10KW LENR demonstrator (new thread)

[Carl White]

So, this is encouraging, but not yet convincing. Not peer-reviewed, no independent replication?

[TallDave]

First product expected by second quarter 2014.

National Instruments will sanction this first public reactor demo expected for NI Week in August with the full weight of their corporate credibility. Also supporting this test throughout the scientific community is the highly regarded reputation of the founder of NI, Dr. James Truchard.

Defkalion has been doing it right by keeping things low key. But their LENR theory will be released and explained in July and demonstrated in August.

Thanks for the dates! Have to keep an eye on those. It's going to be an interesting year!

Wouldn't it be funny if the fracking revolution got started just a few years too late? It would be worth it to see OPEC go down, though that will take at least a decade of course.

[ladajo]

I took a quick spin through the report between meetings. Off the cuff, concerns for measurment of heat output via thermal camera. Concerns about reactive verse real power monitoring. Also concerns about first test statement that wieght not checked because it was already running when they started the test.

I also echo the "Peer Review" question.

I will give it a deeper read later this week.

[Stubby]

a propos of nothing whatsoever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbwWL5ezA4g

Lawrence Livermore scientists fooled

[rcain]

interesting these appear to be tests of a 'high temperature' version of ECat - believe wev'e not seen anything much about these before - they were simply mentioned previously in passing as 'too unstable' - most of Rossi's direct work (if u can call it that) was on lower temp models, iirc. agree, Levi is hardly unpartisan. guys from sweden always remained quite bullish throughout direct crits of Rossi, iirc. wonder how this latest will pan out. c if it passes 'serious' independent replication as time goes on. means swedes must replicate in their own labs ON THEIR OWN at very least, just to start. also, see if it can make it past Arxiv and onto eg. front page of Nature, then we will see professional reputations on the line at least, and maybe some 'reliable' science for once in this fiasco.

[parallel]

TallDave,

I keep feeling like I have to ask myself: is it more likely he's a genius-level fraud or a very mediocre legitimate scientist/entrepeneur who just stumbled onto something extraordinary?

You are grossly underestimating him. Apart from discovering the basic mechanism in the first place, consider how far he has come. In about two years he has made and sold 1 MW plants, made the basic E-Cat controllable and reproducible. Developed a really high temperature version. Made a two stage version with a COP of about 20. Claims he is in a position to manufacture thousands of them per year. Why not believe that too, considering most thought LENR impossible. All without using taxpayer's money. As of today, DOE still does believe LENR is real. What hope do think he would have of getting a grant?

rcain,
Dream on. That test will not be replicated. Why should it be? To please the pathological skeptics? The next test, scheduled for the Summer, is for the same group(?) to run a Hot Cat for six months continuously.

I see no reason why Rossi should give up the proprietary secrets until they leak out. The patent situation doesn't allow him to do that and retain the rights.

[TallDave]

parallel -- Well, that's not so impressive, really. I think most people here could do the same with a working understanding of the principles involved. I would say what Suppes did was probably more challenging technically, and what the EMC crew is doing even more so.

But that's what the history of technical advance looks like: it's mostly people stumbling into things, and being too stubborn to let go.

I'm just saying, let's start from the assumption Rossi is lying (I think by now we can rule out simple wrongness). The notion Rossi is capable of faking everything to date (yes, even though the tests aren't perfect) is just hard to accept, it would be a legerdemain for the ages. Of course, what he's claiming is even harder to accept.

[Skipjack]

Well, that is unexpected, to say the least.
The 3rd party test, though by people who are at least friendly with Rossi, seems otherwise legit. I still want to see a peer review, though.
I am back to 50:50 now about Rossi.

[Axil]

Well, that is unexpected, to say the least.
The 3rd party test, though by people who are at least friendly with Rossi, seems otherwise legit. I still want to see a peer review, though.
I am back to 50:50 now about Rossi.

I have not read that test report with focus and experience.

But Jed Rothwell has read the material with intense interest and expertise three time so far; and this is what he has said:

Edmund Storms wrote:

However, given the importance and the skepticism, I would have expected a thermocouple would have been placed on the device to check the measured temperature.

Jed Rothwell responds:

They did that. See p. 18, QUOTE:

"Various dots were applied to the dummy as well. A K-type thermocouple heat probe was placed under one of the dots, to monitor temperature trends in a fixed point. The same probe had also been used with the E-Cat HT2 to double check the IR camera readings during the cooling phase. The values measured by the heat probe were always higher than those indicated by the IR camera: this difference, minimal in the case of the E-Cat HT2, was more noticeable in the dummy, where temperature readings proved to be always higher by about 2 °C. The most likely reason for the difference is to be sought in the fact that the probe, when covered with the dot securing it the surface, could not dissipate any heat by convection, unlike the areas adjacent to it."

The word "dot" is defined earlier in the paper:

"Another critical issue of the December test that was dealt with in this trial is the evaluation of the emissivity of the E-Cat HT2’s coat of paint. For this purpose, self-adhesive samples were used: white disks of approximately 2 cm in diameter (henceforth: dots) having a known emissivity of 0.95, provided by the same firm that manufactures the IR cameras (Optris part: ACLSED)."


I would have hoped the device would have been placed in a container from which the total power generated could be measured.

As I mentioned before, I think the device might melt again if they did that. I would fear that.

Continuing in another critique:

I just read this paper for the third time. This is a gem. These people think and write like engineers rather than scientists. That is a complement coming from me. They dot every i and cross every t. I can't think of a single thing I wish they had checked but did not.

In ever instance, their assumptions are conservative. Where there is any chance of mismeasuring something, they assume the lowest possible value for output, and the highest value for input. They assume emissivity is 1 even though it is obviously lower (and therefore output is higher). The add in every possible source of input, whereas any factor that might increase output but which cannot be measured exactly is ignored. For example, they know that emissivity from the sides of the cylinder close to 90 degrees away from the camera is undermeasured (because it is at an angle), but rather than try to take that into account, they do the calculation as if all surfaces are at 0 degrees, flat in front of the camera. In the first set of tests they know that the support frame blocks the IR camera partly, casting a shadow and reducing output, but they do not try to take than into account.

Furthermore, this is a pure black box test, exactly what the skeptics and others have been crying out for. They make no assumptions about the nature of the reaction or the content of the cylinder. They make no adjustments for it; the heat is measured the same way you would measure an electrically heated cylinder or a cylinder with a gas flame inside it. It is hands-off in the literal sense, with only the thermocouples touching the cell, and the rest at a distance, including the clamp on ammeter which placed below the power supply. You do not have to know anything about the reaction to be sure these measurements are right. There is nothing Rossi could possibly do to fool these instruments, which the authors brought with them. They left a video camera on the instruments at all times to ensure there was no hanky-panky. They wrote:

"The clamp ammeters were connected upstream from the control box to ensure the trustworthiness of the measurements performed, and to produce a nonfalsifiable document (the video recording) of the measurements themselves."

They estimate the extent to which the heat exceeds the limits of chemistry by both the mass of the cell and the volume of the cell. In the first test, they use the entire weight of the inside cell as the starting point, rather than just the powder, as if stainless steel might be the reactant. In the second test they determine that the powder weighs ~0.3 g but they round that up to 1 g.

They use Martin Fleischmann's favorite method of looking at the heat decay curves when the power cycles off. Plot 5 clearly shows that the heat does not decay according to Newton's law of cooling. There must be a heat producing reaction in addition to the electric heater.

I like it!

[paperburn1]

I took a quick spin through the report between meetings. Off the cuff, concerns for measurment of heat output via thermal camera. Concerns about reactive verse real power monitoring. Also concerns about first test statement that wieght not checked because it was already running when they started the test.

I also echo the "Peer Review" question.

I will give it a deeper read later this week.

First the first test was run with 3 phase delta and the second was single phase though a "box" Lets make all the tests the same so we can compare apples to apples
Second I would put a Oscope on all the power inputs to make sure power in was uniform and "clean"
Third I would use a fast response commercial power monitor not a clamp on amp meter.
Fourth I would heat a known volume of water to boil (or any set temperature provided the amount of water is large enough to encompass the test) This has been a basis of heat testing even when I was in high school.

And here is a question, why can we not test the “magic ingredients” in a calorimeter ? Such an instrument is called a bomb calorimeter It has all the necessary things needed to start and monitor the reaction and provide the results in a defined method approved by scientists world wide Or at least I think it does, anyone know different?

[Axil]

I took a quick spin through the report between meetings. Off the cuff, concerns for measurment of heat output via thermal camera. Concerns about reactive verse real power monitoring. Also concerns about first test statement that wieght not checked because it was already running when they started the test.

I also echo the "Peer Review" question.

I will give it a deeper read later this week.

First the first test was run with 3 phase delta and the second was single phase though a "box" Lets make all the tests the same so we can compare apples to apples
Second I would put a Oscope on all the power inputs to make sure power in was uniform and "clean"
Third I would use a fast response commercial power monitor not a clamp on amp meter.
Fourth I would heat a known volume of water to boil (or any set temperature provided the amount of water is large enough to encompass the test) This has been a basis of heat testing even when I was in high school.

And here is a question, why can we not test the “magic ingredients” in a calorimeter ? Such an instrument is called a bomb calorimeter It has all the necessary things needed to start and monitor the reaction and provide the results in a defined method approved by scientists world wide Or at least I think it does, anyone know different?

You can help, send all your recommendations to the testers. They will be doing more tests.

[paperburn1]

You can help, send all your recommendations to the testers. They will be doing more tests.

GOOD point! If someone as unskilled as I (as stated by others) can come up with such controls Iam sure I could contribute.
But seriously why could we not test using a bomb calorimeter ?

[Betruger]

This is where Rossi deletes your question.

[rcain]

... But seriously why could we not test using a bomb calorimeter ?

you'll be wanting a couple of dozen 'Explosively Fast' ECats then - I'm sure Rossi can rustle-up an order form in a trice. did u have any preferred delivey date?.

[rcain]

...
I like it!

interesting summary. thx.
sure there's more 'critiquiing' will b done.

i would simply add - 'i like it too.... SO LONG AS Rossi HIMSELF didnt touch a darn bloody thing, before, during or after the experiment; in fact was kept shut in a welded metal box for the duration....', &c.

.. feel that might help 'authenticity'.

Ultimately, would love to see Levi trounce a patent over Rossi. To each his due as they say. We can but day-dream.