- Author, Team the Reality Check
- Role, BBC News
The lamp lights up. But why ?
Videos purporting to demonstrate that rocks found in Africa can generate electricity have been viewed millions of times online.
Some social media users say they could be the answer to the continent’s energy problems.
So we showed the video to experts who told us why such properties are highly unlikely.
Sparks in viral videos
One of the most shared videos appears to show electrical sparks flying between two stones as they come into contact.
It was shared, among others, by South African businessman Daniel Marven, who has more than 800,000 followers. His tweet has been viewed more than two million times.
Another Twitter user commented on Mr Marven’s post with another video showing a man apparently lighting up an LED bulb by touching wires connecting it to a small piece of rock.
Marven also posted this video a few hours later, garnering over a million views.
Both videos were picked up and used in a thread by a popular Twitter page, African Archives. This thread has gone viral, with over 35 million views.
Where are the videos filmed?
In the video showing a man turning on an electric light bulb apparently using a rock, a voice can be heard speaking Swahili with a DR Congo accent.
Along with the video of the two flashing stones, a reverse image search reveals that it appeared on the Facebook page of Mohamed First University, Oujda, Morocco, in November last year – although the video original could have been put online earlier.
The caption simply says, “Lithium!!?” but without further details. The BBC has contacted the university but has not yet received a response.
A subsequent post on Twitter claims that these sparkling rocks were found in Zimbabwe, saying the find would “help our country have…sustainable energy.”
Zimbabwe is Africa’s largest producer of lithium, a metallic element widely used in the production of batteries for electric cars and mobile devices.
Can electricity be produced from rocks?
“I’m very skeptical that these videos represent free electrical energy,” says Professor Stuart Haszeldine of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Geosciences.
“I’ve never seen anything like it geologically and suggest the rocks are connected to sources of electrical energy that aren’t included in the tightly framed video footage.”
According to him, the presence of what looks like a gloved hand in the lower part of the video showing the rocks sparking is very telling.
Photo credit, Twitter
A gloved hand can clearly be seen in this video screenshot.
This indicates, he suggests, that “current flows from the off-field battery, through the stone held by the glove (so that current does not pass through the gloved hand) and to ground via the second stone” .
Metal ores are good conductors of electricity, and the glove is an insulator that prevents current from passing through the person’s body to earth.
Switching to a video showing an LED bulb being turned on, Prof Haszeldine says it is suspicious ‘because there are three hands (two people) in the demonstration’.
“It seems to me that current flows when two hands touch, and wires are mostly illusions. So it might be just as interesting to have a close-up magician look, and see if a sleight of hand can be spotted.”
A screenshot from the video shows a moment when the bulb stays lit even though one of the wires has separated from the rock, further indication that the rock has nothing to do with the circuit.
Photo credit, Twitter
The bulb remains lit even when the wire does not touch the stone.
The Real Power Behind Congo Minerals
The DR of Congo produces a multitude of precious minerals, including coltan (columbite-tantalite).
When refined, coltan yields metallic tantalum, a heat-resistant powder capable of maintaining a high electrical charge, according to Dr Munira Raji from the University of Plymouth in the UK.
These properties make it a valuable material for making components used in cell phones, laptops and other electronic devices.
According to Dr. Raji, it is not possible to confirm if any of the rocks shown in the videos are coltan without testing them in a geology lab, but even if they were, they cannot generate any electricity by themselves.
In that sense, she says, claims that these rocks can generate electricity are false.
Photo credit, Getty Images
Tantalum from coltan extracted in DR Congo is essential for the manufacture of mobile phones.
Dr. Ikenna Okonkwo, professor of geology at the University of Nigeria, also reviewed the videos for us. According to him, the rocks are more like zinc or lead ores. And those minerals, he says, certainly don’t have the capacity to power a light bulb.
“May be [qu’elles pourraient contenir] static electricity of the type that occurs with certain fabrics, but that will not power an LED bulb.” According to Dr Okonkwo, the videos do appear to be “some kind of trickery.”
Reportage de Chiagozie Nwonwu et Peter Mwai.
