http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060818/sc_afp/irelandscienceenergy_060818141011

Comments?

Hmmm, here's a comment:


Edit: read it a little better. I hope they're right about this. It could revolutionize.... everything. There's the answer to global warming, right there.

You can take an engine, put a generator to it, convert it to run off of methane gas (freely available from your septic system ) and have free heat in the winter, and be able to help power your home.

Did you know if you buy some ground and put some wind generators out, that if you produce more electricity than you use, you actually get money back from the elec complany? Interesting concept, eh?

Which companies? I could setup a wind farm...

afaik, any of them should.

Yeah, most energy companies will buy back energy from homes if you produce excess electricity.

Are they doing it to encourage 'healthier' ways of harvesting energy?

Not only that, they can resell the energy they buy from you at a profit, so everyone wins.

Or you could start your own energy company running out of your back yard .

Think of all the tax issues. Plus you would be able to supply a grand total of what, one house.

This would be a great source of revenue for those in Chicago...but not where I am because there's very little wind here

lol, I'm sure that city development planners would just LOVE to have windmills spring up all over the place (thats assuming that you can get permission to build one in your backyard in the first place...)

/me wishes he lived near the Straits of Mackinac. All kinds of windmills up there.

So what do you guys tthink of this "discovery"? Will it turn out to be legitimate or not?

Let's just hope it's not going to go down in a ball of flames like those cloning scientists in South Korea

We can always hope, but who knows.

Its legitimacy isn't the real question. The real question is how much will the actual costs be? For example, if early prototypes are the size of a house and put out the amount of energy equal to a handfull of AA batteries, its never going to get off the ground regardless of whether or not its making energy from nothing. Just like if its the size of a small room and puts out enough energy to power a small town, but costs $10,000,000 to build, again, you probably won't see it for a loooong time.

I notice there is very little detail... Hard to know what is really going on...
'Course, what can you expect from something like this...


I'll believe it when I see the explanation...

That probably has more to do with the fact that its coming from Yahoo and AFP than a science journal or similar (aka, its targeted for the "mainstream" crowd )

Illegit Science Warning Sign #1: Taking a discovery to the press before it is published and thoroughly peer-reviewed.

Illegit Science Warning Sign #2: Making obscenely incredible claims that appear to violate the laws of physics.

Illegit Science Warning Sign #3: Claiming that anyone disparaging the claim is part of a conspiracy, trying to stir controversey.

Come on guys, you don't actually believe this, do you?