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| Science & Technology |
| Harnassing 'Dark Matter' for Power |
| 2009-09-08 |
| 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? |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #25 The 'other' Dark Matter Power. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-09-08 22:48 |
| #24 " The concept involves shifting electrons in hydrogen molecules into a lower orbit, releasing energy in the process." This is done in a "fridge." |
| Posted by: Grunter 2009-09-08 17:21 |
| #23 I'm going with odd socks myself. They must build up somewhere. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2009-09-08 16:57 |
| #22 Oil and coal are matter, and they're dark. Lets just go with those. |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2009-09-08 15:44 |
| #21 And non-of them want to talk about almost particles... Those that have less than E= M*C**2 energy. I'm a little short so I don't exist but if you screw up around me (like get near a spinning blackhole) and I can steal some and then I can exist.... and you never existed... It's all magic. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2009-09-08 15:39 |
| #20 Re: #6: Dostoevsky sez: "It is NOT that one must suffer for someone, It is simply one MUST suffer." |
| Posted by: borgboy 2009-09-08 14:10 |
| #19 Redneck, The too-fast star orbits in a galaxy might mean that we don't know gravity well enough (hence the MOND theories), but things like the bullet cluster seem to point to the presence of something substantial but unseen. |
| Posted by: James 2009-09-08 13:41 |
| #18 Sorry, typo on my part; all my notes were wrt Dark Matter, not Dark Energy. "Dark Energy" is a little less well attested experimentally. You need it to make the current theories of the universe's expansion work out right, and they measure a change in the expansion rate that seems to act like a pressure (due to some unseen energy?); but the required dark energy fraction of the total energy is so huge that I get skeptical. On the other hand there's obviously _something_ there already that we don't understand, so maybe "dark energy" isn't so improbable an add-on. |
| Posted by: James 2009-09-08 13:32 |
| #17 That might just mean that we didn't understand gravity at large distances, of course. Are you adding time-dialation due to speed of the Galaxy's approach? |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2009-09-08 13:02 |
| #16 James, thank you for the answer. Unfortunately the only thing I can derive from it is that I need to drink more. The following is an e-mail from a NASA physicist when I asked a similar question. Maybe you can make some sense of it. I would love to have the money to buy a professional phyicist (or two) to answer all my wacko questions....maybe if I win the lottery. With respect to the curvature of space/time in the universe as a whole, > the total warping of space/time comes not only from the "normal" mass, > but from the total mass-energy density of the universe. When that total > > energy density is calculated, if it is exactly equal to a certain > critical density, then space/time is "flat" or "Euclidean". Currently, > that is thought to be the case -- that our universe is right at the > critical density and hence is "flat". In calculating this total energy > density, even massless particles like photons contribute, because they > still have energy, even though they have zero mass. Similarly, the dark > > energy, whether it is a cosmological constant or some other strange > particle or field, makes a positive contribution to the energy density > (currently the dark energy contribution is estimated to be ~72% of the > critical energy density of the universe, and the sum of everything -- > normal matter, dark matter, radiation, dark energy -- comes out to 100% > of the critical density to within the observational uncertainties). > > What is so strange about the dark energy, whatever it is, is that it > appears to have a negative pressure (unlike ordinary matter and > radiation), producing a sort of "tension" in the universe that makes the > > expansion of the universe accelerate, as though there is a "negative > gravity" acting to push everything apart faster and faster, rather than > a net "positive gravity" that we are used to, that would tend to slow > down the expansion. > > Note that the discussion above refers to the large-scale structure and > curvature of space/time in the universe as a whole. Near discrete > massive objects like our sun, or other stars, or black holes, their > "normal" positive gravity dominates their local surroundings, so you get > > the kind of local space-time curvature effects that are the fundamental > elements of general relativity (and that have stood up to ever more > precise observational tests!). > > If you think this is all pretty strange, we couldn't agree with you > more! |
| Posted by: AlanC 2009-09-08 10:57 |
| #15 "...it can't be completely fraudulent" Unless you've checked the rig yourself, I wouldn't say that; I suspect they're completely fraudulent myself. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-09-08 10:55 |
| #14 Blacklight's technology sounds a lot like the much derided cold fusion experiments. There was definitely something in cold fusion, although exactly what wasn't clear. Blacklight already have 5,000 and 50,000 watt prototypes. So it doesn't sound completely fraudulent. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2009-09-08 10:48 |
| #13 "The only answer is to return to the caves as hunter-gatherers." I used to know some feminists that said that the phrase 'hunter-gather' was sexists since women were the gatherers. They wanted the phrase to be 'gather-hunters'. |
| Posted by: lord garth 2009-09-08 10:33 |
| #12 What I want to know is: Can it power my warp-engine prototype? I tried cold fusion but all it did was tie all the turbans within an 8,000 mile radius in a knot. |
| Posted by: gorb 2009-09-08 10:21 |
| #11 AlanC 1) Somehow or another there seems to be extra mass around that is neither glowing nor blocking light. It's been suspected for over a century--stars orbiting in a galaxy move faster than they ought to based on estimates of the amount of visible matter. That might just mean that we didn't understand gravity at large distances, of course. Recently studies of light-bending by colliding galaxies show separation of the dark and normal matter distributions. Normal matter from each galaxy interacted (friction) and moved more slowly but the dark matter didn't interact (much?) and flew on through, resulting in separation. You can reconstruct where the mass is from how light from more distant galaxies is bent, and there are blobs of mass where there are no stars. It looks like something is really there, and we're not simply looking at modifications of gravity. Theories of the expansion of the universe seem to require more matter too, but direct experimental results seem more compelling than theories. 2) Nobody knows. Whatever it is it doesn't interact very strongly with light. That means it isn't charged, and it also hasn't a structure that is easily excited by low energy light. (eg, not neutral hydrogen) 3) It isn't spread uniformly through the universe, but clumps (gravitationally) around galaxies. There are a few interesting results (the DAMA experiment series on the positive side--others negative) looking for the dark matter particles. They are very hard to detect, and I can't think of any way of harnessing them or easily extracting energy. FWIW, the study of cold fusion is based on reasonable physics: the probability of fusion goes up if you can increase the density of hydrogen. The probability isn't very high, but it is measurable, and Jones (betrayed by Pons and Fleischmann) had gotten some reasonable-looking numbers; consistent with a slightly increased nuclear overlap and nowhere near the level needed to harness for energy production. (Jones has since gone nuts and is a truther.) |
| Posted by: James 2009-09-08 10:06 |
| #10 10. Come over to the Dark Side, Luke! |
| Posted by: Fred 2009-09-08 09:42 |
| #9 Now, if we could harness the energy from all the bullshit spouted by snake oil salesmen and politicians, we would have unlimited and renewable energy! |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2009-09-08 09:17 |
| #8 Of course, there could be more cold dark baryonic matter out there than people think. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-09-08 09:09 |
| #7 could someone please explain 3 things? 1) What exactly is Dark Matter? i.e does it have mass? 2) What exactly is Dark Energy? 3) What is it about Dark Energy & Dark Matter that is so different from the old concept of aether that Mich & Morl were supposed to have debunked? This sounds like more cold fusion to me. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2009-09-08 08:42 |
| #6 Just more hair-shirt environmentalism - the little people must suffer for their sins! |
| Posted by: Spot 2009-09-08 08:15 |
| #5 Because finance people know all about physics... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2009-09-08 07:55 |
| #4 the former chairman of Morgan Stanley - nuff said. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2009-09-08 07:55 |
| #3 |
| Posted by: badanov 2009-09-08 07:47 |
| #2 Harvesting the money from the gullible. Where's the "Oh No Not this sh1t again" picture? |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2009-09-08 07:18 |
| #1 Spent $ 60m since 1991. No BlackLight 1.0 no beta? More money needed or no prototype until 2010? Sounds like a project only a university based, computer software developer could love. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-09-08 05:48 |