# Alternative Energy Community



## Goofy Logic (Nov 6, 2015)

When it comes to subjects that attract people who are rather looney, I believe alternative energy is one that attracts the most conspiracy theorists.  The community is full of hucksters and con-men who, like @Brad Watson_Miami, make heavy use of pseudoscience, rely on burden-of-proof for their claims, and will get really angry if anyone dares question the theory behind said invention.

It is also not unusual for them to blame any criticism and financial or legal setbacks on "technology coverup" by profit-mad industries, usually the auto and oil industry.

The more seedier part of the community seem to focus on getting energy out of water.  whether this is because it is the most common substance on the surface of the earth or it ideally fits the requirement of "Green" energy is up for debate. While the idea has been around for a while, the Cold Fusion craze from 1988-1990 appears to be related on the same idea.

The Pure Energy Wiki Sums up the mindset perfectly: "If it appears to break the laws of physics, and it works, that's when we get interested."


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## TowinKarz (Nov 6, 2015)

I somehow knew, before even opening the thread and reading your write up, that it was going to be about the cranks that still think "Free Energy" is real and being suppressed by the big power companies, just like how Ford has the 400-mile-a-gallon carburetor locked up in a safe somewhere.... 

I wonder if 1,000 years ago, these same guys were around, blabbing about how they'd bred a horse that never got tired....

The song never changes.


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## Brad Watson_Miami (Nov 7, 2015)

@Goofy Logic / anonymous cow ard, 

The definition of 'huckster' or 'con-man' includes _deception so as to acquire money_. Since I AM neither deceiving anyone or taking any monie$ for my information, your categorization of me is a proven lie! You are a compulsive liar and have taken the BIGGEST gamble there is by mocking GOD and His/Her Christ. The _law of karma_ will reflect your actions.

----------------------------------------------------​
*Earth's Moon Colony* (EMC1) would mine for _helium 3_ to solve Earth's energy and environmental crisis.


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## Splendid (Nov 7, 2015)

Well this got interesting fast. I see @Brad Watson_Miami now adheres to the loveshy school of debating,


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## Goofy Logic (Nov 7, 2015)

Brad Watson_Miami said:


> *Earth's Moon Colony* (EMC1) would mine for _helium 3_ to solve Earth's energy and environmental crisis.



Helium-3 is a potential energy source, sure. But for the _moon. _you are forgetting about the energy and resource requirements to ship this stuff to the earth.


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## TowinKarz (Nov 7, 2015)

A lot of cranks are ignorant of economics.

A more complex way to do something isn't necessarily better and is, frequently, worse, as every step in the process of building something requires the expenditure of something, be it mass, energy or time. A lot of rabid "science" defenders try to pretend this isn't so and say that economics is just an excuse not to advance, the "who's going to pay for that" question is never addressed without a dirty look and a snarl that you're some kind of Luddite stuck in the past or a contemptible caveman who just can't get their heads around how GREAT an idea this is, so great, that somehow, it renders economics void. 

Just because we have the technology to manufacture golf balls on the Moon right now, doesn't mean it's going to happen because for the same price in terms of resources spent, you could supply a lifetime of golf balls made the "low tech" conventional way in terrestrial factories to every golfer on the planet. The sheer cost of getting to the Moon and back is frequently overlooked. They also seem to have an almost mystic belief that stuff made in a more "high tech" way is, better.... somehow..... in much the same way they have that flawed view of genetics that believes that it's always better to be bigger, stronger and faster than your ancestors, when any biologist can point out there are times when it pays to get smaller and weaker (and eat less when, say there's little food) again, more "economics" arguments that I think ruin a lot of the daydreams of armchair thinkers. Everything has to balance cost against benefits, but to the crank, they are so allured by what COULD be possible, they miss the forest for the trees, so to speak. 

Sometimes this ties into a grander crank theory about how they've also developed some revolutionary new kind of energy that will make the trip less expensive, if not negligibly trivial in terms of fuel costs, but when asked for proof of THAT, they often circle right around and say that the raw material for this marvelous new engine just happens to be..... Helium-3, on the Moon. 

It's a closed circle argument, with no easy "hop on" point where the physics, economics (or both) isn't so suspect that it's not worth it, which the cranks spin into some grand conspiracy by the establishment to keep everyone from ever buying a box of golf balls with "Made on the Moon" packaging.


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## Bridechu (Nov 7, 2015)

The guy who created the original Chuck E Cheese set-up, Aaron Fechter, has been trying to make alternative fuel with water and graphite for a couple decades now. He actually almost blew up his entire building a couple years ago and disrupted Orlando train services for a day when a tank ruptured. The guy is an outstanding lolcow in so many fields.


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## Brad Watson_Miami (Nov 7, 2015)

@Goofy Logic,

I AM not "forgetting about the energy and resource requirements to ship Helium 3 to Earth". How much money are the shipments back from the International Space Station currently generating? Space ships full of supplies heading to the Moon Colony returning full of Helium 3 will pay for itself.


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## TowinKarz (Nov 7, 2015)

The ISS isn't being run for-profit. And the "I" part was done specifically to spread out the costs to everyone.


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## autisticdragonkin (Nov 7, 2015)




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## Mrs Paul (Nov 7, 2015)




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## neverendingmidi (Nov 8, 2015)

Most of the shipments from the ISS are waste or finished experiments. The shipment _to_ the space station are pretty damned expensive, which is why just about every section that's been sent is so far behind schedule.


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## ToroidalBoat (Nov 8, 2015)

I thought from the thread title that it was about people who took alternatives like solar power or wind power (stuff that still actually works) way too seriously.


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## Splendid (Nov 8, 2015)

ToroidalBoat said:


> I thought from the thread title that it was about people who took alternatives like solar power or wind power (stuff that still actually works) way too seriously.


Wind power isn't actually that great of an idea. Sure it might work locally in some areas, but there are a lot of cranks who believe that we can genuinely power the entire world with nothing but wind and solar energy, and because they're advocating for a form of energy that does really exist, they seem much more credible.


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## Enclave Supremacy (Nov 8, 2015)

TowinKarz said:


> I somehow knew, before even opening the thread and reading your write up, that it was going to be about the cranks that still think "Free Energy" is real and being suppressed by the big power companies, just like how Ford has the 400-mile-a-gallon carburetor locked up in a safe somewhere....



Yeah well these people are idiots after-all. The Tesla wireless energy thing gets me, how is that supposed to work? I was generally under the impression that colossal amounts of energy flying through the air was a bad thing. But it's being suppressed by Big Energy, those guys that must _love_ losing about 1/3 of their generated product in transmission alone.

I love how Amero-Centric everything is as-well. When people claim that the Oil Companies cover things up but what about all the high-tech companies without super massive Oil cartels, like Japan or something.


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## TowinKarz (Nov 8, 2015)

That's when you get into the fractal conspiracies, those pesky logical constraints that undermine conspiracies are solved by invoking even LARGER conspiracies.

Big Oil (tm) is REALLY just a front for the New World Order when operating in countries with petroleum industries! Duh!   In Japan, they hide behind "legitimate" national industries like fishing, shipping and producing really weird manga titles....

That's also why Ford never took the magical carb out of that safe in the early 00's when people were so fed up with gas prices that a car that got 400 miles a gallon would instantly put all their competitors out of business.....  they're secretly controlled by the space lizards who don't want us sheep getting ahead in life..... you don't REALLY think the Ford Motor Company BUILDS CARS for such a pedestrian thing as capitalist profit do you!?

And you're right, lots of these people have Tesla-boners, he's the perfect "Free Energy" patsy for them to lionize, he's a scientist who never got his ideas to work, and he's DEAD.


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## Goofy Logic (Nov 8, 2015)

Let's do a case study of one alt-energy freak: Paul Pantone and the GEET fuel system.

His idea is a "reactor" that generates plasma and decomposes fuel into component elements.  However if you look closer at the reactor, you realize it is nothing more than a pipe with a magnet in it, because FUKKIN' MAGNETS! The system in reality makes the engine a water-injected system by bubbling exhaust gasses though the fuel first.

Paul himself is a bit of a drunk, and when he was getting sued for patent infringment, he claimed technology cover-up and got himself committed to a mental hospital.

Paul is now supposedly in Oklahoma after getting out, and is still trying to peddle his free energy machine.


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## TowinKarz (Nov 8, 2015)

And, 90% of the comments are free-energy disciples arguing he's being persecuted, he's being oppressed, the powers that be (unironically called as such) are trying to keep him down, the courts are crooked, reputable scientists don't know what they're saying, media sources that don't say a kind word are "biased", and how do we know it DOESN'T work? and the "If it worked you could buy one from somewhere other than the back of a huckster's car" argument is a fallacy because the government passed laws making it illegal to sell them... or something..... blah blah blah ...... I'm NOT a crackpot!!! 

If only there was a way to efficiently harness the brains of conspiracy theorists as their minds do donuts on the lawn.... that would be the solution to the energy crisis.


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## DykesDykesChina (Nov 8, 2015)

Goofy Logic said:


> Helium-3 is a potential energy source, sure. But for the _moon. _you are forgetting about the energy and resource requirements to ship this stuff to the earth.


It is actually possible to ship nuclear fuels such as He3 from other celestial bodies to earth and release net energy -- this is because nuclear fuels pack several orders of magnitude more energy per mass unit than is needed to move the same mass from one planet to another. That said, while there is a lot of noise being made about He3 mining on the moon, it would probably be impractical, because it is very diluted in the regolith (moon dust). More realistic (but of course also more futuristic) might be to "mine" the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune for it, using maybe some kind of ramjet-like contraption to do so. If you are keen on moon mining, you should rather set your eyes on the moon's Thorium resources!

Not that there will be any neccessity to do something like this in the foreseeable future. Earth is very rich in all manner of nuclear fuels, Actinides (Uranium and Thorium) as well as fusion fuels (Deuterium and Lithium). It does not have He3 but this is not a big problem because the first generation of fusion plants will run on Deuterium and Tritium (which will be bred from Lithium) which are abundant on earth. He3 fusion is more difficult to achieve than D-Li-T fusion, and thus will probably be rather used for propelling spaceships than for power generation on earth. It is often claimed that "fusion will give us nearly unlimited energy", but we don't need to wait for fusion. Once we set up some Integral Fast Reactors or Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (both technologies have been developed and successfully tested by American National Laboratories), we can run our entire civilization on Actinides for millenia.

But back to our friends, the free energy lolcows. These come in several flavors:


The scientifically semi-literate. These usually have some science background, maybe engineering, sometimes even physics. They claim they have discovered something revolutionary, that is, an energy source which doesn't pose even the slightest risk of accident, creates absolutely no hazardous waste and takes energy out of thin air. They may allude to some effect which has been studied by mainstream scientists, such as "cold fusion" (in which there has been a waxing and waining interest from theorists and experimentalists but so far has proven elusive and probably doesn't work) or zero-point energy. Nonetheless, so far none of their inventions could be replicated by independent researchers, and so we are left with the realization that once more wishful thinking has overpowered reason.
The Snakeoil Salesmen. "YOU! Your support is needed to make our fantastic clean energy source a reality! Just invest ten thousand US$ to make it happen! You don't want to deprive humanity of clean energy, do you?!"
The total crackpots. No scientific knowledge here. Einstein's wrong cuz user WorldsBigestGeinus on forum so-and-so has said so. Relativity is a scam by the international financial elite! I can run my car on water, but the insidious oil industry suppresses my invention and even threatens to kill me! My clean energy generator pulls orgon vibrations out of a pink parallel universe. No, you can't see it in action because... you know... it broke down yesterday and I, like, need to repair it. Often, these guys don't stop at "clean energy" and go the full way and "invent" a perpetuum mobile. (But they can't demonstrate it right now because the evil oil industry has sent out its henchmen to kill them!)
Examples:

1st type: Claus Wilhelm Turtur (who actually is a TRUE and HONEST professor of physics).

2nd type: Andrea Rossi

3rd type: Daniel Dingel

Keep in mind that if something is said to have ZERO negative side effects it is probably useless. Like in medicine, everything that has an effect also has some side effects.

BTW zero-point energy is a real effect -- quantum field theory predicts that vacuum is full of tiny particle fluctuations creating pairs of virtual particles which exist for a very short time. This energy cannot be used to drive a machine though: because it is evenly distributed throughout space, you cannot exploit it. For this to be possible, there has to be an energy gradient, that is a concentration of energy at one point and a lack of energy at another, so that you can create an energy flux from the high-energy place (e.g. a hot nuclear reactor) to the low-energy place (the cooling tower or cooling pond) and on the way you can re-route a certain fraction of the energy to do useful work. Zero-point energy, which exists everywhere at constant concentration, thus does not offer this possibility.


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## The Colonel (Nov 8, 2015)

Solar freaking roadways.


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## TowinKarz (Nov 8, 2015)

Some theorize that you could _maybe_ get work out of zero point energy, but, to do that, you'd have to put so much excess energy "'in" to whatever it would take to set up that gradient that the overall output would be little more than enough to maybe boil a cup of water..... for an entire GALAXY of material... not worth it.  I'd be like a machine that could restore power to a dead "AA" battery, that's in turn powered by six D-cells that exhaust themselves in the process.

A lot of the cranks are big on zero-point energy, since it's a relatively new buzzword they can sound smart tossing around and laypeople generally don't know what it is beyond this kind of energy that's just floating around out there in the universe, waiting to be tapped like some huge oil reserve, which, as pointed out, isn't possible since the subatomic world doesn't work the same way the superatomic world we inhabit does. 

It's an appeal to the ignorance of yokels,  like arguing you could play billiards with the planets if you just built a big enough cue stick, forgetting that as you scale up or down in the universe, the rules change.....

When the supervillains in Marvel Comics titles use it as a source of their powers, it's a good bet that it won't work in the real world......


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## millais (Nov 9, 2015)

One or two hundred years ago, these would have been the same people trying to invent perpetual motion machines.


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## Functional Animal (Nov 10, 2015)

millais said:


> One or two hundred years ago, these would have been the same people trying to invent perpetual motion machines.



You say that like they stopped trying to do that. Perpetual motion machines are alive and well among the alternative energy community.


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## Super Collie (Nov 10, 2015)

The Colonel said:


> Solar freaking roadways.



Thunderf00t blasted Solar Roadways in this amazing video:





Here's the full version of the EEVblog video cited:


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## Goofy Logic (Nov 10, 2015)

Speaking of EEVBlog...

Back in January a guy claimed to have "bent physics" and created energy on a circuit he built. This attracted attention on EEVBlog's forum.

The free-energy guy showed up on the forum, but wound up getting dogpiled by electronic hobbyists and engineers over him not knowing what an inductor is.
Dave then rips the circuit apart in a 45min video:


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## TowinKarz (Nov 10, 2015)

That's a good example of why a lot of the free energy cranks try so hard to either discredit fields of science as being subverted by conspiracies, or claim they've stumbled upon an entirely new one that only they know the rules of, since their goofball theories can't survive even a cursory challenge by a trained professional.


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## Sanshain (Nov 11, 2015)

TowinKarz said:


> That's a good example of why a lot of the free energy cranks try so hard to either discredit fields of science as being subverted by conspiracies, or claim they've stumbled upon an entirely new one that only they know the rules of, since their goofball theories can't survive even a cursory challenge by a trained professional.



The idea is that by getting rebuffed by a professional scientist, the quack in question can then go '*HAH, BY REJECTING MY HYPOTHESIS YOU HAVE *_*CLEARLY *_*DEMONSTRATED YOUR ALLIANCE WITH THE BIG OIL FASCISTS!!!' *while simultaneously claiming that their quackery is in fact *so dangerous* to the established scientific community that so-called 'reputable' sources are being utilized to discredit them. It's completely circular logic; I'm right, and anything you do to say that I'm wrong is just you being jealous or afraid of admitting how right I actually am. It's also hilariously childish.


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## SpessCaptain (Nov 11, 2015)

Super Collie said:


> Thunderf00t blasted Solar Roadways in this amazing video:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ah yes I remember this. In Australia they tried to shill this out on facebook to be the best new thing due to the massive amount of sunlight we have. They were claiming that it could melt ice ( something we don't have much of) and shine in the dark. Most of the arid places where there is constant sunny days are the routes for the land trains which could crush the mechanics and make them lose traction over time. We also had the huge solar panel fields being suggested as well which would span entire countries worth of space but that's a pipeline dream due to the lack of funding and interest (arigato abbot-san)


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## autisticdragonkin (Nov 11, 2015)

Why don't these people just advocate the real energy source that could solve all of our energy problems if utilized: nuclear fission


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## neverendingmidi (Nov 11, 2015)

autisticdragonkin said:


> Why don't these people just advocate the real energy source that could solve all of our energy problems if utilized: nuclear fission



Aiiiiieeee! Do you want us all to die of radiation poisoning!?!!?!

Despite the fact that is uses far fewer resources, takes up an extremely small footprint compared to solar or wind, and produces a far higher output than either, but, but, but... The Giant Radioactive Ants will rampage!!!


Minor powerlevel: I worked in the Reactor Department on a nuclear aircraft carrier.When I was in training and they covered exactly what happened in Chernobyl my classmates and I were laughing because they did every possible thing they could to screw themselves over, from the design board on. Comparing it to Three Mile Island is like comparing a grenade explosion to a fart.


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## TowinKarz (Nov 11, 2015)

@autisticdragonkin

Because they didn't think of it all by themselves.   And, because it's not their end goal to actually solve any problems.

Much like conspiracy theorists, the free energy crank's primary goal in life is supporting their version of reality, not finding the truth.

They aren't out to actually help with the energy crisis, they're out to promote themselves as smarter than everyone else, proven by their ability to solve the world's problems in their own garage using nothing but their superior ingenuity and household items.  And, to keep that personal delusion going, everything established has to be against them.  So, any actual working power method, from conventional fossil fuels, to nuclear energy, to "green" alternatives like solar/wind , cannot be trusted because they were built by Da Man (tm) and we all know what THAT means... wink wink, nudge nudge.

@neverendingmidi    Exactly how colossal a human fuckup Chernobyl was is all the more obvious when you consider how many other Chernobyl-style RMBK reactors were operated over the years in Russia/the USSR without spontaneously exploding.... of all the unsafe ones, only it blew, because the people in charge didn't know what they were doing.   I find it funny/sad that all these years later, the media still calls Three Mile Island a "disaster" when it did not cause a single direct casualty, doesn't someone have to at least die before you can call something a disaster?  (Okay, the cleanup was an economic disaster, but that's stretching it)


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## Tragi-Chan (Nov 12, 2015)

TowinKarz said:


> That's a good example of why a lot of the free energy cranks try so hard to either discredit fields of science as being subverted by conspiracies, or claim they've stumbled upon an entirely new one that only they know the rules of, since their goofball theories can't survive even a cursory challenge by a trained professional.


I've had arguments about this with plenty of pseudoscience weirdoes. They seem to think that individual scientific fields exist in a vaccuum, as if the laws of physics are just some theoretical thing with no impact on or basis in the real world.


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## Vincent VanGo (Aug 15, 2018)

Bridechu said:


> The guy who created the original Chuck E Cheese set-up, Aaron Fechter, has been trying to make alternative fuel with water and graphite for a couple decades now. He actually almost blew up his entire building a couple years ago and disrupted Orlando train services for a day when a tank ruptured. The guy is an outstanding lolcow in so many fields.


So, what is there to ridicule here?  Aaron actually does create a green gas from water and graphite, doesn't break any laws of physics, and cooks a damn good steak with it.  What amuses you or makes you feel superior to Aaron who has accomplished many great things in his life? Would you have laughes at Thomas Edison while he was trying to find the right filament?  Would you have laughed at Elan Musk as he endeavored to land his booster rockets safely back on the platforms?  Why are people here laughing at pioneers?  Are you someone of great accomplishments who has never made a mistake?  Are all mistakes to be laughed at?


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## Rockafire Ass Explosion (Oct 30, 2020)

Vincent VanGo said:


> So, what is there to ridicule here?  Aaron actually does create a green gas from water and graphite, doesn't break any laws of physics, and cooks a damn good steak with it.  What amuses you or makes you feel superior to Aaron who has accomplished many great things in his life? Would you have laughes at Thomas Edison while he was trying to find the right filament?  Would you have laughed at Elan Musk as he endeavored to land his booster rockets safely back on the platforms?  Why are people here laughing at pioneers?  Are you someone of great accomplishments who has never made a mistake?  Are all mistakes to be laughed at?


Aaron is a moron and his gas is fake. It's unstable and dangerous. In his many old videos where he cooks on that disgusting shop grill you can tell from the flame it's actually just propane. If there was ever anything to his invention then the energy companies would have flocked to him.


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