The Free Energy debate

An Irish company called Steorn has announced, via a full page advert in the Economist, that they have discovered a way of producing energy for free:

Steorn is making three claims for its technology

• The technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%.
  
• The operation of the technology (i.e. the creation of energy) is not derived from the degradation of its component parts.
  
• There is no identifiable environmental source of the energy (as might be witnessed by a cooling of ambient air temperature).

The sum of these claims is that our technology creates free energy.

Soon their system/device/box of tricks will undergo rigorous scientific testing, and if successful I am sure the planet will be delighted. But what will we do first?

Will we make more mobile phones or are we going to sort out the problems of the developing world? Because in the beginning the world cost nothing and now we have landlords and taxes. Will free energy gives us the one thing some crave: people free from poverty.

See also:

Steorn's free energy seems curiously expensive by Rupert Goodwins of ZDNet UK