Claim: The ENG8 Company's EnergiCell Produces More Energy Than It Uses

[NorCal Dave]

This article popped up on my feed.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...system-can-generate-electricity-indefinitely/

It's one of those lousy slide show things that make you click through photos and read short little paragraphs. I usually avoid these, but I've always been fascinated by "free-energy" claims ever since first reading about Joe Newman and his Newman Energy Machine back in the '80s-'90s. So, I clicked through the slides (and ads) to find a few pull quotes about a device called the EnergiCell from ENG8:

According to Dr. Biberian's findings, the system can run continuously, producing kilowatts of energy, with three times more output than the energy it takes in.

In December 2020, an EnergiCell was first independently tested in the UK by Dr. Robert Morgan from Brighton University. This test showed that it released 1.8 times more energy as heat than the electricity used to power it.

In 2022 and 2023, further tests in Portugal by the Electrical Technical Institute revealed energy outputs of 2 and 2.4 times the input. Another lab found that the device produced twice as much electricity as it consumed, indicating a potential for self-powering and exporting electricity.

I've noted before that I'm pretty much dyslexic when it comes to math, but this seems to be suggesting over-unity, a violation of the law of conservation of energy, but feel free to correct me:

In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be conserved over time.[1] This law, first proposed and tested by Émilie du Châtelet,[2][3] means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy

This article eventually led back to ENG8's slick looking website. Here we can see how the system actual works:

First water is split into its atomic components, hydrogen and oxygen, through electrolysis, which means an energy input. I assume that's what that little lightning bolt is supposed to be. Next the H+ and the O- then go into a condensed plasmiod ball of electrons. I'm not sure what happened to the protons or neutrons at this point. Then electricity is made! And light! Although as @FatPhil has noted before, diagrams aren't science.

I ran this by my younger son, a chemist. To be fair, he's an organic chemist and chemical power generation isn't something he deals with, but he did say "Whaaaa?".

His first comment was that the H+ and O- was wrong as is shown in this Wikipedia diagram on splitting water:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water

The O will not stay isolated, but rather they will combine into O2, so there is no O- going into the plasmoid, if I understood him right.

Presumably, once contained in the plasmoid, the hydrogen and oxygen recombine into water, releasing more energy than it took to split them, create the plasma and maintain the magnetic containment field. I think:

The fuel source is the water molecule where the ionised H2O molecule supplies the hydrogen ions needed for catalysed fusion.

A primary energy release mechanism is a catalysed fusion process where protons and neutrons are fused into atomic nuclei.

Energy is released in the form of electricity and heat and with modifications can produce chemical energy in the form of hydrogen and oxygen.

https://eng8.energy/technology/

Or maybe not, because hydrogen and oxygen are the possible outputs of the reaction, so they didn't get fused back into water. My son asked, "what are making?" Whatever it is, it helps to output more energy than is needed for the system:

A fusion energy gain factor, usually expressed with the symbol Q, is the ratio of fusion power produced in a fusion reactor to the power required to maintain the plasma in steady state. The condition of Q = 1, when the power being released by the fusion reactions is equal to the required heating power, is referred to as breakeven. When above one the Q is referred to as infinite.

ENG8 has reached this point as it is able to produce more electrical and/or thermal energy than the system requires to power itself.

ENG8 has results beyond Q=1 in their fusion reactor:

In 2022 and 2023, independent validation in Portugal by Electrical Technical Institute of Portugal showed Q2 and 2.4. Another laboratory witnessed twice as much electricity being produced than being used to power the device. This is technically an infinite Q and is capable of self-powering and exporting electricity.

https://eng8.energy/technology/

And they are now at a Q=5 with version 6:

A Vox article from 2022 I found has a good simple way of explaining the Q:

In 1997, the National Academy of Sciences established ignition as the goalpost for fusion at NIF. It defined ignition as "gain greater than unity," meaning more energy out of the fuel target than the amount of laser energy hitting it.

As the National Academy of Sciences pointed out, the key metric is the fusion energy gain factor, also called "Q." This is the ratio of the power used to start and maintain a fusion reaction compared to the power produced. A gain of 1 means the reaction has broken even. The latest announcement at NIF shows a gain of roughly 1.5, meaning the reaction has become energy-positive.

So, not as good as ENG8, but more power out than in right? Not quite:

But that's only if you define the energy input narrowly to the laser energy hitting the fuel target. If you measure from the total amount of energy needed to charge up and fire the laser, about 300 megajoules, the recent results are still far short. To actually produce more energy from fusion than the laser requires from the power grid, you would need a gain of 100 or more.

And this was being done by the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrance Livermore Lab for the US Department of Energy using the laser and pellet technology. ENG8's technology sounds more like the plasma in a magnetic containment field:

There are two main approaches: One is to compress a tiny pellet of fuel with powerful lasers, which is NIF's strategy. The other is to heat up plasma to temperatures hotter than the sun and contain it with magnets. This is how ITER, the world's largest fusion project, currently under construction in southern France, will generate the reaction.

https://www.vox.com/recode/23505995/fusion-energy-breakthrough-announcement-ignition-nif

However, ENG8's devices can be as small as 1 watt up to 100KW, so how does one contain a ball of plasma heated to the temperature of the sun in such a small device?

Maybe because they're using a Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LEARN) so the plasma doesn't need to be that hot:

EnergiCell, our ground breaking plasma technology, efficiently releases thermal and/or electrical energy directly from the fusion of atomic nuclei, without any harmful emissions. Within the plasma there are very high concentrations of electrons known as condensed plasmoids. The large negative charge of the condensed plasmoids removes the electron shield from the ions, allowing low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) to take place. This large negative charge also prevents highly energetic particles from escaping, instead releasing thermal and electrical energy.

To delve deeper into the science behind our innovation, we invite you to explore the following resources:

George Egely's comprehensive paper Faces of LENR: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part5

https://eng8.energy/faq/

Low Energy Nuclear Reaction is a newer term for what is commonly called "cold fusion". To my knowledge, none of the LERN enthusiasts have ever shown a testable and repeatable example of the technology. To my non-physicist mind something is amiss here. LERN is or was, cold fusion and I thought it meant just that, COLD fusion. Fusion taking place on a countertop at room temperature, or close to it. Plasma tends to be hot, sometimes really hot. I have a plasma cutter and I've been trying to learn TIG welding, which passes an electrical charge through an inert gas to create plasma sufficient to melt metal.

Why are they using Low Energy Nuclear Reactions when they have a ball of plasma? Note that they claimed their device output more energy than "the power required to maintain the plasma in steady state". Assuming they achieved this, how are they containing the plasma? How much energy is being used for containment?


I'm speculating that the plasmoids supposedly take care of containing the plasma, with no energy input. Recall from our discussion of Malcom Bendall's Plasmoid energy generator contraption, that these torroid or donut shaped collections of electrons are the source for his over unity device. I thought they may have been made up by Bendall, but there is a Wikipedia entry on "plasmoids", though it's short and vague, which I suspect may be why they are a hot topic in "clean Energy". Bendal's Plasmoids discussed here:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/cl...f-malcolm-bendall-provides-free-energy.12899/

I did find this layman's explanation on modern-physics.org:

Plasmoids are coherent structures of plasma, magnetically encapsulated, that can form in environments where magnetic reconnection—a process in which magnetic field lines from different magnetic domains are spliced together, releasing a tremendous amount of energy—occurs.

So, plasmoids can create a lot of energy, however:

Another challenge lies in harnessing plasmoids for practical applications, particularly in fusion energy. Achieving stable plasma confinement and sustaining the fusion reaction requires precise control over plasmoid formation and dynamics, a feat that is still beyond current capabilities. Ongoing research in this area focuses on improving magnetic confinement techniques and understanding the conditions under which plasmoids contribute to or detract from the fusion process.

https://modern-physics.org/plasmoid-formation/

It sounds like plasmoids MAY be used to achieve a sustainable and clean fusion source of energy, but not yet. Unless of course, ENG8 has figured it out.

I did find a paper via Wikipedia, about a proposed energy storage technology called the Electron Spiral Toroid (EST) being developed by Electron Power Sytems Inc, (EPS) back in the '90s. The paper is a review of the claims made for the technology prepared for NASA. Spoiler, the EST didn't work so well. It was similar to a plasmoid, in that it was plasma in a donut:

In the original "published" storing documents [1-8], it is claimed that a "stable" plasma, capable of vast amounts of energy, can be created without the need for external confinement (i.e., "free" ESTs). There is no exact definition of "stable", but indications from the available literature [2,3] suggest lifetimes of the order of years. Since plasmas in laboratories are notoriously short-lived entities, this claim is quite spectacular.

The plasma in the EST is basically contained within a toroidal shell, with the electrons at high velocity in the poloidal direction (i.e., in orbit around the centerline of the torus).

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20010021117/downloads/20010021117.pdf

The reviewers concluded that without containment, this plasma donut would just dissipate. Evidence for the existence of the EST included a photo of some sort:

The "proof" of the presence of ESTs consists of a picture of a small, luminous ring-like object seen at some distance from the arc. It is not clear whether this is an EST or another more benign structure, since there is no measurement of some of the key characteristics of the EST

Which the reviewers commented could be a plasmoid, a neutral plasma structure in the shape of a donut (bold by me):

For example, plasmoids (neutral plasma structures with toroidal configurations), properties, have often been generated [17] and have demonstrated (relatively) good stability although certainly not on the level claimed in [2-6]. There is also repeated mention of the charge neutrality of the EST, since it is not affected by the electric field. This would then also imply that there is no significant energy storage or magnetic field trapped within the torus, since the two are closely related.

Note that plasmoids are neutral, while ENG8 claims theirs have a "large negative charge".

Ultimately, exactly how the ENG8 EnergiCell works is proprietary:

Are there any peer-reviewed publications on this?

No; because we are a commercial company and wish to keep our internal know-how as confidential as possible until mass deployment.

As for validation of the claims, ENG8 offers a few, though mostly as press releases like this one, that generated the article I saw:

Catalysed fusion specialists at ENG8® International have confirmed the results of the recent independent validation of its EnergiCell®, conducted by world-renowned LENR (low energy nuclear reactions) expert Dr Jean-Paul Biberian. The validation showed that the system can be self-powering and export net electricity.

Dr Jean-Paul Biberian said: "We can consider that the device can operate indefinitely without any external input power."

Dr Biberian was commissioned by an investor to conduct technical due diligence on an EnergiCell. His report concluded: "The technology is capable of sustained operations producing kilowatts of output energy, with a net three times more power output than input."

"ENG8 has a team of competent scientists very focused on plasma physics, and they have good engineers."

EnergiCells fuse hydrogen nuclei producing photons or light as well as directly producing electrons or electricity. They are currently producing electricity on the scale of milliwatts to tens of kilowatts. This power output is suitable for powering devices like phones and laptops, appliances such as ovens and washing machines, and in time, houses, cars and factories.

Or this one:

An EnergiCell was first independently validated in the UK in December 2020 by Dr. Robert Morgan from Brighton University. The independent validation showed that 1.8x more energy in the form of heat was released than from the electricity used to power the EnergiCell, the Q1.8.

This one reminds me of Malcolm Bendal's over-unity Plasmoid energy device, in that, his claim is it produces more heat than it should. So, Bendal claims more heat as does ENG8, and back in the day the aforementioned Newman Energy Machine was "validated" with a fiberglass Lamborghini Countach replica with a Newman electric motor and batteries that could drive around slowly for hours on end. None of these guys seem able to just produce a paper showing the total energy input to their devices and the total energy output of said device exceeding the starting number. Having demonstrated that, let others confirm the actual over-unity. Instead, we get "more heat" than was expected or a sideshow with an electric car performing about how an electric car would be expected to perform.

I'm still confused by the whole thing. On one hand it seems to be a LENR, or cold fusion device and on the other it uses high temperature plasma, or plasmoids, to produce sustained fusion. Most of the stuff on the ENG8 website is what I would call branding and maybe brand affirmations. A lot of talk about clean energy, ending poverty, social justice, and making the world a better place for all. There is very little about how their EnergiCell actually works:

But there is a whole tab about investing with testimonials like this, hinting that what's happening may not be all that important:

When 350ppm first suggested ENG8 to me as an investment prospect, I nearly dismissed it out of hand, but something made me take a closer look. While the physics of what is actually happening in the plasma is debateable, there is the evidence of measured power inputs and outputs, which clearly show that energy is being produced along with spectrometric measurements of new elements being created in the reaction, which show this a nuclear phenomenon. I figure that mankind used fire for about ten thousand years without knowing what the reactions were that released the energy, so while it will be good to work out what is going on in the plasma, it needn't stop us making use of the phenomenon.

https://eng8.energy/testimonials/

Not sure I'll write a check for ENG8 just yet, but I'm no physicists.

 

[JMartJr]

Just to see what I found, I googled "Dr. Biberian." He seems to be extremely into something called "solid state fusion."

I have not succeeded in finding out much about what that is yet, other than a single website that appears to be cheerleading pretty strongly for it, and references that seem to be explaining that it is not the same as cold fusion. I'll look more when I get a chance, but that will not be until next week, got a weekend festival to prep for. So in the meantime if somebody already knows about "solid state fusion" and can speak to it, that'd be great.

Edit to add:
Just to give some indication of what I found without requiring a Google search or clicking a link...

Jean-Paul's solid-state fusion journey began when he discovered his passion for hands-on science and a deep curiosity for understanding how things worked. While he initially explored various scientific disciplines like engineering, it was his fascination with experimental physics and research that he ultimately wanted to explore. In 1989 when he learned about Fleischmann and Pons' cold fusion breakthrough, what Jean-Paul calls the "discovery of the century", he knew he wanted to be a part of it.

After meeting with Francis Forrat, an engineer at the French Atomic Energy Commission in Cadarache in 1993, Jean-Paul had the opportunity to start work in solid-state fusion at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) in Berkeley. Forrat had innovative ideas about pursuing LENR doing electrolysis at high temperature with solid-state crystals instead of electrolysis in water-based electrolytes. Eager to contribute to this exciting field, Jean-Paul collaborated with Forrat on experiments where he could use his background in surface science. These experiments yielded positive results, fueling Jean-Paul's unwavering passion for exploring solid-state fusion, a journey that has continued for over three decades.

During the years following the 1989 discovery, discussing cold fusion was considered taboo. Jean-Paul likened the sentiments of the time to cold fusion being as otherworldly and outlandish as UFOs. Undeterred, Jean-Paul pursued his research in secret, driven by a belief in the immense significance of this discovery and passion for scientific exploration. He was determined to be a part of something monumental, comparing it to meeting someone as influential as Jesus in the year 31.

Source: https://solidstatefusion.org/2023/07/interview-jean-paul/

 

[MonkeeSage]

Excellent write up! Why am I not surprised it's just another cold fusion claim.

I was wondering if anyone had done research into the company and I found this blog post from Maury Markowitz from last November - wait a sec is that our @Maury Markowitz ?

https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2023/11/06/eng8-is-bogus/

He looks into the company's background, founders and personnel, and they look about as sketchy as their science.

Article:

Eng8 claims to be developing a device called the EnergiCell, which they state is based on the work of "Russian theoretical nuclear physicist and academic, Professor Vladimir Leonov". He outlines his concepts in a book called "Theory of Superunification", which was published in 2010 by Cambridge International Science Publishing.

But the thing is, Vladimir Leonov does not appear to be a professor (there is another V. Leonov at Imec, it is not the same person). There is no record of him publishing anything in a journal, he has no apparent affiliation with any university-level organization that I can find, and even in his own book he states his only two publications are this book, and this book re-published in India.

And then there's the "Cambridge International Science Publishing". When you google that, you end up on a landing page for a company called "Silvermine International Books", which has a link to the CISP web page, which is now redirected to a blog advertising a word counting tool. As the book is from 2010, I used Wayback to pull up their web page from that era, it appears to be largely a vanity press, at least on the book side. [...]

As soon as I saw the claims I knew something was fishy, but I had no idea how fishy. That's when I came across the company's About page. Go ahead, open this link in a new window, put it beside this one, and scroll to the bottom of their page.

At the bottom they list seventeen "team members". A quick perusal shows that the company has two co-founders, Valeria Tyutina who is also the CEO, and Haslen Back, the BDO, which I'm going to assume is Business Development Officer.

Source: https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2023/11/06/eng8-is-bogus/

Note: I tried to open that link to their about page and follow along, but they have completely rebranded the website and removed all of the information referenced in the blog post, but the wayback machine still has it: https://web.archive.org/web/20231106105543/https://eng8.energy/about/

Continuing from the blog post:

Article:

Tyutina's bio blurb claims that she was part of the "Main board team, Gazprom", with "20 years science and technology innovation". But her LinkedIn profile is quite different, indeed. It shows that her first job was "running" a small company that made sleeping bags, followed by being a sales rep at a small Russian company, then consulting to a small clothing company.

After that, she worked at the Alchemie Group. We'll skip this for the moment, because we're going to come back to it.

Then, for a grand total of one year, she worked for the UK office of Gazprom, in Marketting and Trading. There is not the slightest hint that this was a "main board team" position, and Googling and Waybacking through their web site doesn't turn up her name a single time. The "board team" claim appears to me to be a bit of resume puffery that is so blatant she doesn't even bother trying it on LinkedIn.

One thing that is interesting is that she was also the director of another company back in 2020, EnergyNetiQ. Do you find it interesting that she does not mention being the director of a UK company? I mean, being a sales rep is important enough to list, but not a director of a company? In fact, her LinkedIn says she was CEO of Eng8 since 2017, which is odd when you consider that it did not exist until 8 February 2023.

So why might this go missing? Google is your friend: Tyutina quit EnergyNetiQ to set up Eng8 in March 2021, and now they are suing EnergyNetiQ, today known as Biaco. And that's kind of odd, because Biaco is claiming to have had this system running back in 2020. No honour among thieves I guess.

Let us move on to the other co-founder, Haslen Back.

Literally the second I Google his name I started laughing. That's because the first two hits in google are about how Back was sued by the US government for selling them armoured busses that didn't exist. The Guardian has a good write up on it before the suit ended and the Department of Justice summarized it all after he plead guilty to wire fraud.

Now, what does this have to do with anything? Well the company Back was working for at the time all of this fraud was going on was… the Alchemie Group. Yes, that's right, the same Alchemie Group that Tyutina was working for. Hmmm… I'm sure that's just a coincidence, right?

Well that's easy to check, I went back to the UK's company search page and searched for Haslen Back and found only one company, Shoreline Environments, which happens to have its mailing address as Alchemie Group, Bury St. Edmunds. Searching on the company name turns up dozens of hits, and the bit of useful information that you should not search for "Haslen Back", but "Haslen Matthew Back", which their search engine is apparently too limited to figure out.

That turns up dozens of Alchemie related companies, and others including Napier Engines of all things, most of which are dissolved or from which he resigned in 2021. It also turns up this page, which (not being an expert on UK law I may be misinterpreting this) that suggests he is being investigated with the possibility of no longer being allowed to run a business. [...]

Looking at the rest of the cast of characters, one finds a distinct lack of actual scientists. There is a CTO, who one might expect to be in charge of such, but Michael Peters is a BEng who did software for power companies. His LinkedIn lists his duties at Eng8 as "ChatGPT · Version Control Tools · Version Control… Git · English". Wow, English! This is totally the list of skills I want to see in the CTO of a fusion company!

Further down the list my eye was caught by Advaitananda Stoian, the Vice Chairman and "Quantum Physicist by training". Ok, that sounds useful, some actual physics. And you keep that feeling until you google him, and immediately find he is a yoga instructor who runs the "Institute for Quantum Transformations", which is precisely what you think it might be, yoga woo.

I thought "Prof. Donal O'Connell O'Connell" (yes, they typed in his last name twice on their web page), might be an actual scientist, but no, his expertise is in IP law.

And that's that for their science group! Everyone else in the list is in communications, finance, investor relations, etc. Go ahead, google any one of them and decide for yourself if their blurb on the Eng8 web page matches what you find.

Source: https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2023/11/06/eng8-is-bogus/

The website is completely rebranded now, and apparently Dr. George Egely is the representative of their science team. His "comprehensive paper Faces of LENR" is cited on their faq as quoted in OP and their current about page only lists him and his backstory under the heading of "Meet Our Chief Physicist". There we learn:

Article:

Back in Hungary, I conducted a unique experiment with over 500 students, witnessing first-hand how "bioenergy" could seemingly influence water movement, defying known physics. This marked the beginning of a deeper exploration into its impact on electrical conductance.

Years of rigorous experimentation and refinement culminated in the development of the Egely Wheel vitality meter, a revolutionary tool to measure and document this elusive life and healing energy.

In 1996 I started experimental and theoretical work in the field of energetics aiming for the exploration of environmentally friendly and renewable energy sources. In relation to this, Egely Ltd. has published many educational and technical books.

Now, as Chief Physicist at ENG8, I lead the development of the EnergiCell, pushing the boundaries of science even further.

Source: https://eng8.energy/about/##vision

So his previous claim to fame according to their own site seems to be developing some kind of qi/chi energy meter.**

Going back to Maury's blog post, apparently some of their claimed third-party testing and verification of the device was not testing or verification at all.

Article:

Now that's kind of odd, because UL doesn't test fusion devices. They test that your electrical device won't catch on fire when you plug it in, but that's basically it. So what is going on here?

Well it turns out that UL had nothing to do with the tests. In their recent video about their claims, we meet one Stefano Giordano, who happens to work for UL. He was there. That is the total of UL's involvement with this. Giordano did not actually measure anything either, he simply states "all the measurements were appropriate".

You can also find the earlier IEP report on their website. And what does it say? Much the same, all they did was see the device. In fact, they make this clear:

Note: The IEP's personnel, that assisted and audited the in loco measurement process, treated all the EnergyCell system as a black box. We only did control the injected electric energy, the quantity of insufflate air and the outputted thermal energy. From that, using the relevant standard constants, we accessed the CoP values.

So basically they weren't allowed to actually measure anything, and just "verified" the numbers provided to them. So as far as I can tell, no one's actually tested this thing. But don't worry, their video claims they are worth over a billion, so it must be real, right?

Source: https://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2023/11/06/eng8-is-bogus/

**Edit: Oh my, apparently an Egely Wheel Vitality Meter can be had for just $289 on amazon.

The Egely Wheel is the result of many years of intense scientific development. Although some of the basics of the phenomenon are not yet fully understood, extensive control experiments have proven that the rotation of the wheel during measurements is not driven by heat, convection, or electromagnetic energy. The inventor, Dr. George Egely, a Hungarian physicist PhD formerly with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, is an expert in the field of energy transfer processes. After thousands of sessions with over 1500 test subjects, he found that those with the highest levels of "Life Energy" could make the wheel turn faster. [...] The Egely Wheel offers and [sic] objective measure of the strength of your aura and your ability to focus or direct its energy. We call this your Life Energy. This device is fragile, so be careful when you remove the plastic cover.

https://www.amazon.com/Egely-Wheel-Vitality-Meter/dp/B0038AJYGK

 

[FatPhil]

Just to see what I found, I googled "Dr. Biberian." He seems to be extremely into something called "solid state fusion."

I suspect that solid state fusion is just "cold fusion, but on a semiconductor substrate". My search for his name uncovered - and you'll never believe this! - he's a cold fusion true believer; but not just that, he's a biological transmutation true believer:

Depuis 1993 les domaines de la Fusion Froide et des transmutations biologiques le passionnent.

-- https://www.jeanpaulbiberian.net/

For those that have never heard of biological transmutation before, it's classic old-school bunk, following the "I can't see how it works, therefore a bizarre explanation must be true" pattern:

Kervran proposed that nuclear transmutation occurs in living organisms, which he called "biological transmutation".[3] He made this claim after experimenting with chickens, which he believed showed that they were generating calcium in their eggshells while there was no calcium in their food or soil. He had no known scientific explanation for it. Such transmutations are not possible according to known physics, chemistry, and biology.[3] Proponents of biological transmutations fall outside mainstream physics and are not part of accepted scientific discourse.[4][5] Kervran's ideas about biological transmutation have no scientific basis and are considered discredited.[3]

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corentin_Louis_Kervran

(For those interested, his proposed solution was: K + H -> Ca)

This (the whole ENG8 malarkey) is the kind of thing that Thunderf00t would do an excellent debunk of.

 

[FatPhil]

Excellent write up! Why am I not surprised it's just another cold fusion claim.
...
"Institute for Quantum Transformations", which is precisely what you think it might be, yoga woo.
...
"bioenergy" could seemingly influence water movement, defying known physics.
...
the Egely Wheel vitality meter, a revolutionary tool to measure and document this elusive life and healing energy.

Nice deep dive, thanks, and to Maury too. Looking at the above, I'm yet again drawn to ponder why these things always seem to huddle together in dense clusters.

 

[Ann K]

Ultimately, exactly how the ENG8 EnergiCell works is proprietary:

This reminds me of a device publicized a few years ago, which was debunked by finding its additional source of power. The secret, I suggest, is not to be found in a nice little diagram, but by "raising the hood and finding where all the wires connect".

 

[NorCal Dave]

He looks into the company's background, founders and personnel, and they look about as sketchy as their science.

Nice find! I didn't have time to get into the people involved. About what one would expect.

Going back to Maury's blog post, apparently some of their claimed third-party testing and verification of the device was not testing or verification at all.

Yeah they list a few groups or people that have "validated" their claims, such as Bibarian and a Dr. Robert Morgan from Brighton University:

An EnergiCell was first independently validated in the UK in December 2020 by Dr. Robert Morgan from Brighton University. The independent validation showed that 1.8x more energy in the form of heat was released than from the electricity used to power the EnergiCell, the Q1.8.

But the graphic next to this claim includes Cambridge:

As for Dr. Morgan of a Brighton University, I found a Professor Robert Morgan listed as an advisor on Tech Emerge:

https://www.techemerge.org/advisors/prof-robert-morgan/

And this same Professor Rober Morgan does seem to appear in a press release from the University of Brighton from 2020:

11 March 2020
Professor Rob Morgan, Professor of Thermal Propulsion Systems at the University of Brighton's Advanced Engineering Centre in Moulsecoomb, has been collaborating for the past 12 years on the concept of turning air into liquid to stockpile energy, closely working with UK-based Highview Power, the owner of the technology and the IP, and the company bringing it to the global market.

https://www.brighton.ac.uk/news/2020/multi-million-dollar-backing-for-clean-energy-breakthrough

However, he doesn't currently appear in a faculty search of University of Brighton:

https://www.brighton.ac.uk/research/academic-staff-search.aspx

I don't know exactly what he did to "validate" the EnergiCell. They also include things like this as "validation":

Another laboratory witnessed twice as much electricity being produced than being used to power the device. This is technically an infinite Q and is capable of self-powering and exporting electricity.

https://eng8.energy/technology/

Who, when, where, how is all left out.

Again, as a non-physicist, I'm still trying to understand how EGN8 is using LERN, or cold fusion, AND balls of hot plasma fusion? Wouldn't it be one or the other? I guess if it's all just a big scam, using various buzz-technologies that sound legit, but are also just out of the mainstream enough to be "breakthrough" and in competition with Big Energy makes sense if all they're really looking for is investors.

As one of their investors said:

I figure that mankind used fire for about ten thousand years without knowing what the reactions were that released the energy, so while it will be good to work out what is going on in the plasma, it needn't stop us making use of the phenomenon.

No one really needs to explain how it works as long as it's making energy money.

 

[John J.]

From the ENG8 website, https://eng8.energy/technology/,

ENG8 has reached this point as it is able to produce more electrical and/or thermal energy than the system requires to power itself.

EnergiCells will be self-powering in 2026,

...why not now? It can "produce more electrical and/or thermal energy than the system requires to power itself."
Use an EnergiCell to charge up a battery, use the battery to power the self-same EnergiCell and tap the excess electricity.

C'mon, guys, we've got a planet to save!

I propose John J.'s 1st Law:
"Any system using electricity to break down water into (isotopically typical) hydrogen and oxygen, which is claimed to generate more electricity/ heat by whatever process than the total amount needed to power the system, will be found to have a gross amount of investment going in greater than the gross amount returned to investors over time".

 

[Mendel]

if you found a way to break the first law of thermodynamics, and don't go for the guaranteed Nobel prize, what is wrong with you?

 

[FatPhil]

if you found a way to break the first law of thermodynamics, and don't go for the guaranteed Nobel prize, what is wrong with you?

Why go for a gong when you could simply put power into every energy grid that pays for it, and from the money you make, build more, and do more, and make more. Lather, rinse, repeat - we're talking exponential growth here.

 

[MonkeeSage]

Just to see what I found, I googled "Dr. Biberian." He seems to be extremely into something called "solid state fusion."

I found an interview with Dr. Egely on the same site: Dr. George Egely: Beyond Convention with Solid-State Fusion.

[...] Egely's inquisitive mind often led him to ponder natural phenomena that defy conventional scientific understanding. He recalled, "When I saw, for example, tornadoes, I knew that their mere existence is strictly forbidden…"

A significant turning point in Egely's understanding of energy and engineering came with him serendipitously finding Henry Moray's book "The Sea of Energy on Which the Earth Floats." This work challenged conventional knowledge and encouraged a perspective beyond the accepted norms, a philosophy that Egely embraced in his pursuit of solid-state fusion research.

The discovery of an unknown aspect of nuclear engineering through the Pons-Fleischman announcement was a watershed moment for Egely. It led to an intellectually curious community that he found invigorating. He described this community as "bursting with big ideas as science should be." He was excited that this research opened up ideas of the unknown, especially an unknown aspect of low energy resonance. However, he also experienced the negative side of scientific inquiry, facing what he saw as suppression or censorship, particularly in the field of LENR.

Despite these challenges, Egely's drive for knowledge remained undeterred. When asked why he continued his research despite controversy and danger, he responded, "Curiosity – curiosity is a very strong factor in my life." After two decades, this unyielding curiosity led him to leave the Nuclear Energy Research Lab to focus on what he called "forbidden energy," which could provide abundant energy to every household if it received enough research effort and funding.

Egely's current work revolves around "catalytic fusion," a process he believes is most evident in nature, citing the Sun's energy production as an example. "The Sun is producing energy not in the inner core, but in the photosphere around the sun... so it's a dust-related process, a catalytic fusion," he explained. This research represents a significant departure from conventional energy models.

The urgent environmental crisis serves as another motivator in Egely's work. He sees solid-state fusion as the future, a solution that offers scalability and adaptability to meet various energy needs. He envisions a future where small-scale fusion reactors can power electric vehicles, bicycles, and even airplanes, saying, "If one has a small device... it yields you maybe one kilowatt of energy, then you can use it in micro-mobility."

Egely's critical view of hot fusion and its failures further strengthens his belief in the potential of solid-state fusion. He pointed out the decommissioning of a major hot fusion reactor in the United Kingdom and argued the need for alternative fusion research to hot fusion. "It's a complete failure, in my opinion," he remarked.

Ending on a poignant note, Egely expressed his concern for the future amid the looming threat of environmental collapse. He believes that the survival of humanity may depend on reevaluating what we know and exploring the uncharted territories in science. "If humankind is to survive this imminent climate collapse... there is a chance to figure out that there is much more than meets the eye," he concluded.

Through this interview, Dr. George Egely's non-conventional approach and unwavering commitment to uncovering the truth in the 'gray zones' of science shine brightly, painting a picture of a scientist dedicated to challenging the status quo and pioneering new paths in the search for clean energy solutions.

Source: https://solidstatefusion.org/2023/12/interview-george-egely/

Dr. Egely thinks tornadoes are unexplainable phenomena, thinks actual science ("hot fusion") is a complete failure, and is still citing a scammer from the 1930's and a notorious cold fusion scam paper from 1989 as inspiration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Henry_Moray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion#Fleischmann–Pons_experiment

 

[Charlesinsandiego]

Semi-OT, but on the subject of cold fusion, the always excellent Bobby Broccoli channel has just posted two eps on Pons and Fleishmann's cold fusion follies. Part two in particular goes into some physics that is relative to this conversation:


Source: https://youtu.be/jn92eWhGG14?si=_NhBDPt6J3xN5K8G


Source: https://youtu.be/EbfJFPVApu8?si=mLUkLQWBqy--72HF

 

[FatPhil]

[...] Egely's inquisitive mind often led him to ponder natural phenomena that defy conventional scientific understanding. He recalled, "When I saw, for example, tornadoes, I knew that their mere existence is strictly forbidden…"

An aside, and you may have a laugh at my expense, I read that as "tomatoes", and my mind began to boggle. Perhaps I need to increase the font size in my browser.

Egely's current work revolves around "catalytic fusion," a process he believes is most evident in nature, citing the Sun's energy production as an example. "The Sun is producing energy not in the inner core, but in the photosphere around the sun... so it's a dust-related process, a catalytic fusion," he explained. This research represents a significant departure from conventional energy models.

Fusion requires high temperatures and pressures. The pressure is so high in the core of the sun that the density of the hydrogen is many times higher than any element we have on earth, and the temperature is over 10 million kelvin. Near the surface it's the density of honey, about a hundred times less dense than the core, and a thousand times less hot. Which of the two locations do you think is more likely for fusion to happen in, in particular given that the fusion requires multiple particles to interact with each other, and thus collisions?
Person who's wrong about one thing is wrong about other things - imagine my surprise!

 

[Scaramanga]

Fusion requires high temperatures and pressures.

And quantum tunnelling. There is a balance between thermal noise ( heat ) and tunnelling, but the pressure inside the Sun is so high this is overcome. The cold fusion advocates argue that at low temperatures there is more tunnelling, but nobody has ever proven that at those temperatures there's enough atomic motion to produce enough collisions to be worth measuring. Cold fusion faces the paradox that they need more heat to get more atoms to meet up for tunnelling....but that very heat reduces the level of tunnelling. Increasing material density ( as with the Sun ) would merely exacerbate that problem without heat to cause rapid exchange. And that is why most scientists think cold fusion is nonsense. It is caught up in a paradox that nicely demonstrates the laws of thermodynamics.

 

[John J.]

Probably fair to say -and I think this is polite understatement- that there is a consensus amongst those who study the Sun that the key fusion reactions occur toward the core, in conditions of great pressure and heat.
Not in the relatively low-pressure, cool photosphere as Dr Egely claims.

Dr. Egely... ...is still citing a scammer from the 1930's and a notorious cold fusion scam paper from 1989 as inspiration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion#Fleischmann–Pons_experiment

Agree with the above post, with a minor caveat; Fleischmann and Pons were wrong, and wrong to rush to publicize their (hopelessly flawed) interpretation of their results. Their subsequent actions weren't exactly well-considered or helpful either. But I don't think the 1989 paper was a scam per se or that they intended to mislead. They misled themselves, and were unscientifically resistant to alternative explanations, contrary evidence and criticism.

 

[Ann K]

Agree with the above post, with a minor caveat; Fleischmann and Pons were wrong, and wrong to rush to publicize their (hopelessly flawed) interpretation of their results.

@Charlesinsandiego 's Bobby Broccoli video (#1) above clarifies the reason for the rush to publicize, and the pressure they were under to do so.

 

[MonkeeSage]

Agree with the above post, with a minor caveat; Fleischmann and Pons were wrong, and wrong to rush to publicize their (hopelessly flawed) interpretation of their results. Their subsequent actions weren't exactly well-considered or helpful either. But I don't think the 1989 paper was a scam per se or that they intended to mislead. They misled themselves, and were unscientifically resistant to alternative explanations, contrary evidence and criticism.

I didn't really know any details or context about the Pons and Fleischmann paper/reactors except seeing it on few youtube channels and reading the wikipedia article. I just finished the last part in a really good series that deep dives into it. Do recommend I found it very well produced and informative.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn92eWhGG14



Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbfJFPVApu8



Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWlBZT7L1qM