Alt. energy

[wahaha]

Finally someone took HEED of my hairbrain idea to get power from magnets!! You are all fools, FOOLS for not believing in me! Muahaha

 

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/07/BUG9NEJD3L1.DTL

 

Magnetic energy? Perhaps

David Lazarus

 

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

 

 

The nation's energy industry is struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina. Gas prices are soaring as a result of the catastrophic storm. America's reliance on overseas oil increases every year.

 

And from his office in the North Bay city of Sebastopol, Mark Goldes envisions a day -- perhaps not so far off -- when none of this will be a problem.

 

Goldes, 73, is chief executive of a small company called Magnetic Power Inc., which has spent years researching ways to, yes, generate power using magnets.

 

Within a few months, he says, he might just have a breakthrough to report that could revolutionize where people get fuel.

 

"We're not yet ready to talk about what's happening in our lab because, honestly, we don't know what's happening," Goldes told me. "All we know is that we're seeing more energy output than input.

 

"We're still having trouble making it repeatable, but we think that's more an engineering problem than a scientific problem," he said.

 

Does Goldes realize what's he's saying -- that he's perhaps discovered a clean, inexhaustible energy source?

 

"That's exactly what it appears to be," he answered.

 

What Goldes believes he's done is produce power from what physicists call zero-point energy. In simple terms, zero-point energy results from the infinitesimal motion of molecules even when seemingly at rest.

 

OK, let's throw a whole bunch of caveats at this. First of all, I've spoken with physicists at some of the country's most prestigious institutions, and not one said that what Goldes claims to have accomplished is doable.

 

Theoretically possible, they acknowledged. But not doable.

 

"Zero-point energy is so tiny that nobody can feel it," said Hossein Sadeghpour, a physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "But when you get to the realm of quantum mechanics, it exists.

 

"The question is, how do you harness it? I have not seen any meaningful theory or demonstration of that. It's not impossible, but I don't know how you would do it."

 

Moreover, it's all well and good to make stupendous scientific claims. But until those claims are verified by other scientists, that's all they are.

 

Remember cold fusion?

 

"You're right to be skeptical," Goldes responded. "The only way anyone is going to believe this is if they can see it with their own eyes, and we don't yet have working models that are repeatable."

 

But he said he expects to have something that another lab can inspect and replicate by the end of the year.

 

On top of that, Goldes said he'll have a prototype next year for a small generator using his magnetic technology that can produce enough power to run kitchen appliances.

 

Normally, I dismiss such pie-in-the-sky pronouncements (and I receive more than my share). During the California energy crisis, I was contacted repeatedly by some guy who said he'd invented a car engine that runs on ordinary water.

 

I'm still waiting for it to hit the market.

 

But Goldes isn't so easy to shrug off. That's because he's also come up with technology called the UltraConductor, which purports to be capable of conducting electricity at room temperature with no resistance, thus vastly improving fuel efficiency.

 

The research was funded in part by the Department of Defense, which invested $600,000 in the project. The technology also has been replicated elsewhere.

 

Matt Aldissi, who runs a Florida research firm called Fractal Systems, reproduced Goldes' UltraConductor as part of work on conductivity he was performing for the U.S. Air Force.

 

He told me that he visited Goldes' Sebastopol lab a few years ago and was impressed by what he saw.

 

"Is this guy legit? Yes," Aldissi said. "The work he claims to have done, he's done it."

 

That is, the work on conductivity. Energy from magnets? "I don't know anything about that," Aldissi said.

 

The magnets are part of creating what's known in physics as the "Casimir effect," in which seemingly motionless molecules are in fact moving around and expending energy.

 

"For many years the Casimir effect was little more than a theoretical curiosity," says PhysicsWeb, the online arm of Physics World magazine. "But interest in the phenomenon has blossomed in recent years."

 

Ori Ganor, an associate professor of physics at UC Berkeley, said the Casimir effect makes it theoretically possible to capture power from zero-point energy.

 

"Physics doesn't rule this out," he said. "But I don't see how it is commercially viable."

 

Stanley Wojcicki, a Stanford physics professor, said it may be possible to generate small amounts of power from zero-point energy, but not in any sustainable way.

 

Yet he noted that astonishing breakthroughs can come from unlikely sources.

 

"Einstein worked in a patent office," Wojcicki observed. "All sorts of people can have brilliant ideas."

 

Goldes said he's reluctant to provide details of his zero-point-energy technology until he's got a better handle on how it does what he says it does.

 

"We're seeing energy produced in a way that has to have a source," he said. "The only explanation we see is zero-point energy. There could be another, but we don't see what it could be."

 

A handful of other companies worldwide are believed also to be pursuing zero-point energy via magnetic systems. One of them, InterStellar Technologies, is run by a former scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

 

According to Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine, the Pentagon and at least two large aerospace companies are actively researching zero-point energy as a means of propulsion.

 

"If their efforts pay off," the magazine reported last year, "ZPE-driven power plants might enable Mach 4 fighters, quiet 1,200-seat hypersonic airliners that fly at 100-mile altitudes as far as 12,000 miles in about 70 minutes and 12.6-hour trips to the moon."

 

Is it a pipe dream? Goldes doesn't think so.

 

"You can't build a perpetual-motion machine," he said. "But this is real."

 

My inclination is to suspect that cheap, limitless energy is probably a crock. Goldes might sincerely buy into this stuff, but there's undoubtedly another explanation for what he claims to have achieved in his lab.

 

Then again, what if he's right?

[Pella]

If it works, we won't see for 100 or so years. The oil barons stand to lose out by too much. They'll buy Golde out or make him out to be a fraud. And then, when oil and fossil fuels run out, suddenly we'll have a wave of new ways to produce power and everyoen will gosh, wow. I wouldn't be surprised if we see cold fusion surface again :)

[TetsuoShima]

Hmm, interesting, but very doubtfull! For now, I would be willing to bet that nothing serious comes of it. Only when some of the major universities manage to reproduce this in a steady way, I'll probably change my mind.

 

I would also like to see some more explanation about this "ultra conductor", because it appears to be playing a reasonably big role in the process. Having a scientific explanation for this sub-process might make the story more convincing...

 

In the end only time will tell if we'll hear more of this 'Mark Goldes'... A fraud or a saviour?? :thinking:

[psheldrake1]

A company in Canada has just refined the solar panel. By adding aluminum into the process, they have made a flexable solar panel. They say the price will drop on panels as they are now cheaper to make. They are testing them on homes in Alberta, replacing ordinary roof shingles with these panels.

[wahaha]

I saw sth about those solar panels. But the thing is, with magnet power you don't need to store the energy and it is always available, whereas at night or a cloudy day you're dead with solar.

[queenhank]

Unless, of course, you have a battery. People tend to forget that when you have solar power, you can use it to charge up a battery, for use when the sunlight is not sufficient for your needs.

[Pella]

Unless' date=' of course, you have a battery. People tend to forget that when you have solar power, you can use it to charge up a battery, for use when the sunlight is not sufficient for your needs.[/quote']

 

A simple and yet brilliant point

[wahaha]

But my point IS, that a battery keeps needing to be recharged. What are you going to do when the sky is cloudy for a few days or weeks during a storm? What if you live in Alaska where the sun doesn't come up for days or months? Solar power, and batteries are useless then.

 

This is a supreme discovery of free CONTINUOUS power, where energy does not need to be stored for use on a rainy day. And like I said before, this could be used to power vehicles of the future. Imagine a magnetic engine or drivetrain. The only problem is shielding your car so it doesn't stick to your neighbors refrigerator lol.

[MindTrick]

Doesn't seem so far fetched to me.

 

Anyway, on the whole solar powered energy. My brother actually installs alt. energy systems for a living (www.leboise.com), And it works very well. His house runs off a wind turbine, as the area he lives in has strong winds the majority of the time, and solar pannels for back up. As he says, you have to choose your alt. energy plans based on your area and needs. Check the website for more details....

 

Wow, does this ever sound like a shameless advert....

[wahaha]

It'd be nice to use, if it weren't for all the people who complain that wind turbines are an eyesore. I don't know what their problem is. They should be grateful they can get renewable energy for a one time fee. Even farmers are "on the chicken wire fence" about using them, when they have all that land.

 

It seems like the only place you can use them is in the country if you own a lot of acreage or the city sets up a private lot on land to install them on to add secondary power for residents.

[Beawulf]

In a rush, so I'll have to keep this brief.

 

A couple of things in that article stood out to me:

 

"more energy output than input"

"theoretically possible"

"engineering problem"

 

engineering principles such as the laws of thermodynamics clearly state that such a process is impossible First law of thermodynamics: "energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change forms"

 

so based on engineering, any such device is theoretically impossible. I wonder who the examining experts were to say otherwise.

[MindTrick]

so based on engineering, any such device is theoretically impossible. I wonder who the examining experts were to say otherwise.

 

The key word here being theoretical :)

 

But, sticking to the laws, who's to say that the energy isn't being replaced, just not in a known way?

 

Forgive me if this makes no sense, the 7th beer of the night always has a way of messing with my mind :)

[frodoxxx]

if we could somehow harness all the hot air that is spouted in these forums i think we might be halfway to solving the energy problem

[S0V13T]

Hy idea for a viable alternate energy source involves somehow tapping into the unbelievabelly abundent kenetic energy field that a 6 year old child generates after drinking a pot of coffee, a bowl of chocolate ice cream (with chocolate syrup and sprinkles), and a couple of Mars bars.

 

If we can tap into this energy source, I believe that Mankind will conquor the galaxy with our life times.

[GorunNova]

Even better, use a 3 year old... you'll get the same amount of energy without feeding them ice cream, mars bars, OR coffee...

[juhan]

I envision a day when gym equipment are hooked to giant dynamos to generate power for the rest of the world! Go human mice-on-wheels! Interesting article tho, but we have to becareful of things we read on the internet. That news could all be a hoax. Until its reported in reputable journals or science news sites.

 

=Han=

[Soulreaper]

I think we should support all means of producing energy that doesn't fuck up nature in any way (or living beings) - such as solar power, water power, wind power and this magnet thing sounds good as well; considering that we HAVE a lot of resources both in nature but also within the scientific community..it's just a matter of using it properly and NOT allowing monetary interests to 'steer the wheel'.

[Beawulf]

I envision a day when gym equipment are hooked to giant dynamos to generate power for the rest of the world! Go human mice-on-wheels! Interesting article tho, but we have to becareful of things we read on the internet. That news could all be a hoax. Until its reported in reputable journals or science news sites.

 

=Han=

 

I have often wondered why they don't hook up gym equiptment. The gyms could sell the power and make more money! Shame having all that energy go to waste.

[TetsuoShima]

I envision a day when gym equipment are hooked to giant dynamos to generate power for the rest of the world! Go human mice-on-wheels! Interesting article tho, but we have to becareful of things we read on the internet. That news could all be a hoax. Until its reported in reputable journals or science news sites.

 

=Han=

 

I have often wondered why they don't hook up gym equiptment. The gyms could sell the power and make more money! Shame having all that energy go to waste.

 

I think it's because that would make the gym equipment even more expensive than it is today. But it IS a good idea!

[wahaha]

They've already done it for backpackers. The movement of walking/hiking recharges some of your gear. I forget the link to the story, but it works like that cheapo commercial for the LED flashlight. You shake it and it works for a few minutes. I would never buy one however, because I saw one in a circuit city store and the thing was as dead as a klingon brain cell.

 

Shook the thing for 2 minutes and nothing..

 

nevermind, i found it http://news.com.com/Backpack+turns+hikers+energy+into+electricity/2100-7337_3-5856323.html