[Graeme]

Recently, I published a new energy technology called Colliding Plasma Toroid Fusion
http://www.peakoil.com/article12744.html

This was also published by Mesuge in the technology forum.
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic18151.html

This technology is actually one of many that are promoted on the Pure Energy Systems web site. Anybody can submit an invention that will be considered by The New Energy Congress. They have published in link below a list of what they consider to be the top hundred. They have 3 catagories:
1. Needs to be no less than 1 year to commercialization
2. At least less than 2 years from commercial
3. Deep in R&D but Promising, in top 100

Colliding Plasma Toroid Fusion is number 2 in catagory 3.

http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/Congre ... gies_--_RD

I would welcome comments on any of these technologies.

[seb]

I work in the laser fusion field. Here is a I-know-nothing-about-Colliding-Cold-Plasma-Toroid-Fusion scientist's point of view:


It is hard to say if the idea is good or not. Many things work on the paper and don't work for real. I have not seen any big academic paper on it. This does not mean it is bad, it just means that it is probably quite new or unknown in the scientific communauty.

There are many false "good ideas" in science and it can take years and years to prove this is a really bad idea. This could be the same for more well known and "serious" idea like laser fusion or ITER.

A very bad point for this Colliding Plasma Toroid Fusion stuff is that the author talk a lot about anti missile defense. All serious scientists know that this defense project is just a big joke. Remember all the money they spent for their X-ray lasers? And they developped the technology and... nothing.

If this stuff does not turn mainstream in the academic communauty, there is little chance for it to be developped soon. They need money for it and they may claim much more than they can actually get from it.

But nobody knows really. Maybe not even those for work on the project. Time will tell.

And never forget that a good idea may be thrown away because no big and famous scientist has considered it seriously. There is so much science to be done, you know...

[zoidberg]

I'm not competent to argue for or against those technologies from a technical stand point. but I'll offer my 2 cents:

1. Its great to to read about new ideas in energy technology. Its fascinating to see how solutions to problems can be found(even if they're very big problems)

2. The solar and wind advances in technology sound great and theres no reason why they cant effectively help mitigate the decline in fossil fuels. But zero point energy is something I'll believe when my car runs on it.

3. One word: photobioreactor. how cool does that sound?

[SHiFTY]

Unfortunately, I am one of the highly skeptical science grad types, and that wiki page (NOT Wikipedia BTW!) looks as if they have taken a lot of crank ideas and scams, and scattered a few proven existing technologies in amongst them to give an air of respectability. I mean geothermal power and offshore wind turbines on the same page as some unproven lab experiment or CGI rendering of a paddlewheel?

It looks as if the scamsters are moving into higher gear. Sensing the possiblilty of easy Government / Private money, they have created a self-referencing web of scams to try and achieve an air of respectability.

For instance that neutron tube: it has long been possible to create tabletop fusion, the problem is that you have to put more energy in than you get out in a useful form. Likewise with neutron generators like this is made from, they have their uses but are not a useful energy source likely to power the future. Not that portable neutron generators are a good idea anyway- can you say serious radiation hazard!

It is telling that they include outlandish claims of running electricity generation, cars and planes from this wonderful yet-to-be invented invention, only requiring a modest $8m of your money.

Sorry to be such a party-pooper

[Graeme]

Very interesting comments so far and the lack of comments is also revealing.

Seb, I'm very pleased that a fusion scientist has responded. I respectfully ask whether you would be interested to review the mathematics of the toroid model. You are in no way obliged to do this, but if you are interested, you can find it here:

MIT

zoidberg, You are quite right to be sceptical about zero point energy, but at this point I don't regard it as deliberate fraud. These people seem to be sincerely investigating new sources of energy.

Shifty, I also appreciate your comments. The spiral toroid phenomena is described in wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_Spiral_Toroid

However, I agree with you that some unproven ideas (in terms of practical inventions) are indeed scattered amongst well-established ones. Geothermal is my area of expertise; this has been commerical in New Zealand since 1958. Yet they claim that this needs 2 years to be commercial. Perhaps this is just an error of judgement (because the do not have geothermal experts on their staff) and doesn't necessarily mean that the site is entirely a scam. But I have to say that I am now suspicious.

Finally, I would like to suggest to the moderators to set up a STICKY post (if this the appropriate format) to expose scam and frauds. The title could be Fraudulent web sites, companies and inventions. This could be discussed amongst entire staff. You could have one sticky for fraud web sites, one for companies and one for inventions. Just a suggestion.

[seb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'S')eb, I'm very pleased that a fusion scientist has responded. I respectfully ask whether you would be interested to review the mathematics of the toroid model. You are in no way obliged to do this, but if you are interested, you can find it here:

MIT

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seb', 'W')e'd better rely on future projects' data base and try to estimate if these projects can compensate the natural decline of other fields.