Comments on: Snake oil energy salesmen & green bamboozlers

By: breathonthewind

breathonthewind — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:48:00 +0000

A great article, just how do I get on that mailing list of greentech scam, I might add a few of my own.

As you mentioned, the issues are sometimes complex, but also in our daily lives we can’t find the needed attention or concentration to see truth from falsehood. Sometimes schooling helps and a sensitivity to fallacies in arguments might be an aid but is not often taught in our increasingly technical educations. Even Journalists are not immune and will sometimes repeat or assume perspectives that would show a stain in a stronger light. A recent article discussed many of these elements: “Are Electric Cars Green, No Matter Where You Plug In” http://cleantechnica.com/2012/04/20/are-electric-cars-green/

Thanks for bringing attention to the subject and I hope to hear more. B

By: nharvey

nharvey — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:21:45 +0000

It Seems to me that the snakeoil salesmen are a product of the fact that there’s a lot of money to be made in a transition to a cleaner and more reliable energy system and the sad fact that too few people even know how to spell thermodynamics!

By: Cello

Cello — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:24:57 +0000

FACT:
8 years after Mr. Weir submitted EESU patent (7466536) to the patent office (2004), there is no EESU meeting the patent specs and there never will be. You should know that issued patent 7466536 is provable inequitable conduct, a fraud on the patent office.

In 2009 conference call Dick Weir CEO of EESTOR states he is going into eesu production 4th quarter 2009. You can listen to the conference call @ http://www.4all.com/uploads/DW_Confcall_jun2009.mp3
Make sure you take notes of what comes out of Mr. Weir’s mouth. Then compare those notes to the new imminent progress report from EESTOR which Mr. Kofman is looking forward to. I can guarantee you there will be no EESU meeting the patent (7466536) specs delivered to ZMC. EESTOR Fraud continues.

By: Honest Abe

Honest Abe — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:15:54 +0000

Honest Salesman, NanoCarbons is waiting to be sued by EESTor.

By: Katie Fehrenbacher

Katie Fehrenbacher — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:14:37 +0000

OMG! I was trying to remember the name of those guys and couldn’t for the life of me. Thanks!

By: Albert Hartman

Albert Hartman — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:12:59 +0000

Charlatan stories are always great reads. I had forgotten about eestor! BTW, I wonder whatever happened to the Steorn/Orbo perpetual energy folks.

By: Katie Fehrenbacher

Katie Fehrenbacher — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:45:31 +0000

You’re going to sue me for mentioning that the company went to court? How do you figure? Going to be hard to scrub the Internet of that:

http://www.al.com/news/press-register/metro.ssf?/base/news/1245316587247600.xml&coll=3

http://blog.al.com/live/2009/06/attorneys_in_alternative_fuels.html

By: Honest Salesman

Honest Salesman — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:16:00 +0000

Hi Katie, Thanks for usual propoganda that we all can count on ! Cello case is confidential !! Keep printing the lies and you will be sued……thanks for your useless input.

By: Robert Murphy

Robert Murphy — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:43:17 +0000

Could this article be the beginnings of a great future post on ’10 Red Flags for Crowd-Sourced Cleantech Investors’? For instance…

1) Any company whose formal documents refer to ‘Big Oil’ as a proper noun, particularly if followed by ‘doesn’t want you to know about’

2) A business plan where the corporate end game includes space flight

3) 85% of companies dealing with biofuels (although has filling up on snake oil actually been tried? ‘Put A Cobra In Your Tank’ would be quite catchy).

4) An expected shareholder return of ‘world peace’, unless their technology for unlimited energy also provides unlimited water, minerals, and cultural tolerance.

And so on…

Admittedly that might mean that crowd-funders might miss out on investing in the 1/1000 companies run by a successful ‘crazy energy entrepreneur’. On the other hand, that also means 999/1000 fewer people have to have an awkward conversation with their spouse about where their rainy day fund went.

By: eestortruth

eestortruth — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 20:22:47 +0000

Excellent article as usual Katie. The suckers are fueled by belief in their chance to get rich quick or by available money needing new green venture opportunities.

Part of what is interesting about your article is that we are in a new era of internet due diligence. The eestor’s of the world have as many disbelievers as believers and the internet provides us all with a voice in the debate.

The Gov’t yes DOE types are trying to help weed out the questionable claimers by testing real prototype products. For example, http://www.sandia.gov/ess/docs/pr_conferences/2011/2-srferre_111021_testing.pdf

These same folks at DOE were invited by eestor to a demonstration of eestor’s product. When DOE said they would be happy to test eestor’s capacitor, but they would only do it with DOE’s equipment and at Sandia’s Lab, then Dick Weir eestor’s inventor stopped communicating about a demonstration.