Steorn's Orbo

It's now been over a month since CEO Sean McCarthy or any other member of Steorn has spoken publicly, to either the press or the forums. Whether they're hard at work or falling apart, they're just not talking.

The situation in the developers' club (SPDC) isn't much different. Apparently Steorn has given SPDC members a gag order, asking them not discuss the current situation. A few bits of information have slipped through anyway; enough to reveal that the SPDC doesn't know anything more about what Steorn's up to than do we. SPDC member my_pen_is_stuck wrote on July 31st, "Steorn don't even speak with the SPDC1 nowdays. Not a peep. Very weird." Later on August 5th he wrote, "I'm beginning to think that Grimer was on to something when he said the SPDC was a cult. Sean speaks, usual no evidence waffle, the SPDC bows down to kiss his ring. It's really fuckin' weird in there." On August 11th, GrantHodges wrote "There isn't any news on Steorn for this month. I'm in the SPDC and well . . .there isn't any news."

Given the silence from Steorn, some have wondered whether they'd packed up and cleared out. Forum member Crank, who lives a few miles from Steorn, dropped by their office on July 31st.
She reported back that the situation there was normal, and all employees were still present.

One older item of interest that came out recently is the design of the demonstration unit that Steorn intends to have manufactured in a limited quantity (100,000), to be sold off as part of the public introduction of the Orbo technology. The device, shown below, looks like a horsehead or "nodding donkey" style oil pump, sitting atop an oil barrel. A video of this device in action was made available to the SPDC, however Sean stated that the motion of the prototype unit seen in the video was not actually generated by an Orbo. So, it proves nothing except that Steorn is laying plans for the public introduction of Orbo.

Finally, some links. Two articles have been published recently about Steorn's claims (and failed demo):

Physics World
Metro Part 1, Part 2

And there's a new Google discussion group, Steorb, devoted to Steorn. Not very active these days, but people can post there without fear of the occasional bannings and threads deletions that occur at the Steorn company forum.

This period of silence from Steorn can only be the calm before a storm... but whether that storm will be a successful demonstration of free energy or just the collapse of the company, remains to be seen.

Today the Free Energy Truth blog announced that coming Friday will be an interview with someone who claims to have independently replicated the effect behind Steorn's free energy technology. If true, this would be the first time that anyone outside of Steorn has been able to replicate the effect and talk about it publicly. Of course, after the failed demo, repeated delays, and now complete silence that we've gotten from Steorn, it's reasonable to expect nothing less than full disclosure and a video of a self powered device before this claim is considered to be worth taking seriously. A successful demonstration, however, would beat Steorn to the punch and be the first display of a potentially revolutionary discovery. Further updates on this will follow as more information becomes available.

Update 8/31:

The previously announced interview has been posted at the Free Energy Truth blog; the interviewee is a man named "Blake". Consensus on the Steorn forum is that this is Alton "Blake" Walston, a member of the SPDC who has gone by the forum handle ablaker2.

Blake claims to have followed schematics provided by Sean McCarthy and built an Orbo device that ran continuously for at least 8 hours. According to his account the precise configuration of magnets in his device required a good deal of trial and error experimentation to get right, and after its initial 8 hour run he has thus far been unsuccessful at coaxing self-sustained motion from the device a second time.

While Blake claims to be committed to getting his Orbo spinning again, and says he'll be sure to have a video camera on hand next time when it does, as it stands now Blake has only an anecdotal account of a one-time event to offer, with no objective record of any kind that it actually took place. It's certainly interesting to have this story brought out from the confines of the SPDC, but until Blake's Orbo is running continuously, repeatedly, and on video, it remains nothing more than that -- a story.