10KW LENR demonstrator (new thread)

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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Giorgio
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Post by Giorgio »

I do not think that opening the Black Box is required.
After all they can just test and confirm if excess heat is coming out of the black box without need to know what is inside.

But I think that UoB will not get any research apparatus until after October and by then the situation should have already been cleared.

rcain
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Post by rcain »

Giorgio wrote:I do not think that opening the Black Box is required.
How can you possibly say that? What professional journal that you can think of, would accept for publication work that did not fully reveal all known facts of experiment. The idea is preposterous. (I therefore think we must be talking at cross purposes).

If Rossi's design is protected by patent, or patent application however, then the situation is different. But I do not believe this is the case, nor will be by October. Hence publication will be impossible.

Giorgio
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Post by Giorgio »

My idea is that UoB should just validate if there is a process that works. I wasn't thinking about peer review because of the complications that you have correctly mentioned.

rcain
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Post by rcain »

ah, OK. I didn't really believe our thinking could be 'that' different. But peer reviewed publication IS what i was referring to - ultimately, nothing short of that will satisfy, IMO.

stefanbanev
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Post by stefanbanev »

rcain wrote:ah, OK. I didn't really believe our thinking could be 'that' different. But peer reviewed publication IS what i was referring to - ultimately, nothing short of that will satisfy, IMO.
I'm quite curious what benefits the "peer reviewed publication" may offer for Rossi. In fact, it would be quite stupid to do so for the apparent reasons. In both cases if it is a scam or if it is for real the "peer reviewed publication" offers no benefits for Rossi. I DO see the benefits of "peer reviewed publication" helping to attract investments for R&D of future great technology so academia blessing is essential - once the technology has been implemented and works any public sharing would be a waste of investments and an immoral; on the contrarily, it would be wise to mislead the competitors by any means to maximize the return per invested dollar (Rossi does it relatively well even he unlikely has planed it deliberately); btw, the "scammy" and the "real" scenarios should look alike for a while, anyway we will see soon how it unravels.

Ivy Matt
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Post by Ivy Matt »

rcain wrote:It is heartening to hear that Uni Bologna are indeed to be undertaking peer reviewed, controlled experiments (if I understand correctly). Proper publication in a 'recognised' journal is one of the few things that will make the rest of the scientific community really sit up and take notice.
Rossi is funding the testing for €500,000. "Is" here being used in the future tense. Without that payment (and presumably also at least one E-Cat to do the testing with) there is no research. I think everybody's still waiting for the October demo before making the next move.
Temperature, density, confinement time: pick any two.

parallel
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Post by parallel »

stefanbanev,

I agree. In fact, if the E-Cat really works, it would be an advantage for Rossi to make it look like it didn't, until he reaches the point of wanting to start selling them. Likewise, testing by a university should be delayed until after the first sales. What would then be important is development to make it better.

There is no advantage in quieting the critics. Who cares what they think? Some here would find something wrong no matter what he did. I find peer review to be broken as a process in several branches of science anyway: for example in medicine and climate science.

Giorgio
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Post by Giorgio »

parallel wrote:There is no advantage in quieting the critics. Who cares what they think? Some here would find something wrong no matter what he did. I find peer review to be broken as a process in several branches of science anyway: for example in medicine and climate science.
Broken in some area maybe, but the big advantage of peer review is that it is a self healing procedure.
If you put all the experimental info and procedures on the paper someone might dismiss as pseudoscience, but someone else will repeat the experiment, and, if successful, will close the mouth of the critics.
This is what we call a scientific process.

Of course you can claim miraculous discoveries, refuse to put the experiment details on the table and than call everyone not believing your words a miscredent.
But this is not anymore science, it becomes more similar to a religious belief.

parallel
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Post by parallel »

Giorgio,

That hasn't worked. Rossi and Focardi tried to publish their paper in recognized journals and none would accept it. That's why Rossi started his own "journal."

With patent law so screwed up, like you can't get a patent on CF in the US and wanting to make some money from his invention, why on earth should he give away the secrets for free?

Giorgio
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Post by Giorgio »

parallel wrote:That hasn't worked. Rossi and Focardi tried to publish their paper in recognized journals and none would accept it. That's why Rossi started his own "journal."
They never got published because they never disclosed how they got to those results. Especially they never disclosed how to replicate the experiment, so it is impossible to peer review (and hence to publish) the paper.
parallel wrote:With patent law so screwed up, like you can't get a patent on CF in the US and wanting to make some money from his invention, why on earth should he give away the secrets for free?
He shouldn't disclose them for free, I agree on this.
But he can disclose his catalyst formula in a patent application and get full commercial protection from the first day he deposit the application.
Of course he can also choose not to disclose it for reasons that we are not aware of, but this could (and probably will) backfire against him in the long run if the process will ever be proved to work.

parallel
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Post by parallel »

Georgio,
But he can disclose his catalyst formula in a patent application and get full commercial protection from the first day he deposit the application.
Of course he can also choose not to disclose it for reasons that we are not aware of, but this could (and probably will) backfire against him in the long run if the process will ever be proved to work.
My understanding of the situation is that the US patent office will not consider a patent having to do with CF. Various scientists, notably from DOE, have arranged it that CF is treated like perpetual motion.

If he did disclose everything in a patent application, how long do you suppose it would be before the information leaked? Then, suppose the patent was not granted for any reason, the information would be free for others to use.

He has a patent attorney working on the problem, whom one supposes knows more about it than us. If there is a way around the problem presumably he will take it. The bottom line is that it is not as simple as you suggest to get foolproof coverage. Without it, Rossi would be foolish to disclose more than he has to for commercial reasons.

Edit added. You are wrong to suppose he gets protection from the day of the application. You only get protection from that date AFTER the patent is granted. Lawyers can make sure that doesn't occur in your lifetime. For example, ultimately Tesla (not Marconi) was given priority for wireless communication - after he died.

parallel
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Post by parallel »

Here is an example of the sort of difficulty that Rossi faces.
http://coldfusionnow.wordpress.com/2011 ... lli-pct-2/

Piantelli will certainly dispute anything that Rossi comes up with, possibly with good reason. That Rossi seems to have tweaked it to produce usable power may not matter very much.

History is littered with examples of inventors who have spent most of their lives in court and received less money for their troubles than the lawyers.

parallel
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Post by parallel »

Here is Rossi's latest reply to the main criticism that has been made.
I find it in Rossi's favor that he is prepared to allow the skeptical question on his blog in the first place.
Italo A. Albanese
August 20th, 2011 at 6:16 PM

@Peter Heckert: The point is that “somebody” says that e-cats do not generate kW, just some Watt, if any. According to “him”, the input current warms the water up to the boiling point, but only a small fraction of water becomes stream, the most part fills the chimney up to the output hose then flows away. The “steam quality” paper of Alan Fletcher seems to say that this could be possible, but there is no evidence of chimney filling. I think this is not enough, the e-cat experiment should give good evidence there is no (o very few) water flow in the output hose, in order to deny every possible wrong measurement claim.

Best regards,
Italo A.

Andrea Rossi
August 21st, 2011 at 3:38 AM

Dear Italo A. Albanese:
Wrong measurements are possible, in these cases, when, as always happened so far with LENR tests, tiny amounts of energy are produced. When only some tenth of Wh/h are produced, a mistake is possible along your insight. In our case, we produce kWh/h, so mistakes are much evident; think this very simple thing: the reactor is a small vertical cylinder, and should the flow of water be not turned into steam, the steel cylinder would be filled up by water, but the temperature of hot water could not reach 100 Celsius, at atmospheric pressure, which is the pressure we work with (regularly measured by a precision deprimometer).
Of course we check the water out of the hose, also the professors who made the tests did it, and, once eliminated the condensate water deposits along the hose, it resulted to be irrilevant. Of course in the hose there is also water which condenses: the hose is so hot that you can’t put your fingers on it, even for seconds, and of course this heat is at expense of the steam which inside the hose condensates.
We measure every day in our tests the water that exits from the hose, and the amount is irrilevant: how could not it be, if the temperature inside that “vertical bottle” which is the chimney is above 100 Celsius ? Take a small pot of water, put it on the heater of your kitchen, make it arrive to the boiling point, then sink your thetmometer in the water (not on the surface, of course): if you will find a temperature of 100 Celsius or more, buy another thermometer.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Final consideration: in October our E-Cats will start to work on regular base for our Customers, and the work they will perform will be the actual test of their efficiency.

Giorgio
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Post by Giorgio »

parallel wrote:Here is Rossi's latest reply to the main criticism that has been made.
I find it in Rossi's favor that he is prepared to allow the skeptical question on his blog in the first place.
Several critical posts, including some I (and also Chrismb) wrote, have never been posted by him on the blog.
Personally I think the games are set now for an October showdown and it really does not matter anymore what he could have done in the previous months.

If there will be a delay (or no demo) in October than Rossi credibility should fall to zero even for his most faithful followers. On this I think we can all agree.

WizWom
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Post by WizWom »

Betruger wrote:It ain't over till we see inside Rossi's black box..
Well... no - if Rossi can make energy with inputs that would be unable to make that amount, I don't care if he has a black box and people who disassemble one can't figure it out.
Wandering Kernel of Happiness

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