line between creativity and insanity, business brilliance and outright busines chicanery.

Each and every time that energy prices spike upwards, scams like this ooze out of the woodwork. Sadly, this will prove to be nothing more that another scam like those that preceeded it...

As I said earlier in the thread, the world is no longer flat. Once upon a time that was an unassailable 'fact' simply because nobody could ever prove otherwise until technology advanced far enough to allow sailing ships to cross the oceans.

I would not put a penny of my money into this supposed new technology, and if I was asked to, the sceptic in me would have me running a mile.

However, I do believe that science is not a dead lump of facts that can never change, I believe it is alive and can advance with humanities understanding of the elements of the universe. I believe that there are many thousands or millions of elements throughout the known and unknown universe that not only will throw current theories on their heads, but that are beyond our current ability to comprehend. I believe that we are not alone in the universe simply because we have never 'seen' a being from another planet, and I believe that anyone who says otherwise is closed minded. I feel sorry for such people. I believe that we can do 'anything' and that the American dream is something that can be realised by anyone willing to work hard enough, whether they are americans or other nationals in far flung lands. I believe that humanity does a lot of stupid things to itself and its planet, and that yes, as hard as it is to accept some people are simply bad people, but that overall people are good. I believe we can go further faster and for longer, I believe that we will find new better sources of energy, I believe that our laws of physics may alter in a thousand or less years as we discover new boundaries of the universe. I believe that not everyone just wants money and profits. I believe that sometimes there is a greater good that takes precedance. I believe that if it could be done it should be done, and if it cant be done it should be tried. I believe that someone wouldn't necessarily have already done it if it was possible, and I believe that if everyone had such an attitude we would still be hunting with sticks and living in caves. I am an optimist. I believe. And Im proud of it.


Edit: I also believe that someday I won't have to edit one of my post's to correct spelling. :)

Start of thread:
The Energy HOLY GRAIL has been Discovered! (I hope...wow!)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wasn't sure where to put this but its FACINATING. My scanner ain't working so I hope you can read it. All I can say is WOWOWOWOW. I hope this is verified. It'll change the world. Watch this space!...and oh yeah....watch their movie on the site aswell. WOW!

http://www.steorn.net/en/technology.aspx?p=5

Edit: Wow!

Edit2: I don't know why this wasn't on the front page???

Edit3: The article is from the Irish Independant. NOT some crazy tabloid or weird paper. It was published Fri 18th Aug 2006.
Post #94
I would not put a penny of my money into this supposed new technology, and if I was asked to, the sceptic in me would have me running a mile.

Now, will the real Diarmaid stand up?

lol. Hey, who said you were allowed to look back at previous posts, thats cheating! ;)

I am facinated by the possibilities. Im facinated that this technology may work. I wouldn't invest in it without more proof (Which they say they are trying to get at the moment). :) I also think that the overall sceptical/negative response in this thread has made me have a slightly harsher opinion to the possibility. But I remain open minded. We shall see. :p

Scepticism is a good and healthy thing to have. It makes you look more closely at things so you can understand them and not get suckered in by some shysters.

Perhaps they have found some "magic beans" to make energy more cheaply. This is probably doubtful. Perhaps they have a technology that can be spun off to help improve energy generation or utilization - that would be nice.

However, ANY TIME someone is asking for your money to invest into their project that essentially involves vaporware, BEWARE -hang onto your wallet.

There have been too many instances where these deals don't provide what the perps contend that they have.

As I said earlier in the thread, the world is no longer flat. Once upon a time that was an unassailable 'fact' simply because nobody could ever prove otherwise until technology advanced far enough to allow sailing ships to cross the oceans........

This is a myth. There was a Greek guy many thousands of years ago who demonstrated that the world was round and even derived a fairly good estimate of its diameter. He was fortuitous in finding a couple of wells that the sune would shine pretty well straight down at noon and all he had to do was measure the distance and time between the two separate occurences.

Regarding this comment; "lol. Hey, who said you were allowed to look back at previous posts, thats cheating!" you are just being silly. Go back to my first post; leprechauns and magic rainbows are more believable. Go to my post quoting George Bernard Shaw; you are demonstrating what he describes. Go to university for a few years and get a degree in physics; then if you still persist in giving credence to these type of claims I know into which category you fall of the two I described.

Think outside the box all you want. Dream all you want as well. The sad dose of reality that you will inevitably have to face is that the laws of physics and thermodynamics are quite inviolate.

These guys are looking to exploit naive and/or uneducated people. Religious preachers do the same thing, legally, on TV day in and day out in the USA.

Clearly, I'd contend that this scam has taken too much time and space on this m/b already. Why do we persist in even dealing with it any further???

....Clearly, I'd contend that this scam has taken too much time and space on this m/b already. Why do we persist in even dealing with it any further???

Non serious reason: because it is fun.

Serious reason: because it may stimulate one or more of the people who view the thread to dig deeper, become more scientifically and technically literate and gain more knowledge so they can intelligently handle the problems our generation is bequeathing to them.

Non serious reason: because it is fun.
And congratulations: you made post #100!

Now that is a dubious honor/achievement if there ever was one.....

Now that is a dubious honor/achievement if there ever was one.....

Don' be a Grinch.

Yeah it really all boils down to two things:

The laws of physics that prevent perpetual motion machines are just COMMON SENSE. The fact that energy is never created or destroyed and merely changes state is just common sense. Energy doesn't just come from nowhere. Granted, in their case they are basically saying that they are driving things through magnetic field. Thus it COULD be using up the Earth's magnet field however smart that is. ;) But nothing of the sort works because you'd be running full circle through the magnetic field in both directions equally and that alone would cancel out any potential effect.

Secondly, and maybe more importantly because it doesn't involve physics and thus is easier for the average person to grasp, if they really had something they could take it to any university or any news station and blow the lid off everything. If it really works then people will see that it does. Did anyone see how they thought it might be up to 10 years before the results come back from the 12 scientists? I'm sorry but if it's real then it's real and a day's worth of testing could verify that. They are just trying to get a long length of time to con people in.

Think outside the box all you want. Dream all you want as well. The sad dose of reality that you will inevitably have to face is that the laws of physics and thermodynamics are quite inviolate.

These guys are looking to exploit naive and/or uneducated people. Religious preachers do the same thing, legally, on TV day in and day out in the USA.

Clearly, I'd contend that this scam has taken too much time and space on this m/b already. Why do we persist in even dealing with it any further???

Diarmaid seems to have abandoned us with regards to updates so I thought I would fill in a bit. I have it on good authority that with 36 hours of the Economist advertisement coming out 420 'scientists' applied to be on the test panel.

420 reputable international scientists, thats a nice number for a scam. I look forward to them breaking down some of those 'unbreakable laws of science' m8, and the sooner the better. ;)

420 reputable international scientists,...

At the present time describing them as 420 nut cases is no more and no less valid; you have no information either way.

lol True. :D

When I get back from the USA in two weeks Im going to find out where their offices are in Ireland and pay them a vist.

Time is up. How was the visit?

Im only back, give me a chance! :) Im in work 24hrs tomorrow and friday, but Im based in Dublin again from Monday and I'll have time to do a bit of snooping....ahem...'enquiring'....;) Their address is only about a 10 min train journey from me in Dublin so I guess I have no excuse! If you mean the visit to the US, it was great as usual. I want a HUMMER :(

So nothing more on this till next week wednesday.(19-09-2006)

.... I want a HUMMER :(

In Ireland your front bumper will be hanging out over the Atlantic while the rear is over the Irish Sea. How on earth would you turn it around?

Well, if you mention Irish Sea, everything is possible. Sellafield aka Windscale ring a bell?

.....Windscale......

Windscale?? Showing your age I think:D

Age? No. It pops up regularly in the newspaper. In fact only a couple of weeks ago. And the changing of the name is always mentioned. It is in the top-3 of nuclear disasters. It is examplary for the secretive behaviour you get, when government, defense and industry get together. It is also very early PR. If the problem becomes to big, change the name!
So, extrapolating this, you will see that the Iranian government, does'nt care one bit if they have to pollute their country and/or their population to get their "halal" bomb.

I happened to be watching a financial show on tv, and the guest was talking about Hyrdrogen power. What was really interesting was what Honda is doing. Evidently Honda believes Hyrodgen is the future and not only for vehicles but for the home as well.

http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/FCX/station/

http://www.usatoday.com/EDUCATE/environmental/environment3.pdf#search=%22%2Bhonda%20%2Bpower%20%2Bhydrogen%22

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/11/honda_introduce.html

The interesting part of the interview, was that Honda was large enough and agressive enough they wouldn't be derailed by special interests.

So maybe a home filling station for your vehicle maybe in your future?

I happened to be watching a financial show on tv, and the guest was talking about Hyrdrogen power. What was really interesting was what Honda is doing. Evidently Honda believes Hyrodgen is the future and not only for vehicles but for the home as well. .....

I have seen a few articles about the idea of home hydrogen power in addition to hydrogen powered vehicles. In my opinion the home hydrogen idea is even more ridiculous than for vehicles. Hydrogen has to be generated using some energy source, it is not an energy source in and of itself. There are two feasible sources of hydrogen; electrolysis of water and catalytic decomposition of natural gas.

Electrolysis means you need electricity which has to be generated using fossil fuels, oil or coal, or nuclear. Forget wind, wave or solar power, even combined they are only likely to provide a minor contribution. Hydroelectric may provide a significant contribution in some locations.

Generating electricity which is used to produce hydrogen that is then distributed to households so they can use it in their (expensive and short lived) hydrogen fuel cell to produce electricity seems a bit pointless and inefficient. Why not distribute the electricity directly to the households?

Similarly, generating hydrogen from natural gas is energetically inefficient; much of the potential energy in the natural gas is thrown away in the catalytic process. It is far more efficient to distribute the natural gas to households and use it there. The largest energy consumption in most homes is heat which is obtained directly from natural gas and it would be far more efficient to obtain the electricity needed in a typical home from a small natural gas powered generator because the waste heat from this could also be utilized. The resources of Honda would be more efficiently employed developing small, long lived natural gas powered generators than fooling around with hydrogen homes.

In my opinion the home hydrogen idea is even more ridiculous than for vehicles.

Electrolysis means you need electricity which has to be generated using fossil fuels, oil or coal, or nuclear. Forget wind, wave or solar power



Look at the links, you will see Honda's electrolyzing hydrogen stations are solar powered. Doesn't sound like Honda thinks it's more rediculous. Maybe you should contact them and explain where they are going wrong. :)

Hi folks. Just came across this. All I can say is 'WOW'...again :D! (I know you appreciate that Geof ;) )

Anyway look at this link. Im changing my car some time next year, and if I dont get anything on trade in I might try to do this to it just out of curiosity.

http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/water.html and same thing http://www.hasslberger.com/tecno/hydrogen.html

And general link for above: http://www.hasslberger.com/tecno/tecno.htm

About the honda thing you could always buy this: http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/h2.htm or a regular hydrogen generator for your house for less than $10k and build a wind turbine for your garden from plans on the net to run it. :) Its also not difficult to build your own hydrogen generator. I built one a few years ago just for the fun. The hardest part is getting the correct type of wire to use and I couldn't find any. I ended up using some random wire that contaminated my water.

PS: Hopefully get to visit Steorn tomorrow.

ive also read that pulling hydrogen from water becomes allot more efficient when the temperature is raised so maybe they are using the sun to heat as well as for solar cells.

Look at the links, you will see Honda's electrolyzing hydrogen stations are solar powered. Doesn't sound like Honda thinks it's more rediculous. Maybe you should contact them and explain where they are going wrong. :)

Perhaps you should find some recent opinions expressed by Dr Ulf Bossel the Chairman of the Lucerne Fuel Cell Forum which include: "A hydrogen infrastructure is not needed for solving the energy problem ... The best sustainable solution is obtained by linking renewable electicity sources directly to the energy needs of consumers by means of efficient power transmission lines." and "The direct distribution of electricity to the consumer is three to four times more efficient than its conversion to hydrogen by electrolysis of water, packaging and transportation of synthetic energy to the consumer and its conversion back to electricity with efficient fuel cells. Fuel cells are energy converters, not energy sources,... the laws of physics speak against a hydrogen economy, and physics cannot be changed by wishful thinking, political initiatives, research programs or venture capital."

On a different aspect of the same energy topic look up a recent issue of The Gartman Letter (www.thegartmanletter.com) on ethanol as an energy source.

Dr Bossel's comment is the correct one; wishful thinking will not make things work.

geoff, i dont mean to poke holes in your argument, because to some extent i agree with you. But wasnt Dr Ulf Bossel discussing the impact of distributed (local) generation schemes vs centralised generation schemes using hydrogen as the delivery method?

Honda are proposing generating hydrogen near the point of use, not transporting preprocessed hydrogen to the end user, so this really isnt the same as a conventional 'hydrogen economy' where fuel is transported from a central location. Also the argument against hydrogen assumes you can have a wired electricity supply as an alternative, which isnt really applicable to vehicles.

I dont know enough about natural gas to hydrogen conversion to comment on that, but I think the main question is whether they can generate enough hydrogen through solar to provide enough fuel for their cars at these charging stations. Something tells me they cant at the moment, but i would be happy to be proved wrong.

Perhaps you should find some recent opinions expressed by Dr Ulf Bossel the Chairman of the Lucerne Fuel Cell Forum which include: "A hydrogen infrastructure is not needed for solving the energy problem ... The best sustainable solution is obtained by linking renewable electicity sources directly to the energy needs of consumers by means of efficient power transmission lines." and "The direct distribution of electricity to the consumer is three to four times more efficient than its conversion to hydrogen by electrolysis of water, packaging and transportation of synthetic energy to the consumer and its conversion back to electricity with efficient fuel cells. Fuel cells are energy converters, not energy sources,... the laws of physics speak against a hydrogen economy, and physics cannot be changed by wishful thinking, political initiatives, research programs or venture capital."

Dr Bossel's comment is the correct one; wishful thinking will not make things work.

I agree wishfull thinking won't solve anything. I also agree that Hydrogen is not a natural energy source, it must be extracted, but so must petroleum based products. Gas just doesn't show up either. Energy storage is an absolute requirement and hydrogen maybe one form of energy storage.

Something will change in vehicle energy at current gas prices. OPEC has taken note of people willing to move away from oil. If gas prices go down to sub $1.50/gallon it may slow down the desire for conversion, but unlike the 70's, technology has solved a lot of problems that make other energy storage forms reasonable.

Honda evidenty thinks there is merit to hydrogen as energy storage, and that solar is the best source to run the conversion process. As to Dr xxx or Dr. yyy opinions they maybe right, they may not. But they aren't sinking capital investment into it, Honda is. I'd follow the money if I were betting.

The one bet I would make, is that electricity will evenually be dominated by solar power, which wind and hydro are a subset. There is more IR energy received from the sun in minutes, than north america consumes in energy in years.

Just in case anyone didn't use their initiative to look at the two photos on the home page: http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/

Wasted a few hours today stuck in gridlock trying to find Steorn. I didnt succeed. Probably because when I got to the area I was too irritated by traffic congestion to hang around long enough to find them. Im sure their building is there, I probably took a wrong turn. Anyway, I'll look again in the next few days when I get a chance......what do you think is the chance of them showing me their 'contraption'?...maybe getting a few exclusive photos for the zone!

I agree wishfull thinking won't solve anything. I also agree that Hydrogen is not a natural energy source, it must be extracted, but so must petroleum based products

This may be true but the return on energy inputs for extracting oil is way better than any other fuel source that we know of. I think it used to be in the region of 50:1 but is steady shrinking as oil is getting harder to extract. I think I read it is nearer 10:1 at the moment.

This may be true but the return on energy inputs for extracting oil is way better than any other fuel source that we know of. I think it used to be in the region of 50:1 but is steady shrinking as oil is getting harder to extract. I think I read it is nearer 10:1 at the moment.

Pretty much an irrelevant argument whatever the ratios since oil will run out and we'll have no choice but to change. Your point is only valid while we have oil left. Hopefully the H2O won't run out, or we'll have bigger problems on our hands!

This may be true but the return on energy inputs for extracting oil is way better than any other fuel source that we know of. I think it used to be in the region of 50:1 but is steady shrinking as oil is getting harder to extract. I think I read it is nearer 10:1 at the moment.

I can't argue figures, because I just can't find any on the net that show the whole cost. But it's not just extraction costs, it research, construction of rigs, pipelines, delivery systems, tankers and transportation just for the crude. Add to that the cost of refineries, delivery to gas stations, trucks, tanks, fuel to move it all, gas stations..... Think about it, look at all the pieces, that machinery isn't cheap!

I question if the total costs of petroleum are that cheap both in nonrecurring and recurring costs. If someone can point me to some good websites that take it all into consideration? I can't argue we have a system built around oil and its products, and that won't be easy or fast to change.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, as many "conspiracies" are so unsupported in facts, economics and common sense. The real underlying fact is just plain old desire to keep the status quo. Guess who would be the largest looser in the US if all of a sudden we could produce our own home and vehicle fuel? Not the utilities, not the big oil companies...It would be the Federal Government! Washington has no interest in getting away from gas, makes no difference in political party.

But also it would be a huge impact to the worlds economy, lost jobs, taxes....

I don't know, but if I were a betting man, if Honda can do what they are thinking, I'd be buying Honda stock. Even if they could pull off a small percentage, it would have a drastic effect on oil prices, and there has been concern expressed by the OPEC guys that with prices as high as they have been, consumers will want some alternative. Consumers wield a lot of power if it helps their pocket book. Look at what has happened in battery technology. It's because consumers want more laptop time, cell phone time.....the $ is a powerful research focus.

It will be consumers pocket books that will drive change, not some political or environmental movement.

Hi all,
Someone here mentioned about this Massive Yet Tiny engine a while ago but cant find the post now. Anyway, I tried zipping some of the videos for you all but they wouldn't upload, I dont know why. But the link to the resource section of the site is below. Theres a good assembly video which gives a clear view of some of the parts.

Man I would love to get my hands on one of these :D if they work. Maybe someone more experienced than me can look at the videos and tell us what you think. Certainly doesn't look like pie in the sky and theres more info than Steorn's thing (Didnt get time to go looking for them again yet). Maybe a machinist from the zone with some free time might even try to use the info on the site to make up one of these themselves!...

http://www.angellabsllc.com/resourse.html

Here is the thread:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21400&highlight=massive+yet+tiny

My most recent communication from Steorn:

27th September 2006

Dear Applicant,