Free Energy Discovered and Commercialized

In the hype over Steorn's failure of its "free energy" machine, I almost overlooked a different technology which offers almost limitless free energy and is already being commercialized. You might even have seen it in action but didn't really think about the implications.

That may be because the companies selling this free energy technology (and there is more than one) have not chosen to market as "free energy" the way Steorn and others have in the past, but instead they've been selling it as a way to supplement or replace traditional batteries on various devices, and as a relatively inexpensive "off grid" alternative for places where it's expensive or impossible to connect to a traditional generator. The cost per watt is still a bit too high to replace coal-fired power plants, but that should improve as the technology matures.

So how does it work? It exploits an obscure quantum mechanical effect first explained by Albert Einstein to create direct current electricity. Really, it's that simple: there are no moving parts (unlike Steorn's machine) and individual devices are expected to have a lifetime measured in decades in the field with no maintenance. The technology has been successfully demonstrated to have a net power output under the most rigorous possible conditions--including commercially available battery chargers which you can buy over the Internet today and work without being plugged in.

For those who claim that this violates Conservation of Energy, I can assure you that the physics is quite sound. Most people don't understand the equations, but those who do all agree that there's nothing which would keep this technology from working.

Best of all, this free energy technology doesn't require any exotic materials (no rare-earth magnets, for example): the raw materials are very common, and literally the only thing limiting its use is how quickly the manufacturing plants can be built. It is also completely silent and pollution free.

I know that some readers at this point will think I've gone completely off my rocker--after all, I have a graduate degree in physics and those who know me know that I'm usually very skeptical of wild claims of free energy. But this technology is real, and I've seen it in action.

Maybe a photo will convince skeptical readers: here's one, and another.

I know what you're thinking: I've been describing photovoltaics, and the pictures are just plain old solar cells!

Well, yes.

But every statement I've made is absolutely correct, and meets (or even exceeds) the claims made by inventors of purported "free energy" machines. The only difference is that a solar panel doesn't create energy from nothing, it captures the readily available power streaming in from the Sun. But there is so much solar power available that it might as well be limitless (it's hard to even contemplate how the human race might come close to using all the solar energy available).

Granted, solar power does have some practical limitations: it doesn't generate power at night, and very little on cloudy days. On the other hand, a "free energy" machine is likely to have even worse drawbacks, such as low power density, difficulty in manufacturing, exotic materials, and so forth.

So deluded inventors like the ones at Steorn are an amusing sideshow in the energy circus, but the fact is that technology already exists today which is far superior to anything they are proposing (and has the additional advantage of actually working). The technology exists today to largely eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels. The reasons we still pump oil are (a) oil is still cheaper than the alternatives for most applications, and (b) it takes a long time to build the physical infrastructure to generate the amount of power we presently consume.