Lambertson changed his cermet chemistry and E-dam design when he learned that an unexpected chemical reaction was taking place. A different combination of materials and composite design appears to stabilize the process, and a yield of 145 percent was achieved in tests conducted in 1998. Since that time an induction effect has become a major problem which severely inhibits charge acceleration and yield. The present direction of his research is towards reducing induction in his E-dam using two different complementary approaches. It appears that these approaches will solve his remaining major problem. His highest yield using these approaches in June 1999 was 109 percent. Lambertson is confident that he will achieve higher yields with further experimentation, probably as high as 200 per cent, the level needed for commercial viability. He is currently exploring future production with interested manufacturers. Lambertson has a strong interest in providing new solutions for the energy needs of developing nations.

Highly regarded Canadian inventor John Hutchinson has developed a solid state "crystal energy converter" made out of very common materials which is an electrical power source he claims behaves like a battery and never runs down. This small, self-running power source, which typically puts out DC power amounting to one or two volts, has produced up to six watts of power, and he believes it could be engineered to replace batteries and other power needs.

(3) Hydrogen gas cell - Dr. Randell Mills of BlackLight Power, Inc. has come up with a simple device he believes turns hydrogen into a clean and limitless source of power. In his lab, Mills puts in a small amount of hydrogen gas into a vacuum-sealed, three-quart stainless steel "can", adds a few tablespoons of a common chemical compound, turns up the heat to about 250 degrees centigrade and seemingly creates ten to twenty times more energy than he put into the process.

According to Mills, the secret to BlackLight Power comes from shrinking or collapsing the size of the hydrogen atom from its natural "ground" state to a lower energy state. As the hydrogen nucleus collapses, the electron gives off heat energy, and the smaller the nucleus gets, the more heat the electron gives off. Once started, the reaction can sustain itself, as the hydrogen atoms collapse smaller and smaller, releasing increasing amounts of energy with each collapsing "transition". Of course, we do not yet know whether Mills’ theory or some other will eventually be accepted by science as the explanation for this process. The important point is that the experimental results show that it works.

An impressive feature of the BlackLight Power gas cell is its simplicity. If successful, the process is also attractive because it is safe, lacks harmful byproducts or emissions, and does not require the use of exotic or scarce materials. The only "waste" products are collapsed hydrogen atoms, or what Mills calls "hydrinos", which have characteristics similar to helium, being inert and lighter than air.

Because hydrogen is the most abundant element both on Earth and throughout the universe, the abundance of energy available through this process is difficult even to imagine. For example, a cup of water contains enough hydrogen to produce over 3,000 kilowatt-hours of heat if you "collapse" the hydrogen atoms to one-twentieth of their normal size, or enough to provide all the energy needed for an average home - space and water heating plus electricity - for a month.

PacifiCorp, an Oregon-based utility holding firm, has demonstrated its belief in Mills’ work by investing more than one million dollars in the company, and other corporations appear likely to follow their lead. With this kind of support, Mills is confident his company will soon complete a BlackLight Power cell that will produce a full kilowatt of heat. Once this is accomplished, it can quickly to bring to market a commercially viable energy cell.

(4) Magnetic Motors - Based on physicist Michael Faraday’s observation in the 1830s that anomalous electricity can come off a rotating disk containing magnets, a number of inventors have created motors that they believe have produced over-unity power in public demonstrations. One of us (O’Leary) watched several such demonstrations, as reported in the book Miracle in the Void. According to their inventors, some of these new devices produce four to six times as much mechanical energy as input electrical energy. In other words, once a machine achieves a certain threshold of revolutions per minute, it supposedly can be unplugged and serve as a free-running generator of electricity.

A number of magnetic motors have been evaluated by Magnetic Power, Inc., including devices created by the following inventors: Takahashi, Johnson, Tobias, Adams, Yassir, Werjefelt, Kawai, Sweet, Muller and Newman. They have also tested a device called the Magnetic Wankel from the Japanese firm, Kure Teko. None of these devices have yet proven to function over- unity under load.

According to Magnetic Power, there are two eminent scientists whose work on magnetic devices may some day bear fruit: Dr. Paramahamsa Tewari, Chief Project Engineer for India’s Kaiga nuclear power plant construction program, who is developing what he claims is a "space energy" motor/generator with support from the Indian government; and Dr. Harold Aspden in Great Britain, former patent counsel for IBM Europe, who is working on his version of a practical over-unity magnetic motor.

Many of the devices developed by inventors have proven to be merely magnetic flywheels and are therefore in fact only a type of mechanical energy storage device. As our still incomplete understanding of magnetism continues to grow, it is possible that one day a design based on a new source of energy will prove practical. Roots, a subsidiary of Magnetic Power, is developing room temperature Ultraconductors™. Made of highly conductive polymer materials, this technology may make possible the creation of very powerful, lightweight motors and generators without the use of iron or copper.

(5) Cold fusion - On March 23, 1989 Drs. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons at the University of Utah startled the world with their claim that they were getting excess thermal energy far beyond electrical input energy from an electrochemical cell with a palladium cathode and a heavy water electrolyte. The cell output, they said, was substantially more than could be explained by any chemical reactions.

Considerable controversy has surrounded cold fusion ever since the first experiments. In 1989, a Department of Energy research panel, dominated by hot fusion advocates, proclaimed that no government funding should be invested in such a questionable area of research. Since then, following the lead of the scientific establishment, the media has generally either criticized or ignored cold fusion researchers.