I haven’t mentioned this before, because it seemed just too weird. But, well, here is one for you, a company called Blacklight Power. To me, they sound like charlatans, but it looks as if there might be something real here. The problem is, if they are right the physics books will need to be revised and that is not something to be done at the drop of a hat - or the bounce of a molecule.
Seems they extract energy from hydrogen by dropping the electron into a lower orbit……
Well, yes, that would release energy, if the electron weren’t already in the ground state. For those who know any physics this sounds like nonsense on stilts; hell, if the term hadn’t already been discredited I would almost be tempted to state that there is a scientific consensus that this can’t happen (snigger), but something is going on.
They have raised sixty million dollars in venture financing, and you don’t get that with just a sketch of a perpetual motion machine, half of their 25 staff are PhDs, and Rowan University, on testing a Blacklight “50KW” unit, have confirmed significant heat energy release.
From the Summary:
In the actual heat experiments the calorimeter generated over 1.01-1.02 megajoules of excess heat of which only 9.4-11.0 kilojoules could be accounted for by our chemistry team. The combination and variety of testing by the chemistry team (TPD & XRD) generated results that characterized the primary compounds in the BLP materials and provided no evidence of other reactants, to the limit of the techniques used to characterize the samples.
From the conclusion:
Based on the results achieved by the Rowan University scientific teams from the BLP 1 kW and 50- kW reactors we have concluded that there is a novel reaction of some type causing the large exotherm which is consistently produced in our experimental runs. The past few months have shown great progress in our ability as an external team of scientists to reproduce many of the experiments that BLP scientists have achieved in their own laboratories. The current scientific team has grown competent in the experimental protocols and become more familiar with performing the experimental and the data analysis with consistent results. We are confident that the energy released from the BLP experiments can be replicated in laboratories at other scientific and educational establishments.
The thing is, this is not just people playing around in laboratories any more, after years of work Blacklight has finally gone commercial. Two days ago in fact.
BlackLight Power Inc. Announces First Commercial License with Estacado Energy Services
Non-Exclusive License to produce up to 250 MW of continuous power
Yep, that’s right, they have signed a contract with a New Mexico power utility and are about to deliver on their claims, on an industrial scale.
Addendum: Â Â Apparently less than 2 cents per kwh - if it isn’t complete twaddle.
Addendum II:Â Â Â To visitors from DK, feel free to poke around. As you are following a techie link - I am doing an occasional series of posts on transformative technologies you might like. Some of it is weird shit.
Why do you cast doubt? If they’ve got a commercial contract then it must work. Utility companies don’t throw money into holes on a whim, not if they want to be commercially viable at least.
Cats. I need a million dollars for this perpetual motion machine…
I need a million dollars for this perpetual motion machine…
I know, that’s why I have refrained from posting anything so far.
An unintended consequence of all this carbon-trading malarkey is that I don’t believe anyone’s projections of the cost of power of anything. The market is so rigged. In no other circumstances would large scale wind-power be seen as a good idea. It’s a charter for every snake-oil salesman.
Let’s say you buy a Prius. Very “green”. Is it? Maybe but only if you ignore what happened in China to make it. The entire carbon-trading and whatnot ammounts to shuffling money’s around in a colossal circle-jerk unless you have non-Kyoto countries to put the juice into the machine in the first place. And they can act without sin for they have no souls.
Rowan University…
Starting in the 1970s, it grew into a multi-purpose institution, adding programs in business, communications, and by the 1990s, engineering.
-Wikipedia.
1990s!
1990’s
Don’t be a snob. Doesn’t mean anything.
Just because you got universities older than their country doesn’t mean they can’t use a calorimeter.
Is this where the “Geordies invented calorimeters!” rant comes in? ;-B
I shouldn’t talk, though. His school probably has coffee stains in the carpet that have been around longer than my school. And at least they built an engineering program rather than a Gender Studies program.
I’m not being a snob.
But I do wonder. It became a University (had been a college) in ‘97. Difference is in the US that a Uni has a grad school. With the best will in the world you can’t get up to top-spec in that time-frame. I mean it takes 4/5+ years to get a US PhD.
It was just the links you proved set all sorts of “cold-fusion” bells started ringing. Especially about catalysts and all sorts of “chemistry” going on. And yes, I know Ponds and the other one were U of Chicago.
I dunno. Heard of Rahman spectroscopy? Big experimental technique. Very Useful. Rahman developed it a Poly in India with junk. Nowadays nobody would dream of doing it without a laser. He had light-bulbs. God knows how he did it. It can happen but…
I’m calling on this one. And the calorimeter thing - energy measurements in this sort of rig are notoriously difficult.
Not slagging off US colleges, mind but this is definitely grad-school stuff.
I suspect it was the Jocks (the cause of so many Mac-chanical inventions) who invented the calorimeter or was it Baron whatsisname the American who was enobled by Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria?
My University (although I dropped out) - Founded 1946, rated #1 in Australia and one of the top 20 in the world.
Age doesn’t matter.
However, I am sceptical about Blacklight but prepared to acknowledge that New Mexico has probably got competent engineers.
Cats, but it wasn’t top 20 in 1956. I was saying it takes time to build a grad school and the research whatnots. Not least because you need a bit of a rep to attract the best (and the $$$). Especially internationally. These things can’t happen overnight.
Huh? Rowan is in New Jersey.
Yeah, but the power utility spending the sponds is in New Mexico.
This lot are a splinter group of the cold fusion mob. Same sort of methods, too. It looks to me more like some poor power company has got fooled, than that it shows there’s something in it. Either that, or the power company is effectively in on it for a cut of the scam’s proceeds. After all, what they lose on not meeting the contract is probably more than made up for by the extra investment from all the people who figure there must be something in it if a power company is buying.
When they’ve actually delivered on their claims, call me back.
PA,
You got it. Energy production now resembles The Producers.
Springtime for Hitler and Germany!
Another cold-fusion-esque urban myth. Mill’s rewriting of the physics books (self published you know) is no different to the Newman & Dennis’s perpetual motion “inventions or discoveries”. Even more astonishing is that these “Cargo Cultists” are not just content with one great discovery, but all inevitably fall into the mistake of offering unique prescience in other areas outside their primary pursuit.
If BLP are so close to a commercial application why has it taken nearly 10 years to do what Mills claimed would be done in a year? (http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-12-21/news/quantum-leap/)
More suspicious is the holding company of Estacado Energy Services (Rockwell County Electric Coop http://www.rcec.org) makes no mention of Estacado’s existence in their published 2007 Intergrated Resource Plan or accounts, and no mention of BLP anywhere. Interestingly they pay their current suppliers about 1 cent per kWh and have both suppliers on contract to 2015 - could it be that BLP are being economical with the truth to secure more VC?
Let’s see it work - suspicious, we should be….
Is this a repost, or am I going nuts? This just appeared as the last post made on this site in my feed reader.
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