In 2021, Jeremiah Thoronka was making a name for himself in clean-energy technology. The then 21-year-old Durham University masters student had invented a device that uses kinetic energy from traffic and pedestrians to generate electricity. It certainly sounded groundbreaking. In a pilot project in Thoronka’s native Sierra Leone, two devices had apparently provided free electricity to 150 households and 15 schools.
Thoronka’s work clearly impressed awards panel judges. In 2021, he picked up the Commonwealth Youth Award and the Global Student Prize, which was presented to him by filmstar Hugh Jackman at a virtual ceremony, broadcast from the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Thoronka was the man of the moment. There was a profile by the BBC, an invitation to give TED talks and, in May 2022, an audience with the pope. He was celebrated as a green-tech innovator, someone setting a clean-energy example for the world to follow.
The accolades have continued to flow. Last month, at the Green Tech Festival in Berlin, he won the Youngster Green Award for 2023. It was this that prompted German journalists to ask if it might all be a little too good to be true. They contacted the organisers of the Youngster Green Award and Greentech Festival to find out a bit more about Thoronka’s pilot project. After all, it sounded incredible. But the organisers said that wouldn’t be possible because the pilot had since been dismantled. They asked if the device was being used anywhere else, and were told that it wasn’t. One journalist even asked if there were any videos, blueprints or other documentation of this unprecedented breakthrough. Again, nothing was forthcoming. In fact, no one could tell journalists much about the device or the pilot project at all.
It seems the Youngster Green Award and Greentech festival organisers, and potentially others, have been willing to take Thoronka’s achievement entirely at face value. Perhaps the pilot was a success; perhaps it wasn’t.
That no one really knows – or cares to know – is telling.
Kind of reminiscent of perpetual motion machines which were all the rage 100 years ago.
Or the automobiles that ran on water — with hidden gasoline tanks.
“Cold fusion”
Why dismantle a successful pilot? Why not try and expand the pilot? Sounds suspicious.
Fleischmann-Pons redux. I clearly remember the media losing their minds over that one as well only on a much bigger scale.
I was able to find a Beeb article from 2021.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210713-how-pedestrians-are-lighting-homes-in-sierra-leone
At no point did the journalist who wrote this actually see the device at work.
OMG — the emperor has the greatest selection of the most devine clothes
Well … if humans can “change their sex” at will … then it is only logical that the world can “transition” to “clean, green, renewable” energy … Right? If our major colleges, scientific and medical institutions claim humans can “transition” from male to female and female to male … let alone the hundreds of make-believe “genders” … then why not “believe” in ANY and ALL magical energy devices? Stop being confined by your “white” scientific fragility!
In the case of this story … it sounds as if this young “genius” inventor didn’t have the charisma and sex appeal of Theranos CEO, Elizabeth Holmes. Otherwise, he’d be a Billionaire by now … Right?
Its purpose was to keep the faithful in the church (of green energy for planetary salvation) and was likely successful in that.
“free electricity to 150 households and 15 schools”. BS right there.
Uhhhh … sure. How MUCH electricity? Shhhh! Don’t ask questions you racist! You just want to keep down young black scientists! Racism!!
Y’all know we emit 60 watts of heat?
I got da pow-ah!
not if its one electron each.
Watch for a news release of my breakthrough advancement in electricity generation. It has something to do with flushing of toilets and MSM news.
Oh, so you’re working on a radical new form of hydropower. That should be good for a few million in grants.
If you play your cards right, I see a nice 90-foot motor yacht in your future.
Not so many years ago an American outfit did something like this. It involved sturdy panels in the road that were hinged where the cars drove onto them, and were raised at the other end. The weight of the car pushed the panel down, and a mechanism turned that thrust into rotation to spin a generator. Many panels in series made a small amount of useable power.
But it’s not free, and never will be. Those ramps form small hills that the car has to climb some before the weight pushes it down, and one panel after another means not only a rough ride, but constant climbing that the engine has to make the power for. So gasoline or diesel is being turned into electricity in an extremely complex and inefficient manner, and it would be far better just to burn the stuff to drive a generator, eliminating all the mechanisms and maintenance of same.
Like Kate’s headline, “It was my understanding there would be no math,” the leftist green proponents of this sort of thing are completely ignorant of math, physics, friction, heat, sound, the works.
In Germany another company made solar panels designed to be installed in roadways, as space in the country is a bit limited. Great idea, until autumn’s leaves or winter’s snow covered them, and until stones falling off vehicles were pressed into the thick, hardened glass, creating terrific point stresses that broke it. None of this stuff is still working.
Very good, sir, there is no free ride.. law of conservation of energy factors here, “energy is neither created nor destroyed, it merely changes form”. The ‘free’ energy to the panels has to come from somewhere, in this case, the cars make up the difference..
Most people lack the understanding to evaluate the why and why nots of science, so they fall for everything ‘new’ that comes bouncing down the pike..
Now if we could cheat the laws of physics and thermodynamics, we would really be somewhere!
“Nullum gratuitum prandium” is as old as the Roman Empire and you are right – if it weren’t for the pesky rules of physics, we would all be rich as Croesus.
“None of this stuff is still working.”
That should be the epitaph for every Green energy scheme. One of the most ridiculous was a set of flippers in the ocean. They generated electricity by the up and down wave motion. What was entirely ignored was the energy input cost to make and install the components, and connect them to the grid. On an EROEI basis, it was negative for a lifetime, as are all of the things you indicate here.
Innumeracy has consequences.
Indeed, they are numberless!
97% effective.
Warming twice as fast here vs over there.
97% agree.
No more ice.
No more snow.
0% interest rates into 2024.
Inflation is transitory.
Etc.
We are being duped by people who couldn’t run a lemonade stand. Anything that happens to us as a result of these “experts”; we let happen.
Shut up you racists! You just can’t stand the fact that a young, proud, black “scientist” invented a world-changing FREE energy device. You know why he can’t show you a working model of his FREE energy machine? It’s because Chevron bought up all his patents! Just like the automobile engines that run on water … Chevron bought up all THOSE patents too! Just so they could keep selling dirty oil! I saw this on a Bill Nye program … exposing the TRUTH about the evil fossil fuel corporations. It’s all TRUE! We could be driving and powering our homes for FREE!! if not for Chevron!
Ohhhhhhhhhh mommmaaaaaa … you all need to get educated!
And remember … it was Chevron that killed the electric car too!! But along came the most brilliant man of all history … Elon Musk … and now we have electric cars burning up the roads! Wait, that’s poorly worded. Oh well, you know what I mean. Chevron is losing!!
The best of African aviation.
https://youtu.be/0h_cqTCT5g0
“…a device that uses kinetic energy from traffic and pedestrians to generate electricity.”
This should tell you how farking stupid the greens really are. All of them.
Clearly the greater stroke of genious would be to place a treadmill in every household and plug it into the grid. Let the exercise requirements ensue.
Shhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
Mutt: Hey Jeff, these smart pills you sold me taste like sh*t.
Jeff: See, you are smarter already.
I bet he made a bundle off of his green scam, which obviously was the point, so maybe not so dumb.
However, all those idiots who believed it was true, without facts, are the dummies. All lefties I’m sure!
“I bet he made a bundle off of his green scam, which obviously was the point, so maybe not so dumb.
However, all those idiots who believed it was true, without facts, are the dummies. All lefties I’m sure!”
Someone showed me a video last year about a young Nigerian or Kenyan guy who had supposedly invented a device to convert RF energy (TV, radio, cell phone emissions, etc) into AC power. He was “self-taught” and was looking for investors to build and market this wondrous technology. The video showed him running a 32 inch flat screen TV off the power generated by the device. I laughed and told her it was BS.
Imagine if you could harness the energy of guys copulating? “I’m doing it to save the planet!”
Durham University Masters student? In what pray tell and they don’t!
A Musk student!