rationalskepticism.org

harleyborgais wrote:Let no-one ever tell you free energy or perpetual motion do not exist because all particles are perpetually in motion, and all solar, wind, and hydro electric power are free energy. There is also the Motionless Electromagnetic Generator which is perhaps the best method for deriving energy from the environment. You know that is happening when a generator becomes cold instead of hot. Energy is ALWAYS conserved, never created or destroyed, only changed in form (and matter is a form of energy -proven by matter/anti-matter annihilation).

I'll make it clear from the outset that I think this is nonsense.

Yes, we are surrounded by particles in a constant state of motion, but to suggest that this somehow means that "free energy" is out there, in the motion of all these particles, is naive. The problem is the second law of thermodynamics. The particles may be in motion, but it is random motion. Useful work cannot be obtained from this because it would imply a decrease in entropy.

Here is a simple example:

I can extract energy from movement of air in wind, using a windmill: I can use the motion of the air molecules to push a mechanical device, which then drives a dynamo, etc. None of this is "free": the sun is increasing entropy to pay for it all.

Now, suppose I want to extract energy from the random motion of air molecules in my room, here - not from any "wind" or "breeze" - just from the random motion that occurs in a gas at room temperature. I can make something like a windmill, which moves a bit when a molecule hits it - but the motion of the molecules is random. If one molecule nudges my windmill one way, shortly afterwards, another molecule will hit it from a different direction and nudge it a different way. This should be obvious to us: a windmill placed in a room, with no wind, will not start spinning due to the random motion of air molecules. This is just one example, but it is the same with any attempt to get "free energy". To get useful work, in the macroscopic, everyday world that humans inhabit, you would need to scale up the random motion in the microscopic world to produce some macroscopic effect, but there is no preferred direction for this macroscopic effect: any microscopic event that makes your macroscopic effect go one way will be opposed by one that makes it go another way. That is the basic problem, put simply, although it is better described in terms of thermodynamics.

You say this would not violate conservation of energy, but that is not the issue here: your issue is that "free energy" would need to violate the second law of thermodynamics, and you have given no explanation, here, of how this problem can be resolved. That you would even bother reassuring us that there is no violation of the law of conservation of energy, when any informed person would immediately see that the second law of thermodynamics is what needs an answer, suggests that you have no understanding of what you are talking about.