Of course, to a skeptic this all sounds too good to be true. I watched a video the two men are featuring on their web site and my first thought was that there was an awful lot of marketing and not a whole lot of science. I understand that if they have invented such a novel solution they would want to protect it, but the endless idealism about how all the world's energy problems would be solved really didn't convince me. I want proof!

Photo credit: Mirsad Todorovac An Irish company claims that it can create energy from the interaction of magnetic fields.

And magnets? Historically, magnetism is the most mysterious and elusive source of energy and many people seem to think it has hidden powers. A reoccurring design to illustrate the concept of perpetual motion combines magnetism and the pull of gravity: a ball is pulled up an incline by a magnetic field, and when it is at the top, it's supposed to have acquired enough potential energy to escape the magnet's influence, and can move freely up and down the slope.

Maybe their invention isn't so novel after all. But I guess they could be given the benefit of the doubt. Science is not absolute, and there was a time when everyone believed that the Earth was the center of the universe... and more recently a time when we thought Pluto was a planet? I guess I'll wait for respected scientists to give their verdict, but in the meantime, I'm not throwing away my batteries.

For more info:

Steorn
http://www.steorn.net/frontpage/default.aspx

News Net Nebraska: UNL scientists dispute free energy claims
http://www.newsnetnebraska.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/09/01/44f7b9e959de2