Fuel's paradise?

[Trev]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story ... 24,00.html Article from UK Guardian newspaper.

Fuel's paradise? Power source that turns physics on its head

· Scientist says device disproves quantum theory
· Opponents claim idea is result of wrong maths

Alok Jha, science correspondent
Friday November 4, 2005
The Guardian

It seems too good to be true: a new source of near-limitless power that costs virtually nothing, uses tiny amounts of water as its fuel and produces next to no waste. If that does not sound radical enough, how about this: the principle behind the source turns modern physics on its head.
Randell Mills, a Harvard University medic who also studied electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims to have built a prototype power source that generates up to 1,000 times more heat than conventional fuel. Independent scientists claim to have verified the experiments and Dr Mills says that his company, Blacklight Power, has tens of millions of dollars in investment lined up to bring the idea to market. And he claims to be just months away from unveiling his creation.

The problem is that according to the rules of quantum mechanics, the physics that governs the behaviour of atoms, the idea is theoretically impossible. "Physicists are quite conservative. It's not easy to convince them to change a theory that is accepted for 50 to 60 years. I don't think [Mills's] theory should be supported," said Jan Naudts, a theoretical physicist at the University of Antwerp.

What has much of the physics world up in arms is Dr Mills's claim that he has produced a new form of hydrogen, the simplest of all the atoms, with just a single proton circled by one electron. In his "hydrino", the electron sits a little closer to the proton than normal, and the formation of the new atoms from traditional hydrogen releases huge amounts of energy.

This is scientific heresy. According to quantum mechanics, electrons can only exist in an atom in strictly defined orbits, and the shortest distance allowed between the proton and electron in hydrogen is fixed. The two particles are simply not allowed to get any closer.

According to Dr Mills, there can be only one explanation: quantum mechanics must be wrong. "We've done a lot of testing. We've got 50 independent validation reports, we've got 65 peer-reviewed journal articles," he said. "We ran into this theoretical resistance and there are some vested interests here. People are very strong and fervent protectors of this [quantum] theory that they use."

Rick Maas, a chemist at the University of North Carolina at Asheville (UNC) who specialises in sustainable energy sources, was allowed unfettered access to Blacklight's laboratories this year. "We went in with a healthy amount of scepticism. While it would certainly be nice if this were true, in my position as head of a research institution, I really wouldn't want to make a mistake. The last thing I want is to be remembered as the person who derailed a lot of sustainable energy investment into something that wasn't real."

But Prof Maas and Randy Booker, a UNC physicist, left under no doubt about Dr Mill's claims. "All of us who are not quantum physicists are looking at Dr Mills's data and we find it very compelling," said Prof Maas. "Dr Booker and I have both put our professional reputations on the line as far as that goes."

Dr Mills's idea goes against almost a century of thinking. When scientists developed the theory of quantum mechanics they described a world where measuring the exact position or energy of a particle was impossible and where the laws of classical physics had no effect. The theory has been hailed as one of the 20th century's greatest achievements.

But it is an achievement Dr Mills thinks is flawed. He turned back to earlier classical physics to develop a theory which, unlike quantum mechanics, allows an electron to move much closer to the proton at the heart of a hydrogen atom and, in doing so, release the substantial amounts of energy he seeks to exploit. Dr Mills's theory, known as classical quantum mechanics and published in the journal Physics Essays in 2003, has been criticised most publicly by Andreas Rathke of the European Space Agency. In a damning critique published recently in the New Journal of Physics, he argued that Dr Mills's theory was the result of mathematical mistakes.

Dr Mills argues that there are plenty of flaws in Dr Rathke's critique. "His paper's riddled with mistakes. We've had other physicists contact him and say this is embarrassing to the journal and [Dr Rathke] won't respond," said Dr Mills.

While the theoretical tangle is unlikely to resolve itself soon, those wanting to exploit the technology are pushing ahead. "We would like to understand it from an academic standpoint and then we would like to be able to use the implications to actually produce energy products," said Prof Maas. "The companies that are lining up behind this are household names."

Dr Mills will not go into details of who is investing in his research but rumours suggest a range of US power companies. It is well known also that Nasa's institute of advanced concepts has funded research into finding a way of using Blacklight's technology to power rockets.

According to Prof Maas, the first product built with Blacklight's technology, which will be available in as little as four years, will be a household heater. As the technology is scaled up, he says, bigger furnaces will be able to boil water and turn turbines to produce electricity.

In a recent economic forecast, Prof Maas calculated that hydrino energy would cost around 1.2 cents (0.7p) per kilowatt hour. This compares to an average of 5 cents per kWh for coal and 6 cents for nuclear energy.

"If it's wrong, it will be proven wrong," said Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace USA. "But if it's right, it is so important that all else falls away. It has the potential to solve our dependence on oil. Our stance is of cautious optimism."

[SeaWasp]

It makes me wonder why we really are paying so much for energy these days? Could it be that the big breakthrough is only just around the corner, so the oil companies are trying to get as much as they can before the price of oil hits the dirt?

[ken_behrendt]

Very interesting concept and it sounds plausible to me.

Assuming that the extra neutron in an ordinary hydrogen atom somehow "shields" the electron from the full electrostatic force of attraction of the nucleus, then removing that neutron should pull the electron down into a tighter orbit about its nucleus and release some energy as electromagnetic radiation.

Of course, the article does not go into exactly how the neutron is removed from the hydrogen atom. I would assume that it is done with some sort of radiation that overcomes the strong nuclear forces present in the nucleus. Once liberated, a free neutron has a half life of about 12.5 minutes after which it decays to form another hydrogen atom that only contains a single proton and electron.

I'll be looking to see where this discovery goes...


ken

[Jonathan]

>the extra neutron in an ordinary hydrogen atom<
That's rare, and then it is called deuterium.

[ken_behrendt]

Jonathan...

I think you are right! "Ordinary" hydrogen only has ONE proton in it. Deuterium has one proton and one neutron and Tritium has one proton and two neutrons.

Now that I have reread the description of the new "hydrino" version of hydrogen Dr. Mills claims to have discovered, I'm starting to see some problems with it.

The discoverer claims he is using "classical" quantum mechanics to rationalize the existence of this new form of hydrogen. I think I remember something about there being an orbital below the N=1 orbit which was the N=0 orbit. The problem was that it required the electron to pass through the nucleus of an atom in an orbit which was not circular, but rather just a back and forth oscillation of the electron along a straight line. However, I think this orbit was considered "forbidden" for some other quantum reasons and that there were no frequencies of electromagnetic radiation observed that were associated with electrons making transitions from this lowest orbit to the next highest N=1 orbit.

Maybe, somehow, Dr. Mills has found a way to use lasers to trigger a release of energy from electrons in the N=1 orbit so that they can then decay down to the N=0 orbit? This process, if possible, would allow a mass of hydrogen gas particles to double the amount of laser energy passing through them.

Well, it all sounds rather fanciful. If it's real, then some usable technology will emerge from it. And, if it's yet another chimera, then it will join the long list of interesting footnotes in the ongoing quest for free energy...


ken

[ovyyus]

http://mistersnitch.blogspot.com/2005/1 ... inute.html

There really is one born every minute!

Randell Mills got The Guardian to chat up his imminent, world-changing breakthrough in energy. If they had spent ten seconds to Google him first, they'd have saved themselves an embarassing retraction. Suckers.

The Guardian article breathlessly describes Mills' 'breakthrough': "a new source of near-limitless power that costs virtually nothing, uses tiny amounts of water as its fuel and produces next to no waste". It goes on to say that "his company, Blacklight Power, has tens of millions of dollars in investment lined up to bring the idea to market. And he claims to be just months away from unveiling his creation."

Mills made the same claims in 1991: "when he claimed to unleash energy by "shrinking" the hydrogen atom's electron orbit to form what he calls a "hydrino."

The Village Voice was somewhat credulous, quoting him in 2000: ""I'll have demonstrated an entirely new form of energy production by the end of 1999," Mills responds." (Note the discrepancy in dates - and that The Voice did not ask him why he missed his self-imposed deadline.)

Here are some notes from Montclair State debunking him. [go to above URL for link - ovyyus]

Why is he perpetrating this hoax? Investment money. Mills will never achieve his promised breakthroughs, but if there was a Nobel Prize for hucksterism, he'd win it. His company, Blacklight Power, has a jargon-filled website and a plant in Cranbury, NJ. Their main products are patents and potential. From the current Guardian: "Although mainstream physicists, including Nobel laureates, rankle at the mention of hydrinos, Mills has gathered $25 million dollars from investors for his startup, BlackLight Power Inc."

Having destroyed his credibility at home, Mills had to cross the ocean to find his present media victim. We don't know how long their story will remain up - they almost certainly will remove it. Bloggers around the globe are examining and (often) ridiculing this story.

His investors better find out if they can stop payments on their checks.

Greetings to Instapundit readers. The beauty of what Mills is doing is how he places the onus on those out to debunk his claims. If you're a physicist claiming his theories are impossible, he'll entice you with tales of how many scientists once said other past breakthroughs were impossible. The lure here is of greed, and of coming up with the must-have invention that changes the world. No one is completely beyond the reach of that lure, and it's nearly impossible to prove that something will never happen (not with the kinds of technilogical change we've seen in our lifetimes). What we'd ask investors to do is take a hard look at past promises, and to be willing to ask the hard questions.

That's what The Guardian should have done in the first place.

[ken_behrendt]

Bill...

After reading all of that disparaging material you provided about Dr. Mills, I'm starting to get a deja vu feeling! The whole scenario reminds me of that Keely Motor business from the 19th century!

Well, before I would invest one penny in any such claimed technology, I would want to see it tested by a reputable group of scientist independent of Dr. Mills and then see what they have to say about it.

A pattern that I've noticed in past frauds is that, at some point, the investors start asking when they are going to realize a return on their investment. As time passes, they get more insistent and, eventually, charges of fraud are filed. At that point they try to obtain an injunction that will allow them to seize any prototypes so that they can then see if they are truly genuine. If Dr. Mills has something that is real, then the situation will not get to that point...


ken

[ovyyus]

Ken, some conmen are smart enough to avoid making certain specific promises. Mills can't be prevented from raising funds to further his 'research' and no one can touch him while he avoids making specific promises about when his proposed future success might happen. It's the "perfect crime", if there can ever be such a thing.