Skimming the story, it sounds entirely plausible (and I entered the thread ready to denounce yet another perpetual motion machine). Seems the guy managed to create a better fuel cell, something that runs on “oxygen and fuel”; he may very well have found a different combination of common chemicals which can operate as a fuel cell, with its “fuel” being sourced from decaying biomass. Nothing bizarre here, just the next incremental (if big) step along the path of such technology.
I don’t smell a scam. I smell some guy who had a great idea trying to develop it and retain the rights before a bigger company does.
Thank you for a good skim and summary! We tend to assume amazing reports are scams, but not all are. We need to look at the facts and see that this is very likely an advance. Whether it pans out to make a profit for this guy and his investors depends upon a lot of things.
I don't think the invention is a scam. However, this looks to be one of those politically connected companies that spend a ton on PR, get a well-known person (Colin Powell) with no business experience on it's board and benefit from the energy-hating legal environment of California.
That's no big deal. But the reporting made me tear my hair out. This piece was deceptive in many ways and stupid in several others. It was deceptive because at the beginning it made it seem that the unit ran on air only and that we were looking at a little cube power plant instead of just one component of a power plant that required fans and pumps and more to make it work. Then a few buzz words, like "wireless" conveyed high-tech but were never explained and made no sense whatsoever. The claim about oxygen on Mars was never probed or defended. How does it make oxygen if it needs oxygen to produce energy? Perhaps it needs energy to break down iron oxide into it's constituents. Where does that energy come from?
Then Leslie Stahl asked if it could run on a variety of fuels and included "solar" and the inventor said "yes." He had no interested in correcting her air-head misunderstanding of science or engineering. If it needs methane or natural gas or hydrogen as a fuel, how does it use sun beams as a fuel?
The piece was stupid because virtually no important questions were asked, such as, what is the fuel efficiency? What is the cost per Kilowatt? How much energy is used to build a unit and does that energy come from the grid? If the invention is so good, does the manufacturing plant use it or just buid it? Are any hazardous materials used, such as lead, cadmium etc? Are any rare materials used that would limit widespread use? What are the byproducts, both in running the unit and recycling units after they have exceeded their useful life? Specifically, does the unit produce carbon dioxide, water vapor or other gases or solids. And, what is the useful life? Would this invention be economical if there were no government incentives? And on and on.
Instead we were treated to a bunch of superficial interviews with people who had PR agendas. At least they interviewd one critic who gave some insight into potential problems. Leslie Stahl is so economically ignorant she couldn't figure out why a power company would want to buy a unit, not understanding that power companies buy turbines and other energy sources all the time. She also didn't ask any questions about the economics of the grid versus maintaining ones own power plant. How cheap would the electricity have to be to convince me to maintain my own power source rather than have the evil power company maintain theirs?
The least CBS could do is to assign an engineer or scientist to cover these sorts of stories instead of someone who believes in perpetual motion and pixi dust.