Since 1991, BlackLight's founder says his company has raised $60 million from private investors who have included - on a personal basis - the former chairman of Morgan Stanley, Dick Fisher, and the bank's now retired head of energy. Mills says his goal is to produce a 250 kilowatt prototype by end-2010.
Among new energy fixes presented to Reuters in recent days is U.S.-based BlackLight Power.
The company says it may have tapped the energy that cosmologists have struggled to explain, called dark matter, which fills the universe. The concept involves shifting electrons in hydrogen molecules - obtained cheaply from water - into a lower orbit, releasing energy in the process.
Since obtaining hydrogen from water is energy negative, perhaps this new form will make it energy-neutral.
"It represents a boundless form of new primary energy," Randell Mills, founder and chief executive, told Reuters in a telephone interview. "I think it's going to replace all forms of fuel in the world."
Britain's top science academy, the Royal Society, this week urged more funds be channeled into research on geoengineering, but for some climate commentators the unproven, technical solutions smack of society's craving for pain-free get-outs. They note politicians may prefer to feed that habit rather than face tough choices in redressing global warming.
Can't have a solution without pain.
Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr says geoengineering projects will be seized upon by polluters as a quick fix, and the former climate change adviser to oil firm BP said they are simplistic.
"People are being naive ... looking for a technological fix," said Chris Mottershead, who is now head of research and innovation at King's College London. "Anything of the necessary scale will have its own unintended consequences, even if they are not recognized at the moment."
The only answer is to return to the caves as hunter-gatherers.
He pointed out that the age of nuclear energy - a radical carbon-free energy concept that humanity has tried and tested - is still waiting to be reborn, mainly because of political and social concerns. The estimated capital cost of the energy at $500/KW would be less than coal power, one of the cheapest forms of energy now. Several utilities have bought licenses, in case it works.
But nukes are cheaper still, and breeder reactors even cheaper. Thanks, Jimmy Carter.
Last month New Jersey-based Rowan University engineers said the BlackLight process in the lab had produced heat some 1.6-6.5 times beyond levels that can be easily explained.
I like math because it is so precise.
"It does portend some type of novel energy source," said Peter Jansson, associate engineering professor at Rowan
I never did see how dark energy was involved. Maybe only in the journalist's mind? |