I'm not a "free energy" nut

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I ran across this guys work, Dr. T. Henry Moray. It seems to me like he invented a radioisotope thermoelectric generator.

Here's a good link describing his work.

http://100777.com/node/278

What's your take on his device?

Beware of two words: "free" and "Tesla".

There is no such thing as "free" energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed from one form to another and that takes work. Any technological claim that collides with either the first or second law of thermodynamics is bogus.

ruveyn

Actually all energy is free. Channeling it costs entropy.

But that's not my question Ruvy. I think he invented a basic radioisotope thermoelectric generator years before NASA was even conceived. He used a lot of radioactive material in the construction and from what little I read on it that seems to be what his magic box is. So I ask your opinion on it?

At that time how to generate and distribute electricity was already well recognised as being a huge potential money maker anybody that could demonstrate a working prototype would have been in the running to make some serious cash from investors desperate to get in on the act.

Which means there were obviously lots of wild claims and snake oil salesmen...

You may want to reconsider the validity of some of your sources

100777.com - a site for truthseekers

And these are the categories on the frontpage:

- New World Order
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Seriously?

Does this appear to be:

a) Conspiracy theory website full of crap
b) A peer reviewed scientific journal

We all know aspartame is 100% safe, hell I use at least 2000 mg of it on my cereal alone in the morning...

But that's not my point. I'm merely asking an opinion about his device. Looks to me like the same kind of generator used on the Voyager spacecraft, only years before NASA got around to it. If that's the case it's not safe, but it would power 10 100 watt light bulbs for 40+ years.

GL Johnson, Searchers for a new energy source: Tesla, Moray, and Bearden Power Engineering Review, IEEE, 1992. (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org)
http://books.google.com/books?id=eD1GeJ ... &q&f=false

This is for those who can't answer direct simple questions. You know who you are.

Ok, direct simple answer.

It is BS.

Less simple answer, no it is not a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Those are real and very radioactive, so radioactive that if you touch them without the shielding being present you go to hospital with nasty burns.

There is no evidence that Moray had developed any of the technology required to process and refine radioactive material sufficiently to build an RTG and you do need rather a lot of tech and know how or you will fairly rapidly die a painful death Currie style. The claims from the book you link to are that his device used a mysterious 'cold current' that was unexplainable by science then or now.

So.... BS.

I'll take your less simple answer for 200 Alex.

...And that's a nice suit Alex, tell me; do they make them for MEN?

they use very small amounts of radioactive material in a very big chunk of metal, true the pellets themselves are highly radioactive if unshielded but the RTG itself is pretty safe,
safe enough to allow lab workers to work as they are used to, in a sweaty tshirt.

Ok...

Lets try again.

From cw's link http://100777.com/node/278

Oh goodie, we have numbers to play with.

We have to generate 50 thousands watts and we must do so within a sixty pound weight limit.

Form cw's link to wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisoto ... _generator

If you scroll down the page there is a nice table detailing all the RTG's ever built for space use including the peak electrical output and weight.

Bear in mind these represent the very best that two competing superpowers could produce after decades of amazingly generous funding.

For team USA we have the GPHS-RTG, weighing 57.8 and producing a grand total of.... 300 watts. Not kilo or mega or giga watts, but 300 watts.

For team commies we have the BES-5 weighing 1000 kilo's and producing 3000 watts. (note the BES-5 was/is a mini fast neutron reactor so it's kinda cheating but still seriously impressive)


Getting dubious yet?

Lets try something else, so ok it is theoretically possible to place enough radioactive material into a space the size of the box illustrated and to get it to produce enough energy to meet our requirements on paper.

But there are still some rather large problems.

The decay of radioactive elements produces two things, radiation and heat.

The heat from such a pile would

a) melt the pile
b) melt the containment
c) melt any thermocouples you had designed to convert the heat into electricity
d) set fire to the box
e) cause the whole lot to fall on the floor, where it would continue to melt/set fire to anything that got near it chernobyl style.


The radiation from such a pile would also kill everyone in the room observing.


So no. The device is not an RTG.

if aimed at me (dunno if it is)
i dont disagree that the OP's claims are far feched (ie most likely bogus)

but stirling radiothermal generators are four times as effective as a normal RTG, non has been flown yet(that i know of) but nasa and esa are testing them and have been for decades
as mentioned they are literally four times as effetive at extracting electricity from the pellets using a stirling cycle with an alternator.(odd as it incorporates mechanical links whereas a tradition RTG does not, usually that means less effective)

Nope it wasn't.



Stirling engines are wonderful things, very cool and very fun to play with BUT the output claimed by the OP's link is 500 times greater, not 4.

And the link claims this remarkable device was first prototyped in 1911, that is only a year after Marie Currie first isolated pure radium.

In order to create the materials for an RTG you need a fully fledged nuclear industry, are we to assume that Mr Moray did indeed create a working nuclear reactor, run it for years to generate sufficient isotopes and then centrifuge for them for years all in his garden shed?

And that instead of selling that technology becoming stonkingly rich and receiving lots of nobel prizes in the process he decided to forget all about it and instead spend two decades attempting to hustle money for his impossible device?


I like science fiction as much as the next man but attempting to pass off science fiction as science fact is delusional, especially when the world of real science is full of all sorts of wonderful and cool things.

I'm not assuming anything. I was asking a question. It's been answered, thank you.

Feel free to get bent out of shape.

He claimed some kind of a "cold" nuclear process. No such thing. Both fission and fusion is -hot-. Fission requires very high temps to bang hyrogen nucleii together and overcome the coulomb repulsion. Fission liberates lots of heat. In fact that is why fission is used in generating electricity. It is used for heating up water and making steam.

ruveyn

[pedant mode]
Fission?
[/pedant mode]

Sorry ruveyn, couldn't help it.

It's okay DC, we're all a little queer here. That's what makes us "special".