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Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 6:27
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Subject: BlackLightPower Hydrinos In The
News
Fuel's paradise? Power
source that turns physics on its head
· Scientist says
device disproves quantum theory
· 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