Author: Gerard Palmer CEng MIEI Dear Editor, Robert Dowdall is quite right to dismiss my idea of trying to use gravity to provide free energy. I did not think the thing through and plead ‘guilty, but decrepit’! I got carried away by reading about the Anderton Boat Lift which – with the help of gravity – could raise 252 tons up 15 metres from the River Weaver to the Trent/Mersey canal using a 7.5 kW steam engine and operated for more than 100 years. Yours faithfully, Gerard Palmer CEng MIEI Dundrum,Dublin 14.