steorn 'free energy' - breakthrough or snake oil?

kurisu wrote:

i suggest we remain open minded about this but if it is just a publicity stunt by steorn i believe we should be united in a boycott of steorn , there idea may be outlandish and hard to believe but its no different than claiming to have a cure for cancer or aids , there company deserves nothing less than anihilation if they are lying!

It is possible the coefficient of performance of the device itself is in fact over-unity, just like a heat pump drawing heat energy from the air, or a solar panel absorbing solar radiation. They infer that they have found no cooling of the surroundings in their experiments, and if that's true it's not drawing heat energy. The panel of physicists should determine that easily.

But if the panel finds the device is in fact operating over unity, how do they explain it. It is then most plausible that it is drawing some other kind of energy from the surroundings, say cosmic radiation which can penetrate lead one metre thick.

I think they've set themselves up for some loss of face in calling the first law of thermodynamics into question. That may be a clever ruse to attract publicity however, even if the panel reports that the conservation of energy law has not been disproven, but also reports that the device operates over unity and how it does so remains a puzzle, a lot of publicity will have been generated. At least we can say that their PR device is over-unity.:D

If in the end it's all a sham, good luck to them in their future careers, and if investors are defrauded, good luck staying free. I don't see how they can benefit if this is a fraud. Since they've no products, what's there to boycott? I reckon they'll get what they deserve, whatever that is.

PS, can you give a link to the other thread?

Sarsfield wrote:

Interview with the CEO of Steorn

http://www.radioireland.ie/lastword/2182006-18.wmv

About 16 minutes in.

Nice one sarsfield.

He used a lot of the exact phrases as appear on their web site.

I find it interesting that they again get the spoke in for potential uses of such a technology, we can all deduce that and it adds nothing to the 'does it work' question. The lack of clarity on the basic questions like does it need a starter? how long has a prototype run for? why not show it operating in a video? is not encouraging.

If they're telling the truth that scientists have so far confirmed it has a >1COP yet wouldn't go public, and given the geopolitical implications of such a technology, maybe it's conceivable that they're banking on max public attention to avoid it from being buried.

The story of looking for a power source for atm security cameras is dubious. ATM's have power already, and if they can't use that hidden cameras with batteries are nothing new, though maybe they were looking for a longer lasting independant power source. Still a stretch, why weren't they looking at fuel cells or something mainstream.

Anyway as I understand it magnets lose their magnetism faster if the flux is repeatedly stressed, so even absenting cosmic radiation or what not the claim that nothing is used up surely falls right there, and conservation stands.

One for conspiracy theorists he threw in is their history of doing internet security for international agencies. Oh well obviously they got hold of hush hush material when they had access to scully and mulders server, probably originating from Roswell. (hey mods, any chance of an alien smiley with Elvis quiff and sideburns?).

I've looked at a lot of sites claiming motors powered purely by permanent magnets (I was actually looking for diy turbine research, honest) and any day now they'll all have a public demonstration, and if not, men in dark suits intervened and they've gone underground. My street self says they're a bunch of crackpots, dreamers, and charlitains. I can easily imagine this being based on a view that the energy crisis is yielding another dot-com cash splash, just say you have a breakthrough energy technology, then live like a king off the proceeds in the Cayman Islands. Maybe I should form Rondomagno.

On the other hand, there's Tesla, whom the steorn ceo mentioned, as have others (strap yourself in...). Despite the latching loonies, it's fair to say he was a genius. Given how Edison and Morgan shafted and blacklisted him stopping his work at Wardenclyfe, and how the US government grabbed his papers when he died, I'm inclined to keep an open mind on what discoveries of his may remain unexploited. But not free energy in contravention of the laws of physics, it's a myth that he claimed that as a man of science, rather he meant it in the same sense that we don't get a monthly bill from the sun for our solar panels.

I find the device hard to imagine as I think of magnetism in terms of springs, but maybe I'm way off. If magnetic energy streams between the poles of magnets is it not conceivable that this energy can be harnessed? In the nuclear age we have no problem accepting the vast power locked up in atoms or in cosmic rays. Whatever the truth in this case, I'm generally in favour of trying new things.

But it also has a smell of a viral marketing demo for an emerging internet ad company, "see how smart we are, how easily we drum up worldwide attention, how we can get people to think outside the box!". If that's the case it smacks of the 'I can make my head explode' gimmick, hard to see how they could capitalise again, and any anthropological research on public reaction is free to anyone on the net.

http://www.steornwatch.com/ offers a new wrinkle. The bottom of their page has a disclaimer:

Steorn Watch is an independent non-commercial community critically tracking the 'free energy' claims of Steorn Ltd UK.
STEORN WATCH IS IN NO WAY CONNECTED WITH STEORN LTD., CITIGATE D.R., THEIR BACKERS OR AFFILIATES.

But that does not refer to Steorn the Irish company. Further suspicion is aroused by steornwatch being registered through http://www.domainsbyproxy.com/ so that the owners identity is kept secret. But it 'seems' to be designed by http://www.headsetoptions.org, and the html has links to http://sonspring.com/, so it could be a completely indpendant thing.

In any event I'm grateful as Lost is off the air and this makes for an interesting substitute diversion, like thousands of others, I don't mind devoting a little free time energy to this...