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Actualy there is some truth to it, as this
was the basis for early lasers, but, the electron has to be at a higher state to
begin with, and that usually takes allot of energy to accomplish.
Greg H.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2005
8:15
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] new source of
cheap near-limitless power
They say the energy is obtained by making the electron fall to a lower
energy state. Seems odd they didn't fall in the billions of years since matter
was formed.
Anyone
know about this? Sounds too good to be true.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1627424,00.html
Fuel's
paradise? Power source that turns physics on its head
á Scientist
says device disproves quantum theory
á Opponents claim idea is result of
wrong maths
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Friday November 4,
2005
The Guardian
It seems too good to be true: a new source of
near-limitless
power that costs virtually nothing, uses tiny amounts of
water as
its fuel and produces next to no waste. If that does not sound
radical enough, how about this: the principle behind the source
turns modern physics on its head.
Randell Mills, a Harvard
University medic who also studied
electrical engineering at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
claims to have built a prototype
power source that generates up
to 1,000 times more heat than
conventional fuel. Independent
scientists claim to have verified the
experiments and Dr Mills
says that his company, Blacklight Power, has
tens of millions of
dollars in investment lined up to bring the idea to
market. And he
claims to be just months away from unveiling his
creation.
The problem is that according to the rules of quantum
mechanics, the physics that governs the behaviour of atoms, the
idea
is theoretically impossible. "Physicists are quite
conservative. It's
not easy to convince them to change a theory
that is accepted for 50 to
60 years. I don't think [Mills's] theory
should be supported," said Jan
Naudts, a theoretical physicist at
the University of
Antwerp.
What has much of the physics world up in arms is Dr Mills's
claim that he has produced a new form of hydrogen, the
simplest of
all the atoms, with just a single proton circled by one
electron. In his
"hydrino", the electron sits a little closer to the
proton than normal,
and the formation of the new atoms from
traditional hydrogen releases
huge amounts of energy.
This is scientific heresy. According to
quantum mechanics,
electrons can only exist in an atom in strictly
defined orbits, and
the shortest distance allowed between the proton and
electron in
hydrogen is fixed. The two particles are simply not allowed
to get
any closer.
According to Dr Mills, there can be only one
explanation:
quantum mechanics must be wrong. "We've done a lot of
testing.
We've got 50 independent validation reports, we've got 65
peer-reviewed journal articles," he said. "We ran into this
theoretical resistance and there are some vested interests here.
People are very strong and fervent protectors of this [quantum]
theory that they use."
Rick Maas, a chemist at the University of
North Carolina at
Asheville (UNC) who specialises in sustainable energy
sources,
was allowed unfettered access to Blacklight's laboratories this
year. "We went in with a healthy amount of scepticism. While it
would certainly be nice if this were true, in my position as head of
a research institution, I really wouldn't want to make a mistake.
The last thing I want is to be remembered as the person who
derailed
a lot of sustainable energy investment into something
that wasn't
real."
But Prof Maas and Randy Booker, a UNC physicist, left under no
doubt about Dr Mill's claims. "All of us who are not quantum
physicists are looking at Dr Mills's data and we find it very
compelling," said Prof Maas. "Dr Booker and I have both put our
professional reputations on the line as far as that goes."
Dr
Mills's idea goes against almost a century of thinking. When
scientists
developed the theory of quantum mechanics they
described a world where
measuring the exact position or energy
of a particle was impossible and
where the laws of classical
physics had no effect. The theory has been
hailed as one of the
20th century's greatest achievements.
But it
is an achievement Dr Mills thinks is flawed. He turned back
to earlier
classical physics to develop a theory which, unlike
quantum mechanics,
allows an electron to move much closer to
the proton at the heart of a
hydrogen atom and, in doing so,
release the substantial amounts of
energy he seeks to exploit.
Dr Mills's theory, known as classical
quantum mechanics and
published in the journal Physics Essays in 2003,
has been
criticised most publicly by Andreas Rathke of the European
Space Agency. In a damning critique published recently in the
New
Journal of Physics, he argued that Dr Mills's theory was the
result of
mathematical mistakes.
Dr Mills argues that there are plenty of flaws
in Dr Rathke's
critique. "His paper's riddled with mistakes. We've had
other
physicists contact him and say this is embarrassing to the
journal and [Dr Rathke] won't respond," said Dr Mills.
While the
theoretical tangle is unlikely to resolve itself soon,
those wanting to
exploit the technology are pushing ahead. "We
would like to understand
it from an academic standpoint and
then we would like to be able to use
the implications to actually
produce energy products," said Prof Maas.
"The companies that
are lining up behind this are household
names."
Dr Mills will not go into details of who is investing in his
research
but rumours suggest a range of US power companies. It is well
known also that Nasa's institute of advanced concepts has
funded
research into finding a way of using Blacklight's
technology to power
rockets.
According to Prof Maas, the first product built with
Blacklight's
technology, which will be available in as little as four
years, will
be a household heater. As the technology is scaled up, he
says,
bigger furnaces will be able to boil water and turn turbines to
produce electricity.
In a recent economic forecast, Prof Maas
calculated that hydrino
energy would cost around 1.2 cents (0.7p) per
kilowatt hour. This
compares to an average of 5 cents per kWh for coal
and 6 cents
for nuclear energy.
"If it's wrong, it will be proven
wrong," said Kert Davies, research
director of Greenpeace USA. "But if
it's right, it is so important
that all else falls away. It has the
potential to solve our
dependence on oil. Our stance is of cautious
optimism."
Alternative energy
Cold fusion
More than 16
years after chemists' claims to have created a star
in a jar imploded in
acrimony, the US government has said it
might fund more research.
Mainstream physicists still balk at
reports that a beaker of cold water
and metal electrodes can
produce excess heat, but a hardy band of
scientists across the
world refuse to let the dream die.
Methane
hydrates
The US and Japan are leading attempts to tap this source of
fossil fuel buried beneath the seabed and Arctic permafrost. A
mixture of ice and natural gas, hydrates are believed to contain
more carbon than existing reserves of oil, coal and gas put
together.
Solar chimneys
Sunlight heats trapped air, which
rises through a giant chimney
and drives turbines. Leonardo da Vinci
designed such a power
tower and the Australian company Enviromission
plans to build
one. Despite being scaled down recently, the concrete
chimney
will still stand some 700 metres over the
outback.
Nuclear fusion
Turns nuclear power on its head by
combining atoms rather than
splitting them to release energy - copying
the reaction at the
heart of the sun. After years of arguments the world
has agreed
to build a test reactor to see whether it works on a
commercial
scale. Called Iter, it could be switched on within a
decade.
Wave generators
No longer a dead duck, the hopes of
engineers are riding on
bobbing floats again. The British company
Trident Energy
recently unveiled a design that uses a linear generator
to convert
the motion of the sea into electricity. A wave farm just a
few
hundred metres across could power 62,000 homes.
David
Adam
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