Switched Off: How to judge the Steorn book by it's cover.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Normally, we might mention that an article such as this is patronising, poorly written waffle and says more about the writer than it does about genuine research. We don't normally take pleasure when someone "Does a Gerald", so we won't mention it. We will also vow not to speak of the many previous articles written by
Instead, we're happy to wait and let the commercial launch of free energy technology do the talking.
Will publicly calling the single most significant human technological discovery since fire out as nonsense on no less than 8 separate occasions be the end for Engadget?
Holy plunging readership figures Batman - it might just be! Read more...
New Steorn Interview: Free Energy Times
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Yesterday the Free Energy Times blog published a recent question and answer session with Sean McCarthy (CEO of Steorn). Here are the highlights of that interview below. Read it in full here
FET: You have said several times that there would be a public launch of your Orbo technology before the end of 2009. Is Steorn still on track to meet that timeline?
Sean McCarthy: Yes
FET: Can you provide any information about what will be involved in the public launch – what can people expect to see?
SM: The demonstration will involve a public display of various Orbo systems, there will be a live video-stream from the location that people can watch via our website.
FET: In a statement made earlier this year you stated that before 2009, “Implementing Orbo in a reliable and consistent manner had remained a challenge for the organization” but that this year you had “had resolved the key technical problems related to the implementation of Orbo”. Can you say anything regarding the technical breakthroughs you have made?
SM: One of the key problems that we have always faced in implementing Orbo are bearings. The reason is that a typical Orbo interaction involves very strong radial forces that change direction in very small angular displacements. Hence an Orbo system built using traditional bearings is like driving your car at high speed over speed bumps – you can do it, but after a small distance you car will simply break down. The key technical advance that we have made with respect to implementation is a move away from the use of traditional bearing technologies to the use of our own passive magnetic bearing technology, ZeroF.
FET: Can the orbo effect be reconciled to currently known laws of science – or have you discovered something previously unknown that will require science textbooks to be rewritten, and old theories to be discarded?
SM: As strange as many people find this, every single part of an Orbo interaction can be explained using classical physics, except the net result.
FET: How difficult do you think it will it be for third party developers to incorporate Orbo into useful products? Does the technology have the potential for kinds of power output required for such things as transportation, construction and agriculture?
SM: Perhaps one of the most misunderstood part of Orbo is power output. In an Orbo system the power output is simply a function of the rotational speed of the system. Hence power output is scalable.
There are no theoretical limits to the power output that can be produced, however there will be a significant amount of engineering work.
FET: On Steorn’s web site you state that “Every aspect of society from finance, economics and business to education, science and politics will have to adjust to the new opportunities being created by Orbo technology”. Why do think Orbo technology is going to have such a widespread impact?
SM: The availability of free energy will change everything, the availability of free energy in the form of Orbo is even more significant since it can be engineered directly into devices, i.e. no grid connections are required. So Orbo will impact every aspect of our lives.
FET: How do you think your life, and Steorn’s life will change once the public launch has taken place?
SM: There is no doubt that once Orbo is in the market, Steorn will need to evolve into a different type of organization, from one that is involved almost exclusively in product development and research to one that will be focused on the commercial exploitation of Orbo.
FET: What would you say to individuals and companies who are very intrigued by your technology and who are eager to develop products that use Orbo?
SM: I would say that launch is not far away, that access to Orbo will be low cost and readily available. And finally I would say never let anyone do your thinking for you – get involved
Steorn
Friday, August 21, 2009
The events over the last week and especially the last 24hrs have been more than worth the 3 year wait. And to see so many good people work together with purpose has been inspiring.
Thank-you Steorn for allowing me to be part of it.
Steorn Jury Anomalies & Unanswered Questions
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Steorn Jury Anomalies & Unanswered Questions
Read the steorn jury statement below to refresh your memory and then let’s get on to some important questions arising from this:
"In August 2006 the Irish company Steorn published an advertisement in the Economist announcing the development of “a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy”. Qualified experts were sought to form a “jury” to validate these claims.
Twenty-two independent scientists and engineers were selected by Steorn to form this jury. It has for the past two years examined evidence presented by the company. The unanimous verdict of the Jury is that Steorn's attempts to demonstrate the claim have not shown the production of energy. The jury is therefore ceasing work.
The jury consists of scientists and engineers in relevant fields from
R.I.MacDonald
Chairman, Steorn Jury
There are many unanswered questions remaining which have not been adequately addressed and may never be. Firstly, get to the first blindingly obvious question.
Where are the missing Jury members?
On the jury’s website there are listed only 16 individuals. The Steorn jury has always been 22 – where are the other 6? Where is Jeff Bechtold (who, back in 2007 was confirmed as a jury member) and where are the other 5 members?
Ceasing work, not “Completed it’s work”
The statement goes on by saying the jury are “ceasing work”. This does not sound like the jury seen the review process through to it’s conclusion – far from it. It smacks of frustration and impatience and ultimately results in the appearance of walking away leaving the job half done. If they had followed this process to a full conclusion then the statement would have read “The jury have completed their work” Why did they cease work?
No building of devices – just “test data”.
If all the jury did was look at “test data” and no-one attempted to physically replicate the effect then the question has to be why? Could they even have proved anything from “test data” anyway by looking at it with the classical physics spectacles on? Did anyone on the jury bother to even buy some magnets or get some sort of construction / setup going?
You can go your own way
Why was the announcement not made on the Steorn website first? Why not a joint statement? Steorn put out a press release, but that was after the fact and was in response to the Jury announcement. It seemed more like a reaction to the jury’s actions. One does wonder if the jury even communicated the fact they were about to release the statement, leaving Steorn to quickly draft a counter response. The relationship between the jury and Steorn seems on the face of it to have broken down at some point and the wording of the statement infers not very well hidden tension between the two parties.
Why are some of the jury simply identified by initials only or have missing bios?
Why have some of the jury members not submitted a bio to the jury “website?” 2 years in the making and some members can’t even be bothered tell us their backgrounds or even their full names. It looks slack, or at the very least highly unprofessional. How long does it take to write a couple of sentences?
Bizarre Wording Of The Statement
Let’s examine the following sentence – “Steorn's attempts to demonstrate the claim have not shown the production of energy.” The wording of this is highly ambiguous and raises a lot of questions. Wasn’t the task to show whether energy was gained or not? The production of energy is a completely different issue. If they are out to actually capture the zero-point field producing energy and to prove that and see it in action then that is a far cry from what was asked of them by Steorn.
Who’s attempt is it anyway?
Perhaps the most fundamental giveaway in the language here is “Steorn’s attempts”. Wasn’t it the jury who were supposed to go away themselves, build, test and confirm/deny? Shouldn’t this statement read “Our attempts to demonstrate the claim?” Did they sit back and wait for Steorn to provide them with a nicely packaged conclusion / working Orbo
Ning! – Your statement’s ready!
And as a vehicle for delivery of this important and after more than 2 years of preparation, the jury (well some of them) chose a social networking site complete with adverts – Ning. Was it too much to ask for a one page .website? In these times of recession, a .COM can be bought for around $6.99.
It almost seems that by delivering the statement by this means on a social network page shows contempt for Steorn and an attempt to devalue the importance of the outcome either way.
Why the delay?
If the evaluation was over and the jury “ceased” their work in 2008 then why was the result delayed by more than 7+ months? Source: (http://www.steorn.com/news/releases/?id=1141)
Launch / Public Demonstrations Of Orbo 2009
If that all din’t seem bizarre enough for you, then how about the news from Steorn that:
“during 2009 the company had resolved the key technical problems related to the implementation of Orbo and is now focused on commercial launch towards the end of this year, at which time academic and engineering validation would be released concurrent with public demonstrations”.
Critics
Many debunkers have gone on record running "bare faced nonsense" stating that there "never was a jury" and some have been spouting this for the past 2+ years at every opportunity. Not even an 0.0000007th of a chance there is a jury joshed one of them. How could there possibly have been a jury when there have been no leaks in 2 years? (they naively asked). It’s just not possible for 22 people to keep it a secret for that long! they wailed. There is no jury now and there never has been a jury! That particular unicorn has died with this news.

