From Wilipedia:
Free energy claim
Steorn intend to licence their technology under the brand name "Orbo"
In August 2006, Steorn placed an advertisement in The Economist saying that they had developed a technology that produced free, clean and constant energy.[4] They admitted that this amounted to a violation of the principle of conservation of energy[2] and asked for scientists to form a "jury" to perform independent tests of their technology and to publish the results.[14] In total, 420 scientists contacted Steorn within 36 hours of the advertisement being published.[15]
At the time of the announcement Steorn said their technology, which would be available for license under the brand name "Orbo",[16] had already been found to work by eight independent scientists and engineers but that none of them were willing to publish their results for fear of becoming embroiled in a controversy.[17] The company has declined to name these scientists, citing mutually binding non-disclosure agreements.[17]
In October 2009, Steorn announced that its Orbo will utilize a passive bearing technology, ZeroF. Steorn has filed two patents: one for measuring the transfer of electricity, and the other for measuring torque.[18]
[edit] Views on the technology
No specific details of the workings of the claimed technology have been made public. Seán McCarthy has stated in an RTÉ radio interview that, "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."[19] Barry Williams of the Australian Skeptics has pointed out that Steorn is "not the first company to claim they have suddenly discovered the miraculous property of magnetism that allows you to get free energy".[3]
Following a meeting between McCarthy and Professor Sir Eric Ash in July 2007, Ash reported that "the Orbo is a mechanical device which uses powerful magnets on the rim of a rotor and further magnets on an outer shell".[20] During this meeting, Steorn referred to the law of conservation of energy as scientific dogma.[20] However, conservation of energy is a fundamental principle of physics[3] and Ash said that there was no comparison with religious dogma since there is no flexibility in choosing to accept that energy is always conserved.[20] Rejecting conservation of energy would undermine all science and technology.[20] Ash also formed the opinion that McCarthy was truly convinced in the validity of his invention, but that this conviction was a case of "prolonged self deception".[20]
Many people have accused Steorn of engaging in a publicity stunt although Steorn deny such accusations.[21] Eric Berger, writing on the Houston Chronicle website, commented: "Steorn is a former e-business company that saw its market vanish during the dot.com bust. It stands to reason that Steorn has re-tooled as a Web marketing company, and is using the "free energy" promotion as a platform to show future clients how it can leverage print advertising and a slick Web site to promote their products and ideas."[22] Thomas Ricker at Engadget suggested that Steorn's free-energy claim was a ruse to improve brand recognition and to help them sell Hall probes[23] while Josh Catone, features editor for Mashable, believes that it was merely an elaborate hoax.[24]
[edit] Jury process
Steorn's advertisement in The Economist was intended to attract the attention of scientists to form a "jury" to test the technology.[14][25] On 1 December 2006, Steorn announced that it had selected a jury.[5] and the validation process began in February 2007.[6] The jury was headed by Ian MacDonald, emeritus professor of electrical engineering at the University of Alberta.[6]
In June 2009 the jury announced its unanimous verdict that "Steorn's attempts to demonstrate the claim have not shown the production of energy".[6][7] Dick Ahlstrom, writing in the Irish Times, concluded from this that Steorn's technology did not work.[6] Steorn disputed the jury's findings[6] and said that, due to difficulties in implementing the technology, the jury had only been provided with test data on magnetic effects for study.[8] Steorn also said that these difficulties had now been resolved and that a commercial launch was still planned towards the end of 2009.[6][8]
[edit] Failed demonstration
A notice at the Kinetica Museum announcing the cancellation of the public demonstration
On 4 July 2007, an example of the technology was to be displayed at the Kinetica Museum, Spitalfields Market, London. A unit constructed of clear plastic was prepared so that the arrangement of magnets could be seen and to demonstrate that the device operated without external power sources.[26][27] The public demonstration was delayed and then cancelled because of technical difficulties. Steorn initially thought that the problems had been caused by "excessive heat from the lighting in the main display area"[27][28] but later blamed the failure on damage done to bearings due to a greenhouse effect within the box.[29]
[edit] Announced commercialisation
On 4 February 2009, Steorn announced that they were beginning commercialisation of their technology and asked for 300 engineers and engineering organisations to sign up to a testing process to be completed by the end of 2009.[30] They also released a video of three engineers saying that, having witnessed an experiment and studied the testing equipment and software generating output graphs, they were generally supportive of Steorn's excess energy claims.[31] Following the announcements, Steorn was criticised for its continued failure to provide a public, working demonstration[32] or to release information without non-disclosure and licensing agreements.[33]
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