philba

I'd put it in science fiction though I think it will shortly move to the crime section...

Oznog

Indeed you can put in 100W of electricity and get 250W of heat out. But that's not "efficiency" because you took in 150W of thermal energy. You are taking in apples and applesauce and measuring the output in applesauce.

In these cases engineers typically prefer to use "Coefficient Of Performance" (COP) to describe the effectiveness. COP can be defined and redefined depending on what's most useful. For your heat pump, it's extremely likely that would be a COP of "2.5". No professional would call this "250% efficiency", that would misrepresent the situation and fail to convey any useful information on the process.

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I thought what I'd do was I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.

Optikon

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

This is what I call a "marketing dept. breakthrough."
Do they happen to define what "performance coefficient is?" I wonder if it has nothing to do with conservation of energy. I didnt bother to look deeper - as it's rubbish. I believe centuries of physics provides the best foundation for why there are no free energy lunches. Any claim to the contrary is simply working a loop-hole with terminology.

powerhugh

A few comments on the above:

First, on the idea that the way to do things is to get peer reviewed papers published in respectable scientific journal: McCarthy made it plain that there are 2 or 3 paths to follow – the first is that of peer review, which is a slow and painful process over 20 years or so – look at e.g. Blacklight power and hydrinos – they are now getting peer reviewed physics, chemistry and engineering papers published and attracting comments from scientists that are being publicised. But that has taken about 10 years (or more – mills started almost 20 years ago) and there is still lack of agreement on the meaning of their results.

Next path is make a heater or a car powered on the process – this again is a long affair, and you first need the patents! That takes ages, and then to actually get a commercially viable product takes years – again taking Blacklight as an example, they have been promising a heater for 5 years or so and it seems no nearer completion. Maybe their plasma cells are hard to control. But so will the magnetic motors of Steorn: these are all complex systems. As McCarthy said on the interview – they know in principle what is the optimum configuration to get power out: the only problem is in getting the alignment accurate enough etc. Remember these are still lab bench versions – the first crude prototypes. Later, when finely machined, they would presumably be deterministically reproducible.

So the way Steorn is going may be the fastest after all – get verification by jury of cynical experts: this in a sense is a turbo peer review. Well, wait and see – he asks us not to believe him at this point – so until the jury comes out, the jury is out!

One other thing – at least Steorn don’t wheel out a weird and controversial physical theory, as Blacklight did. The latter only succeeded in getting people’s backs up and delivering ammunition to their critics. If they had just kept their iconoclastic theory to themselves and allowed the experiments to speak for themselves, then they would be a lot further than they are now.

Nigel Goodwin

I would have thought it's a LOT simpler than that, either the process works or it doesn't - if it works then demonstrate it!.

As none of these people can do such a simple thing, then it's pretty obvious that it doesn't work and it's just a con. No excuse, no delays, put up or shut up!.

I don't recall George Stephenson spending years and years conning people out of money?, he built the Rocket and displayed it - presumably after he had demonstrated a small scale model?, but I can't say I've ever actually heard that?.

__________________
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powerhugh

God be with the days of steam! It was all so simple then. The great thing about it was billowing clouds of the stuff were a great indicator that energy was in use. Steorn have actually shown their setup working to the Guardian reporter who visited their site. But all there was to see were displays saying that more energy was coming out than going in. In a complex magneto-mechanical setup you may need to slap on measurement devices to show what’s going on. That’s why they say they need experts to give it a clean bill of health. But apparently you’re fine poo-poo-ing it now, as Steorn wants people only to believe it if or when the cynical jurors have given it the thumbs up.

Nigel Goodwin

We can all fix displays to show a result like that!, particularly to a newspaper reporter - it's now 2006, and so far no one has ever been able to demonstrate a practical working example of any of these imaginary devices.

As with all the others, it appears nothing more than a con trick to get money from gullible people, and so far he seems to be doing quite well at it?.

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mramos1

I agree. If they had something they would show it. Get some experts, have them sign an NDA and let them tell the world.

Next it will be something they can not patent because the big oil company is blocking them. If it is something to help the world, I would have it out there ASAP.

If it is over money, I am sure bring in someone with a lot of money, again I NDA, show it and sell it or manufacture it.

Nigel Goodwin

Big oil companies are not stupid, they wouldn't block it - they would buy the rights and manufacture it. Most (if not all?) of the oil companies are spending lots of money trying to find alternative sources of revenue for when the oil runs out.

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mramos1

Sort of my point.

If they have something, someone will buy it. Even the evil men in black suits that visits these guys in the middle of the night and tell them to destroy it or else (and they always destroy it can can not make another one).

Why not show it. Put it in a box with wires in and wires out and monitoring equipment on the box.. Let it run a couple days (a week). If box does not explode, have exhaust fumes, glow, fly away, have a small person cry out for water, etc.

It sounds like hype as you stated.. They were good enough a lot of people (including us) to look at it.. But I will pass on it for now.

Roff

LOL!








(added for padding)

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Ron

bryan1

Hiya Guy's,
Here's a link to the otherpower forum where the Steorn story is being discussed aswell http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2006/8/19/131446/124

Anyway most of the posts in this alternate energy forum deals with ludricius claims of free energy maybe we should do a poll each month and vote for the best fraud or wierd claim of free energy.

Just a thought

Cheers Bryan

__________________
" The only way to avoid human error is to avoid the use of humans"

powerhugh

Do your homework before shooting off your electrons! McCarthy makes it plane in his interviews that just to stymie such speculations Steorn is taking no money from anyone until the jury returns its verdict. Root around a bit more and you too will see that he is just the friendly family engineer next door - studied at DIT and his company still linked to the college - not the sort of set-up for the type of trickster you describe.

So far the company is 100,000 EURO or dollars in the red after the expensive add in the Economist and hiring of a major PR firm. Even the Pink Panther wouldn't have upped the ante that much.

Nigel Goodwin

I was under the impression, from his own website, that they had attracted substantial investment?.

In any case, this still doesn't get over the fact that he still hasn't ever produced a working machine!.

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mramos1

I think that is what this thread is all about.. They have shown nothing. Like all the others. Trust me, I would love to be wrong.

And if they have not taken money.. Well, they have a major marketing thing going on.. Does that show their product or get investors?