[julie_m]

And that's the thing ..... If non-scientists don't really understand something, but it's sold to them as "sexy" by someone charming, then they can mistake the inevitable rebuttal for a cover-up by The Authorities.

The Laws of Thermodynamics tend to be pretty unforgiving. As tempting as it is to want to believe that powerful interests are trying to suppress a cheap and abundant energy source, it's much more probable that there is just no such thing as a free Joule. Someone who discovered it independently would just Open Source it, and it would be all over the Internet and being independently verified before the Men In Black™ could do anything about it.