"We have developed a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy."

Yeah, right, and immortality is just around the corner.

The dream of free, clean, unlimited energy -- like a car that runs on water -- has long been the holy grail of true believers that technology will one day become advanced enough to liberate us from the entropic costs and exhausts of living. And that dream and its dreamers have long been the butt of derisive jokes by "no such thing as a free lunch" realists.

But an Irish company called Steorn now claims to have invented a process that will do just that. Yes, imagine "never having to refuel your car or recharge your mobile phone," not to mention the prospects for zero-emissions power plants.

Unknowncountry.com reports that the technology "generates energy out of the interaction of magnetic fields."

McCarthy explains that the device works by producing energy out of the intersection of two magnetic fields. "What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round them, starting and stopping in the same position, you have gained energy."

As there is no existing principle of physics that would explain the phenomenon, and a number of fundamental laws that appear to contradict it, scientists have been ignoring the company's claims.

But then again, Voltaire thought that fossils were bones tossed aside by travelers after their meals, and the New York Times published an editorial saying that money should not be wasted on heavier-than-air flight--a short time before the Wright Brothers flew.

The Steorn website doesn't shy from the accusation that they're doing the apparently impossible:

Steorn’s technology appears to violate the ‘Principle of the Conservation of Energy’, considered by many to be the most fundamental principle in our current understanding of the universe. This principle is stated simply as ‘energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change form’.

Steorn is making three claims for its technology:

• 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).

The sum of these claims is that our technology creates free energy.

This represents a significant challenge to our current understanding of the universe and clearly such claims require independent validation from credible third parties. During 2005 Steorn embarked on a process of independent validation and approached a wide selection of academic institutions. The vast majority of these institutions refused to even look at the technology, however several did. Those who were prepared to complete testing have all confirmed our claims; however none will publicly go on record.

In early 2006 Steorn decided to seek validation from the scientific community in a more public forum, and as a result have published the challenge in The Economist. The company is seeking a jury of twelve qualified experimental physicists to define the tests required, the test centres to be used, monitor the analysis and then publish the results.

You can sign up to be notified of the results of Steorn's challenge. Steorn headlines its website with this quote:

All great truths begin as blasphemies.
           ~ George Bernard Shaw

I'll add this one:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
           ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Comments

[Walrus]

Yup, it's hard to believe all right. But I'd love to be proved wrong.

[realpc]

Because science has become a dogmatic religion, the "laws," as currently understood, must never be violated.

The company would not make these claims unless they were either very sure, or very crazy. I tend to doubt anyone could be that crazy, so I am looking forward to the free energy.

The book "Voodoo Science" explains that most people who try to defy conventional science have a great talent for self-deception. But how much of that talent would the Steorn company really need to go this far out on a limb?

I actually don't think people are very good at ignoring facts. If their machine didn't work, they would have noticed by now.

My bet would be on Steorn.

[Pastor_Jeff]

That will be great if it actually works, but it sounds an awful lot like an ad in the back of Popular Mechanics for "the secret energy source the oil companies don't want you to know about!!!"

[amba]

I hate to get my hopes up, but it's exciting.

On the other hand, maybe it's just a publicity stunt . . .

[PatHMV]

Your faith has been proven wrong by just about every well-intentioned, self-deceived perpetual motion huckster in history, realpc. In common with most traditional perpetual motion claimants, they refuse to allow anybody but academic researchers approved by them to see the details of what they claim. If it's true, then there's no reason not to let anybody who wants to see it have access to their white papers on the technology, and they insist on nondisclosure agreements. Also like other perpetual motion claimants, they claim they can't disclose their partners or the scientists from "world-class universities" who back them up, because of past controversies over this very subject.

As a writer for ZDNet.uk says:

Fortunately, there are easy ways to tell pseudoscience: grand claims with no way to verify them, important facts that are alluded to and not presented, claims of conspiracy or closed-mindedness by the scientific community, production of claims by press release rather than scientific papers. Steorn more than fulfils all of these: it is, by any objective test, pseudoscience.

I predict without fear that this claim will prove to be false, that they have not broken the law of conservation of energy. Any takers for a bet? I'll go $1,000 that it will be either thoroughly debunked within one year from today, or that one year from today they still will not have publicly released the details of their technology sufficient to allow others to reproduce their work. Any takers? You may want to read the Wikipedia article on them first.

Sorry for being a kill-joy, Amba, these sorts of claims are just one of my pet peeves.

[amba]

On the contrary, Pat, I'm happy to have false joy killed. I had not gotten past skeptical yet, so I'm not crushed. Rather, fascinated to learn that there's a science of pseudoscience, so to speak.

[realpc]

You can read "Voodoo Science" by Robert Park, which is actually very good. But he is an extremist who rejects anything not already accepted as mainstream.

Sure there is pseudoscience, or pathological science (what Park calls it). But lots of good ideas are thrown into that category, just because they are not based on materialism. What about Sheldrake? He has been labeled a pseudoscientist and quack, even though he has performed many successful experiments.

When the skeptics supposedly discredit Sheldrake's results, no one is ever skeptical of the skeptics. It's the easiest thing in the world to design a sure-to-fail experiment.

Check this out:
http://www.sheldrake.org/controversies/wiseman.html