After 3 1/2 months of almost complete silence from Steorn, CEO Sean McCarthy granted an interview last week which was published today at the Free Energy Truth blog. The difficult questions were left unasked, but the interview does give a feeling for what Steorn’s been up to lately. Here are some excerpts:

On what they’ve been doing for the past few months:

We continue to work on Orbo. Obviously we are looking at different implementations of it, more reliable implementations of it both mechanical and non mechanical. We’re also looking at the material science behind these time variant magnetic transactions as in what’s the real driver for them. What makes one material have a different response from another material? We’ve looked at a lot of third party research, fund some research and obviously do our own research into this area, we have managed to rule out most of the drivers to time based domain response (eddy currents, heat and so on) but as to why ferrite has a different response to Iron – well more work to be done.

On where the second demo will be located:

It will most likely be in Dublin, Ireland.

On what their recently trademarked name SteornLab refers to:

An awful lot of what we have developed over the years has been based on tests… SteornLab relates to the productization of these testing technologies we’ve developed over the years.

On whether Orbo creates or extracts energy:

It’s a question of views. I would say that, in the same way as there is a mass/energy equivalent there is also a form of time/energy equivalent and whether you consider that energy creation or conversion is a matter of semantics.

On whether Steorn will license Orbo for military and weapons applications:

It’s specifically precluded.

On the development of the mechanical, as well as a solid-state version of Orbo:

We have some engineering issues that we are currently resolving in terms of mechanical systems; we are constantly looking at ways to capture and express the energy in a real world environment that are simpler and simpler and there is nothing simpler than a solid state device. So it’s in the plan, but its not something that we [are] actively engaged in at this time.

On whether anyone else has ever discovered the effect behind Orbo:

I think lots of people have. I can look at many of the other free energy claimants and understand exactly how they could work. I could also see why many would be difficult to replicate without understanding what was happening.

There are two main points that I take from this interview: 1) Steorn is still humming along, and still believes in what they have, and 2) Don’t expect a second demo any time soon.
I add the second point because Sean thinks that the second demo will “most likely” take place in Dublin. If it were to take place further off than Dublin, a good deal of planning would be involved; so the fact that it’s still not certain whether it will be in Dublin or elsewhere means that they haven’t reached the point yet of planning for an actual second event.

Another curiosity is that Steorn is already looking to productize the testing technology they’ve acquired and developed for the purpose of testing Orbo. For them to spare the energy to develop a tangential line of business, does this mean they are running short of cash, or doubting the future prospects of Orbo, at least in the near term?

Steorn is still chugging away, and most signs are that they’re still confidant in the development of Orbo. Once again, there’s nothing new here – the message from Steorn is, as usual: just you wait.