MALVERN, Pa. (Apr 1, 1997 11:02 a.m. EST) - If Dr. Randell Mills is

right, the way the world produces and uses energy is about to be

radically transformed, along with science's understanding of the

physics involved.



If he is wrong, he will join a long line of failed seekers for the

holy grail of cheap, safe and non-polluting energy.



Mills has developed, and begun to demonstrate in laboratory tests,

what he says is a very efficient and non-polluting means of producing

energy from hydrogen. He says a fuel cell the size of a desk could in

theory supply the electricity now produced by an eight-floor-high

coal-fired boiler, and a 200-horsepower car engine the size of a

suitcase could power a vehicle four times around the world on a single

tank of water.



The technology, and Mills's private company, BlackLight Power Inc.,

have begun to attract investment from the electricity industry and the

support of some energy experts. A leading organization of physicists,

however, calls his idea groundless, while even some who support the

technology say its practical application remains at least a few years

away.



"Whoever has this technology can potentially dominate the energy

industry," said Mills, a Harvard-trained medical doctor with

additional education in engineering and chemistry.



The technology is based on a theory of quantum physics that challenges

principles that have governed the science for decades. Mills says the

theory has been supported by experiments and observation. It holds

that hydrogen can exist at a lower energy state than its common

"ground" state, and the heat energy released in the transition to the

lower state can be captured.



FROM QUARKS TO THE COSMOS



Mills told Reuters the theory explains phenomena ranging in scale from

"(sub-atomic) quarks to the cosmos." In using it to make power, the

cost of hydrogen, easily obtainable from water, would be minimal

compared with fossil fuels, and there is more than enough water to

last until "the end of the earth," he said.



Capital costs also could be signifcantly lower than conventional power

technology, Mills said, although others familiar with the technology

said that remains to be seen.



The by-product of the non-nuclear process is a hydrogen atom with a

lower form of energy -- called a "hydrino" -- that floats off into

space, he said. The other key ingredient in the process is potassium,

which serves as a catalyst and can be constantly reused. The process

takes place in a vacuum and instantly stops if the vacuum is breached,

making it inherently safe, Mills said.



Some experts, including a former top Reagan Administration nuclear

energy official, say Mills is on the right track. The electricity

industry has begun to get involved, investing money in the company and

negotiating licensing deals.



"I'm convinced that there is something of enormous impact here and

it's only a question of time until we can garner the capital and

infrastructure to take it into commercialization," said Shelby Brewer,

assistant energy secretary under Reagan and former head of ABB

Combustion Engineering, one of the world's largest makers of

electrical generation equipment.



REVOLUTION PREDICTED



"If we can engineer this into the marketplace ... it will

revolutionize energy production both for electricity and mobile

applications," said Brewer, who now heads an energy consulting firm.

He said he overcame his skepticism, born of thousands of unfounded

new-power ideas he has seen, to work as an outside financial and

strategic adviser to Mills.



Others, including the country's leading organization of academic

physicists, dismiss Mills and his hydrino theory out of hand. "It has

no credibility whatever ... as far as I'm concerned Mills is not a

scientist," said Robert Park, director of the Washington office of the

American Physical Society.



"There is virtually nothing that science does not know about the

hydrogen atom," Park said. "The ground state is defined as the

(energy) state below which you cannot go. ... The thought there is

some state below the ground state is kind of humorous."



But a Penn State University test done for BlackLight of a small fuel

cell designed by Mills recorded heat production 100 times greater than

that produced by "burning" hydrogen, another technology being studied

as an energy source.



The result was promising and consistent with his theory, the

unpublished findings said. "The evidence presented in this report

clearly suggests that an extraordinary phenomenon takes place ... this

phenomenon appears to generate a tremendous amount of 'excess' heat."

But the report urged a cautious approach be taken and said additional

experimental work was required.



Similar results have been obtained in other laboratories, including in

a test run by Peter Jansson, an engineer and manager of market

development for Atlantic Energy Inc. Jansson, who conducted the test

independently of his company, said Atlantic Energy was "strongly

considering" what he called a "strategic investment" in BlackLight

Power.



Last year, Oregon-based utility holding firm PacifiCorp invested $1

million in a stake in BlackLight Power, according to documents filed

with Pennsylvania regulators. Mills has obtained a patent on his

technology in Australia and said he expects to receive U.S. and

European patents this year. In the process he has had to explain to

patent examiners why his technology is not the same as "cold fusion,"

a low-temperature nuclear technology that also promised vast, cheap

power, but which failed to stand up.



His early work was watched by the cold-fusion camp and some research

findings supporting his hydrino theory were published in a

peer-reviewed journal of the American Nuclear Society, which has been

an outlet for cold-fusion related research.



TURNING IDEAS INTO BUSINESS



Now is a timely moment to try to commercialize a new energy

technology, experts say. The electrical industry worldwide is moving

from tight regulation to a highly competitive market in which the

producer of the cheapest power wins.



"We are definitely willing to put some time and money into it (the

technology)," said Tom Cassel, president of Reading Energy Co., a

Philadelphia firm that commercializes advanced power-plant technology.



"Is it at this point a fail-safe deal? It's still early to tell," he

said. "The laboratory work is compelling (but) it's yet to be

demonstrated on a large, self-sustained basis."



Mills said plans are underway to build with another firm a test plant

to produce about one megawatt of energy, equivalent to the amount

needed to light a small shopping center.



Cassel said he is negotiating a deal with BlackLight for Reading to

retrofit older plants, shuttered because of expensive anti-pollution

requirements or other economic factors, with the BlackLight hydrogen

cells.



He said he was at first skeptical of the technology and was warned by

a senior Ivy League scientist who started reading Mills' theory that

"these type of people are dangerous." But he said he and others who

have studied the entire theory and seen the test results are convinced

of its potential.



"This is very real," he said. "It's a development which, if it keeps

going in the way that a number of very qualified people think it's

going to go ... it will be on the magnitude of the Edisons, the

Einsteins, that type of scientific revolution."



More information on Mills's theory and power process can be found on

BlackLight Power's World Wide Web site.

BlackLight Power's World Wide Web site
Their intro and background page is, indeed, a good place to start.