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Blacklight Power for real?

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JRP3

Hyperactive Member
Aug 20, 2007
25,238
74,235
Central New York
I always considered these guys to be another impossible hype program, but there seems to have been some independent verification of their claims.

Electricity generated from water: BlackLight Power announces validation of its scientific breakthrough in energy production - MarketWatch

Leading academic and industry experts have validated BlackLight's new process that directly produces electric energy from the conversion of water vapor to a new, more stable form of Hydrogen. Experts agree that BlackLight's "Hydrino theory" represents a fundamental breakthrough in clean energy technology.
 
This stuff derives from "cold fusion". From Blacklight Power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mills first announced his hydrino state theory on April 25, 1991 in a press conference in Lancaster, as an explanation for the cold fusion phenomena that had been revealed in 1989.

The skeptic in me says this is almost certainly tin-hat silliness. Of course, if it isn't then we're talking Nobel Prize and massive impact on society. But as Carl Sagan said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."
 
The two big problems are:

"Hydrino theory" -- It's not a theory, it's a hypothesis. A theory has been peer reviewed and tested but not in every case. For example the theory of relativity can't be fully tested because we can't travel close to the speed of light. The theory of evolution can't be tested because we don't have a Tardis. However, enough evidence and what testing that we can do indicates there is a very strong possibility that the theories are correct.

"Leading academic and industry experts" -- Unnamed.

Right now this doesn't pass the sniff test.
 
From a quick skim, it looks like BS. Of course anything is possible, but there are few things we understand as well as the hydrogen atom. It's just one proton and one electron, with which we get exact solutions to the energy levels via Schrodinger's wave equation. And the math doesn't really allow for anything below the 1s ground state. Terms like Hydrino just sound like gobbledygook (perhaps a some combination of hydrogen and neutrino). The press release says "... hydrogen atoms of water molecules to transition to a lower-energy, Hydrino state, resulting in a release of energy that is intermediate between chemical and nuclear energies." Excuse me, what? If there was some nuclear energy release then that proton is no longer a proton. And protons are extremely stable.

Claiming a continuum in the spectra implies that the energy states are not quantized which is unexpected for an "atom".

If real, it could be some interesting new fundamental physics. But as they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
 
IEEE did an article on this. Not sure what really changed (they mentioned 6 studies, but were they peer reviewed and what did those studies specifically cover)?

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/loser-hot-or-not

Digging a bit deeper, their website seems to have a link to the "six separate, independent studies":
http://www.blacklightpower.com/technology/validation-reports/

All I see are "reports" that consist of visiting their lab and then saying that somehow validates their "theory" about "hydrinos". None of them were actual scientific papers, nor did they show anyone actually doing the experiment using their own instrumentation.

This link has some actual papers:
http://www.blacklightpower.com/publications/

Digging even further, I looked to see how they got an article published in an actual journal (THE EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL D). Here's what the editor has to say (after noting very clearly that they are not endorsing the views expressed in the article):
Despite the reservations about the “hydrino” hypothesis expressed by some members of the scientific community, we decided that, after ensuring that the paper passed all necessary refereeing procedures (review by two independent senior members of the academic community), we should publish this paper rather than silence the discussion by rejecting it. We view this as the most effective way to stimulate scientific discourse, encourage debate, and engage in a meaningful dialogue about what is admittedly a controversial postulate.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/q8005267210x3568/fulltext.pdf
 
"Leading academic and industry experts" -- Unnamed.
From the article:
Quotes from Academic and Industry Experts


Dr. K.V. Ramanujachary, Rowan University Meritorious Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

W. Henry Weinberg, who was a professor of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Applied Physics at California Institute of Technology for eighteen years, a professor of Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Materials Science at University of California, Santa Barbara for six years, and co-founder and CTO of Symyx Technologies for 13 years.

Dr. Terry Copeland, former manager of product development for several electrochemical and energy companies including DuPont Company and Duracell.

Dr. James Pugh, Director of Technology at The ENSER Corporation.

Those are in fact named :wink: