Perhaps a sure sign of the renewable energy industry's maturity is the arrival of opportunists and multi-level marketeers. It indicates a high-growth market and a spot in the public consciousness. It's not as if Nigerian 419 scams came to the interwebs in its early days -- the scams appeared when there was money to be had.
As a reporter at Greentech Media, my email inbox is pelted daily with scores of green product and clean energy press releases -- most credible and honest, some of less certain verisimilitude.
Here are a few of the more creative press releases to pass my way of late:
Off Grid Solar -- Super High Efficiency PV
We looked at this company's claims a few months back. The firm is claiming unheard-of solar efficiencies and high-volume production capabilities soon to fill their gigawatt-scale backlog with a technology yet undeclared and likely yet undiscovered for customers unnamed.
Among the firm's less-than-credible claims on their website are "-300º & +600º" temperature range and "panels [which] can absorb and convert 98 percent of the entire electromagnetic spectrum." I was not able to find any Earth-based patents listed under the founder's name or under the company's name.
I have requested a tour of the company's factory from Tom Cernera, VP of Sales, but have yet to receive an invitation.
Private Windows Corporation -- Replacing the Combustion Engine?
Private Windows makes something that will replace the combustion engine but it's not clear from their website what it is, as it is a secret. The press release promises "No More Combustion Motors, Hybrids, Coal or Nuclear Power Plants."
The language in the press release and the website feels like English translated into Proto-Indo-European and then back to English.
Here's a sample:
"All modes of transport, past, present and future are compatible. This Technology is not a new mode of transport, requiring hours of retesting."
"Private Windows has taken the step to bring guidance to the lost. The beacon we created, is one which will change the course of history. Our dependency on the combustion engine and the fuels that drive it are no more. This is the time, the era of the self-sufficient, clean modes of emission free transportation"
More word salad here:
"It makes no difference if the source of fuel is petroleum gasoline, diesel, hydrogen, bio-diesel, ethanol, alcohol, jet fuel, propane or any combination of. The Technology integrates in such a way that complete redesigns are not necessary to enjoy immediate benefits."
"Implemented systems produce no harmful emissions nor depend on any natural resource. It is near silent, more reliable, minimally equally powerful, with fewer mechanical parts. It has no limit to traveled distance. No dependency to charge stations or fuel pumps."
If you are enjoying this, there's plenty more at the website. Note that "Private Windows' legal team is open to negotiating with manufacturers and governments. The Technology is ready and available today."
I've contacted the law offices of Joseph D. Ryan, the press contact, for more information.
Enlighten Media: How to Make Energy for Free With Magnets
Yes, it's the truth about free energy from Enlighten Media. Yes, it's a new audio course that shows how to use magnetic motors to make unlimited energy -- for free.
According to Jody Bruce, who authored the audio course (which isn't free), energy can be made for free with engines that generate more energy than what is needed to run them. "These types of engines are called over-unity and have been around for the last 100 years," said Jody Bruce, CEO of Enlighten Media. "They run on magnets or water and can output more than 500 percent. There was even a Nobel Prize awarded in 1957 for this technology."
The audiobook, entitled The Truth About Renewable Energy, is designed to blow the lid off what Bruce describes as a "huge energy scam." He says, "People should realize that our current energy problem is really a large scam to make money. Energy companies are making $440 billion a year off us for something we could get for free."
Finally, in a fit of enthusiastic capitalization, I bring you:
Anatoliy Aleksenko's "AUTONOMOUS engine of the FUTURE which is able to create the efficiency of more than 1(ONE) and to have almost perpetual motor life."
It doesn’t need COOLING SYSTEM, it doesn’t use the FUEL but some lubricant, it doesn’t need any FILTERS and it is able to work “openly” underground, underwater, in GASEOUS ATMOSPHERE and in the OPEN SPACE. It is reversible, can work without transmission. It’s a COLD MECHANISM which doesn’t need heating and then COOLING. Neither heat of deserts nor the Antarctic cold can hinder it’s work. It’s production is not expensive, it is simple in operation. Any transportation (AUTO, AIR, SHIP’S, RAILWAY and other) will become profitable with this mechanism. It can not only compete with electric stations, atomic included but to give them odds. Neither the earthquakes nor other natural calamities frighten it. This is IDEAL for (ELECTRO-GENERATOR, BUS, TRUCK, SUV & VAN, HELICOPTER, DIRIGIBLE, EKRANOPLAN, UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE, JET PACK, HOVERCRAFT, AMPHIBIAN, SUBMARINE, REFRIGERATOR, RAILWAY, METRO, RAILGUN, LASER, OPEN SPACE…).
It can save the WORLD CIVILIZATION from the GLOBAL increasing of the temperature (HOTBED EFFECT, FLOODS, WATERSPOUTS…); oil pollution; energetic crisis; industrial breakdown; toxic gas ejection (CO, NO, CH); further destroying of the Ozone layer of the Earth; progressing AIDS (during the temperature increasing and organism dehydrating). In case you are interested in this INFORMATION and you are going to become the Co-participant of the PROJECT, you are WELCOME to SEND SUGGESTIONS...
There might be a black swan hiding in one of these inventions. We'll try to keep an open mind and investigate them as we can.