Too little oil or too much money?

[EJ]

Interesting. How much energy is required to create the magnet that is storing the energy that is converted into kenetic energy via the motor? You can't get out of it than you put in, else we are talking about a perpetual motion machine. Or are these magnets mined from the earth in a net positive energy process?

[Chris Coles]

BK,

You still miss the point. We have for so long seen the burning of fuel as being the only route directly associated with the production of energy, heat, that we fail to see the potential of using energy to produce heat. Yes, you could use nuclear, but again, that is burning fuel . Yes, if you create energy withouut heat there will need to be a wider electricity grid, but that cost pales into insignificance against the price we are now paying for heat. Let alone the long term implications for continuing to use heat to produce energy.

Heat engines directly stem from steam engines, which led to the internal combustion engine. We have been stuck in technology from over a century ago for too long now.

A permanent magnet is seen as not producing energy as it does not move when attached to a steel plate. That misunderstanding has lain at the heart of why we have not been able to see beyond heat engines. Minato is not the only inventor that has seen the potential and tried to drive out of the backwoods, but he is the first to show that all of us were right. It is possible to produce a rotating shaft using permanent magnets alone.

The whole world is in denial and so stuck to the heat engine paradym that it ignors the reality of an inventor that has solved the problem. Stop digging and look around, the present hole is too deep and we need that new thinking to survive as a species.

[Chris Coles]

I have permanent magnets that were energised in about 5 seconds that are still as strong more than a decade ago. This planet has a magnetic field billions of years old. Science does not fully understand magnetism, though it certainly is making great strides forward. In the same way, science does not understand gravity. But that is another matter.

The primary problem is that mainstream science has become a sort of theocracy, where ridgid thinking rules and free thinking is shunned. Thus perpetual motion is invoked when anyone can see that as soon as the magnets lose their power, (as they certainly will), they are not perpetual.

The future is all around you, but to get to it you have to cast aside tradional thinking, turn your backs to the fire, heat, and look up and see beyond technology that is over a century old.

Oh! and how much is that oil worth when Minato's thinking sinks in?

Effectively worthless. And that really brings this debate into focus doesn't it?

[EJ]

So the magnetic energy that drives Minato's magnetic motors is used up in the generation of kenetic energy. But how does the energy get stored in the magnets in the first place?

[Chris Coles]

Eric,

you need to go see for yourself. They take a mixture of fine particules of what, as a solid from melt, would be described as an alloy, exactly as they nowadays make sintered tips for machining metals or complex gears when making gear wheels for a Ford engine. They take the stamped amalgum of particles and briefly heat it to a high temperature, (sinter it), but in a strong magnetic field as it cools. Some can be magnetised afterwards, and then they take the sintered object and place it in a very strong magnetic field and turn the power on and off again. And still another way is to magnetise as they stamp it simply to align the magnetic poles of the individual particles. They just turn the power on and then off as they stamp it using a resin to hold the particles together. - That is IT! Nothing more. You are talking pennies of investment compared to oil.

Sure beats all those drills to ten thousand feet, refinaries, pipelines, trade and retail outlets. And you can hold it in your hands, no heat, no harmful effects, no polution. Pure stored energy. Beats petrol hands down.

But another thought comes to mind, who owns the rare earths?

[Chris Coles]

Let me see if I can bring this into focus. If you take a fridge magnet and weigh it. What? about two ounces? Now, how long has that magnet been stuck on the fridge, how many years? Let us say simply for a year.

OK. Now, let us take any other, non magnetic object of two ounces weight and see how we might hold that new object in that exact position for that timescale.

Say we will instead attach a tiny electric motor driving a small fan that gives enough thrust to hold the object still against the fridge door.

So what can we use as the energy source? OK, let us use small batteries., so how long are those batteries going to last. A day? I have friends flying tiny airplanes on such motors, but they last for 20 minutes. A day would be beyond belief.

Now, instead of a fridge magnet imagine something the same size that holds enough energy to hold your own weight off the ground. Permanently.

Your petrol generator will last four hours?

Your sintered rare earth magnet will last years. Its energy tank was filled in seconds. Oh! and science will shun you for being so bold as to suggest that there is work being done by that fridge magnet. Think about that?

[EJ]

I'm still stuck on the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, Conservation of Energy:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/thermo1f.html

Where does the energy come from that is later converted into magnetic energy and later converted into kinetic energy with these motors? Is the stored energy in the magnets created at the point where they briefly heat the magnet to a high temperature, or from the electricity needed to generate a strong magnetic field as the magnet cools or to magnetize it afterwards, or when it's placed in a very strong magnetic field and power is turned on and off again. All of these processes involve power that mist be generate and then stored as magnetic force in the magnets. The magnets are the battery in this case versus liquid hydrogen, but you still need to charge them. Then there's the matter of the efficiency of the motors at turning that stored energy into kinetic energy. Perhaps these motors are better than electric motors, in which case the electrical energy used to charge these magnetic batteries must be less than the energy required to run electric motors from an electric source directly. That's unintuitive to me as it involves and extra step and therefor energy loss.

[ChessMan]

I have a degree in Chemical Engineering, so I know what I'm talking about.

You cannot create energy out of nothing.

Kohei Minato's electric/magnetic showpiece is at best a frictionless electric motor. That's the absolute best possible achievement. It's almost certainly not that good, but theoretically speaking, frictionless motion is possible.

That part where the gauges show less energy going in than energy coming out is bullshit. That's impossible over the long run. It's possible for the first few moments to have more energy coming out than going in but it's fleeting.

It's analgous to obseve a 1 Kg weight fall 10 stories, observe the energy and say, "1 Kg weights atop 10 story buildings are a new source of energy!" That is technically true, but how do you sustainably get 1 Kg weights up that high without expending energy? You cannot. Likewise, a magnet doesn't have the ability to sustainably provide energy in excess of what is put in. They have the ability to do a very limited amount of work in excess of input energy, but once the excess is used up you have to expend energy to replenish it.

Finally, if the reports of investors are true, then maybe somewhere in this gimmick there is some minor innovation. Maybe he's figured out how to slightly increase the efficiency.

So Chris, if no one has pointed this out to you before, please do some research and you'll see that what I have said is true.

If you continue to spout this bullshit, I'll think you are a liar.

[Chris Coles]

And the Earth is flat too.

That is why you have inventors. They do not trammel themselves with what is in a book, they look forward, beyond the impossible and into the future.

None of us can argue against Minato without first of all relpicating his motors. The patents are on full view in the United States Patent Office records. So, please, let us keep this debate in focus. I have opened up your thinking to a Japanese inventor that is selling motors yes, selling motors, that use much less electricity.I gather about 70% less electricity.

That alone should catch our attention full on.

Within his laboratory are devices that have been observed to break the fundamental laws of energy in a heat engine environment.

But this is a magnetic energy environment.

I suggest that you dampen down your anger and scientifically replicate his work. Either he is correct, or, you will have new reasoning beyond anger.

But arguing that to talk about new work that you do not understand is some form of heracy is not going to stand up as an argument.

Let the experimental results do the talking. Not your instincts.

As to the way the magnetism is stored. As I understand it, it is simply that you use electricity for a few seconds to magnetise. From there onwards, the magnet stays the same power for a very long time.

[EJ]

Most successes I've had have come by being open minded. Most failures by insufficient due diligence.

Buying precious metals in 2001 when the investment community hated them, my friends literally called me "nuts" and many of the folks I could find who supported the idea imbued PMs with magical powers. To my way of thinking they were at the time under-valued, largely due to the dynamic that developed over 20 years between the zealots and the phobics. Undervalued is what mattered to me, and being neither phobic nor zealot promoted a rational assessment.

I've also invested in more than one idea that didn't work out. Usually the error involved overlooking something obvious in the due diligence phase. The culprit is "believing" before belief is justified by the facts, followed by confirmation bias, the search for evidence that supports a belief after it is developed.

As for believing in this motor, so far can see that the efficiency of the motor is potentially exciting. Conserving energy will be a critical part of the solution to today's energy problems. A more efficient electric motor will, for example, increase the range of electric vehicles that use them. However, the fact is that the motor, like any motor, consumes energy; it does not produce energy. To believe that the motor produces energy one must also believe that the 1st Law of Thermodynamics, Conservation of Energy, is something that can be got around. I do not believe that it can.

[blazespinnaker]

Maybe it cools your drink while you drive

[Chris Coles]

Again, this is not thermodynamics.

His motor is very simple. Spread your fingers to represent a part of a disc with five elements on one side of the disc.. Take your index finger and make that an electromagnet, the thumb and finger on one side and the other two fingers are simply permanent magnets. Balance the forces with counter weights. On the outside, as a stator, you simply place one single electromagnet. Energise that outside electromagnet to attract the first two magnets. As they come to opposition, you turn on the on disc electromagnet and "bounce" that disc through the point of oppositioin so that the final phase is to change the polarity of the central electromagnetic area so as to repel the other two permanent magnets in the same direction of rotation.

All the electromagnets are doing is changing the magnetic polarity at appropriate moments in the rotation. Very simple. The power comes from the permanent magnets.

No one should invest in new thinking without being certain that they can accept failure. For failure is a natural part of innovation. To quote William Kingston, "Luck is an essential element of discovery, invention and innovation". It takes courage to travel down a road never before trodden my mankind.

[EJ]

Again, this is not thermodynamics.

No one should invest in new thinking without being certain that they can accept failure. For failure is a natural part of innovation. To quote William Kingston, "Luck is an essential element of discovery, invention and innovation". It takes courage to travel down a road never before trodden my mankind.

It's about thermodynamics if it's about producing energy.

Re investing and innovation, fair point. iTulip.com is a place for the skeptical, so true to form you're going to see a lot of skeptics here hammering on your idea. iTulipers don't accept anything at face value, so don't be offended by the grilling. I get it, too, and welcome it. That's how fresh hypotheses are honed into actionable ideas.

Skepticism has saved iTulipers bundles from losses such as from the collapse of the stock market bubble and soon losses from the housing bubble...

http://www.itulip.com/#dnews119

[Chris Coles]

Hammer away everyone. No one who is used to working with inventions has any bother taking debate fully on the chin. In fact, let it be said, innovation comes from someone else looking over the shoulder of invention and saying... hey, I reckon you have got it wrong... try this way???

The final contrarian point? Thermodynamics is definitely NOT magnetics. .. Well, just a point of view worthy of an ongoing debate.

Good Night all.

[blazespinnaker]

Yup, if this was frictionless (I doubt it) this would go on for quite awhile.

However, thermodynamics is everything here. This device needs some like of joints and it'll be releasing heat via friction which consumes energy.

It's energy which is required to spin into the magnetic field. That energy could have come from the repelling force, absolutely, however the friction on the way out consumed some of that energy.

Here's another example: take an astroid and all the energy it creates when pulled into the planet by gravity. So, you think, wow gravity is a source of energy.

Not so.. that energy was actually created in the big bang when the asteroid was forced out (or whatever caused the asteroid near our planet).

I think the best bet, really, is solar energy.

When you think about it... lots of different forms of solar energy: ethanol, oil, hydro electricity, etc.

The big problem, actually, isn't so much generating energy, btw. it's storing it. If we could solve that problem, we'd be golden.

I think hydrogen is the answer to that question.