The Hydrino - new type of atom, new clean source of energy or another load of nonsense ?

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/blacklight_plasma_000523.html

This came up on p.ie a while back as spam and now has turned up on Ecogeek (who is a sceptical chemist). It will not just be a clean source of energy if true but should also raise questions about the known principles and laws which hold electrons around the nucleii of atoms.

The Hydrino is supposed to be a new state of the hydrogen atom where the electron is radically different from the traditional hydrogen atom and whatever that means, physicists are seeing the hypothesis as an unacceptable departure from current theory. The theory is outlined in the Hydrino Study Group site ..

Quote :

This entire theory makes one central but tenuous assumption that the free electron is an extended, internally fluidized, two-dimensional "disk" particle with a radius comparable to that of a hydrogen atom. Click here for an AVI animation of this concept. We are looking for experimental evidence to corroborate or refute this assumption. An inarguable refutation would destroy the entire theory, although the laboratory data may still require new physics to explain. Otherwise, the theory remains arguably true to some degree.

http://www.hydrino.org/

... and it pretends to unify some loose ends in physics.

Here's what Ecogeek says about it

Quote :

Journalists have to be very careful when talking about physics. Especially when physics promises the possibility of abundant, cheap, clean energy...but doesn't offer any explanation to those of us without PhDs. These things are holy grails...and extremely exciting, but they generally turn out to be hooey.

That's the whole point of the Holy Grail right? No one ever found it.

So I don't write about these energy Grails, or at least I didn't, until now. I guess there comes a point when we've got to break down and start talking about these things, even if we still aren't really sure whether or not their going to pan out. In terms of physics-defying energy generation, Blacklight power is the first company I've ever written about, and I do it very carefully.

Blacklight Power says that they can knock the electron of a hydrogen atom into a lower energy state than the 1s orbital. Coming from a chemistry background this sounds to me like saying you can throw a noodle at the sky and have it bore through a concrete wall on the surface of Mars. It's not just that it's impossible, it simply doesn't fit into my view of the world. The resulting atom would be a smaller particle which Blacklight calls a hydrino. They claim that the resulting release in energy creates more than enough energy to create more hydrogen, which can then be forced into lower energy states to release more energy.

If true, it would be a cheap, clean way to create electricity from water. The problem is, the entire scientific establishment has rebelled against the idea and believes that Blacklight is run by con men.

But the story is a heck of a lot more interesting than that. Though scientists have almost universally denied Blacklight's claims, veteran investors have taken the bait. Michael Jordan, the former CEO of Westinghouse sits on the board as does the CFO of Credit Suisse and Blacklight has taken over $60 M in investment from mutual funds, utility companies and private investors.

So if this is for real...what does this mean? Well, for physicists, I'm not sure. It's possible that the "hydrino" idea is bunk...but if that's true, it looks as if everyone might have some serious explaining to do. As for what it means for the rest of us, it could very well mean cheap, clean, abundant energy for less than half of what we're paying today.

Of course, I'm not willing to make any judgments today. I am obviously neither a theoretical physicist or a CEO of a major energy company. All I can tell you is that I've decided to write about it because it's the first time one of these holy grail ideas has ever seemed to have the possibility of truth in it. Which is pretty exciting, even with a grain of salt.

For more information, you can read the full press release below, check out this article at CNN Small Business, this exceptionally good one at Venture Beat and, of course, the Wikipedia page for the hydrino.

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2223/78/

Could Blacklight be another bubble which will suck up all the money in the world?

cactus flower wrote:

Could Blacklight be another bubble which will suck up all the money in the world?

No. This would be a revolution like that initiated by Michael Faraday in the mid 1800s. Without him and the like of his experiments there wouldn't be motors, generators - electricity. We'd still have steam power if he or someone else hadn't stuck the magnet into the mercury. World population exploded after the experiments done by him and others.

Everything would change (for the better ?) if this was true. But like everything, a knife can be used to slice cheese or to stab you in the back.

Spent my lunch hour reading as much as poss about this. Like to think it would work.

It seems to be based on a new form of matter and seems like it might, if it exists, bend the rules of current physics or even break some. I'm no way qualified to understand this stuff but that doesn't stop me from digging anyway.

Far as I know and that's not far, this hydrino state is an electron (-) pushed further towards the proton (+) which releases cold nuclear energy; why the negative entity that is the electron doesn't fall into the positive proton anyway is a mystery explained away - I think - by 'renormalising' the energies concerned, which turns out to be a mathematical fudge only. The electron should slap onto the proton like a south pole end of magnet to the north pole end of another but somehow it doesn't.

I must read up a bit more on this myself - it'd be amazing if it was a real phenomenon.

Even if we sharnak the atomic radius of the atom what would be the result. A net increase in friction which would not lead to a great output of energy. To get microwaves and photons the electron would need to be jumping from energy state to state.
This seems to be a sexy way of recreating the electron cloud theory. I do not believe it.
However if one could shrink an atom, surely that would make fusion easier and ahem... they have missed the point.