Fuel for Thought Sir David Ritson commendably addresses the political agenda of large energy companies [1].

. The energy crisis has a solution, since an EM circuit can be nearly freely powered. We offer a replicable example.
In thermodynamics, change of parameter such as potential V is considered work. In an EM system, gauge freedom assures that V and the system's potential energy can be freely changed [2].

If Drude electrons in a circuit are temporarily "pinned", potentializing them from an external
potential source is free. No cost incurs unless the current flows. Using conductors made of 2% Fe and 98% Al, instead of copper, electron gas relaxation time is increased from 1019 seconds to about a millisecond. During that millisecond, an external source of potential V can be connected to potentialize pinned charges q, with excess energy Vq freely collected in the circuit without cost except switching.

The potential source is switched away and a diode connected in its place. Current in the now-separate circuit containing the load can flow in only one direction. As the electron gas relaxes, current flows and the circuit discharges its excess potential energy in the load, freely performing work. With repetition one obtains more work in the load than one has to pay for in switching costs. Per W = Vq, any amount W of energy can be freely collected from V, if enough charges q are in the circuit. The secret in getting the energy "for free" is for the circuit to convert itself from "static potentialization" mode to normal dynamic powering mode, after the source of potential is disconnected. EM fields and potentials and their energy come from associated source charges. Eerily, the present classical Maxwell-Heaviside electrodynamics assumes that every charge freely creates EM energy out of nothing at all, and continuously pours it out at light speed in all directions, thereby establishing and continuously replenishing its associated EM fields and potentials, expanding at light speed in all directions. Where the input energy comes from has finally been solved [3]. A rigorous theoretical basis for extracting EM energy from the vacuum has been given by Evans et al. [4,5]. More than a dozen methods for approaching such systems have been given [6]. Tesla's patented circuits "shuttled" potential energy around at will, as shown by Barrett [7], one of the pioneers of ultrawideband radar, who improved the method [8]. The common solar cell outputs more energy than the operator inputs, for he inputs nothing. The cell may have an efficiency of 17% and waste 83% of the energy input to it, but the remaining 17% is output as useful electrical energy without operator input. The coefficient of performance is that 17% divided by zero, so that its COP = , similar to a common windmill. The energy crisis can be solved whenever the scientific community will allow the research to be funded. T. E. Bearden

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1. David Ritson, Nature 421, 575-576 (2003). 2. E.g., J. D. Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics, 2nd Edn., Wiley, New York, 1975, p. 219-221. 3. Bearden, J. New Energy, 5(1), 11-23 (2000); "Extracting and Using Electromagnetic Energy from the Active Vacuum," in M. W. Evans (ed.), Modern Nonlinear Optics, 2nd Edition, Wiley, 2001; Vol. 2, p. 639-698; Energy from the Vacuum: Concepts and Principles, Cheniere Press, Santa Barbara, CA, 2002, Chapter 5. 4. M. W. Evans et al., "The Aharonov-Bohm Effect as the Basis of Electromagnetic Energy Inherent in the Vacuum," Found. Phys. Lett., 15(6), 561-568 (2002). 5. M. W. Evans et al., "The Most General Form of the Vector Potential in Electrodynamics," Found. Phys. Lett., 15(3), 245-261(2002). 6. M. W. Evans et al., "Classical Electrodynamics Without the Lorentz Condition: Extracting Energy from the Vacuum," Physica Scripta 61(5), 513-517 (2000). 7. T. W. Barrett, Ann. Fond. Louis de Broglie, 16(1), 23-41 (1991). 8. U.S. patents 5,486,833 and 5,493,691.