14 Million?
Steorn appeared in the Sunday Times, Ireland today according to forum members at Randi.org and also in Steorn's forums. I haven't seen the article yet, so I can't say much about what it states. If anyone has a copy, I would be very interested in reading it!
As far as the 14 million euros raised mentioned in both forums, It's unclear from what I've read if this was raised before Steorn's pronouncement of not accepting funding until the Jury process is over. Giving Steorn the benefit of the doubt, I would lean towards guessing that it was before August. Sean has mentioned funds before in the forums, specifically this comment, posted here back on April 9th:
Where does the 3 million number come from??? We have funding well in excess of 10 million. Your position may make some sense to you, but it is wrong - time will tell.
29 comments:
The OP on the Randi forums summarized Steorn's finances quite nicely.
Quote:
Steorn have reportedly raised €14million from private investors ahead of the "expert evaluation" of their "technology".
Beats working for it I suppose, but this does help to clarify some of the lingering questions about why these people are doing this. Other curious pointers to their intentions:
* They are employing "independent evaluators" at minimal cost to themselves
* They are not undertaking any expensive development costs (they plan on licencing the "technology" for other to work out how to put it in a mobile phone, say (true, they said that )
* ditto product development
* ditto manufacturing
This should leave a nice big hefty slice ofthe €14 million capital invested to be spent on more important things like directors salaries, benfits, bonuses etc etc.
Unquote:
If you want to figure out what Steorn is about, don't focus on the technology. There isn't any free-energy device. Follow the money.
Thicket,
To be clear, do the financials for end of last fiscal year show capital in excess of the 3 Mil?
What I'd like to figure out as best we can is when the additional capital was raised. Is it clear new investment came in after the inital advert or when Sean's stated policy was that they were not taking on new investors?
Is it just me or is Steorn forum down?
"If you want to figure out what Steorn is about, don't focus on the technology. There isn't any free-energy device."
There's your so-called "skeptic/cynic manual in a nutshell."
But instead of just waiting for it to fall apart as you're no doubt confident it surely will, you're all coming to the "rescue" of the "rubes" (and you don't even know who these "rubes" are, but no matter.)
Legends in your own minds.
It almost makes me wish it to be validated and sold as a real product not for the world's benefit, but just to shut all of you up.
Who's rescuing anyone? I hoped to 'rescue' a few people from physics ignorance with advice on reading matter, but that's about it.
Anyone who's willing to invest in/buy stuff from/take seriously Steorn is beyond any help I can provide.
I can't speak for other sceptics (it's not like it's some kind of organised group) but I’m here for the entertainment. It's fun to speculate about what they might be up to and find out the manner in which it falls apart.
It was also fun to engage Sean and watch him try and be convincing.
I’d dearly love it to be real. The annoyance of 007, eman8, whiskeythief et al’s moronic smugness would be a small price to pay for the end of all energy problems.
Sadly, there’s no such thing as ‘free energy’. They have not violated CoE for the very good reason that it’s impossible. These are facts we know with a very high degree of certainty (maybe higher than our certainty of ANY other facts) .
Why have the open forum? I mean if these lads REALLY have a magic energy machine...why not wait till it's released and be done with it...why all the fuss with the forum or the SPDC forum with their high-school mods on physics. It makes no sense to me...
I wonder sometimes If you all just want oil wars for the next 50 years.
Peak oil has already happened and more people will die because of oil and the growing need for it.
You should be glad that this new technology is coming out and try and be supportive of a very courageous company.
If it's true (which so far I think it is) then you're gonna look stupid for constantly putting it down.
"I wonder sometimes If you all just want oil wars for the next 50 years"
Hmm, yes ... I'm beginning to see now ... could it be? By being sceptical of Steorn we are slowly killing free energy. Every time somebody says something bad about Steorn an Orbo breaks down! Let's all be supportive of this brave company and free energy will certainly become true! (not to mention the added advantage of not looking stupid)
Our whole world does rest on the foundation of cheap energy. Currently fossil fuels provide this cheap energy. Fossil fuels aren’t going to be cheap for much longer.
These are all facts and together they provide a serious problem. Thinking this problem is going to be solved by some plucky Irish free thinkers who have violated the principle of conservation of energy is foolish.
Not believing, for one second, that Steorn have got what they say does not mean that I don’t believe that there is a problem there to be solved. It doesn’t mean I don’t think we need a solution. It certainly doesn’t mean I want ‘oil wars’.
Steorn is just an entertaining fantasy. If you want to pin your hopes on anything, pin it on nuclear. At least working fusion reactors and cleaner fission are actually grounded in reality. If you’re more optimistic, pin it on massively more efficient solar or tidal power.
Don’t rely on Steorns bullshit.
Hi Steorn Tracker
I posted the article that you want to read on the steorn.com forum :-)
Here is the Times article posted by Magnatrix on the Steorn forum:
22 April 2007
Steorn raises €8m for its “free” energy device
(by Aine Coffey Irish Sunday Times – Business Section Page Two)
STEORN, the Dublin-based company that advertised in The Economist magazine last summer for scientists to test its controversial “energy-creating” technology, has raised €14m since it was set up. Most recently it raised €8.4m to fund its energy project.
The Company has also begun a scientific peer review of the technology it claims can make “completely free and clean” energy – a task Leonardo da Vinci tried by failed to achieve.
According to Sean McCarthy, Steorn’s chief executive, 5000 people responded to The Economist as. That number fell to less than 1000 once “time wasters” were whittles out, he said and 22 scientists from US and Europe began a peer review in January.
The scientists will start carrying out physical tests in the next couple of months, McCarthy said. He declined to name any of them. “Anyone who even gets mentioned in connection with this gets 1000 bloggers all over them.”
Four years ago, Steorn engineers, who were looking at ways of powering cash-machine cameras, discovered they had created an energy generator, according to McCarthy.
“We spent about six months trying to convince ourselves it was real. We expected nothing but skepticism. The serious side for us was how do you take a heresy deemed not difficult but utterly impossible and change people’s minds?”
Steorn has convinced private investors to pump in just over €14m since it was set up, new Companies Office Filings reveal. McCarthy said that the company had decided not to raise more funds until it had proved the technology.
He expects testing to continue into early next year. At the end of the validation, he plans to release 100,000 “Orbo” units that will demonstrate energy being made, he said. “We have contacted a European company to manufacture them.”
Steorn views its discovery as a platform technology, he said. “It can be engineered into anything from micro-devices for mobile phones to macro-devices for cars. We have decided to focus on the intellectual property and allow people to license it.”
@ben
You say that Steorn is bullshit, but yet you cannot to date provide a single shred of evidence that they ARE a scam.
I challenge you here and now on this forum to provide "real" evidence that they are, and by that I don't mean hearsay.
We've been through this a million times already, but I'm sure the sensible people out there will be struggling to figure out how Steorn plan to make any money If it were a hoax. It doesn't add up.
If anything it looks very promising for them as each day goes by.
The scam theories are starting to bore me as they have no basis in real fact and I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.
Steorn are helping you free from the clutches of oil domination and all you can do is put them down.
You are an embarrassment to progress.
The thing is, no we can't offer one shread of evidence that they are frauds. BUT, Steorn has made the claim that they have a device capable of OU. The burden of proof is on them, and as yet they have not provided one shread of proof, not one spec, not even the name of those that are testing it. Already they have backed off their claim that they would provide detail tech specs at the end of first quarter 07. Let us not forget they have given Zero data to back up their claim...none, nada, zippo, not one shread of evidence other then a statement.
The best thing about the believers is how few of them understand that all the speculation in the world is exactly that speculation. If steorn have a new energy source wonderful, if it is a wet fart in a windstorm
-too bad so sad-
Why do so many of them feel that any questions about steorn are a personal insult?
Terry Lingle
This is about people fighting the corporations of the world.
They would love it if we all used every last drop of oil, coal and gas because it keeps their shareholders happy.
We should not be squabbling amongst ourselves, but as people we should be pushing the scientific community and global business into acceptance of free energy. Let's drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
How many times have we all sat down and complained about fuel prices, electricity /gas bills. Moaned about the spaghetti of 15 power cables behind your stereo and TV or ran out of petrol on a wet night on the freeway.
It's time to start looking at your OWN life and how Steorn's technology could make your YOUR life simpler, cleaner and more efficient.
Push away the old. Reject it. Tell OPEC where they can shove their oil and tell them that no more lives will be lost in pursuit of the black polluting substance.
It's time for everyone to change their attitudes.
Tell your friends that free energy is available. Tell them about Steorn. Be one of the people who saved the world - not one of the ones who stood in the way.
Start being part of the solution instead of the problem.
Do I read that correctly "Most recently it raised €8.4m to fund its energy project." ? What is most recent ? After august 06 ? If this is the case, then not only Sean broke his "no more funding until validation", but ALSO this certainly give water to the scam theory by showing "where the money is to be gotten".
I would also like to see a detailed break down of those financials of Steorn. Some of the post they have in their financials look inflated compared to my own firm financial admin cost, but then again they could put under those post cost which we put in another place.
"The scam theories are starting to bore me as they have no basis in real fact and I challenge anyone to prove me wrong."
------
No basis in fact?
Hmmm...how many scams have we seen since the dawn of civilisation? Countless millions.
How many perpetual motion devices have there been? None.
How many scams have involved perpetual motion machines? Thousands.
Perhaps use these facts as a background to judging a company claiming to have (yet again!) invented perpetual motion. I think I will assume they haven't, until anyone proves otherwise.
COE is the one tenet that underlies all of physics. Yet you think some clowns from Dublin have somehow smashed that tenet by fiddling around with a few magnets?
Sean has been caught bullshitting more times than I have had hot dinners. If they have what they say, then why all the crap?
Simple reasoning:
Violation of conservation of energy is impossible.
Steorn claim to have violated the conservation of energy.
They are therefore liars.
If you contest the first statement I suggest that you provide some evidence, other than 'Sean says', to prove otherwise.
@ben
I raised a challenge to you to prove you have evidence of a scam or hoax. You have not been able to provide it, therefore you have failed the challenge.
I think you should apologise for misleading people and for defaming an otherwise courageous and responsible group of individuals.
They give you hope and you can't even give them trust.
You're a disgrace to your own kind.
"Hope".
"Trust".
What a nice words. Unfortunately, "Disappointment" quite often follows.
Little survival kit to all believers: Be realistic. Do your homework. Use your brain.
"I raised a challenge to you to prove you have evidence of a scam or hoax. You have not been able to provide it, therefore you have failed the challenge."
-----
I don't believe he accepted your challenge you silly boy.
Here's my challenge: prove that Steorn have a perpetual motion machine.
Can't do it? Then I think you better apologise to everyone (in the world), for being credulous.
@Believers:
You all yell, "Prove it's a scam!" I would say prove it's not but you can't so don't waste you time. There is no proof either way other than, "Sean says," and the historical facts sited by Ben.
Past perpetual claims: (thousands)
Scam = 100%
Real = 0%
COE law tested: (thousands)
Real = 100%
Broken = 0%
The odds don't look good for Steorn. Any intelligent, logical thinker can see that but sadly the believers have wished it so hard that they've deluded themselves and cannot see the man behind the curtain.
I wish it were so, I really do but scam history and rock solid COE history say it's not and it's going to be a sad day when this thing falls apart. I think I will feel worse for the believers and all those poor children in Africa than the investors, the investors are only looking to make a fast buck while the believers want to see the world saved and the dawn of a new and better world.
I'm a skeptic and I want that too, who wouldn't? Skeptics don't have an agenda to destroy or sabotage Orbo or to shoot down believers. I think most skeptics are compassionate people who are trying to stem unbridled belief in something that is most likely going to hurt you in the end.
Believers, just don't believe too hard; there are a couple of you that I fear for and I for one harbor no animosity and will offer any support I can to you when it falls apart. Whether it is validated or not validated, there is not a skeptic out there who will be hurt, and we will all be as happy as you if validated.
Take Suomipoika's advice (nice post).
zpe
They don't give me hope and I certainly don't give them trust.
If they give you hope then you're a sucker.
Can you show me any evidence that they have what they claim?
If not, what further proof of a scam could you ask for?
Hey, I never cited any historical scams, free energy or otherwise. These are irrelevant.
I have made an appeal to the entirety of our understanding of the physical world. Steorns claims are at odds with all known physics. Either big chunks of our current, well tested, understanding are way off the mark or Steorn are liars. Understand that this supposedly isn’t in some strange area either – remember that apparently no new, exotic materials or processes are required. Just play around with some permanent magnets.
I know what I think, you make up your own mind. Before you do, you might want to try understanding the stuff we already know so you realise quite how ridiculous their claim is.
I'm not the one saying it's a scam.
YOU ARE.
Therefore - the burden of proof is on you.
Quote: from Ben
Hey, I never cited any historical scams, free energy or otherwise. These are irrelevant.
Unquote:
My appologies to Ben and Father Luke Duke. It was the 'Father' who made the historical comments. However; I must disagree with Ben. I think they are very relevant.
zpe
One who makes the claim, has burden of proof. However, if there is a claim against counter-claim (god exists/doesn't exist, orbo is real/is fake), then the burden of proof falls to the one, whose burden is lighter.
It's easy to prove that Orbo is real. Just show the device. But it's difficult to prove that Orbo doesn't exist, because you should turn around all the rocks upon earth.
Therefore burder of proof is upon those, who claim there is a device which produces free energy.
For those that argue that the Steorn invention is impossible as it violates the conservation of energy principle, consider the situation that they HAVE achieved what they say they have, yet it does NOT violate conservation of energy. The energy simply comes from a unknown source. For instance, a nuclear power plant violates conservation of energy for those who have no understanding of nuclear physics. A solar cell violates conservation of energy for those who have no understanding of photo-voltaics.
From their actions over the past month, they appear to be a group of compentent engineers who genuinely believe they have discovered a new phenomenon. They have had plenty of time to test and prove it to themselves. The only question is whether they are actually mistaken.
They have made a verbal public claim and are currently in the process of trying to validate that claim. Steorn have not asked publicly for money. There is nothing to debate as no significant information about their invention has been released. There is no man behind the curtain because no demonstration has been done. All that has been done is a verbal claim. Yet a lot of people spend so much personal time on this, and get so worked up about it. Steorn are not ripping you all off because you have not personally given them any money. However, a lot of people have spent a lot of time debating it, which you will not get compensated for.
I do, however, commend the members of the jury for giving up their time to investigate the claim.
I personally have not given them any money, and am willing to give them 5 minutes per week checking the web for any updated news on their testing. That amount of time may reduce in the future. I have plenty of other things to do. However, I thank SteornTracker for spending time to provide a neat summary of any worthy news.
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