Irish energy miracle ‘a joke’
The Age (Melbourne) :: Peter Weekes :: August 20, 2006
AUSTRALIAN scientists have scoffed at claims by an Irish company that it has developed technology that can create free, clean and constant energy.
The Dublin-based Steorn put an advertisement in the Economist magazine this week announcing that it had discovered energy’s holy grail, based on the interaction of magnetic fields.
“Oh, goodness, what can I say?” said Martin Sevior, associate professor at Melbourne University’s School of Physics. “It violates a very fundamental principle of physics, and flies in the face of 2000-years-plus of physics. It’s an incredibly big claim.”
One of the basic principles of physics is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change form.
The ad issued a challenge for 12 physicists to rigorously test the technology so it could be developed. Professor Sevior said he was willing to test the technology, but would look for “what’s hidden behind the curtains”.
But Steorn’s chief executive, Sean McCarthy, insisted that scientists had already examined the technology and had said off the record that it worked.
“What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy,” he told Ireland’s RTE radio.
“The energy isn’t being converted from any other source such as the energy within the magnet. It’s literally created. Once the technology operates, it provides a constant stream of clean energy.”
Barry Williams, of the Australian Skeptics, said he did not believe it. “They are not the first company to claim they have suddenly discovered the miraculous property of magnetism that allows you to get free energy.”
Pingback: Shields News Service