10KW LENR Demonstrator?

[MSimon]

vasimv,

My #2 son is teaching American Culture and the English language at a University in Smolensk.

If you would like an introduction send me a PM.

[Giorgio]

btw - just taken a quick read though the WL-theory paper provided by Giorgio, and whilst most of it is well over my head, theres lots still to chew over. is anyone interested in starting a new thread over on general on its merits/demerits?

Merits:
Different than usual approach.

Demerits:
Too many assumptions.

That more or less sums up all what there is to say until they will actually try to verify some of the assumptions they made and feed us some data.

[Giorgio]

Should anyone be interested in biological transmutation of elements see
Extraordinary Biology http://www.cheniere.org/books/aids/ch5.htm

The experiments are reported to have been replicated several times.

Wow! Do you really believe that stuff? I mean, seriously? Copper to gold 'critters' that are dormant, but if you get em in solution they crystallize and then start making your gold for you? Wild stuff!

Believing this does not make you a great proponent for Rossi, IMHO.

You demonstrate a great propensity to believe.

It makes you wonder why all this transmutation people keep asking you money to purchase their books while they could simply make some gold and offer their books for free

[tomclarke]

tomclarke,

At least you are willing to admit a mistake.

You wrote:

"We started this because I asked for replicable results. Well theses results, whatever they mean, may be replicable."

I recall when BLP first reported their results, the argument then was "I won't believe it until it has been replicated by a university." Now it seems any old university won't do. Well, BLP's process for excess heat has been replicated. So has LENR from the other two links I gave earlier. There are other examples.

You said you had not heard of a single LENR experiment being replicated, well now you have several. I think your difficulty in accepting the possibility is because it seems to conflict with the known physics you have assimilated over the years. I find it exciting because I have some trouble believing the standard model.

For what little it is worth, I find it impossible to believe biological transmutation at present, but I'm trying to keep an open mind and reserve judgement until I have found out more about it. I have been persuaded for some time that LENR is real so it was not so difficult to give Rossi the benefit of the doubt for now.

Alas just as in US it is easy to buy degrees so it is easy to buy Universities. Rowan, as I pointed out earlier, are a teaching institution, with no PG research or teaching. It seems one guy at Rowan has strong links with BLP, who are willing to fund his work.

Nothing wrong with that, but it is not credible 3rd party verification.

The "verification" of excess heat does not hold water. The heat output is only excess if you make the assumptions they do about possible reactions. There is no claim for unusually large heat output (which Rossi gives, one reasin why it should be easy for him to demonstrate unambiguously that he has something).

Of course, this does not prove there is no excess heat. But for extraordinary claims you need very careful experimentation & analysis. What we have here is not careful.

The other links: I looked at the first one. This was a calorimetric experiment with electrolysis in which heat out is very close to heat in, and steam is generated. You will have read of the problems in any calorimetric system which generates steam.

For example here is somone doing the same experiment, and getting apparently high gain (1.5X) but they are assuming steam is dry.
http://x-journals.com/2009/cold-fusion- ... xperiment/

I know it is a lot of work digging through these experiments and working out what are the issues. CF experiments with bad methodology (like this one) are often replicated, with similar results. Tighten the methodology, the observed heat excess goes down.

For heat excess to be credible all we need is good independent replication. But this is not simple.

The earthtech people are good experimentalists who have replicated a number of fringe science experiments. They have put years of effort into building a high accuracy calorimeter. Before you accept excess heat results from random experiments you should read their struggles to increase accuracy in a system which started off with the intention of minimising errors:
http://www.earthtech.org/experiments/ICCF14_MOAC.pdf

They have replicated 5 different electrolysis experiments (incl Mizuno)
http://www.earthtech.org/experiments/index.html

Read the details of these replications - it is worth it.

They have also replicated the SPAWAR tests:
http://www.earthtech.org/CR39/index.html

And the Oriani experiments:
http://www.earthtech.org/experiments/PACA/report.htm

Read through these reports. you will see that to be useful replication requires:
Cooperation of original team, so that their procedures can be followed properly (otherwise you get different conditions)
Careful testing of results with controls to determine what causes them
Intelligent analysis

It is a lot of work. It also requires considerable experimental skill. The CF people themselves lament the lack of credible replication. The problem for them is that when experiments are replicated properly mundane explanations are found for the results. What is reported on WWW is the original experiment, or an early replication, showing exciting positive results. Subsequent negative replications are not so newsworthy.

Here BTW are the earthtech people's attempts to replicate excess energy experiments described in detail by Randall Mills. These were the original experiments which justified BLP work.
http://www.earthtech.org/experiments/bl ... intro.html

They run 5 different experiments, including a control. you can see, reading their accounts, that they are taking care to follow the Mills protocol and that they have trouble (as everyone does, who checks) with systematic errors in results. Sometimes they can work out what causes these, sometimes they can only detect the errors through use of controls.

The Mills work (in the end, after errors were nailed) produced results negative and different from Mills's claims. They tried to get cooperation from Mills to see what they were doing different from him, but he did not reply.

I strongly recommend anyone interested in CF experiments to read the earthtech experimental accounts. They are independent replicators, looking at a whole load of interesting effects and hoping to get positive results, but aware of the errors etc that can provide false positives.

The details of their accounts give you a sense of how difficult is proper replication. And therefore, by comparison, how uncontrolled and flakey are most of the CF experiments.

You won't get a proper perspective on the CF stuff unless you observe how apparently compelling experimental evidence can in fact have come from errors.

Best wishes, Tom

[tomclarke]

btw - just taken a quick read though the WL-theory paper provided by Giorgio, and whilst most of it is well over my head, theres lots still to chew over. is anyone interested in starting a new thread over on general on its merits/demerits?

Merits:
Different than usual approach.

Demerits:
Too many assumptions.

That more or less sums up all what there is to say until they will actually try to verify some of the assumptions they made and feed us some data.

I think the big gap in their paper is how they propose the slow neutrons are generated. They need relativistic electrons and blithely asume that these can exist in a lattice, without considering quantitatively what would need to happen for their mechanism (SPPs) to do this. they have never revistied this initial weak point in their argument.

Tom

[tomclarke]

Here is the earthtec account of using their high accuracy calorimeter to replicate Lett's excess heat CF experiments. you can read the whole article the pics from the MOAC link above:
http://www.earthtech.org/experiments/ICCF14_MOAC.pdf

One of the primary reasons we constructed MOAC was to verify the excess heat effect in the laser-stimulated
cold fusion cells of Dennis Letts. In Letts’ laboratory, his cells often exhibit the Letts Effect, a sudden rise in
electrolyte temperature in response to illuminating the Pd cathode with only ~20 mW of red laser light.
According to isoperibolic calorimetry, this electrolyte temperature rise corresponds to an increase in heat output
of 250-500 mW. However, isoperibolic calorimetry is generally not as reliable as flow calorimetry. Isoperibolic
calorimetry is critically dependent upon the thermal coupling between the electrolyte and the surround air. This
coupling is affected by parameters that are not necessarily stable. Examples include the convection current
patterns in the electrolyte, circulation patterns in the surrounding air, bubbles adhering to the cell walls, and
deposits of other material on the cell walls.
MOAC was specifically designed to permit operation of the Letts cell with both isoperibolic and flow
calorimetry measurements occurring simultaneously. The observation of essentially the same excess heat signal
in both measurements would verify that the Letts Effect was real excess heat.
Over the past four years Letts has run a number of cells in MOAC but none have produced a robust
example of the Letts Effect. Because of this frustrating situation, we have not been able to use MOAC to
determine whether the Letts Effect represents real excess heat or not.
However, we have observed some significant differences between isoperibolic and flow calorimetry results
that deserve attention. Figure 5 shows MOAC’s main computer screen during a run with a Letts cell. No lasers
were used in this experiment. The plots depict an eight-hour period during which the electrical input power to
the cell was constant at 8 W. The uppermost plot shows the isoperibolic calorimetry results. The vertical scale is
0.2 watts/div. The blue line is the electrical input power and the orange line is the heat output power as
computed from the temperature difference between the electrolyte and the air around the cell inside the CC.
Note the sharp increase that occurs around 0700. The heat output power, which was closely matched with the
electrical input power, rises to a value about 600 mW greater. This is typical of the sudden rise that occurs in
the Letts Effect but, in this case, there was no laser stimulation of the cathode. This event was spontaneous and,
from the isoperibolic data alone, looked exactly like the sudden onset of 600 mW of excess heat.
The next plot down shows the flow calorimetry results. The vertical scale is 0.02 W/div. Again the blue line
is the electrical input power but now it is about 0.85 W higher because it includes the power to the heat
exchanger fan. The red line is the heat output power from the flow calorimetry. Instead of rising like the
isoperibolic result, it dips and then returns to its original value. There is no sign of excess heat, especially not
600 mW, which would have driven the red line off the scale.
The middle plot shows the two electrolyte temperature probes (red and brown traces), which behaved
similarly; cell pressure (cyan), which rose slightly during the event; and cell resistance, which dropped slightly.
The next-to-bottom plot shows the flow rate (green) and inlet water temperature (black), both of which were
very steady at all times. The bottom plot shows room temperature (pink) and the heat exchanger fan speed.

Unfortunately, none of these supporting data help us understand why the cell behaved as it did. But the top
two plots are sufficient to understand what happened. This event was caused by a relatively sudden decrease in
the thermal coupling coefficient between the electrolyte and the surrounding air. As the change occurred,
electrolyte temperature necessarily rose to reestablish dynamic equilibrium. Because electrolyte temperature
was rising, the internal energy of the electrolyte was increasing. Since the input power was constant at all times,
Conservation of Energy required the heat output power to decrease accordingly, hence the behavior of the flow
calorimetry data. This example clearly demonstrates the value of simultaneous calorimetric measurement by
independent methods.

I said they were careful. They test MOAC with a simulated excess heat signal:

To date, our operating experience with MOAC has been singularly devoid of opportunity to observe real excess
heat signals. However, using R2, the calibration heater immersed in the electrolyte of our standard calibration
cell, we can simulate an excess heat signal to see how MOAC responds. Figure 6 shows both the isoperibolic
and flow calorimetry results for a 24-hour period during which our standard cell was operated at 10 W of
electrolysis power.

At about 0900, a voltage was applied to R2 that caused the dissipation of an additional 100 mW in the
electrolyte. To make this signal look like excess heat, the software was configured so that this power was not
included in the plotted value of the electrical input power. As you can see, both the isoperibolic and flow traces
rise up 100 mW above the electrical input power. At about 1600, the simulated excess heat signal was turned
off. Clearly MOAC is capable of quantifying excess heat signals of this magnitude.

[tomclarke]

parallel -

Here is the earthtec report on the Clauzon excess heat experiment you linked. They replicated Clauzon et al's claimed reliable replication.

Makes interesting reading? As always, the details are worth attention.

http://www.earthtech.org/experiments/In ... /index.htm

Jean-Louis Naudin has peformed his own version of this experiment and has published extensive and detailed reports3 of his work on his website. Naudin's results indicate substantial excess power production with power output/input ratios typically around 1.6 but sometimes exceeding 2.5. In July 2003 Earthtech mounted a campaign4 to replicate Naudin's results. Although we succeeded in reproducing some of his numerical values, we also demonstrated that they were a result of erroneous data manipulation. When correctly evaluated none of our experimental results showed excess power production.

Recently Fauvarque, J., P. Clauzon, and G. Lalleve reported5 positive excess power from their version of this experiment. Fauvarque et al employed a fundamental approach to the calorimetry in which the heat power produced by the cell is determined by measuring the rate at which water is evaporated from the cell during operation at the boiling point. With the cooperation of Ludwik Kowalski of Montclair State University, we now endeavor to replicate this work.

[MSimon]

tom,

Thanks for all that.

[GIThruster]

Alas just as in US it is easy to buy degrees so it is easy to buy Universities. Rowan, as I pointed out earlier, are a teaching institution, with no PG research or teaching. It seems one guy at Rowan has strong links with BLP, who are willing to fund his work.

Nothing wrong with that, but it is not credible 3rd party verification.

The "verification" of excess heat does not hold water. The heat output is only excess if you make the assumptions they do about possible reactions.

Are you suggesting one can purchase a degree from MIT? Are you saying Rowan doesn't teach graduate studies in engineering?

http://www.rowan.edu/colleges/cgce/comm ... m=graduate

That they don't have a brand new multi-million dollar research center? (You know, the place were these experiments are being done.) Are you saying that somehow, Dr. Jansson hoodwinked Dr. Marchease into doing the NIAC study a decade before the one in question? Are you saying the guys at Earthtech do good work, but somehow that was not followed on by the people at Rowan, who consulted with the people at Earthtech?

I'm sorry Tom, but you seem to be misreporting and accusing horrifically. I don't think you understand the work at Rowan at all, nor their staff, nor their facilities, nor their history, nor even their simplest programs! Honestly, reading this tripe about buying degrees in the US, sounds like a bit of the standard Brit penis envy of the States. Bad joke, and worse, that an educator would participate in such whole-sale slander of other educators--such wretched behavior! And aren't you BOTH Oxford alumni? Dr. Jansson was there teaching just last year. . this is the guy you're slandering! SHAMEFUL!!!

Just so we're all on the same page here Tom, Even if you need to find post graduates to do this kind of work in the UK, this stuff is NOT post graduate work here in the US. It should be obvious from the report, this is the kind of work they do at Rowan to teach UNDERGRAD students. They don't need a post grad program to provide an excellent undergrad course.

Just FYI Tom, yeah, here in the US, any bone-head can purchase a worthless piece of paper that says he has a degree, just like anyone can make up their own religion and just like in our justice system, one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. These are all examples of FREEDOM, not excuses for slander.

[MSimon]

To avoid the penis envy question I have avoided getting a degree from anywhere. Which surprisingly made me unqualified for most of the jobs I ever held (I could not be employed directly - only as a contractor). Of course the fact that a large aerospace company paid me rather well for a total of about 4 1/2 years of effort (two terms separated by about 10 years) speaks for itself.

It is very difficult to change hats from "Eureka!" to "these are the possible sources of error which at this time can't be ruled out."

BTW "the reaction did not run to completion by our estimate" is a big red flag. What if it did run to completion? That might account for the "excess" heat.

The easiest person to fool is yourself. - Feynman

Designers have a very different mind set from developers. I am fortunate to be able to do both moderately well. I hate being shown up in design reviews.

I love busting my designs as much as I love designing. When I can't bust it any more (within the limits of the design requirements) I am done and ready for review.

[MSimon]

I love busting my designs as much as I love designing. When I can't bust it any more (within the limits of the design requirements) I am done and ready for review.

That one got me in a LOT of trouble once. I was on the last day of testing (completed in the morning) of a design and decided to do some outrageous tests on a design that was supposed to work from about zero to 450 Hz. I cranked the input to 10,000 Hz and low and behold I found an obscure interrupt problem in the CPU (it depended on the order of some internal functions). It would have only showed up once every few hundred starts and could be cleared by doing a power cycle. It would have been a minor glitch that would have added a few minutes to aircraft start up every now and then.

It took an additional two weeks of program time (making us late) to fix it. Most of that time was spent in rerunning the testing program.

I'm a big fan of early extreme testing these days.

[MSimon]

GIThruster,

I notice you spent a lot of time with the least important of Tom's criticisms.

The most important (possible evidence of experimental error) got no attention from you. Curious.

[GIThruster]

Simon, anyone who reads the paper can see the study was done very carefully. Again, the only argument against that has the slightest possibility to obtain is the attack on the man--the slander against Jansson in particular--which is why I am focused on it.

I have passed a total of about half a dozen notes with Dr. Jansson over the years. He seems a completely above board gentleman. It steams my britches that simply because he's had an abiding interest in BLP that is easy to date back a decade, and because BLP paid Rowan a total of IIRC $70k for apparatus, that people like Tom think they have cause for slander. They do not.

The report says much more heat, between 2-7X as much heat came out of the system than can be explained by conventional means. There is no reason to believe there is trouble with the way the heat was measured, nor the claim that conventional means cannot explain that heat. Tom can wave his sophistry wand all he likes, and attack Dr. Jansson all he likes, but these remain the facts.

[KitemanSA]

If you are going to use the history of transistors as your model, use the WHOLE history!

If you have evidence Lilienfeld was BUILDING transistors I'd like to see it.

By your statements, P&F weren't building LENR devices either (since they don't exist you know) so theirs was just an announcement too.

[tomclarke]

Alas just as in US it is easy to buy degrees so it is easy to buy Universities. Rowan, as I pointed out earlier, are a teaching institution, with no PG research or teaching. It seems one guy at Rowan has strong links with BLP, who are willing to fund his work.

Nothing wrong with that, but it is not credible 3rd party verification.

The "verification" of excess heat does not hold water. The heat output is only excess if you make the assumptions they do about possible reactions.

Are you suggesting one can purchase a degree from MIT? Are you saying Rowan doesn't teach graduate studies in engineering?

http://www.rowan.edu/colleges/cgce/comm ... m=graduate

That they don't have a brand new multi-million dollar research center? (You know, the place were these experiments are being done.) Are you saying that somehow, Dr. Jansson hoodwinked Dr. Marchease into doing the NIAC study a decade before the one in question? Are you saying the guys at Earthtech do good work, but somehow that was not followed on by the people at Rowan, who consulted with the people at Earthtech?

I'm sorry Tom, but you seem to be misreporting and accusing horrifically. I don't think you understand the work at Rowan at all, nor their staff, nor their facilities, nor their history, nor even their simplest programs! Honestly, reading this tripe about buying degrees in the US, sounds like a bit of the standard Brit penis envy of the States. Bad joke, and worse, that an educator would participate in such whole-sale slander of other educators--such wretched behavior! And aren't you BOTH Oxford alumni? Dr. Jansson was there teaching just last year. . this is the guy you're slandering! SHAMEFUL!!!

Thanks for the correction re Rowan. I admit to mistake. Not to the other stuff vilifying academics, penis envy, anti-US bias, etc.

I am a bit confused. I had this idea no-one did taught graduate courses unless they also have significant research (at least reputable unis don't). I could not find any research description on Rowan pages, also did not see graduate stuff, so assumed.

You are right, they have a Chemistry MSc program.

In the latest rankings by U.S. News & World Report, the College has risen to 12th (tied) in the nation among peer institutions whose highest degree is a bachelor’s or master’s degree. In its "America’s Best Colleges" annual compilation of the country’s best institutions, U.S. News & World Report also ranked Rowan Engineering’s programs as follows: Chemical Engineering—3rd; Electrical & Computer Engineering—10th (tied); and Mechanical Engineering—10th (tied).

They do not have a PhD program. In fact they seem to be a good teaching uni. They do research, but it is paid R&D. I would not call it research because the motivation is solving specific applied problems rather than advancing knowledge. Nothing wrong with that, just that it is different endeavor, requiring different skill set. I can't find any description of their areas of research expertise, projects, etc? perhaps I am just not looking.

As for the guy who has BLP links. Where have I said anything against him? Just that his publishing non-peer-reviewed pro-BLP papers is not credible verification. I have no evidence that he claims this.

I am quite broad and can work out quite a lot of stuff. But I can't myself review with confidence the chemistry (what is the max possible energy from the given reactants) or the spectroscopy (what do the given results tell us about reactoion products). But I can say that what is published is not safe, without further evidence.

Calling the papers from this one guy at Rowan replication is absurd when he is so strongly connected with BLP, and the evidence he brings forward is:

(1) "excesss heat" which depends on flaky calculation of max possible reaction energy from reactants. (As I said, the calorimetry seems quite good but it would need careful critique from another expert to check this).

(2) anomalous spectral lines which he claims are related to hydrinos.

I have not researched (2) but I am willing to bet my hat that there are other explanations for the stated spectral lines.

As for the earthtec people. Have you read their experiments? I ask this because they give you some sense of how easy it is to make mistakes in this area and get false positives.

As for the Rowan guy knowing about the Earthtec experiments. He does not reference them in his reports. But then he is not writing for a peer-reviewed journal where reviewing all other related work is necessary.

Mills's theory has more holes than emmental cheese - which would not matter if there were credible experimental data to back up his claims.

I am sympathetic to the idea there might be weird effects in H2 or D2 loaded metal lattices, and even to idea that BLP have found similar weird effects. Not to idea that this is potential large non-chemical source of energy since there is just no evidence for this at the moment - and lots of evidence that people trying to find this (both BLP and CF) have so far failed.

Put that with the fact that no credible theory exists (hydrinos are not even remotely credible).

Best wishes, Tom