Talk:Blacklight Power

Rowan University

84.106.26.81 recently edited the article in a variety of places. I believe many of these edits are inappropriate and it is a lot of work to undo them unless they are all undone which I tend to favor. The apparent goal of the edits is not vandalism or I would have just undone them completely. However the purpose of some of the edits seems to be to put a more positive BLP spin on facts than is justified. For instance, this sentence was changed from:

"In 2008,[41] 2009[42] and 2010[43] BLP news releases cited research by Rowan University staff as independent verification of BLP claims."

"In 2008,[42] 2009[43] and in 2010[44] Rowan University independently verified the claims.[45]"

This seems to be a clear cut attempt to misrepresent the facts. I do not believe 84.106.26.81 is a good faith editor and this example is egregious enough that it is my intention to undo it within 12 hours if there is not a consensus to keep it.--Davefoc (talk) 12:25, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The source I added was not the BLP new release. end of story. I've added an extra source that should satisfy the issue.[1]

note: "Comment on content, not on the contributor: Keep the discussions focused upon the topic of the talk page, rather than on the personalities of the editors contributing to the talk page." Wikipedia:Talk_page#Good_practices 84.106.26.81 (talk) 18:01, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

http://www.rowan.edu/colleges/engineering/clinics/cleanenergy/pv/papers/pdf/files/paper6.pdf

• "This particular project served to validate a company’s test set-up and that the results of their tests with a proprietary catalyst can be replicated by third party teams."
• "the proprietary catalyst can be said to be generating 700-750kJ of excess heat for these tests."

84.106.26.81 (talk) 18:29, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

At the best your source can be said to be a claim by Rowan University of independent research. As the subsequent portion of that section explains claiming that Rowan University provides independent validation might be misleading because of some of the factors listed. The article needs to be very careful with claims of independent validation by Rowan or by BLP. These claims are not peer reviewed. Rowan clearly has a long standing relationship with BLP. The article you referenced in this section is titled UNDERGRADUATE VALIDATION OF CUTTING-EDGE CALORIMETRY OF AN INDUSTRIAL AFFILIATE’S NOVEL ENERGY SOURCE. There are huge red flags there. First it calls BLP an affiliate. Secondly it is research done by undergraduates. Thirdly there is not the slightest indication that this is peer reviewed or supported by outside researchers. I have not included this in the article because I think it goes into personal opinion and OR but what seems to be going on here is that BLP does an experiment and passes it over to Rowan that repeats what BLP did often with the same equipment and says they have independently validated something. Please read what legitimate physics papers sound like when they are attempting to validate a theory or result. They develop independent experiments and reasoning to validate or not validate a theory. In a nutshell they are trying to provide independent confirmation of a theory. Rowan University is merely playing the role of advanced technicians that duplicate BLP specified experiments. Independent validation is not what is going on here regardless of claims to the contrary and your edits to the section in question imply that it is. If you want to claim independent verification find any research done by a respected university or research lab that has used their own equipment that is not an affiliate of BLP that supports BLP claims and reference that. Meanwhile until you can demonstrate something like that your edits will continue to look like something done by somebody with a non neutral agenda and it therefore my intention to undo them unless other editors of this article disagree with me.--Davefoc (talk) 21:37, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

note: "Comment on content, not on the contributor: Keep the discussions focused upon the topic of the talk page, rather than on the personalities of the editors contributing to the talk page." Wikipedia:Talk_page#Good_practices 84.106.26.81 (talk) 00:31, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

He is commenting on the content...and FWIW, I agree with him. SteveBaker (talk) 20:43, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Restoration of the section

The section was restored to what it had been before the 84.106.26.81|84.106.26.81 edits. Some of the reasons are described below:
Title restored The title of the Rowan related BLP research section was deleted. The title served the purpose of providing a header to distinguish sections on BLP research, Rowan University BLP related research and mainstream science related BLP related research. It was therefore restored to make that distinction clear.

Topic sentence restored The topic sentence of the section was changed to this by 84.106.26.81|84.106.26.81: "In 2008,[19] 2009[20] and in 2010[4] Rowan University verified the claims." The new sentence is ambiguous. What are the claims Rowan University verified? It may refer in some way to what was written in the paragraph above it, but that is not clear. If it refers to verification of BLP theoretical claims then it is just wrong. Rowan University papers do not seem to ever claim proof or belief in BLP theories. If it refers to verification of BLP experiments then it does not meet reasonable standards for such a strong claim. Rowan University and BLP are the only source of this claim and they do not rise to the level of credibility that the article should state what they claim as fact. What is clear and true is that BLP claims that Rowan University provided independent verification of BLP claims and that is exactly what the original section said. A new source was added to the article that was put forth as justification for the change of the topic sentence. The new source does not validate the change to the topic sentence in the least. From the Reuters article cited: "Last month New Jersey-based Rowan University engineers said the BlackLight process in the lab had produced heat some 1.6-6.5 times beyond levels that can be easily explained." This source is consistent with what the article said before the edits and does not provide any independent confirmation that BLP claims were verified by Rowan as the edits suggest. --Davefoc (talk) 17:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Harvard

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-530712?ref=feeds%2Flatest December 2010

• Working with a team headed by Dr. Alexander Bykanov at Harvard's Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics under contract with GEN3 Partners, "the device showed hydrogen spectral emissions below 80 nanometers, the previously known "ground state" of hydrogen. Scientists formerly believed there could be no parts of the hydrogen atom smaller than the atom itself."

• In a joint statement, Dr. Bykanov and Dr. Sam Kogan, chief operating officer of GEN3 Partners, said "[BlackLight Power's] spectral results were identically [and] independently reproduced, and we could find no conventional explanation for the emission of bright light from hydrogen in this very high energy region. We believe that this confirms hydrino emission."

• GEN3 Partners is a Boston-based a company that evaluates new technologies and helps bring them to market.84.106.26.81 (talk) 01:02, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

With all due respect, what are you doing? There is no connection between BLP and Harvard other than that they rented some laboratory space from them. Gen3 is a consulting company that seems to offer services to companies doing research or that would like research done. I believe the head of Gen3 was on the board of BLP at the time that BLP contracted with them to supply a consultant. Dr. Bykanov thought so little of his work with BLP that he neither mentions it in his CV nor published anything on it outside of BLP paid for test reports. You can keep saying not to comment on the poster all you want, but your edits show either an uninformed view or a biased view. Note that is a comment about your edits and not you. --Davefoc (talk) 01:22, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

OHHHHH Look how uninformed you are! And such negative bias. But enough about you, lets talk about the article.

• It's Chairman James K. Sims and Michael Treacy founded GEN3 in 1999. Mr. Sims was elected to the Blacklight Power Board of Directors in April 2009.[2]

Our article pretty much describes them as an independent organization. Epic fail 84.106.26.81 (talk) 03:20, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

We've checked the salient facts here - which is that BLP claims that their research is backed by Harvard - Harvard denies this and states that B LP merely rented time in their labs. This has been discussed at length before. Unless you have some new evidence, I don't see a reason to change the article. SteveBaker (talk) 03:53, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

What does "our article" refer to? BLP hired GEN3 Partners to supply a scientist to do BLP work at a laboratory that BLP rented from Harvard. That does not constitute independent validation by any normal use of the term. I don't know "how uninformed you are!" means when what you posted confirms what I wrote. --Davefoc (talk) 05:42, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

It was even worse than that actually. The GEN3 team were supplied with a 'source' from BLP that they merely tested - they didn't peek inside to see what it was made of. There could easily have been a bunch of conventional batteries in there...who knows what? SteveBaker (talk) 20:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

note: "Comment on content, not on the contributor: Keep the discussions focused upon the topic of the talk page, rather than on the personalities of the editors contributing to the talk page." Wikipedia:Talk_page#Good_practices

84.106.26.81 (talk) 06:30, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

What people forgot to mention is that "independent validation" is an oxymoron. All validation is dependent on prior research. What really matters here is any "conflict of interest". Of course, those too more or less exist when something is being verified. Even if Harvard itself were doing the test, there would be conflicts of interest in the very fact that they must consult Blacklight Power on how the experiment is even going to be set up. It's all shades of gray you people.siNkarma86—Expert Sectioneer of Wikipedia
^{86 = 19+9+14 + karma = 19+9+14 + talk} 06:48, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Err, that of course is why the practice of science depends on publication: if the publication was accurate and complete, the work described could be replicated by anyone competent to do so, and BLP isn't going to entrust its fate to people that aren't under contract. We've previously discussed Joe Shea (aka user:Joeshea) and his blog. His iReport is not a useful source for this article. Pumping things out on a CNN iReport doesn't gain any extra journalistic credibility, as they don't normally get any systematic fact checking prior to publication.

We need to exercise great care in handling news reports in this article, as most of them have been simply rehashed from BLP's press releases through spindoctor H&K."Hill & Knowlton" "BlackLight Power" announce. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:01, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Joe Shea (aka User:Joeshea) is not a remotely reliable journalist.

1. He has on at least one occasion vandalized Wikipedia (He changed "Steve Krakauer" to "Steve Krakpot" - and when I complained, he said "Your outrage is absurd. You are being pedantic.").
2. He repeatedly edits the article about himself in contravention of WP:Autobiography.
3. He violates WP:COI by inserting references to his own writings into every article he can find that even tangentially might need it.
4. He lied - claiming that his COI changes have been 'grandfathered in' to Wikipedia (like that's likely!!)

...and so forth. IMHO, this lowers his reputation to the point where I don't think we should consider anything he writes to be a 'reliable source'. SteveBaker (talk) 20:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

(FYI: The business with GEN3 and Harvard was discussed previously here. It's worth reading before rehashing this debate. SteveBaker (talk) 20:46, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Citation required template in the first paragraph in the Patents section

A citation required template was added to the opening paragraph of the Patents section. Presumably the fact in question is that the status on two of the patents that BLP might hold is unclear. The next two paragraphs explain, document and cite references for why this is so. I don't believe citations are required for this kind of opening paragraph any more than they are required for the lede of an article when the lede summarizes the contents of the article to follow. I suggest that the citation required template be removed from this section.--Davefoc (talk) 06:58, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Support - yes, it is not necessary to decorate every single sentence of the article with little blue numbers. So long as the main points are covered at least once by WP:RS - we're good to go. SteveBaker (talk) 14:37, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Based on a little research on the issue of BLP patents I think an update to the section may be in order. BLP claims four US patents. I'm not sure what those patents are right now but BLP has definitely been issued patents after the time covered by the section in general. This isn't exactly related to the topic of this discussion. I continue to believe that a citation for a topic sentence is not required when it is fully documented in the text that follows.--Davefoc (talk) 19:10, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

A search on the WIPO site shows dozens of BLP or Mills applications at various states, for various countries. Few are specifically hydrino related, some are for biotech, others for generic UV applications, etc. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:42, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there are lots of US patent applications (which is interesting by itself) and according to BLP 56 international patents but I think right now BLP only claims 4 US patents but that is still not consistent with the article. I think perhaps two of the patents have been granted since the bulk of the writing was done on the patents section in the Wikipedia article. I think the patents section needs an update.--Davefoc (talk) 07:40, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Patents that show up as assigned to BLP in google patent search:
Method and system of computing and rendering the nature of the excited electronic states of atoms and atomic ions, 7,689,367 B2 Mar. 30, 2010 An imaging patent not mentioned in the article

Method and sytem of computing and rendering the nature of the chemical bond of hydrogen=type molecules and molecular ions, 7,188,022 B2 Mar. 6, 2007 An imaging patent already mentioned in the article

Molecular laser, 7,773,656 B1 Aug. 10, 2010 Patent of a laser apparently based on the use of hydrinos

Lower-energy hydrogen methods and structures, 6,024,935 One of the two disputed patents described in the Wikipedia article. The other patent, 6030601, is not listed and the link to it in the current article doesn't work.

I think these are probably the four patents that BLP claims, although I'm not sure. Of these four, two are imaging patents, one is one of the disputed patents, and the other is a patent for a laser based on the existence of hydrinos (7,773,656). It appears that the patent office's unwillingness to grant hydrino related patents has been reversed.

In addition to these patents Mills has several medically related patents. I don't know that they are relevant to the article though. I also don't know that any of Mills medial patents have ever been licensed. --Davefoc (talk) 09:25, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Change in position of the Company section of the article

The Company section was moved down in the article with the explanation that people were interested in the technology and not the company. This article is about the company and as such I think the Company section belongs at the top of the article below the lede where it was. I suggest that it be returned to its original position. --Davefoc (talk) 07:01, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Support - Indeed, this is an article about a company - there is a company called "Blacklight Power" - but nobody calls their technology "Blacklight". If it were about the technology, the article would have a different title and in all likelyhood, we'd remove all but the most fleeting mention of the company. However, the technology is non-notable since it hasn't achieved mainstream acceptance...so if we're going to have an article here at all, then it should be about the company. SteveBaker (talk) 14:40, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

The article exists because of the controversy around the "technology" they claim to have discovered. This marvelous technology that was going to be ready to be mass produced 6 months from now 10 years ago. Your idea to bore people with company statistics no one cares about isn't a constructive suggestion. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 02:42, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

1 cent per KW???

The lede claims it "produces electricity for 1 cent per KW". Surely this should be kilowatt-hour? Although since it's not referenced, it should be removed? Didn't anyone who knows anything about science or engineering read this page? --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:13, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

That error was recently introduced. Thanks for catching it. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:41, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I didn't find the source of the one cent per kwh claim perhaps it is from Mills' book in which case a page number would be helpful, I searched through the book and I didn't find the basis of the claim there. I did find claims of vastly cheaper energy production. The specific cost claims that I found were for the capital costs of power plants using CIHT and automobile power plants using CIHT.

The last sentence of the lede is now somewhat confusing: "The heat produced by the proprietary technology has been confirmed by involved parties but the process is unknown and not confirmed to exist." I guess this is meant to mean that BLP and Rowan University have confirmed excess heat gain but that their confirmation isn't confirmed and it is not known what causes the unconfirmed heat gains. I think the sentence needs to rewritten to reflect actual facts or just eliminated. The original lede was clear with good citations. The new lede is now unclear in places and it has poor citations. Consideration should be given to just returning to the original lede of a few weeks ago. --Davefoc (talk) 16:08, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I edited the lede. I didn't find a source for the statement that BLP claims 1 cent/kwh for the cost of electricity generated by CIHT, although I suspect that it might exist. I substituted the BLP claim that it is expected that CIHT will replace basically all power sources which was close to the intent of the original statement and I did find a source for that. I made some minor changes that I thought improved it, but others may, reasonably enough, disagree. As I stated above I thought the lede of a week ago or so was fine and I'm not opposed to returning to that. I also removed the last sentence that I discussed above. I thought it was ambiguous and wasn't needed in the lede.--Davefoc (talk) 08:19, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

The 1 cent reference should be there some place. Sorry if it wasn't clear. The effect has been confirmed but Rowan university is to involved to consider it anything like independent replication. The technology hasn't been disclosed so the article should assure the reader there is no science here while still confirming the replications for what they are worth. (not much) There is some confirmation and there is no reason to think they have nothing at all but until there is any actual publication we should assure the reader no science has been confirmed to exist.

I'm sure it can be worded much better but you have to respect all the nuances. If you don't provide such "negative" assurances it becomes impossible to have content in the article. Any citation would make the company look entirely credible while they haven't really shown anything other than press releases.

Changing the lead is fine but it should say exactly what it does. The effect came after the theory and the effect is claimed to be based on the theory. You can not change this into the theory being based on the effect. If there is anything real or not or if he really "discovered" the theory first doesn't matter. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 02:38, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to revert the change to the lede. First 84.106.26.81 missed the point of this discussion section with his change. A KW or kilowatt is a measurement of power and not a measure of energy. If Blacklight power has made a claim about the cost of future energy production using CIHT it would have been in cost per KWH or kilowatt hour. 2. A Blacklight claim of electricity production of two cents per KWH is made under the company section of the article and one cent per KWH conflicts with it. 3. The quotation about the fact that BLP is expecting CIHT to replace almost all other forms of power generation is a more significant claim and is probably better suited to the lede. 4. There was no dcoumentation provided for the 1 cent per kwh claim and I looked for it before I changed the lede because I wanted to put something in the lede that I could source. --Davefoc (talk) 07:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I remember now, I found a lot of sources for that sentence but I didn't find the time to actually dig up a good one.

• "electricity for 1 cent per KW" https://www.google.com/search?q=%22electricity+for+1+cent+per+KW%22

You will have to ignore the entries from panicking wikipedians. haha

It isn't that strange to measure in cent per KW. They do it with solar panels and wind turbines to. "Solar recently dropped below 1 dollar per watt." 84.106.26.81 (talk) 15:23, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

What that google search finds is a few mirrors of wikipedia content, not any Reliable Sources. That Solar recently dropped below 1 dollar per watt." refers to the capital cost (per kW of peak power generating capacity installed), not the operating cost or the wholesale price (per kWh of generated energy, often cited for a specific time of day due to demand fluctuations). Of course, we've still not seen reliable evidence that BLP's technology can generate any power beyond what can be explained by ordinary chemistry, but their claims continue. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:46, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Does this article belong in the pseudoscience category?

Alan Liefting and JZG have edited in and out the placement of this article into pseudoscience and pseudophysics categories.

I can see an argument for and against the categorization:
1. The article is principally about the company and as Alan Liefting correctly states the company is not a pseudoscience.
2. Hydrino redirects to the article and the theory of hydrinos might reasonably be placed in the pseudoscience category.
3. Is classifying hydrino theory a pseudoscience a violation of NPOV?

I lean to the view that the categorization should remain given that this is the only Wikipedia article that deals with the theory of hydrinos but I might change my mind. The violation of NPOV might be a significant issue though.

Another issue with regard to this:
Why isn't pseudophysics a subcategory of pseudoscience? It seems like categorizing with both pseudophysics and pseudoscience might be overcategorization. --Davefoc (talk) 19:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The relevant policey is wp:PSCI, with a particular content guideline at wp:FRINGE/PS. The policy makes clear that free energy claims should be treated as such. As far as I see, it is silent on whether articles on companies "selling" PS should be in the cat. If the policy or guideline needs to be made explicit, we can discuss it at one of those two talkpages. Davefoc is correct that pseudophysics is a subcat of pseudoscience. I've deleted the PS cat and kept the PP.LeadSongDog come howl! 21:05, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that hydrino theory falls within a pseudoscience category based on the policy LeadSongDog linked to. That only leads the issue of whether it is appropriate to place a company article in a pseudoscience category when that company is focused on a pseudoscience technology. I lean to the idea that in this case it is. When the hydrino article was folded into this one this article became the only Wikipedia article covering hydrinos and as such it seems appropriate to include it in the pseudoscience category. --Davefoc (talk) 06:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems fine to include it to me. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:35, 26 February 2012 (UTC)