Energy Update: Inventor to Demonstrate He Can Generate Electricity from Air in Defiance of the Laws of Thermodynamics

In August of 2009, Gabriel Ohiochoya Obadan of Pasadena, California filed a U.S. patent for a device he calls the Hydro-Electric Reactor. The patent claimed the device could create energy from ambient air whether indoors or outdoors. Using a multiple compression propulsion system, the reactor creates pressurized air which then passes through proprietary-designed micro-turbines. The turbines drive generators which produce the end product, electricity.

What the inventor claims, if true, is utterly astounding. The Hydro-Electric Reactor requires no fossil fuel input and provides net energy output greater than input by multiple factors. Cogar International Energy Corporation, the company that has built a prototype, claims it can service 20 generators using 500 kilowatts of energy input to create 2,000 kilowatts in output. The reactor once started operates continuously without further application of external energy because the energy generated is cycled back to keep the machine operating. So all you need is 75 kilowatts of external input to get it started and then it is off to the races.

On June 2, 2012, Power Engineering published an article about the technology, “Extraordinary Green Energy Breakthrough From Cogar International Energy Corporation” describing an upcoming news conference and technology demonstration.

In visiting the Cogar website I gleaned the following advantages derived from the Hydro-Electric Reactor:

1. It produces electricity for less than 1 cent (U.S.) per kilowatt hour.
2. Unlike other renewable energy sources like solar and wind it is continuous.
3. Air goes in and only air comes out.
4. It is self-sustaining after the initial kick-start.
5. It is designed to operate efficiently for a century with little downtime for maintenance.
6. It is easy to install anywhere whether in or outdoors and scales from as small as a power source for an automobile engine to as large as a source for power station generation.
7. If used in automobiles, ships and airplanes it can provide electrical engines with unlimited mileage on a continuous charge.

The patent describes how its proprietary technology compresses ambient air in several stages to drive micro-turbines. The compressed air passes through a Jet Propulsion Corridor. It intersects with the turbines which are semi-circular bucket shaped with internal and external flanges. The turbines drive shafts attached to the generators that produce the electricity. Exhaust compressed air gets recycled back into the unit through a pressurized air conduit in a continuous feedback loop.

Mr. Obadan is described as a scientist, inventor and divinity. On the company website it states that he has broken three major laws of physics.

1. He has created a machine that can run perpetually once primed without any additional external power source….a “perpetual motion machine.”
2. He has demonstrated that the law of thermodynamics can be broken by showing that less energy can create more sustainable energy, in fact in multiples well beyond the initial energy input.
3. He has broken Isaac Newton’s axiom that every action leads to an equal and opposite reaction because his reactor creates more of reaction than the initial action.

If all of the above is true then the June 9^th, 2012 press conference and demonstration should be attended by lots of people in the energy industry, and governments from around the world because this would be extraordinary. But let me conclude this article with a few caveats.

Building a machine that puts out more energy than it receives is a very tall task. No one has succeeded to-date and many who have invested in “free energy” inventions have been burned. At least Mr. Obadan is stating the cost for the Hydro-Electric Reactor is one cent per kilowatt hour.

But the laws of thermodynamics have held up over time. If you don’t remember your high school physics here is a brief explanation.

The first law of thermodynamics deals with conservation of energy. You can transform energy from one form to another such as changing light into heat, but you cannot create or destroy energy. In other words you cannot produce something from nothing in this Universe, at least not since the Big Bang. So any device that generates more energy than the energy it receives violates this law.

The second law of thermodynamics deals with entropy. When energy is applied to a system it begins to breakdown. For example, some of the energy may be lost to friction in moving parts or to heat escaping from the system into the surrounding environment. That’s why motors fail over time, bearings give out, buildings corrode, and so on. To-date nothing in the Universe has demonstrated that it is not subject to entropy over time.

So is the Hydro-Electric Reactor pictured above flim flammery or is it for real? We’ll keep our blog readers in the loop as this story unfolds.