Energy Breakthrough or Cold Fusion Redux

[NYer]

Heard the one about the two Irishmen who say they can produce limitless amounts of clean, free energy? Plenty of scientists have - but few are taking them seriously. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1858134,00.html)

These dynamic and personable businessmen from Dublin insist that they have found a way of producing free, clean and limitless energy out of thin air. And they are so confident that they have thrown down the gauntlet to the scientific community in a bid to prove that they have rewritten the laws of physics. Last week, frustrated that they couldn't persuade scientists to take their work seriously, McCarthy, Walshe and the other 28 shareholders of Steorn, a privately owned technology research company, took out a full-page advertisement in the Economist. In it, they called upon scientists to form a 12-member jury to decide whether their free-energy system is real, hoaxed, imagined or incorrectly well-intentioned.

So, as they prepare to demonstrate this wonder of science to me at their modest offices near the Liffey, I feel all the excitement of Christmas Day. There is a test rig with wheels and cogs and four magnets meticulously aligned so as to create the maximum tension between their fields and one other magnet fixed to a point opposite. A motor rotates the wheel bearing the magnets and a computer takes 28,000 measurements a second. The magnets, naturally, act upon one another. And when it is all over, the computer tells us that almost three times the amount of energy has come out of the system as went in. In fact, this piece of equipment is 285% efficient.

That's a lot of "free energy" and, supposedly, a slap in the face for one of physics' most basic laws, the principle of conservation of energy: in an isolated system (the planet, say), energy can be neither created nor destroyed; it can only be converted from one form into another.

Time will tell...

[kotzi]

A hoax IMHO and others. If credible independent scientists had already positively verified the perpetuum mobile as Steorn claims, they would certainly have commented on it in one way or another. The entire disciple of Thermodynamics would fall apart.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/08/19/1155408071307.html

[NYer]

Yes, of course the devil's in the details ... or the scrutiny. Hopefully, that will be soon forthcoming.

[kotzi]

My person favorite, nuclear fusion, although is likely to require another 50 to 100 years to become commonplace. Unless, of course, the Irish step in as outlined below :rolleyes:

Oil is close to running out, and chaos will follow, according to a US expert. NICK GALVIN reports.

Richard Heinberg is an unlikely latter-day Jeremiah. The contrast between this quietly spoken Californian college professor and accomplished classical violinist and his explosive message couldn't be more marked.

Heinberg, who is embarking on an Australia-wide speaking tour, is a leading proponent of the "peak oil" theory.

Peak oil is shorthand for the premise that the amount of oil left for us to use has "peaked" (or is just about to peak). Once worldwide production begins to fall and with no corresponding decrease in demand, oil prices will skyrocket, leading to widespread chaos.

How bad will it be? If Heinberg is to be believed, the impending dislocation caused by the end of the oil era will be about as bad as it gets.

From global resource wars as oil-dependent economies battle for control of remaining resources to widespread famine caused by the slowdown in oil-dependent agribusiness, the picture he paints is nothing short of cataclysmic.

Reactions to his predictions vary. "I've got some pretty virulent hate mail," he says. "But I have to say I've got mostly thanks from people for alerting them to this. I'm a little surprised because the message is so dire that when people first encounter the information it is a bit traumatic. Some people have to go through a period of psychological adjustment. Maybe they are better off not knowing, I don't know."

Much of the work contained in Heinberg's three books is based on the ideas of the geophysicist M. King Hubbert, who first drew attention to the finite nature of oil resources in the 1950s. Viewed through Hubbert's eyes, the classic bell curve graph of accelerating oil production then accelerating scarcity takes on a distinctly chilling aspect.

Heinberg's personal epiphany came in 1998 when he came across a paper from a British geologist, Colin Campbell, predicting that oil production would peak in 2007. "It clicked with me straight away," he says.

"Resource depletion is something I had been concerned about for quite a long time but I had been looking at resources like water, topsoil, metal, natural fertiliser and so on, so finding out oil was in this precarious situation was surprising but not completely unimaginable."

In Heinberg's analysis, one of the fundamental problems with oil is, ironically, that it is such an efficient energy source. It's because of this efficiency that he remains sceptical about the prospect of renewable energy sources filling the gap when the oil runs out. "I'm a huge advocate of renewables," he says. "I have photovoltaic panels on my roof and drive a biodiesel car but realistically I don't think we can expect renewables to replace fossil fuels any time soon without reducing our total energy consumption quite dramatically.

"It's not just going to be a matter of replacing gasoline with something else and continuing on our merry way. We're actually going to have to change our transportation systems and reduce the amount of transportation that we do."
Heinberg is also sceptical of the prospect of biofuels saving the day. "It's clear ethanol and other biofuels are going to entail a trade-off between food and fuel. If we try to replace gasoline and diesel fuels with biofuels we'll simply fail because we don't have enough land and people will starve in the process."

Nuclear power is similarly dismissed as being fraught with too many technical, economic and environmental hurdles.
If we are to gently surf the downward slope of Hubbert's bell curve rather than precipitously tumble off the edge, Heinberg says, it will take a social transformation of no lesser magnitude than the industrial revolution. "I don't think we are going back to exactly how people lived 200 years ago but we are going to need lots more human labour in agriculture and that means the middle class is going to start shrinking."

Overall population levels will also have to shrink worldwide. On the back of oil's one-time energy dividend the world's population has increased sixfold, creating an unsustainable, self-perpetuating cycle needing more and more oil.

Manufacturing will again become a local business in the post-oil era as the interdependencies of global trade are unwound. International trade will continue but it will be restricted to luxuries and exotic items. People will work and shop close to home and even grow some food in their own backyards - just as many of our parents did.

"I think that's going to be good for people and good for communities," Heinberg says. "If the transition is accomplished in a co-ordinated way it's going to mean more jobs and more satisfying jobs for people.

"If you look at the end of the process it's not hard to paint a fairly attractive picture. The problem is how we get there - very few communities are planning for this transition. if we just let market forces rule, the result is going to be economic, political and social chaos in the intervening period."

Sweden is one community that is planning for the transition. An inquiry into energy consumption reported in June, producing a startling document entitled Making Sweden an Oil-Free Society. The report, which has the imprimatur of the Prime Minister, Goran Persson, sets out a range of measures that will break the nation's dependence on oil by 2020. While the authors admit it is ambitious, there is no doubting their sincerity or their belief in the gravity of the situation.

Heinberg contrasts the Swedish approach with that of most of the rest of the developed world, which he says is [B]characterised by public denials of the threat and aggressive actions to grab as much as possible of what oil is left. In this latter category he places the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Heinberg's most recent book, The Oil Depletion Protocol, canvasses practical ways to make the transition to an oil-less world. At its heart is the protocol drafted by Colin Campbell under which individuals and states pledge to reduce consumption by at least the world depletion rate.

There is no doubt it would work. However, Heinberg admits implementing it would be hugely problematic. But, he says, anyaction is better than nothing.

"If I had a bet on what the state of the world would be in 50 years I think I'd say it's not going to be a very happy place but the more we do the better off we will be," he says. "I think it's more important to be making whatever positive changes we can than just wailing and gnashing our teeth and bemoaning our collective fate."

Richard Heinberg is speaking at NSW Parliament House on Tuesday and at Ku-ring-gai Town Hall on Thursday.

The Oil Depletion Protocol (New Society Publishers) is available from Astam Books.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/a-closer-look/when-oil-dries-up/2006/08/29/1156816882366.html