A Discussion of Garret Moddel’s ZPE Tapping Technology and Eleven Questions

The following post has been submitted by ECW Reader “Contributor”.

Once in a while you hear about a radical technology that makes you think, “If this is real it could change the world!” This is what happened to me recently after watching the video posted to YouTube by Dr. Garret Moddel of the University of Colorado about his breakthrough invention. Instantly, I became fascinated with the concept and started reading everything I could find about it and the Casimir Effect in general. I’m now convinced that it probably works how he says it does and could possibly accelerate the global paradigm shift. 

His invention taps energy from the fluctuations of the Zero Point Energy field by attaching a Casimir Cavity to a metal insulator metal junction. A Casimir Cavity in the simplest version can be described as two flat parallel electrically neutral plates positioned very close together – a micron or a millionth of a meter or less. Since the Zero Point Energy field is thought to be composed of a broad range of photon wavelengths and therefore associated energies, many of these wavelengths are excluded from the gap in between the two plates which are acting as mirrors. The result is a reduction in the ZPE force or pressure between the plates and more pressure on the outside of the plates. This produces a force pushing the plates together.  

A simple symmetric Casimir Cavity cannot produce energy, however. This is because the ZPE force is balanced on each side of the device. What Garret Moddel has done to produce an asymmetry is to place such a cavity on top of a metal insulator metal junction. This reduces the ZPE force or the intensity of vacuum oscillations on one side of the junction than the other. At each side of the junction, the vacuum fluctuations are hitting the conductive plates and exciting electrons that then quantum mechanically tunnel through the less than one nanometer thick insulating layer between the two plates. Once across, they cannot go back. Since there is more of these electrons going up towards the Casimir Cavity than downwards, a net voltage and current is produced. This voltage and current is tiny but the idea that these devices could be manufactured using lithography. Just like a computer chip has billions of transistors, one of these devices could have a huge number of power producing cells generating very significant quantities of power. According to his calculations, with only the performance they have achieved so far 70 watts per square meter is reasonable. However, looking at the patent, he gives the figure of 250 watts for a 10 centimeter by ten centimeter area of these devices. My understanding is that this figure is based only on the easiest optimizations such as producing the exact optimum plate, insulator, and cavity thicknesses. However, the patent also mentions far more exotic improvements that could potentially boost the output in an enormous way. These include doping of the materials, the use of graphene, the use of meta-materials, and precise control of the “surface plasmon polaritons” or electron density waves that are on the interface of the metal plates and the cavity. Other papers suggest that at close range or small gaps these surface plasmons at each side of the gap interact with each other and dominate the force produced. Garret Moddel cites literature that tells us by adding plasmonic nanostructures the number of charge carriers injected could be increased up to 25 fold. To visualize this, imagine nano-spikes or nano-tubes creating vertical spikes of electron density waves whose fields reach to the other side of the gap and interact. 

What’s so exciting here is not only that this technology proves the vacuum can be engineered and energy extracted from it, but that 70 watts per meter may be a very conservative estimate. Since hundreds of silicon wafers with billions of devices each could be stacked a top each other, something the size of a 10cm by 10cm cube might produce enough output to power your home. Yet with this technology every device could be individually powered. Or imagine a computer or appliance where every individual component has its own power supply. For example, every servo of a humanoid robot could be individually powered! The possibilities are limitless. 

So what are the downsides? Obviously, there is the tiny chance this tech doesn’t work. I think that chance is small though.  Garret’s team has built over 1000 individual devices with various materials, geometries, and surface areas and they all seem to work. Likewise, he has connected small number of these devices together and the current and voltage adds up exactly like it should. Putting these devices in Faraday cages of different materials to screen EMF in the environment (aluminum for one frequency range and mumetal for another) has no effect on the output; they run for months on end proving they are not releasing stored charge; thermoelectric effects have been ruled out by experimentation. His team has ran other tests as well and the results not only indicate the power output is real, but that the energy is being extracted from vacuum fluctuations. For example, the device produces nearly no power without the top mirror in place finishing the Casimir Cavity and the power output increases as the distance between the plates are reduced. Although third party test results are needed (these would have already been available if mainstream scientists cared more about furthering their knowledge of the workings of the universe than protecting their reputations), I expect that they will show this technology works and mainstream scientists who have been silent for the past couple of years will look quite foolish. 

A few small issues concern me, but I’m confident they are simply engineering issues. One limiting factor for how much power a wafer with billions of these devices could produce is waste heat. I’m curious what the limit would be before it burnt out. He has mentioned thermal management technologies, so I’m sure he has considered these issues. It is possible that a stack of these wafers might need some form of active cooling perhaps consuming a tiny fraction of the output power. Another concern that can probably be fixed via material science is the small degradation of power output over time. After six months of operation, the output of one device dropped by 10% and another using a different optically transparent cavity material degraded by 20%. He probably has an idea of what’s causing this and how to resolve it. I’m guessing oxygen getting to the device could be reducing the reflectivity of the aluminum mirror, but I could be wrong. 

Here are a few additional questions I have which I hope Garret will answer:

1) His patent describes briefly adding an additional Casimir Cavity on the opposite side. I would like to know how this would work to increase the output. There is such a thing as a repulsive Casimir Force. Has he ever tested adding a cavity with a repulsive force (a greater ZPE pressure between the plates)? Could adding a repulsive Casimir cavity to the bottom plate increase the number of charge carriers being inserted and tunneling upwards and thus increasing the asymmetry and power output?

2) Has he ever tested a device with a graphene layer? Where did he place the layer? Did it improve the output? 

3) What shape and geometry of plasmonic nanostructure on the Casimir plates does he think would boost the insertion of charge carriers the most? A nano-spike, a hole, a crack, a tower with a round sphere on top? 

4) Would the use of materials with a negative electron affinity be useful? For example, a layer of nitrogen doped hydrogen terminated diamond? Would having this layer between the bottom plate and the insulator the electrons must tunnel across be useful? Could this reduce the energy they need to tunnel across? 

5) Coherent matter in which atoms or electrons have the same phase and energy are thought to interact coherently with the vacuum, exchanging momentum and energy. Some have speculated that dense charge carriers (perhaps the layer of coherent electron on the exterior of an EVO or Exotic Vacuum Object) might block the full spectrum of frequencies of vacuum oscillations or at least a greater range than ordinary matter. Have you considered how coherent matter layers might be incorporated into one of these devices? For example, since EVOs can be stored in metal, could one wall of the Casimir Cavity be embedded with EVOs to shield the full spectrum of frequencies? Interestingly, in Hal Puthoff’s papers he speculates it is the Casimir force that allows these charge clusters to overcome their mutual electrostatic repulsion. 

6) Would one of your devices floating in free space produce a tiny thrust due to the imbalance? Have you ever observed any of your devices moving? I ask this because Bernard Haische has theorized that gravity and inertia are manifestations of the vacuum fluctuations of the Zero Point Energy Field. If this is true, then a Casimir device with a net asymmetry might produce a gravity like force. 

7) Do you think that the understanding of how your device works by producing asymmetry in the Zero Point Energy field could help us understand how the layered materials found in the hulls of crashed extraterrestrial space craft produce thrust, nullify gravity, etc?

8) Does lowering the temperature of your device increase the electrical conductance of the plates and therefore increase the output? 

9) Have you ever tested any superconducting materials? If so, did they boost the output? Do you think the Cooper pairs (coherent matter) in the supercondive material impacted the output? 

10) Have you considered using this technology to produce a self powering transistor or switching component? For example, if you could somehow change the attraction to repulsion on demand or adjust the polarization index of the material in the Casimir cavity you could make it switch from a higher power to low power state which could indicate an on or off. Any thoughts about this? 

11) Have you tried to demonstrate  PK by lowering or increasing the output of a single device. I have the feeling that one of these devices might be very susceptible to psychic influence. 

In conclusion, I urge everyone to follow this technology extremely closely. It may very well be a catalyst that allows mankind to grasp that the vacuum can be engineered to produce technological marvels.