Not a sceptik, but....

[Shekhar]

Hi!
I'm Shekhar from Calcutta, India.  I've recently been interested in the so called "Free-Energy" (or ZPE) devices, especially those which claim to provide substantially higher  power output than the input power, so that they can  operate in  self-running mode.  I am a member of a local  organisation that works among  poor slum-dwellers and one of our main activities is to develop cheap, clean and useful source of Alternative Energy and fuel. 
I visited many Net-forums, read quite a few good books (e.g., Patrick Kelly's marvellous compilation), watched quite a few Youtube videos (a lot of them quite obviously fake – making fake films has become an art these days) .    I want to share my observations on this whole topic. Here I go: 
1.    Everybody takes the name of Nicola Tesla, talks about his devices and copies and pastes  his patents and schematics in every other article. It is all very well, but please tell me the name of any living inventor who has replicated even one of his devices successfully; 'successfully' means the device is providing ample power and gain to justify its practical utility ; charging cellphones and lighting a few LEDs are not something that Tesla himself would call 'success', I guess!

2.   Certain names are very familiar and quite justifiably respected in ZPE forums and articles – Mr. John Bedini being one of them.   Men like him are inspirations to many free-energy enthusiasts and replicators. Unlike fraudsters who are out there to make a few quick bucks by selling 'Free-Energy' dreams to the gullible millions, people like Mr. Bedini and others are true-blue scientist-inventors who share their secrets with the society.  But let me put just one question to all of you – is Mr. Bedini employing the output of  his inventions to provide even 20% of the power required in his own house ?  We all talk about 'freeing ourselves from the clutches of  Big Energy and Big Oil' by doing away completely with Grid electricity, but is it not the duty of the  leaders to show the way? (I myself use biogas from kitchen waste to cook my food so that I can recommend the same to the poor slum-dwellers).

3.    I am a middle-class Indian and like most Indians, I do not waste and cannot afford to  waste power in gizmos like Washing M/c, Vacuum cleaner, Air Conditioner / Room heater, Microwave Oven, Car Battery charging, Water heater etc.  My power requirement is very low compared to an average citizen of the 'advanced' (?) West!  Can someone tell me how to build just a 1 Kw. Output ZPE device that would run on a rechargeable dry-cell battery and recharge the battery from its own output? Please note that I want to hear only from someone who has himself constructed and is using himself such a device. In fact, a slum-dweller  typically has one ceiling fan, a few CFL lamps and a TV set  to supply  power to, so mere 250 W output will do just fine!

4.   There are many patented devices that simply don't work (like Daniel Cook's battery and Leal-Barbosa transformer). Yet nobody is telling the truth. Even when replication fails the poor replicator blames himself and certain other aspects of the materials!  Often he is too ashamed to admit failure, and so he provides spurious proof of his 'success' – who is going to verify his claims in cyberworld? There are many quite astounding devices like the Georges Mourier's COP=10,000 Motor/Generator, patented in the US. I often ask myself a very simple question – why on earth no profit-hungry Capitalist ever tried to market such incredibly useful products? There are no dearth of such men and women in this wretched capitalist system, are there? Yes, Big Energy might persecute him, but that they would do only after he manages to sell at least a thousand such generators – my common sense tells me as much.

5.    Inventors typically seen in videos are quite well-to-do men of above-50 who have a lot of space (garages, backyards, basement) in their respective houses to do experiments with high-voltage equipment and heavy machinery.  Besides, they seem to have loads of money to spend on projects that may not ultimately yield anything.  They are just men of science trying to satisfy some very noble curiosity of theirs.  That's all very fine – these are the kind of invaluable men who gave us most of our 'modern' technologies.  But when we try to replace the 'grid' system altogether, any claim to usefulness of a product must be backed by the economic viability of that product in comparison to existing utility costs.  Nobody seems to be doing that calculation.  If a ZPE machine needs Rs. 100,000 (Indian currency is Rs.) to build and if my monthly average power bill  is Rs. 500,  then why would I buy that m/c ?  It is equivalent to more than 16 years of electricity bill!  And as a Mechanical Engineer who builds things, I know that Rs. 100,000 is not a lot of money at all when you look at the machinery that Mr. Bedini and others build.  Steel structures, motors, permanent magnets, bearings, flywheel, coils, electrical gears, electronic items  etc  cost serious money! And the production of these components and  items itself needs huge factories  consuming hundreds of Megawatts of electricity (for example – steel plants, mines, mineral processing etc.)!
Please understand that I'm no sceptic – I desperately want ZPE to challenge the monopoly  of profiteering Oil & Energy Corporations.   But we must begin the fight in our own backyard, and then we must empower the majority of this world first – the poor and underprivileged.

[vasik041]

I desperately want ZPE to challenge the monopoly  of profiteering Oil & Energy Corporations.

you can buy a solar panel or build a wind turbine ;-)

[Madebymonkeys]

It is all very well, but please tell me the name of any living inventor who has replicated even one of his devices successfully; 'successfully' means the device is providing ample power and gain to justify its practical utility ; charging cellphones and lighting a few LEDs are not something that Tesla himself would call 'success', I guess!

Sorry, I haven't heard of anyone replicating anything and demonstrating any power gain. All apparent gains are due to measurement error.

Solar, wind, thermal all show 'gain' but it takes many years for this to happen ie. after the initial power to make them, and the power expended to make the money to pay for them, is recovered. It's the best we have to date unless you look at some nuclear tech?

Making low cost wind generators from scavenged parts such as, gears, alternators, sheet metal etc is probably your best bet when cost is a major consideration. Use them to charge scavenged lead-acid batts.