The ‘free energy technology’ claim by Steorn is continuing to elicit widespread response. It’s still the No. 2 search term on Technorati. But there’s no new info on the matter. It’s all just speculation.
Major news outlets have largely shunned the story (so far). Nothing about this story can be found on the BBC or the New York Times websites, for example. As the story broke a few days ago, AFP did report it. A claim of creating energy from seemingly nothing is too hot of a potato, and could turn into a really big embarrassment for the media.
If the whole thing turns out to be a hoax, viral marketing campaign or social experiment (something the company denies vehemently), everyone in the media (including bloggers) would have a bad aftertaste of having helped this story spread.
Yet, as I was writing this post on Wednesday afternoon, an ABC News story appeared, in which a leading physicist voiced his opinion on the matter. ‘It’s a fraud’ he said:
In order to understand the sensationalism of Steorn’s claims, you need to understand what it would mean if they turned out to be true.
Steorn says its research has shown that the device it claims to have created can be scaled to almost any size. That would mean it could power anything that requires energy, from a flashlight to an airplane.
“Hypothetically, assuming that their claims are true — which I don’t think is possible — it would represent one of the greatest discoveries of humanity, going back to the discovery of fire,” Kaku said.
Kaku points out that in many ways, human history can be seen as the slow, progressive effort to control energy.
“From the taming of fire, the horse, gunpowder, explosives, and nuclear weapons,” he explained. “Free unlimited energy would revolutionize society almost instantly. The oil executives would be on the unemployment lines. It would change the [Middle East] crisis forever. Every aspect of society would be overturned, from transpiration, heating, electricity, factories, etc.”
But Kaku still cautions, “These guys in Ireland will not make this happen.”
The Guardian newspaper covered the story. Slashdot also mentioned it (and, as usual, a long string of comments ensued).
Yesterday, a blog on Scientific American magazine mentioned the story:
OK, all you perpetual-motion machine debunkers and believers out there, here’s your latest chance to prove whether you can literally get something for nothing.
More interestingly, ZD Net UK had a longer post by Rupert Goodwins, who actually interview the CEO of Streon. The article is extremely skeptical of the claim and the way it is being presented to the world.
Steorn’s free energy seems curiously expensive – ZDNet UK Comment:
Whatever Steorn is doing — and in the utter absence of any testable data, the chances of it being a significant scientific achievement are closer to absolute zero than the contents of Lord Kelvin’s freezer compartment — it’s an expensive experiment. For the price of that Economist advert and whatever they’re paying their PR company, they could have built 10 apparatuses that actually demonstrated their effect and Fedex’d them to the major centres of scientific excellence on the planet.
Wether the hoopla dies down soon or the story just continues to snowball, this will be interesting to watch, if only as a media phenomena. The counter on company’s website now shows that more than 33,000 people have registered to receive the results of the scientific jury that Streon is seeking to engage in its challenge.
Comments
One response to “The Streon ‘free energy’ controversy continues..”
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you find a balance between forces.