(UPDATE: The Xogen video above seems to have nothing to do with the Steorn story. The connection between the two is being made on YouTube where the video is published. Meanwhile, over 800 people have registered themselves as scientists in response to the Steorn challenge and over 9000 people have registered themselves to receive the results of the challenge. If this is all part of a viral marketing campaign)

Something weird is going on. And it’s not the 1st of April today.

An Irish company, Steorn, is claiming to have found a way to create “free energy” from regular tap water a magnet contraption.

I discovered this story through a link to the video above (mistakenly linked to Steorn by a YouTube user) which shows a device composed of metal plates through which the water passes and decomposes into burnable Hydrogen and Oxygen. Low voltage is applied to the metal plates (apparently in a certain pattern, which is digitally controlled), which caused the decomposition of water into totally clean Hydrogen and Oxygen mixture which can be burned to produce heat and, of course, water vapor!

This video is old and the technology seems to have gone nowhere…

Anyway..

Streon’s news is being reported in the Irish press. A scientific challenge has been issued by the company to the scientific community to test the device, which, apparently defies the laws of physics (you can’t create energy from nothing). The company claims its tests have been verified by scientists but none are willing to come forward and say so. That’s why the company is going on a media offensive.

This Irish blog sums up the story as follows

Many are sceptical and believe that the laws of thermodynamics are immutable so therefore this must be a con. But what if it is taping a hitherto unknown source of energy or even taping into the earths magnetic field?If so then the laws of thermodynamics are not being broken so the device could very well be a source of clean unlimited energy.

The patent is online and can be viewed here. As perpetual motion machines cannot, under US law, be patented what they are patenting is a process of steps that leads to perpetual motion. A clever work around.

The company have hired one of the most expensive PR firms in the world and spent over 100k on an ad in the Economist challenging the most qualified and most cynical scientists in the world to prove them wrong. A bold move indeed, definitely one to keep an eye on as this could turn the world in its head!

“All great truths begin as blasphemies” is the slogan the company is using for its global challenge (quoting George Bernard Shaw).
A scientist talking to the Australian paper The Age is calling this whole thing a joke:

“Oh, goodness, what can I say?” said Martin Sevior, associate professor at Melbourne University’s School of Physics. “It violates a very fundamental principle of physics, and flies in the face of 2000-years-plus of physics. It’s an incredibly big claim.”

If it is a joke or a hoax then it is a damn expensive one.

The strange thing is that the video circulated on YouTube talks about the technology under the brand Xogen and mentions an Xogen.com domain name. But I only found a ‘domain name for sale’ there. What is relationship between Stoern and Xogen?? I am actually doubting these two things are related.

This reminds me of the Cold Fusion scandal in 1989, when two US scientist that an experiment of theirs started producing excess amounts of energy that could only be explained by nuclear fusion occurring at low temperatures.

After an hour of looking around the web for info, I hit upon the forums in the Steorn site where numerous (and some angry) people are now saying that this seems to be a viral marketing ploy by Microsoft for the Halo 3 game.

It’s confusing..

Read these related posts on 360east:

• Steorn ‘free energy’ controversy: holding our breath for what exactly??
• Jordan’s first renewable energy expo
• Steorn story makes Fox News
• Do you believe in free energy?
• Always the sun: Jordan should become a renewable energy leader!