I love all of the hype about Steorn. There’s nothing like a great viral campaign. For those of you who haven’t heard about it yet… here’s their claim:

We have developed a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy.

This means never having to recharge your phone, never having to refuel your car. A world with an infinite supply of clean energy for all.

Our technology has been independently validated by engineers and scientists – always off the record, always proven to work.

What is it? How does it work? No details yet. Here’s what the CEO of Steorn had to say recently:

Sean McCarthy, Steorn’s chief executive officer, said they had issued the challenge for 12 physicists to rigorously test the technology so it can be developed.

"What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy," McCarthy said.

"The energy isn’t being converted from any other source such as the energy within the magnet. It’s literally created. Once the technology operates it provides a constant stream of clean energy," he told Ireland’s RTE radio.

McCarthy said Steorn had not set out to develop the technology, but "it actually fell out of another project we were working on".

One of the basic principles of physics is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change form.

McCarthy said a big obstacle to overcome was the disbelief that what they had developed was even possible.

"For the first six months that we looked at it we literally didn’t believe it ourselves. Over the last three years it had been rigorously tested in our own laboratories, in independent laboratories and so on," he said.

According to Wikipedia "A page on Steorn’s website titled "Press Coverage" had a broken link to a news story claiming the discovery in the Guardian on April 1, 2006."

What’s the blogosphere saying about it?

• There are also rumours abound that this is an XBox / Halo 3 PR stunt.
• If Sean is an actor, give him the oscar. He is very convinced of what he is saying over, and over, and over again.
• Apparently the images used on the Steorn website are related to the Irish prehistoric site Newgrange.

Anyway you slice it, this is going to be fun. Kind of reminds me a little of when the Segway was hyped up or the whole Adams’ Platform fiasco we had in Melbourne over the last ten years.