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.