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The Guardian today has an entertaining article about the claim by the Irish company Steorn that they have found a way of developing free energy which flies in the face of the principle of conservation of energy.

The topic has gained much attention from Irish bloggers as thoroughly detailed by Adam McGuire. They display (to the skeptical Guardian journalist Steve Boggan) how the generator works ‘at their modest offices near the Liffey’ and discuss the reaction of utter disbelief and claims that they are ‘a CIA or oil-industry front intended to discredit research into free and clean energy’.

"It's the Pons-Fleischmann factor," says Sean McCarthy, chief executive of Steorn when talking about the extreme reactions they’ve been getting. He and Richard Walshe then ‘look at each other darkly’. Pons-Fleischmann is a reference to the claim made by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann in 1989 that they had created a nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature, with an experiment that hasn’t been successfully replicated since. The resulting controversy effectively sunk the careers of the two scientists.

Steve Boggan talks to Martin Fleischmann, now 79 and asks if he thinks it’ll work.

“I do accept that the existing [quantum electro-dynamic] paradigm is not adequate.”, says Fleischmann, “If what these men are saying turns out to be true, that would be proof that the paradigm was inadequate and we would have to come up with some new theory. But I don't think their claims are credible. No, I cannot see how the position of magnetic fields allows one to create energy."

But with a spark in his eye, he wishes them luck.