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A revolution in energy technology: the House of Lords meeting that was not held
Harold Aspden, 5 November 1996 · 1 November 1996
A revolution in energy technology
Courtesy of Harold Aspden, November 5, 1996
"TOWARDS ZERO EMISSIONS AND SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT"
The above heading was on an anouncement sent to 78 invitees specially chosen to hear inventor "Stanley Meyer from Ohio, USA" deliver a paper about his work and answer questions. To those of us who are interested in the coming age of new energy technology, the announcement of an event having such a title was really something to applaud, because it showed that there are those in high places who really care about the mounting problems on the energy front. The choice of venue for that meeting was endorsement enough, it underlined the importance of the occasion. The meeting was to be at the premises of the British Parliament, inside the House of Lords, thereby facilitating attendance by those at the very seat of government.
The Rt. Hon. Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal was to introduce Stanley Meyer but, in this event, that honourable lord found he had to issue a cancellation notice on the eve of the meeting and convey his apoligies to those who came totally unaware of that cancellation. Some had travelled hundereds of miles expressly to hear about that "energy revolution" from an inventor so acclaimed. But it was not to be. The letter of cancellation was short. It simply said that "owing to unforeseen reasons, it has been necessary to postpone the meeting. This is greatly regretted." The twenty or so privileged invitees who did arrive were left to harbour their suspicions that the idea of "free energy," and the prospect of an "energy revolution," is just a mere myth after all. The voice of experience that was scheduled to speak about the new energy future was not there! This was, indeed, a missed opportunity, and one which cannot help our cause. For the record, the time and date of the meeting that was never held was from 5-7 pm on Thursday the 31st October 1996. Stanley Meyer was to speak about his "Water Fuel Cell" and the prospect of generating hydrogen from water with a "free energy" gain.
About this item
Aspden was a retired IBM patent manager and a regular writer on "free energy" in these newsletters; he was at the 1993 Denver symposium with Meyer (the programme). He writes as one of the invitees who turned up.
Meyer's side is in his Public Notice to Inform. There the invitation came from Admiral Sir Anthony Griffin in late August 1996, for a seminar "in the Moses Room adjacent to the House of Lords"; Griffin died of a stroke on 16 October, and his foundation and Lady Griffin asked Meyer to go on with it. The notice then says it "has been verified that the Moses Room had never been scheduled for the Seminar", and that Meyer kept his other business meetings in England and Europe that trip. The two accounts agree on the essentials: a Lords meeting was announced, Meyer was to speak, and it did not happen. They differ on whether it was ever booked.
The original

Provenance
- Shelf
- Press coverage
- Page
- 6–7
- Issue
- Volume 4, number 7
- Byline
- Harold Aspden, 5 November 1996
- Patent office record
- newenergytimes.com →
- Rights
- New Energy News is copyright 1996 by the Fusion Information Center, Inc., Salt Lake City. The archive reproduces only the item about Meyer, as a record of what was printed at the time, and claims nothing in it; the whole issue is in the Center's archive at New Energy Times, linked above.
- Caption
- New Energy News, November 1996, pages 6 and 7, Aspden's item only.
- Citation
- New Energy News, Salt Lake City, Volume 4, number 7, November 1996, pp. 6–7, by Harold Aspden, 5 November 1996
- Publication
- New Energy News, Salt Lake City
- Transcription
- The text layer of the New Energy Times copy of the issue, checked against the page images; spelling as printed.