Thermodynamics Wins Again

Back in 2006, the Irish company Steorn announced that they had discovered a “a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy.” A magnetism-based perpetual motion machine is what it amounted to, which would clearly violate various physical laws, such as the First and Second Law of Thermodynamics. Steorn put an advertisement in the Economist after announcing their new technology, seeking qualified experts to form a “jury” to validate their claims.

The jury is in. The laws of science do not fall so easily:

Irish ‘energy for nothing’ gizmo fails jury vetting

An Irish company had promised it could deliver non-polluting, virtually cost-free power but an international jury said yesterday it did not work.

Scientists doubted the claims and, when the company resisted calls to release precise details of how Orbo worked, it asked an international panel of experts to adjudicate on the device.

Steorn organised a panel of 22 independent scientists and engineers from Europe and North America chaired by Ian MacDonald, emeritus professor of electrical engineering at the University of Alberta.

“The situation was we had engaged them in February 2007 and went through a process with them,” Mr McCarthy said. Two years have passed however and the jury clearly decided that enough was enough.

It posted an announcement on its website http://stjury.ning.com that it was disbanding.

“The unanimous verdict of the jury is that Steorn’s attempts to demonstrate the claim have not shown the production of energy,” it stated. “The jury is therefore ceasing work.”

Undeterred, Steorn rejected science and announced that they would proceed toward licensing their technology by the end of 2009. No joke.

47 thoughts on “Thermodynamics Wins Again”

  1. Hey, this is just as real as no risk collateralized mortgage securities, Algae Ethanol and printing of trillions of dollars without creating inflation! You are just in the pocket of big oil men. 8)

    I occasionally like to look over here at questionable energy claims.
    Zero Point Energy anyone?

    http://www.zpenergy.com/index.php

  2. As long as we are talking about crazy stuff, here's something hilarious.

    A 40 mile section of natural gas pipeline (in Calif. I think) developed a leak. The pipeline was in rugged country and they couldn't find the leak, But they noticed whenever they had worked on the pipeline before that turkey vultures would hang around because the gas is scented to smell like rotten meat.

    So they flew over the pipeline and found where the turkey vultures were hanging out and found their leak.

    Turkey vultures. Real high tech stuff, Hilarious.

    John

  3. This is a bit off-topic, but wouldn't it be nice if every politician in America were required to take a refresher course on thermodynamics before being sworn in?

    In my state, the lawmakers are always trying to rewrite the Laws of Thermodynamics.

  4. i'm amazed that a group of "intellegencia" would even sully their reputations by participation. the size of stipend must have been huge.

    i had an Irish uncle who made outlandish claims. but he had/sipped a magic potient to support his claims. the jury was "out" and so was he most times.

    fran

  5. Eech! The downside of a hi tech society, eh? People start to believe that anything is possible. Add terrible proefficiency in math and science, and voilá…

    This is a bit off-topic, but wouldn't it be nice if every politician in America were required to take a refresher course on thermodynamics before being sworn in?
    I don't think thermodynamics would help: these guys can ask the experts anything they need to know.

    The problem is that most politicians are lawyers. Lawyers operate like the debating society: you get an assigned POV, and proceed to defend it to the best of your abilities. Only you are never allowed to question the assigned POV. See any current legislation in Washington DC for an illustration of how well that works.

  6. "I don't think thermodynamics would help: these guys can ask the experts anything they need to know."

    But one does have to have some basic foundation in physics and science in order to know what questions to ask.

  7. Optimist said:

    "The problem is that most politicians are lawyers."

    ———————————
    Yes, most Americans don't know or that lawyers usually make up 70 to 90% of Congress depending on the election year.

    Lawyers have been schooled in "adversarial law" where one debates a position before a judge and/or jury. It often is just a matter of who is the best debater.

    That's omr reason why the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate amongst the Western democracies.

    Too many lawyers running things for their own benefit.

    Behold: "The Litigious Society" that we have become where everybody is suing everybody else for the ultimate benefit of lawyers who always get a cut on the action.

    John

  8. Optomist,

    We do have arbitration but mostly in civil cases.

    Why not extend that to so-called criminal cases.

    The way it is now, if you have a good "debater" you can "walk" even though you ripped people off for multiplied millions, even billions.

    If you steal a loaf of bread however, you go to jail for 10 years.

    John

  9. What amazes me about Steorn is not that the company operates under some collective delusion they can defy laws of physics, but that they have attracted several €million in investment, and even got them to chip in more money after the failed demo.

    It suggests that there is a lot of "idiot money", people who will invest without having any clue. So when startups claim to have millions in investment funds, we can discount the first few million as "idiot money".

  10. John,
    This is getting a bit off-topic, but IMHO the jury system carries much of the blame. Consider that the US system of government has such low regard for Joe Sixpack's intellect, it won't even allow him to directly vote for president – instead we get a complicated Electoral College system (great for keeping out pesky third parties, among other things). Yet, somehow Joe Sixpack is qualified to decide whether somebody should pay the ultimate price for crime?

    Would you trust a jury of your peers to design the house you live in? The car you drive? That bridge you take over the freeway every day? But somehow they will get justice right? Tell me another.

    The Litigious Society is a perfect response to the Jury System: Lawyers know there will be a bunch of bad decisions, but some of it will be in their favor. So if say one in ten cases result in a big payoff for Lawyer X, he's got to get those pesky nine other cases out of the way ASAP. You can sue for that…

    Ever watch those documentaries on how crimes are prosecuted? Almost all emotion, and very few facts. "A terrible crime has been committed (Show pictures of crime scene on big screen). Someone has to pay! And by the way, we got Joe Sixpack over here, who just happened to be in the vicinity a few hours later…"

  11. they attracted investment because it would have been a one-step solution to all our problems. Nothing like green washing ourselves into idiocy. Good ole' Canadian prof. spearheading the delegation of truth

  12. What do you call a environmental manager?

    Designated Inmate!

    A number of years ago I took some classes on environmental law. In a filing there might be 25 arguments, some of which are mutually exclusive. All that is needed is one argument that the judge buys to have a project tied up for years.

    Left coast nuke plants routinely end up in the 9th circus to argue settled cast law. Nuke plants can afford lots of lawyers. Renewable energy projects also have the same problem but the legal cost will put the project out of business.

  13. "it won't even allow him to directly vote for president – instead we get a complicated Electoral College system"

    You sound like you graduated from a prestigious Ivy League school — i.e., clueless about American history or Constitution.

    The Electoral College was an appropriate technology for its time, when news could travel no faster than a horse could ride and no more reliably than the wind would blow. People chose individuals that they knew & trusted from their own State, and sent them off to meet the candidates face-to-face and in turn choose the best one for President.

    It also helped balance the relationship among big & small States.

    It was a brilliant scheme, worked well for a while. Unfortunately, later amendments to the Constitution undid the balance of competing interests, leading to today's disastrous situation.

    You should ask for a refund on your tuition. That college really let you down.

  14. Apparently there are exceptions.

    http://vulturesociety.homestead.com/QandA.html
    "African and Asian vultures, being descended from hawks and eagles, have no sense of smell. This is characteristic of the majority of the bird kingdom. American vultures, however, including the turkey vulture, black vulture, Andean and California condor, and king vulture, CAN smell. The turkey vulture, in particular, has a very well developed sense of smell… The turkey vulture has shown itself, in many tests, to use its sense of smell as a predominant means of finding food. Scientists even used turkey vultures to find a leak in a many-mile-long gas pipeline, by pumping a form of gas through the lines that smelled like carrion."

  15. Clee

    Thank you my friend. You are a true scientist. I saw it on the Science Channel.

    John

  16. Kind of all fits together – talking of politicians, lawyers, vultures and turkey buzzards all in the same blog.

  17. "Yes, most Americans don't know or that lawyers usually make up 70 to 90% of Congress depending on the election year."

    I know. In 1976, I voted for Jimmy Carter because he was a nuclear engineer and Naval officer and not a lawyer. (So how'd that turn out, you might ask?)

  18. Steorn's only business problem is that they're based in Ireland. If they were a US company, they could get a $30 million grant from the DOE to build an Orbo pilot plant. Then, if they made a large contribution to the DNC, they could get the Obama administration to mandate that GM and Chrysler produce 30% Orbo-powered vehicles by 2030. Vast commercial success would soon follow, laws of thermodynamics be damned.

  19. "NO American Troops Died for MY Fuel."

    Rufus,

    You're right, no American troops died for your fuel, but that's not because you filled up w/ E85. The reason is that most of our oil comes from Canada and Mexico, and we aren't at war with them.

    But you shouldn't think that some of that E85 you filled up with didn't come from foreign fossil fuels. I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut the farmers who grew the corn for your E85 used diesel fuel made with that Canadian and Mexican oil.

    And I'll also bet those farmers used synthetic nitrogen fertilizer imported from overseas and made with foreign natural gas.

    The truth — you couldn't have filled up with that E85 if not for fossil fuels. Without fossil fuels, there would be no corn starch derived ethanol.

    In fact, corn starch derived ethanol is nothing more than recycled natural gas.

  20. We import more oil from Saudi Arabia than we do from Mexico. Maybe that's why we're not at war with them either.

  21. Inputs such as diesel fuel for tractors are minor. We basically combine three units of natural gas and a unit of other fossil fuels with three units of corn feed to produce five units of ethanol and one unit of DDGS feed. But this equation is not written in stone. POET is building a plant which uses cob for process heat and nearly eliminates natural gas usage.

    In contrast to oil, the US is self-sufficient in corn and natural gas. So Rufus is correct that ethanol subjects us to fewer military entanglements than oil. Importing from Canada and Mexico (and Chavez-dictated Venezuela) does nothing to change this, oil is quite fungible and trades globally. A disruption in mideast oil affects us as much as those who import directly from the region.

  22. "Inputs such as diesel fuel for tractors are minor."

    Not that minor. Every spring I hear corn farmers complaining about the cost of diesel fuel. A big diesel tractor or corn picker can use as much as 25 gallons/hour.

    Corn farmers are dependent on that diesel fuel. You don't see them driving ethanol-powered tractors, nor are they ready to walk into their fields with machetes and hoes.

    Rufus said: "NO American Troops Died for MY Fuel."

    No, but corn farmers in Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois are mining their soil of nutrients and tilth that took tens of thousands of years to accumulate; Corn farmers in Nebraska, Kansas, and South Dakota are mining irreplaceable water from the Ogallala Aquifer; and fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides are running off all those corn fields into the Mississippi River basin to create a "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.

  23. "In contrast to oil, the US is self-sufficient in corn and natural gas."

    Are you sure of that? Without the fossil fuel inputs* into corn production, yields would be back to the 30 bushels per acre my grandfather got in the 1930s.

    True, we have lots of natural gas, but we aren't using that NG to make our own nitrogen. Most of the nitrogen our farmers now use is made in places such Trinidad, Tobago, Canada, Russia, and Saudi Arabia from their natural gas and imported into the U.S.

    ——————————
    * Diesel fuel for the equipment, and natural gas to make the nitrogen.

  24. re: Steorn

    In defence of the Irish — we're not ALL "gombeens"…. but clearly some of us are

    🙁

  25. Mercantile, I bet I could put all that you know about nutrients, and tilth into an eyedropper.

    We'll, quite likely, have the highest yield/acre this year of any year in history.

    Very, very, very little corn-irrigation water comes out of the Ogallala. What little irrigation water that is used for corn mostly comes from shallow water wells.

    We could, easily, by running all cars on E85, and all trucks on E95, bring an end to any need to import oil from ANYWHERE.

  26. Let me correct several misconceptions. Laramie, Jimmy Carter was a not a nuclear engineer. He was training to become an engineering officer of one of the first nuclear ships. In 1976, there was a choice between two naval officers. Kennedy, Nixon, and Bush I were also naval officers.

    Ben, the US is self sufficient in the capacity to produce ammonia. Many ammonia production facilities are idle in the US because it can be produced cheaper in places with stranded NG. Ammonia can and has also been produced with excess electric generating capacity.

    However, I will again caution Rufus the jarhead (RR this is not an insult unless Rufus tells me he is offend) that it is offensive to suggest American military are fighting to control the supply of oil. Rufus dishonors the long tradition of sailors and marines maintaining freedom of the seas that predates the ICE. Few countries have blue water navies. All that do, exercise with the US Navy.

  27. Well, Kit, us Marines never got to "pick" the fights (trust me, we'd have never "picked" Vietnam;) we just got to "fight'em."

    And, you (or, anyone) could talk to me for a thousand years, and you could never convince me that "Iraq" wasn't about keeping a future, nuclear-armed Saddam from controlling the Mideastern Oil Fields.

    BTW, I still supported the War. At that time I didn't think we had mitigating technologies that could render ME oil irrelevant. (I know we're not there, yet, but, at least, we're seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

    Anyhoo, the fact remains: We produce enough oil in the U.S. to supply my 15% gasoline, and the corn comes from American fields. I'm still Proud to say:

    NO American Troops Died for MY Fuel.

    Happy 4th, everyone.

  28. "NO American Troops Died for MY Fuel."

    You may be forgetting a few other uses of oil there, Rufus.

    The US used about 22 Barrels of oil for each person last year — and that really is an understatement, since it does not include all the oil embedded in autos from Japan & TVs from China.

    That means, Rufus, that you personally were responsible for the use of over 3 tons of oil last year. Assuming you have kept yourself in decent shape, that is about 40 times your body weight. In one year!

    Yes, a good part of that would be gasoline, which you claim not to use directly.

    But your vehicle contains lots of plastic — made with oil. Not to mention the asphalt on the road you drive on — made with oil. Your clothes, your home, the food you get at the grocery store, the computer you type on — you used a lot of oil, Rufus. And if you visited a hospital last year, or took medications, you were using oil.

    That said — let's all express our thanks to the men & women of the US military. We can have peace without community organizers & college professors; but history shows we will not have peace without a strong military.

  29. I am proud of both the American military and American farmers. Under the category of what if I am wrong, I am not too worried about SH controlling much of anything. That issue was settled in the first gulf war.

    Maybe Rufus missed the idea that terrorism (asymmetric warfare) could be used to kill thousands in the US. Rufus should not feel to badly, everyone did. SH did not miss the fact that terrorism could be used as a weapon against the US.

    So Rufus, as a marine where would you like fight this war. Times square of Bagdad? North Korea and Iran are two other choices.

    The good news is that there are lots of productive American farmers and only a few in any society that can be manipulated into acts of terrorism. It is sad for the people of Iraq that their country has become terrorist central but that is a big improvement of what SH did to Iraq.

  30. You can't be any more proud of the American Military than I am, Kit. It ain't possible.

    That being said, I still don't want my Grandkids, or yours, to die in the Middle East fighting for the last drop of oil.

    And, make no mistake, if we don't find (and use) alternatives we WILL end up fighting over it.

    BTW, Kinuachdrach, Anything that can be made with oil can be made with Biologicals.

    Again I say, Proudly,

    No Troops Died for MY Fuel.

    And, no jihadi-supporting Saudi Sheiks were enriched by it.

  31. Wendell Mercantile wrote "The truth — you couldn't have filled up with that E85 if not for fossil fuels. Without fossil fuels, there would be no corn starch derived ethanol. In fact, corn starch derived ethanol is nothing more than recycled natural gas."

    Well, that's certainly how it's made now, but it is not an intrinsic constraint. It would still be physically and chemically possible to make corn starch derived ethanol even without fossil fuels. It doesn't make much sense to get fuel either way, at any rate under current circumstances – but it is possible.

    PeteS wrote 're: Steorn In defence of the Irish — we're not ALL "gombeens"…. but clearly some of us are'.

    Eh? That sounds like using "gombeen" narrowly to mean idiot, when it has the broader meaning "government", e.g. in "gombeen man" for public servant. I can see how the narrower meaning comes about, of course.

  32. "It would still be physically and chemically possible to make corn starch derived ethanol even without fossil fuels."

    I'm not sure it us possible. I'd like to see a corn-to-ethanol process try and run without any external energy inputs in the form of fossil fuels. My guess it would be like using an electric motor to turn a generator to in turn power the electric motor.

    Modern industrial corn farmers certainly can't operate w/o fossil fuels*, and the handful of distilleries that have tried have found going against the Laws of Thermodynamics is futile and have folded.

    ————–
    *Unless they want to go back to the days of 30 bushel/acre yields, rotating crops, and fertilizing their corn with cow manure from the dairy barn. Of course in this era of industrial monoculture, few corn farmers still raise cattle or cows. Take away synthetic nitrogen made from natural gas (a fossil fuel) and there would be no industrial corn farming.

  33. "Very, very, very little corn-irrigation water comes out of the Ogallala. What little irrigation water that is used for corn mostly comes from shallow water wells."

    I tell that to the corn farmers in Nebraska and they can quit spending energy to pump water out their deep wells that are draining the Ogallala.

    We could, easily, by running all cars on E85, and all trucks on E95, bring an end to any need to import oil from ANYWHERE."

    There is not enough cultivable acreage in the US to produce enough biomass to turn into liquid fuels to replace 95% of the petroleum-based fossil fuels we know burn. Even if there were, we could never support the fertilizer demands of growing crops on that many acres.

    Nice theory, but not logistically supportable.

  34. I'm not sure it us possible. I'd like to see a corn-to-ethanol process try and run without any external energy inputs in the form of fossil fuels.

    Wendell, see POET. They're doing exactly that.

  35. WM: Eh? That sounds like using "gombeen" narrowly to mean idiot, when it has the broader meaning "government", e.g. in "gombeen man" for public servant. I can see how the narrower meaning comes about, of course.

    I don't see how the latter meaning would be "broader". But anyway, I'm afraid you are mistaken — gombeen manhood can refer to any type of cute hoorism (another classic Hiberno-Anglicism). It could certainly apply to government men but the original holders of the title were the small-time money lenders of mid-nineteenth century famine times.

  36. "Wendell, see POET. They're doing exactly that."

    Rufus,

    They are TRYING to do that. They haven't yet made a breakthrough that will scale up to be commercially profitable..

  37. You sound like you graduated from a prestigious Ivy League school — i.e., clueless about American history or Constitution.
    Nope, not even close. Graduated on a different continent. I'll admit to being [mostly] clueless about American history, if that makes you feel better.

    No need to request a refund, either.

    It was a brilliant scheme, worked well for a while. Unfortunately, later amendments to the Constitution undid the balance of competing interests, leading to today's disastrous situation.
    That would be my point, more or less. It worked well for a while, i.e. it is time to move on (no pun intended).

    Look the US has a great history (from what little I know of it) and much to be proud of. The problem is this creeping sense of looking back, and not being able to let go of outdated systems.

    It also helped balance the relationship among big & small States.
    As if such a balance is needed. Democracy is about letting the majority decide. It is time America tried democracy…

  38. Again I say, Proudly,
    [1.] No Troops Died for MY Fuel.
    [2.] And, no jihadi-supporting Saudi Sheiks were enriched by it
    .
    Keep on dreaming, Rufus!

    Statement #1 is not quite accurate. E85 is at least 15% crude oil input and possibly >100% compared to RUG, if Padzek and Pimentel are correct. So, depending on how much you drive, you are killing the troops as much as anyone else.

    Statement #2 is even more naive. The Saudi Sheiks will be so happy that you are that gullible. They will also be quite happy to keep the corn and ethanol production supply chain well oiled for you, even as they snigger at the wisdom of converting valuable food into worthless (relatively speaking) fuel.

  39. "Democracy is about letting the majority decide. It is time America tried democracy…"

    So educated. So uninformed.

    Benjamin Franklin famously responded to a question about the form of government recommended at the Constitutional Convention — "A republic, if you can keep it".

    Old Ben was right to be concerned. The successful republic, which developed a continent and saved Europe from itself, is degenerating into a mere democracy. Hence we get democratically-approved abominations like "Cap on Trade" and mercury-enriched light bulbs.

    Interesting philosophical question — If western societies cannot maintain a sustainable system of government, will they ever be able to develop a sustainable system of energy provision?

  40. So educated. So uninformed.
    Oh yeah? Big part of the problem today is that the Electoral College pretty much limits it to the Big Two. If one of the two goes AWOL, the other can put their feet up and still win by default.

    A democracy would allow a third party to become a real force in pretty short order.

    A republic, if you can keep it.
    Nice quote. The magic of a republic is lost on me. Please explain.

  41. "The magic of a republic is lost on me. Please explain."

    We are already way off topic on RR's energy blog. Why not try reading some of the Federalist Papers? Gives a great idea of the issues they were grappling with — including the tyranny of the majority, and the need for checks & balances.

    By the way, if you are like the rest of us, the first lesson you will draw from reading the Federalist Papers — a collection of newspaper articles written for a general audience — is amazement at how well educated those 18th Century farmers were. Of course, that was before there was democratic control of the school system.

  42. Why not try reading some of the Federalist Papers?
    OK…

    So you don't know, either. Or if you do, you aren't able to articulate it. Very convincing stuff.

    I say, scrap the semantics: Let's have a democracy!

    Hardly flawless, but worth trying.

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