ZPEnergy.com - Fuelless engine costs too much

In the free_energy yahoo group eric krieg writes: People,

For those who want to solve the world's serious looming energy problems, I personally think the holy grail of a cheap solar cell is far more likely to discover than a wheel powered by gravity alone.

Another list was having a debate about the financial viability of solar voltaics. A person made a simple extrapolation based on today's numbers showing solar voltaics to not make good business sense. Phil [Karn] made the following cogent response:

Well, solar is indeed a bad idea, if:

1. You're greedy and totally self-centered, and don't consider it at all
important to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases and conserve fuel for
future generations;

2. You don't take advantage of the various government rebate and
buy-down plans in some states (e.g., California) that will cover up to
half the capital cost of these systems;

3. You think the price of electricity will stay the same or actually
decrease in the future;

4. You live in an area with remarkably low electric rates (here in
southern California, 9 cents/kWh *is* remarkably cheap);

5. You know exactly where to invest money in today's market and get a 6%
risk-free return;

6. You don't take advantage of time-of-use metering that can let you
sell most of your solar electricity to the utility at high summer peak
rates and buy back what you need at night at low off-peak rates;

7. You fail to consider that the system will continue to generate
electricity even after the loan is paid off. Most PV panels have 25 year
warranties and, if not physically damaged, will work more or less
forever, with no maintenance beyond an occasional hose-down;

8. You don't think it the least bit cool to generate your own
electricity instead of paying a utility monopoly whatever rate they
choose; or

9. You believe you have some sort of magical "free energy" gizmo that
will produce unlimited energy at no cost even though it has never been
shown to work, and would have to violate several firmly-established
physical laws to ever work.

--Phil

Message:
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 18:02:21 -0700
From: Phil Karn
Subject: Re: Fuelless engine costs too much

Tom Schum wrote:
>
> Recent file dated April 7 called "free-free-free..." takes the
> unsuspecting reader to http://www.fuellesspower.com, where you can buy
> plans on CD for as little as $150. If you want, for $300 you can get
> ALL the plans.
>
> That's a little bit too steep for me. I guess I am just not in the big
> leagues. There are some pretty pictures on the site, however, so maybe
> worth a visit just to see them.

Haven't you figured it out yet?

None of these "free energy" guys has *ever* built a machine that
actually works. But they don't *have* to work. They've figured out
another way to make money.

They simply sell books and CDs with "complete plans"!

Price your books and CDs well above your duplication cost so you make a
handsome profit, but don't price them so high that people will go to the
trouble and expense of suing you when they build your machine and it
doesn't work. Simply blame them for not building it right, or using the
wrong materials, or not operating it right, or not chanting the right
magic words, or whatever other excuses you can dream up. After all,
*you* didn't build his machine for him, so how can he expect any
guarantees? If he's stupid enough to buy your book or CD in the first
place, chances are he isn't a very competent builder anyway, so he'll
probably eventually give up and assume he just built it wrong and not
blame you.

But whatever you do, never, ever refund their money.

From the inventor's point of view, books and CDs on free energy have
another major advantage: they provide a nice soapbox for your
often-unconventional political views and elaborate psychological
delusions. They're always good for padding out the pages.

Joe Newman is the undisputed master of this technique, but it's since
been copied by many other free energy crackpots.

--Phil

Message:
Date: Sat, 09 Apr 2005 01:39:58 -0700
From: Phil Karn
Subject: Re: Re: Are there any ? - and - How would we know ?

pulsed_ignition wrote:
>
> Before Einstein, scientists KNEW there were only 3 dimensions. If you
> do not see the science you know nothing about Plasma, and you are
> forgiven.

Nonsense. Before Einstein, we had 3 spatial dimensions plus time. After
Einstein, we still had 3 spatial dimensions plus time. No physical
machine nor natural mechanism suddenly started to work (or stopped
working) the instant Einstein wrote down his now-famous equations. On
that momentous day 100 years ago, engineers went about their jobs as
they always had. The universe continued on as if nothing had changed
because nothing HAD changed, at least not outside our human brains.

Einstein gave us humans a new mathematical representation of time *as
if* it were a fourth spatial dimension, albeit one that uses imaginary
numbers (based on the square root of -1) rather than real numbers like
the other three. Mathematics is a mental construct. It's just a tool
(albeit an extremely powerful and essential tool) of our human brains to
better understand the universe around us.

Einstein did not create any new physical phenomena. He merely gave us
some simpler and more comprehensive (and therefore better) mathematical
models that accurately describe numerous physical phenomena that had
already been observed by others, phenomena that didn't quite fit the
existing theories. He also predicted additional phenomena that had not
yet been observed, but could be observed and measured with properly
designed experiments. Nearly all of those new phenomena were quickly
confirmed by many experimenters, thus adding considerable weight to his
theories. The last remaining prediction or two is now being tested by
Gravity Probe B.

That's how science works.

So which exact physical phenomena have you (or anyone) observed that are
inconsistent with existing physical theory, but compatible with your
own? And what previously unobserved phenomena have you predicted with
your theory that have, in fact, been confirmed by multiple independently
replicated experiments?

If, as I strongly suspect, your answers are "none" and "none", then your
invocation of Einstein's name is totally meaningless. It shows that you
know very little about the true nature of science and just like to drop
famous names in an attempt to impress people who don't know any better.

--Phil