[ubercynicmeister]

Looks like zero point energy might not just be the rantings of mad scientists after all.

Well, they're mad, but they're not scientists. If they were, they would know that ZPE is nonsense.

Avo
(tenured professor in a top-10 US physics dept)

Guys, be a bit fair, here....Zero Point Energy certainly does exist...but we're talking about such TINY quantities that us stupid humans can tap into, that, well....it's o'all net effect on preventing Peak Energy will amount to something closely approaching ZERO...

I refuse to rule out the Zero Point Energy "power source" in the future.

It's just that it's NOT HERE NOW.

And won't be in the next few years (one assumes).

In ANY case, even if we did get Zero Point Energy Tomorrow Morning at 8 am (just in time for Monday's business) the "scaling up" would still take oil-based chemicals to achieve.

OK, so where's the Oil coming from to do this?

[Rickenbacker]

Up until recently I didnt give conspiracy theorists much credit, assuming they were mostly lonely fat trekkies with X files posters on their walls who spent their weekends at area 51 with a thermos...

After reading some of the 911 stuff, I joined alex jones' www.prisonplanet.com, and have been working my way throught the documentaries available for download, and I have to say my opinions have changed somewhat, though not an unquestioning initiate, there seems to be a lot of serious research being done into the 'secret government' stuff and other topics.

For a bit of a laugh, I thought I'd give the UFO stuff another chance, see if it held any similar credibility or was the product of a bunch of inbred hicks. I came across 'the disclosure project' (http://www.disclosureproject.com/) which has testimonies from numerous (over 400) government, corporate, intelligence service and military staff with some extraordinary claims. It reaches a point where you can either dismiss the whole thing as an incredibly elaborate (and risky) hoax for seemingly little benefit to the participants beyond a few book sales, or you have to accept that there may well be somthing to it.

Why I'm posting this in the energy tech forum, is they discuss a technology derived from alien hardware called 'zero point' energy, which has apparently been in development since the 50's, and could provide a solution to our energy problems, allowing travel at super-lightspeed and anti gravity technology.

Has anybody come across this information, has anybody got any further information on 'zero point' energy, and does anybody have reason to believe the disclosure project is a clever hoax?

I realise I'm beginning to sound like a fringe nut!!! However, novel problems require novel solutions!!! Could this be the 'secret plan' that allows governments to be quietly confident on the energy situation?

[avo]

There's already a ZPE thread here:

http://peakoil.com/fortopic9186.html

And, I'm sorry to say, the whole notion is complete nonsense (as far as usuable energy is concerned).

Avo
Stanford PhD in physics

[Rickenbacker]

Ill file that one with abiotic oil then!

*Sigh*, thought as much. And for a second I had a little outlandish hope! Guess we got to hope that we can supply ourselves with iraqi oil until we get fusion going. Not that that is much less outlandish.

[Jack]

Rickenbacker...I don't mean to be unkind...but let's take a look at reality.

You mention that quite a few people make extraordinary claims - but that doesn't really help. At one time, there were lots of reports of faeries. Should we devote ourselves to seeking the land of Avalon?

The tragedy is that most of the people aren't hoaxers. Rather, they are misguided true believers. So as you cast about for novel solutions, I urge you to be skeptical. When exceptional claims are made, exceptional proof is required - and proof is far more than a website, some fuzzy photographs, and a few yellowed newspaper clippings.

Such distractions have a real potential for harm, because they risk diverting resources from practical approaches.

The Easter Islanders put up lots of big statues as the end came. Did they, perhaps, think that making bigger "gods" would save the day? And - are we at risk of making the same error?

[some_guy282]

I watched the video on the Disclosure site of their conference in May 2001. After that I bought the Disclosure book and read it. I'm pretty convinced something is going on with secret technologies. It's not really possible for many of those people to be misguided. They're former government employees, many of whom claim to have had access to the technologies in government installations. Either they're lying through their teeth, or they're telling the truth. Their are other witnesses who didn't have access to technology, but did have other compelling stories to tell. Like the nuclear weapons suddenly shutting down when a UFO was hovering over the missle silo. That happened simultaneously to two installations within 50 miles of each other, and the man who literally had his "finger on the button" toldhis story of that day.

I'm a pretty open minded person. I'll believe anything if given enough compelling evidence. As far as the Disclosure project, Zero Point energy, UFO's...Personally? I'm a believer. I believe there are UFO's, crazy as it might sound. I was fairly skeptical before coming across the Disclosure Project. What really got me was testimony from the former astronauts. I forget their names, but there were two of them. I think Gary Cooper was one of them? He died last year. One of them was the last man to walk on the moon, and the other was the last American to orbit the Earth solo. They both gave testimony to the Disclosure Project on seeing UFO's while in NASA. If hearing from former astronauts that UFOs exist doesn't convince you, then nothing will. Whether or not the UFO's are man made or extraterrestrial in origin, I'm not sure of.

If you have an open mind I'd highly encourage you to buy and read the Disclosure book. It's very interesting stuff. Despite the fact I think the technology may exist though, I also think it's a moot point. Even if Zero Point energy devices do exist, they're not going to save us from Peak Oil. We're still going to go through a terribly painful transition, and a die off in some form. Nothing can avert a crisis at this point, not even Zero Point Energy. And if we did have enough Zero Point energy today, we'd just go on growing and consuming like idiots until we hit a ceiling with something else we couldn't find a replacement for.

I'm remembering a UFO story that was in the news a few months ago. It happened in Mexico and was all over CNN...you might remember it. Mexican radar picked up 6 objects, so they scrambled a fighter jet to go see what it was. The fighter came to the area, and despite the fact that the objects were still on radar, the pilots saw nothing. Then they switched on a thermal imaging device, and saw six small discs flying through the air. The video they played on CNN for a few days was of the discs flying straight for a few seconds. Although they didn't show it on the video, they said the discs then proceeded to surround the fighter jet on all sides, and fly alongside in sync with it for a while before zooming away faster than the plane could catch up. The Disclosure Book is full of such stories from pilots. About a week later CNN reported that "experts" concluded the phenomina could be explained by ball lightning. Ridicule me all you want, but there's no fucking way I'm going to believe those six objects that perfectly matched the speed of the plane and flew alongside were ball lightning.

[MacG]

Could this be the 'secret plan' that allows governments to be quietly confident on the energy situation?

And why would "they" keep it secret then? Why not use it to gain world hegemony as soon as "they" learn the secrets? That is how it happened in times past.

[Wildwell]

And since when have all governments been 'in it together'? To me, getting hold of some of this technology sounds like an ideal way for world domination by individual nations; some of the maverick nations would love that. But then, it always seems to be the US government that has the kit for some reason… And how come all these bomb tests and the bombing of Japan was allowed as well as the use of chemical weapons?

[Rickenbacker]

When exceptional claims are made, exceptional proof is required

Nice quote.

Believe me I'm always on the 'skeptical acceptance of the possibility' side rather than the 'it's possible so I believe it' side of things. So theres absolutely nothing to it? No research that says 'maybe, if...'?

[some_guy282]

When exceptional claims are made, exceptional proof is required

Nice quote.

Believe me I'm always on the 'skeptical acceptance of the possibility' side rather than the 'it's possible so I believe it' side of things. So theres absolutely nothing to it? No research that says 'maybe, if...'?

I agree. Too bad Congress wont hold hearings to listen to the testimony of these hundreds of former high level military and government employees, who could present evidence and tell Congress what installations they'd have to look at for more evidence. But then again, if you don't look for something it must not be there, right?

[MicroHydro]

To everyone who believes in usable energy from ZPE. I have something even better to sell you. It works on naquadah, element 115, and dilithium crystals with math coming from brane theory.

[avo]

To everyone who believes in usable energy from ZPE. I have something even better to sell you. It works on naquadah, element 115, and dilithium crystals with math coming from brane theory.

Hey, wait a minute, brane theory is real!

http://books.cambridge.org/0521809126.htm

And doesn't the NCC-1701-D use trilithium crystals???

Avo

[gg3]

I knew Bernie Haisch. Coincidentally I installed the PBX at his Cal Institute for Physics & Astrophysics.

Shortly thereafter, I got involved with a working-group that was studying all manner of sustainable energy technologies, ZPE included.

To get to the end of the story quickly,

1) Haisch & Rueda were originally looking for a more elegant explanation for inertial mass, and that's all. The implications in terms of potentially vast energy sources only occurred to them after they had developed their work to the point where it was getting ready to publish. Their theories hold together pretty well and the math checks out. There are ongoing debates in the physics community on this subject, with the usual mix of scepticism and cautious acceptance. The jury is still out. Bell Labs did verify the Casimir effect, but on a very small scale, that does not translate to something with practical macro applications.

By the way, based on all my conversations with Bernie, I believe he is an honest person who is motivated by honest scientific interests.

2) All of our testing of various individuals' & groups' purported ZPE devices did not find any example that could consistently produce an energy output on a usable scale. This was as of a few years ago.

3) Some, probably most, ZPE inventors are honestly trying to build a viable system. Some, probably most, are inexperienced in relevant fields and are making simple but honest measurement errors that lead them to believe they have a working device when in fact they don't. A few are outright frauds and have made a mess of the field for others.

4) Yes there are implications in terms of weapons. Not just WMDs. I'm not going to say any more about this, don't bother asking.

5) As per _The Limits to Growth_, either the original or the recent update, any unlimited source of clean energy would merely lead to scenarios where humans run into other ecological limits that cause an overshoot-and-collapse scenario. So even with free energy, there's no free lunch.

6) Anyone who knows of a working ZPE prototype is welcome to email me via the "private message" function on this board. I will get our engineering team back together and we will conduct tests on the purported ZPE device. If it works, i.e. produces a measurable energy output that appears consistent with its theoretical claims, we'll endorse it in writing. We won't accept financial compensation beyond reimbursement of expenses, and we will expect to be able to duplicate the device in our own workshop as part of our validation efforts. We will not transfer the technology to any outside individual or group unless or except as authorized by the original developers.

I'm still sceptical, and still open-minded. If you think you have a working device, the ball's in your court.

[khebab]

These references clearly demonstrate that ZPE is real:

A thought experiment published by physicist Robert Forward in 1984 demonstrated how the Casimir force could in principle be used to extract energy from the quantum vacuum (Phys. Rev. B, 30, 1700, 1984). Theoretical studies in the early 1990s (Phys. Rev. E, 48, 1562, 1993) verified that this was not contradictory to the laws of thermodynamics (since the zero-point energy is different from a thermal reservoir of heat).
Inertial mass and the quantum vacuum fields
Bernard Haisch, Alfonso Rueda & York Dobyns, Annalen der Physik, 10, 393-414 (2001).
Inertial mass as reaction of the vacuum to acccelerated motion
A. Rueda & B. Haisch, Phys. Letters A, vol. 240, No. 3, pp. 115-126, (1998).
Inertia as a zero-point-field Lorentz force
B. Haisch, A. Rueda & H.E. Puthoff, Physical Review A, Vol. 49, No. 2, pp. 678-694 (1994).
Plus numerous others quoted at the bottom of this link
http://www.calphysics.org/zpe.html


And it’s discussed in this link
http://www.nature.com/nature/fow/010719.html

The question that now arises is whether there are real practical commercial applications.

I'll try to find something on this.

The Casimir forces are tiny tiny forces measurable on ultra light plates in an ultra high vaccum. Yes, it's a seducing and esoteric idea to extract energy from quantum imbalance but the energy level is far far from any practical use.

[gg3]

Hooboy!, the ZPE topics are multiplying around here like little mice.

I knew Haisch. I met with Goldes. Others in our working-group knew Hutchison. And all the rest of them.

Quick summary:

Haisch is an honest scientist who plays by the rules. His theories are reasonable enough, and have met with the usual mix of scepticism & cautious acceptance among his peers. Haisch has never claimed to have a device, or support any claims of anyone else for having a device. He was always interested in theory, and the energy implications were secondary.

Most ZPE inventors are honestly motivated but are inexperienced in relevant fields and therefore make measurement errors that seem to indicate they have something when they don't. There are of course a few scammers out there. I'm not going to comment on the subject of which inventors and companies are honest and which aren't: investor beware, and use your head, and have independent engineers test any claims of working devices.

We did not find a single example of a device that produced a consistent measurable output that could be attributed to ZPE.

If anyone thinks they have one, email me via private message and I'll get the engineering team back together to conduct objective tests. If it passes, we'll endorse. We also play by the rules and we keep our word.

I don't think a viable application is likely any time soon. In the meantime, we have plenty of ambient energy sources we can tap, e.g. wind and sunlight, and plenty of modern physics we can use, e.g. nuclear fission reactors. We ought to be busting our butts to put all of those into full deployment, and then if we get a viable fusion reactor or a viable ZPE device a few decades from now, good for us we've earned it.

As for UFOs: Why is this that people always tend to correlate observations about unknowns? We observe legitimate unknowns in the sky (and by this I do not mean "alien spacecraft," I merely mean "unknowns"), and we discover theories that hint at vast energy supplies, and then we make the immediate psychological inference that these are necessarily related. Nope, sorry, there's no empirical or logical basis to infer a relationship, and prematurely doing so doesn't get us anywhere.

See also my comments at:
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic9162-0-asc-30.html

[gg3]

eeyow!, three ZPE topics in a week!

Hey folks, I knew Haisch (honest scientist, see my linked comments), and our working-group investigated every single ZPE device claim that we could find a few years ago. Most of our investigations were in the field, hands-on, at various inventors' workshops in the US and a couple of other countries. We've seen all of them, the reasonable, the ridiculous, and all of the ones in between.

Nothing was found that could produce a consistent output attributable to ZPE. If you think you have one, send me a private message and I'll arrange for validation testing. (This is real skepticism: open-minded willingness to conduct objective tests without preconceptions in either direction.)

Meanwhile, the photovoltaic effect involves some pretty nifty physics, as does nuclear fission. And wind turbines, though Newtonian, are still a good bet:-) Now let's get to work on these while we still have time.

See also my comments at:
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic9162-0-asc-30.html

[gg3]

Oh, and about UFOs. Those witnesses are probably reporting honestly. However that does not prove the existence of alien spacecraft, it only proves that there are some interesting unknowns in the sky that deserve further investigation. And those unknowns in the sky do not prove the existence of viable technologies for tapping so-far theoretical ambient high-potential energy fields.

There's *no correlation,* except the psychological tendency to assume that two unknowns are somehow related.

Meanwhile, we still need a few thousand gigawatts of nuclear fission, wind, and solar. Now let's get to it and build!

[Caoimhan]

One comment about the association of UFOs and ZPE...

The connection is gravity. UFOs have purportedly been observed to perform maneuvers involving incredible acceleration. If these craft are manned by organic beings, similar to us in physiology, then the only way that such maneuvers could be survived is through manipulation of gravity. Why? Because "regular" propulsion systems are the engines pushing the craft's superstructure, which pushes the cockpit, which pushes the pilot's seat, which pushes the pilot's flesh, which pushes the pilot's bones, etc... High-G maneuvers, then, cause organs to shift and squeeze, and blood to rush into un-desirable places (away from the brain, for instance).

An anti-gravitic/gravitic drive, however, pushes every gram of that pilot's mass equally, simultaneously. If you can control gravity, what would be a 200 G turn is a 0 G turn (assuming your drive could exert 200 Gs worth of acceleration in the opposite vector).

Now, we could theorize that the power source of such an "alien" craft is matter/anti-matter or fusion or some as-of-yet untheorized power source, but ZPE theories have some bearing on theories pertaining to the nature of gravity. It is assumed by many, that if you figure out ZPE, you'll have basically figured out gravity, or vice-versa.

So, if these "alien" craft manipulate gravity, then they likely use ZPE.

[Caoimhan]

The Casimir forces are tiny tiny forces measurable on ultra light plates in an ultra high vaccum. Yes, it's a seducing and esoteric idea to extract energy from quantum imbalance but the energy level is far far from any practical use.

Much the same was said of the photo-electric effect and the mass-energy conversion ratio that Einstein developed (E=MC^2). Who would have thought in 1925 that semi-conductors made from sand would raise the light-electricity conversion efficiency from <1% to ~20% someday? Who would have thought in 1930 that less than a generation later that nuclear mass would be converted to energy on a massive scale? I'm sure that critics said many of the same things in their day, except instead of making inane references to Gene Rodenberry or George Lucas, they were using Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to scoff at those who believed that this new science could change the world in meaningful ways.

[RG73]

The Casimir forces are tiny tiny forces measurable on ultra light plates in an ultra high vaccum. Yes, it's a seducing and esoteric idea to extract energy from quantum imbalance but the energy level is far far from any practical use.

Much the same was said of the photo-electric effect and the mass-energy conversion ratio that Einstein developed (E=MC^2). Who would have thought in 1925 that semi-conductors made from sand would raise the light-electricity conversion efficiency from <1% to ~20% someday? Who would have thought in 1930 that less than a generation later that nuclear mass would be converted to energy on a massive scale? I'm sure that critics said many of the same things in their day, except instead of making inane references to Gene Rodenberry or George Lucas, they were using Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to scoff at those who believed that this new science could change the world in meaningful ways.

Reread this:

As per _The Limits to Growth_, either the original or the recent update, any unlimited source of clean energy would merely lead to scenarios where humans run into other ecological limits that cause an overshoot-and-collapse scenario. So even with free energy, there's no free lunch.

Now, revisit your own thoughts. Past discoveries have only made us more efficient in destroying our environment and utilizing non-renewable resources. Unlimited energy will not help with this. It will exacerbate an already bad situation. Sprawl is bad with merely cheap energy--imagine it with free energy. There will be no limit to the appetite for consumption, other than completely devouring everything on Earth. And then no amount of energy is going to matter. So it doesn't really matter if this is science fiction or not--we're likely going to run up against any number of other limits to our growth long before this could be made into a practical application.