Topic: Energy
Free America? Free Energy! Run your household on energy derived from water? Who are you trying to kid! Impossible! Or is it? Dr. Randell Mills of Blacklight Power claims to have the answers.by creator
(libertarian)
Friday, May 2, 2008
There is a technology that, if successfully developed and made universally available, would transform the face of America and of the world almost overnight. Because the inevitability of that transformation is self-evidently true, the technology has been increasingly controlled and suppressed. The technology is sometimes called "free energy."
Consider this: the world is and has for a very long time been quite firmly in the grip of the oil companies, the multi-billion dollar multi-national oil barons who have a virtual monopoly on energy. What does that have to do with freedom?
A fundamental element of freedom is the liberty to move from place to place. The most common means of doing so today is the automobile. Virtually all modern automobiles run on some refined form of oil.
The ability to survive and accomplish our purpose is another significant element of freedom. R. Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller spoke of us having "energy slaves" that raise our standard of living. In Fuller parlance, an "energy slave" is the energy equivalent of a human being's work output, harnessed by some device or machine and placed in our personal service. The more energy slaves a person commands, the more comfortable and effective their life will be. Our problem is that, even if we have the machinery, we can ill afford to "pay" our energy slaves to work for us.
If we could afford unlimited energy, our freedom would increase, we could employ more robots and robotic devices (washing machines, refrigerators, automobiles, etc.) to serve us, to build things for us, to work for us. Abundant energy would increase our personal wealth and freedom.
Legends abound of lone inventors whose 200 MPG carburetors were bought out by the big companies for "further development." There are even plenty of tales of inventors who were "fitted with cement overshoes" because their inventions posed too great a threat to the powers that be.[Tesla]
In most cases, the truth lies somewhere between those extremes, and the methods and results are perhaps more evident. The most famous example is Nikola Tesla, to whom we owe the all-pervasive AC electric generation and distribution system that we have come to rely upon and many other technologies. When it was discovered that the device he was working on in Wardenclyffe, New Jersey, would have the side-effect of providing free energy to the entire population of the world, his financier "pulled the plug" and began a campaign to discredit Tesla and his ideas.
Here we are now in 2008, with gasoline on the threshold of $4.00 per gallon, heating oil busting the budgets of many, and electricity a substantial monthly expense. Are there any "technological saviors" on the horizon? I would like to bring one possibility to your attention.
Dr. Randell Mills of Blacklight Power has developed an extensive and highly credible new theory of matter called "Classical Quantum Mechanics." The implications of his theory are staggering. Mills claims that the energy level of electron orbits in hydrogen can be "micromanaged" with two very novel results: tremendous energy output and new and useful forms of matter.
If you compare Mill's new form of hydrogen energy with ordinary combustion, the company claims that it is about 100 times more efficient. Dr. Mills has said that the energy needs of an entire household for a year could be supplied from about seven ounces of water.
One of the most convincing evidences to me of the validity of Dr. Mills theory is the advent of a Blacklight Power spin-off company, Millsian, that offers software that runs well on an ordinary personal computer and is capable of solving chemical molecular modeling equations more accurately than supercomputers using conventional quantum mechanical theory.
Before those of you who are conventionally trained in the sciences dismiss this as nonsense, I challenge you to watch this 5 minute video presentation by Dr. Mills, and to visit the Blacklight Power company website and consider the evidence of their success. If you have some funds to spare or wield any influence with those who do, you might want to get in on the ground floor of a remarkable energy revolution.
Why, if Blacklight Power's results are so important, isn't there government backing and support? While I can't speak with certain knowledge, I have a clear opinion. Government as we know it today is completely incompatible with and antagonistic towards freedom. If Randell Mills is ultimately successful, government power will be diminished.
While Blacklight Power and Millsian represent some of the "cream of the crop," there are other "new energy" efforts in progress in many unexpected places. I hope to bring some of them to your attention as well in future articles, and so if you liked this article, please let me know with your "thumbs up" and your comments.
The views expressed in this
article are those of creator only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. creator is
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Anyways why no mention of the world's greatest, most efficient, and clean source of energy in Nuclear power? The US Navy has been using it safely for years.
New Energy Ideas are like trial drugs, the true costs and benefits are not completely known and there are always new dangers associated with them. A proving process and trials must take place before it can be released on the free market.
Alternative energy does exist, but it is not cheaper than simple oil and nuclear power. Until we can find a cheaper alternative to oil that we don't have to subsidize with tax dollars, oil will be king.
Increase use of Nuclear power would save countless miners who are killed every year attempting to extract coal for conventional power plants. If we don't wake up and start allowing more oil drilling platforms, refineries, and nuclear power plants to be built, our energy costs will become too expensive to afford.
I'm not an expert on quantum mechanics so I could not comment personally on the validity of Mills claims. However if it works why doesn't he just start building generators which work on this principle and sell them? There would be a huge demand for such things. His wealth would quickly surpass Bill Gates'.
It sounds more reasonable than anything else we have going on. The 'miracle' is the existance of a sub 's' electron orbit, and being able to drop hydrogen atoms into that orbit. That's the new and exciting part. As far as I'm aware science is completely unaware of any 'new' electron orbits. The rest of it is perfectly reasonable... Kinda the same way a floresent lamp works.
Uranium is much safer for the miners than coal. Since we pluck uranium from trees in enchanted meadows tended to by gnomes.
Well, this article probably qualifies as the highest "comment to readership" ratio of any article that I've published so far, with three generally constructive and contributive comments within the first 25 reads, for which I am appreciative.
The Wikipedia article (thanks, David S) is understandably skeptical in nature as it is always the tendency of the establishment to challenge, and often to ridicule, new ideas. The specific objections to Mills theory presented there all seem at face value to be nit-picking with overtones of ad-hominem attack.
Whether or not Mill's theory is precisely correct in every respect, if his ideas and processes produce energy and materials with new and useful properties, we have a "winner." It would not be the first time in the history of science where engineering application raced ahead of complete theoretical understanding.
Finally, the development of practical power plants at all scales is presently in progress according to the company website ( [Development] ) but it is not as trivial an undertaking as producing (or buying the rights to) a computer operating system, as did Bill Gates.
As to nuclear power, I have no particular objection and believe that it has gotten a "bad rap" - but Blacklight Power is essentially nuclear power, of a different and cleaner and more managable nature.
New energy technologies will surface, but until then, oil is still the cheapest. Oil companies know this. They can only jack the price so much as to discourage development in other technologies.
The price of oil today is high enough for them to make decent profits and recover their capital expenses in exploration, leases, drilling, refineries, etc. The price of oil is also low enough to lower the investments in other alternatives and make them too expensive as compared to oil. Once the price of oil becomes too expensive, then other technologies will become cheaper in relation to the oil and partially filled oil wells that were closed due to high operating expenses will open again thus lowering the price.
Supply and demand will still be king. Less govenment regulation and no subsidies is really what we need.
One more thing to consider:
Use your legs and your bicycle more often. You will be using your body fat and your food consumption as energy instead of the oil. It is also better for your pocket, your heart and your body. I have been doing that for a while now and after loosing 44 pounds since November and saving lots of $$ in oil and health related espenses, I feel great!
Freedom from oil requires some energy on your part too. And is it cheaper and not against any law.
It just seems too good to be true reading the website. And as you get a little deeper in it seems contradictory.
When a single electron jumps down one orbit, it doesn't exactly release a lot of energy. The difference between orbits is a single photon. For Hydrogen to release that much energy just by making the electrons jump orbits they would need to be jumping down thousands of orbits. It seems to defy conservation of energy, because it's releasing more energy than the electron posesses in a 1s orbit.
It also throws up a flag for me, that a lower energy state of pure hydrogen exists, yet has never been observed or created. This throws me because nature tends to the most random, lowest energy state it can reach. That would be like living in the middle of a valley, and the hills around you are piled with mole upon mole of ball bearings, yet you have never actually seen a ball bearing because none of them have managed to roll down the hills.
Finally how does an incredibly stable, inert, ultra-low energy state hydrogen atom interact with ANY other element to create componds, letalone replace carbon as a building block with virtually zero valance?
I'm not necessarily saying it's impossible. But there are a lot of holes that current quantum theory punches in it. Essentially for this to work it requires a total paradigm shift. In simple terms, e = mc^2 needs to be disproven to break the conservation of mass and energy.
Oil coal and gas are our biggest energy sources because they contain a FANTASTIC concentration of potential heat energy, and a readily transportable form, that already exists. As in we don't need to create it, it's just there. Oil is simply an incredible substance from a thermodynamic perspective. Without even touching on the abundance, there is nothing else mankind has created that holds that kind of energy density in a readily transportable form. There really is nothing in the forseeable future that can possibly replace it.
"but Blacklight Power is essentially nuclear power, of a different and cleaner and more managable nature."
No, this is not correct. "Nuclear power" refers to energy derived from the binding energy of nucleons (protons and neutrons) when nuclei are "split" (fission) or combined (fusion). The Blacklight Power "hydrino"-based power system depends upon changes in the binding energy of electrons, which is chemical, not nuclear, in character. That is, if Mills' theories are plausible, which I personally do not believe to be the case. Note that Mills has been working on this "concept" for about 20 years, and has yet to produce a marketable product based on "hydrinos." Which makes him either a dogged visionary who refuses to quit, or a crackpot. I vote for the latter.
I stand corrected. Thank you for your comment, you are of course precisely correct in the distinction between "nuclear" and "electron energy" sources of power.
What is remarkable about Mills' theories (and reported experimental results) is the relatively huge amount of energy released, compared to conventional chemical means.
As far as marketable products go, the Millsian subsidiary of the company has what appears to be an eminently marketable product (molecular modeling software) that, running on microcomputers, achieves results superior to supercomputer simulations based on conventional QED theory. And that is to me one of the strongest indicators that convinces me that Mills is "on to something" here.
In any case, neither your "vote" nor my opinion will matter a hill of beans - fundamental cosmic truth and reality govern, and the final outcome remains to be seen. Having said that, I am "rooting for" Randall Mills, and I hope his theories are proven correct, or at the very least that he is able to bring some of his energy technologies to market.
Meanwhile, watch this column for some more / other / different news about other energy developments, hopefully in the near future. Thanks again for reading and commenting. :)
When I said "marketable product," I should have specified a product for the generation of heat or electricity based on Mills' "hydrino"-related theories, since that's what he's been promising is "just around the corner" for at least the last 10 years. In a 1998 interview (available on-line), Mills claimed to have experimental evidence for the production of energy from "hydrino"-related reactions about 1000 times greater than the combustion of an equivalent amount of hydrogen. It seems rather odd to me that he has not been able to come up with even a prototype of a power-producing device since that time. By comparison, it took the same time (10 years) from the discovery of the neutron to the operation of the first nuclear fission reactor--using far less sophisticated physics and engineering tools than are available today. This is but one reason why I do not believe Mills' claims.
As for his molecular modeling software, I gather he has a program that draws pretty pictures that purport to represent complex molecules. Whether, in fact, those pictures do represent the actual structure of those molecules--i.e., whether your assertion of superior results is justified--is something I am not in a position to judge. Nor do I have any interest in doing so; the subject is not related to my professional field.
Note, by the way, that even with 1000 times the energy of combustion, each hydrino reaction would produce about 2,500 electron volts (2.5 keV). This is about one seven-thousandth of the energy released in the fusion of one deuterium nucleus with one tritium nucleus, and about one eighty-thousandth of the energy released in the fission of a uranium-235 nucleus. But at this point, even this comparison is moot, since Mills has not demonstrated that he can produce any power at all--you can't divide by zero (and get a valid answer).
You are correct, however, in observing that the ultimate verdict on Mills' theories will come from the laws of physics, not the opinions of either his supporters or his critics. Right now, though, in the battle between Mills' theories and "conventional" quantum physics, it appears to me that conventional physics has the upper hand.
Just as an addendum, Mills' claim about one household's energy needs being supplied by 7 ounces of water does not add up.
The mass of 7 oz. of water is about 210 grams. Since one mole of water is 18 grams (O+2H=16+2=18), this translates to about 11.7 moles of water. The number of molecules in a mole is given by Avogadro's number, 6.022E23, so there are about 7.03E24 molecules of water in that 7 oz. With two hydrogen atoms per molecule, that gives about 1.41E25 atoms, and with one electron per atom, the same number of electrons. Per my previous post, assuming an energy release that's 1000 times that of hydrogen combusion, each electron transition would give off about 2500 eV. Assuming each and every H electron undergoes that transition, we have about 3.5E28 eV. One electron volt is 1.6E-19 joule, so this is equivalent to about 5.624E9 joule. And since one joule is about 2.78E-7 kWh, this translates to about 1560 kWh. (Note that I assumed an amplification factor of 1000, not 100 as stated in the article.)
Now, I don't know about Mills' household, but mine uses, on average, about 2000 kWh (of electricity) per month, and that doesn't include space heating and hot water, both of which are supplied by natural gas. And as far as I'm aware, there is no technology to convert chemical energy (from electron transitions) to electric energy with 100 percent efficiency, so the actual usable energy would be far less than the 1560 kWh indicated above. So instead of a year's worth of energy in 7 oz. of water, it looks to me as if it's less than a week--and that's assuming Mills' theory is valid, which (as noted) I don't believe. So there's another Mills claim that I think fails the credibility test.
Free energy--it's a nice thought, but I go back to my old thermodynamics text to paraphrase the three laws:
- You can't win.
- You can't break even.
- You can't get out of the game.
And from the caveat emptor school of marketing: Anything that looks too good to be true probably is.
The man suggests that hydrogen's single electron has more than a single energy state as it moves about its nucleus. He suggests a lower energy state exists, and can be caused to exist through method he hints at. He says two such lower energy hydrogen atoms form a molecule just like the hydrogen we know does, that is, 2 atoms of hydrogen form a bond to create H2, which is relatively stable. It is worth a read, he isn't saying "free energy" and his ideas don't contradict recognized theory.
Wrong. Mills' "theory" says that an electron energy state below the ground state exists. Since the ground state is, by definition, the lowest energy state in which the electron can exist, this is a direct contradiction of "recognized theory." This is, in fact, one of the reasons why, when Mills tried to patent an "invention" based on "hydrino theory," the U.S. Patent Office rejected the application. The USPO will refuse to patent inventions that contradict what it considers to be proven physical laws. (No one denies that there is more than one energy state for the electron. The key point is that all of the other states are at higher energies than the ground state, not lower.)
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Mills has been making extraordinary claims for more than a decade. The proof? Still waiting........
Breaking News: Black Light Power has reported on recent indepent replication of their energy process in carefully controlled and measured experiments which have repeatably yielded heat energy substantially exceeding that available from chemical reactions known to "recognized theory."
Visit http://blacklightpower.com for press release and videos.
Additionally, "recognized theory" has no ready explanation for the ability of Mills theories to enable rapid modeling of extensively complex organic molecules with superior correspondence to real-world results in the laboratory.
Visit http://millsian.com for further information.
And, no, I have no connection whatsoever with Black Light Power beyond an intense interest in their work.
Yeah, I saw this. Still don't believe it. The "independent" verification was peformed by a professor at Rowan University who has worked with Blacklight Power in the past and might have a vested interest in "demonstrating" the technology. Moreover, as I understand it, the "verification" was performed using material provided by Blacklight. So if they jimmied the materials to produce a desired effect, there would be no way to determine it. I'd be a lot more convinced if a reputable research organization performed the work, completely independent of Blacklight--someplace like, for example, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Or maybe Brookhaven, which is closer to Blacklight's location.)
In any case, my understanding is that they used their 50,000 watt prototype to produce 1 million joules of energy. Since a watt is a joule per second, this corresponds to a grand total of 20 seconds of operation. Hardly a commercially viable power production device. Gimme a buzz when it runs continuously for a day--or even an hour. (Which is still a long way from commercial viability.) I might also point out that the reports do not discuss the overall energy balance for this device. How much energy does it take to prepare the fuel (reactants) that drives the reaction? Even if "excess energy" is produced, if it takes as much or more energy to fuel the device than it produces, it's a loser. There's still no free lunch here, and (see previous post) no one has figured out a way around the laws of thermodynamics.
As for the models, as I said before, Mills has software that draws pretty pictures. I still have not seen any objective evidence that those pictures have any connection to reality, Mills' claims notwithstanding. "Superior correspondence" is in the eye of the beholder. I suppose it's possible that Mills is the new Einstein, or a contemporary Edison. But Blacklight (and its predecessor company) has been down this road before--announcements of impending breakthroughs that have never materialized. So far, all Randy has shown an indisputable talent for is separating gullible investors from their venture capital. Now, I'll admit that's not a talent to be sneezed at, but it won't run your refrigerator.
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