MOTTO
Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, "What else could this mean?" (Shannon L. Alder)
This is especially true for LENR because 99% of its enemies and 95% of its friends
still think that it is cold fusion, i.e. a form, a means, of hot fusion taking place miraculously, but based on already known and accepted science, at low temperatures.
The Otherness of LENR is ab ovo denied.
DAILY NOTES
a) If we want a LENR Technology, the first step is to avoid/eliminate the LENR impossibilities, that is its specific scitech taboos.
In other words, accept that the impossible exists - in more damaging forms- and stop trying to do the impossible(s). Doing the impossible, stubbornly is the surest way to failure
Sherlock Holmes, the famous forensic scientist investigator has stated
" when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,however improbable, must be the truth"
I have missed only the very first day from the history of Cold Fusion; the next day when the Exxon Valdez oil spill happened showing us that fossil energy is risky and has to be replaced- I was already committed to the cause and will remain so up to the last second of my life, but I will fight my way- this being also the aim of this Blog.
Now I have started a list of the impossible things- the obstacles on the road to a LENR Technology:
it is impossible to obtain a reliable and strong effect without the contribution of surface dynamics (i.e. at low temperatures- say < 400 C);
- it is impossible to obtain a reliable and strong effect without deep degassing of the active surface resp with blocked active sites;
- it is impossible to obtain a reliable and strong effect without a system of stimulation or without a form of catalysis;
- it is impossible to create the conditions for a strong and reliable effect- i.e in which LENR can be born, live, survive, grow and develop without a decisive contribution of Technology;
-jt is impossible to obtain a reliable strong effect in LENR when focusing sharply on measurement and not directly on the intensification of the effect.
Stop the wet, cool, dirty, static, inert, rigid, weak make it hot, dry, clean, dynamic, actionable.
Do forward thinking, boldly, focus on the future. optimistically, apply practical problem solving in a radical mode. Dare to think and do NEW things!
b) Jean-Paul Biberian has answered all the 5 fundamental LENR questions
JeanPaul is a good friend. dedicated to science and truth, he has answered seriously
and smartly ali the 5 quasi-impossible fundamental LENR questions.
I have enjoyed tremendously reading Jean-Paul's book:
http://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/news/index.php/News/81-Jean-Paul-Biberian-publish-his-book-Fusion-in-All-Its-Forms-in-English/
a treasure of science, culture, history, personal philosophy and I will read it again.
As told, I think that what Jean-Paul answers is genuine truth but perhaps not the complete truth and there are other possibilities
1- WHY had the field such a bad start, lack of acceptance and funding , outright hostility, bad press and its reputation is still not completely fixed?
The field of LENR is a disruptive science, so this is a normal behavior for a scientist to be reluctant to change. There are too many consequences to this change of paradigm. Unfortunately, most scientists are sheep, they follow the leaders, they cannot think by themselves and make their own opinion. They need the rubber stamp of some authority. On the other hand, the people having real power cannot change their mind, they will loose their credibility, since they were not capable of giving good advices to governments. New people would come and take over their position. So they have to reject the whole field.
2- WHY the field had a slow development, and its vital problems- as explanation, management of the experiments- intensification, reproducibility, scale-up are still far from solutions
We are walking in the dark. We are working in an area of science that is supposedly impossible, therefore we have to walk slowly and carefully. Remember before the Ferrari there was Model T. We can be lucky and have some good experiments, but in order to have progress, one must have a clear picture, at least phenomenologically, not necessarily theoretically. That is why progress in slow. There is no short cut, it will take time and effort.
3- WHY the field is so fragmented that it needs a rational taxonomy and holistic vision now, being ruled by uncertainties, ambiguities, complexity, diversity, conceptual chaos?
I don't think that Pons and Fleischmann were aware of all the implications of their discovery. We are in a very vast field of science that will take decades of work before we understand the extend of it. There are many routes to explore: liquid vs gas, DC vs AC, gas vs discharge, Pd vs Ni or Ti or U or alloys. H vs D, He vs neutrons or gammas. We need to explore all these domains in order to have a panoramic view of the field. Without that no theory can be developed. That is why at this point in time we seem to be in a chaos. We are at the time of before Mendeleev. In order to find a new Mendeleev, we need data, lots of data
4- WHY despite its tragic past and fuzzy present the field is full of wonderful realistic possibilities as an energy source in various forms, the best, most powerful, cheapest cleanest, most handy, versatile New Energy, the leading Energy Technology of the future?
Sure LENR is still an energy of the future, we know that it works, but we are not ready yet to have a commercial device on the market. Most of the scientists in the world ignore LENR, but industries are certainly monitoring the field with great interest.
5- WHICH is the shortest and fastest way to these valuable, novel technologies?.
Nobody knows. Personally, I am following 4 or 5 different tracks at the moment. I don't know which one is the most promising. When nuclear power plants were built, there was a large amount of knowledge on nuclear science. Probably the Manhattan project helped a lot, but in any case in two decades with the best scientists of the world and unlimited amount of resources nuclear industry was afoot. We are not in the situation of the forties, so it will take and it is already taking longer to go from basic science to industry. We need time, money and people. As one person said with nine pregnant women you cannot make a baby in one month!
ANSWER: true, however the technological embryo of LENR has already spent 308 months in the scientific womb- too much!; the E-Cat is the child of other parents
DAILY NEWS
1) LENR Household Nuclear Reactor
How to build a Rossi powder pretreatment processor.
I copied this design from Ken Shoulders.
Firstly, the spark can be generated at the tip of a sharply pointed electrode when a large negative charge (2-10 kv) is applied. A dielectric plate (preferably fused quartz or alumina, typically 0.0254 cm thick) intervenes between the emitter cathode and the collector anode. I believe that Rossi uses fued quartz because a particle of silicon oxide was found in the pretreated fuel by the Lugano fuel analysis.
A thin channel is cut in the dielectric as a holder for the 5 micron nickel powder. This allows the spark to follow the channel and interact with the nickel powder.
The arc makes a streak of light as it travels across the surface of the dielectric following the channel, and imparts a localized surface charge. An amount of time suffent to allow the electric charge produced by the spark to disperse so that the next spark will follow the channel. Unless this charge is dispersed, it will cause the next spark to follow another path. A witness plate of metal foil may be positioned to intercept the spark, and will sustain visible damage from their impact. The foil thus serves to detect and locate the entities even if they are invisible.
The anode current value can vary from 1 to 6 amperes. Shoulders has found that a 1-ampere level of anode current is produced by a chain of 3-5 EV beads whose overall diameter is about 3 micrometers. A sufficiently low load resistor must be used so that the voltage will not rise and deflect the EV. For a 2 kv pulse, a rise of 500 volts at the anode is a reasonable maximum. The rise rate is very high, and a wide-band oscilloscope is required to measure it. Otherwise, a capacitively coupled load must be provided for the EV. There is an upper EV size or current limit that can be collected for any particular wire size. The EV generator is typically about 10 mm. long, but the generation and manipulation of EVs can be accomplished with structures as small as 10 micrometers. The materials used in its construction need be very stable and durable to withstand the high energy of EVs. The generator also can be tubular, and it can be designed to operate in a vacuum or in a gaseous atmosphere. In a high vacuum system, the space between the cathode and anode should be less than 1 mm for a 2 kv charge. In a gaseous atmosphere of a few torrs pressure, the distance between the electrodes can extend to over 60 cm if a ground plane is positioned next to or around the tube.
The negative pulse can vary from a few nanoseconds to continuous DC without unduly influencing the production of EVs. A series resistor is placed between the pulse voltage source and the EV generator, and a scope is used to monitor the voltage. The current is calculated from the resistor value and the voltage drop.Long pulse conditions in a gas atmosphere require the use of an input resistor to prevent a sustained glow discharge within the tube. The discharge is easily quenched under low pressure or vacuum conditions. Using a pulse period of 0.1 microsecond, for example, a resistor value of 500 to 1500 ohms is practical for operation in either a vacuum or gaseous regime.
The cathode may be constructed of copper or a wide variety of other materials (Ag, Ni, Al, etc.). I would suggest nickel. It must have a sharp tip or edge so that a very high field can concentrate there. However, the dissipation of energy by EV production destroys the electrode tip, which must be regenerated. This can be accomplished with a liquid conductor such as mercury. Non-metal conductors also may be used instead (i.e., glycerin doped with potassium iodide, or nitroglycerin/nitric acid). The pulse rate of the power applied to the cathode must be low enough to allow migration of the liquid conductor. Rossi probably uses mercury as the liquid cathode because of the heavy element residue present on his nickel fuel particles.
The cathode also can be embedded within a guide groove in the dielectric base. Such a cathode may be made of metallic paste. The residue on Rossi fuel leads me to suspect that the following method was used to process his fuel. Molybdenum powder is preferable because silver or copper are too soluble in mercury to be useful in such a film circuit. A surface embedded cathode enables the propagation of EVs with only 500 volts and a much higher pulse rate. Molybdenum was found in the Lugano fuel analysis.
Pausing for some observations about the Lugano report:
"Sample 2 was the fuel used to charge the E-Cat. It’s in the form of a very fine powder. Besides the analyzed elements it has been found that the fuel also contains rather high concentrations of C, Ca, Cl, Fe, Mg, Mn and these are not found in the ash."
I believe that these elements were transmutation products produce by the fuel pretreatment process. Also, the large numbers of heavy elements that were welded onto the surface of the nickel powder were produced in preprocessing.
The elements on the carbon adhesive might be considered additive. However I doubt that they were added in separately. But the elements on the surface of the nickel particles were welded and produced by a high temperature transmutation produced by fuel preprocessing.
Continuing on with the description of the process: an EV can be guided across the surface of a dielectric if a positively charged ground plane or counter-electrode is positioned on the opposite side of the dielectric. The path of the EV also can be influenced by RC (Resistance/Capacitance) and LC (Induction/Capacitance) guides.
This process must be done in an isolated atmosphere of vacuum where the mercury and moly vapers can be diverted away from the experimenter.
Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, "What else could this mean?" (Shannon L. Alder)
This is especially true for LENR because 99% of its enemies and 95% of its friends
still think that it is cold fusion, i.e. a form, a means, of hot fusion taking place miraculously, but based on already known and accepted science, at low temperatures.
The Otherness of LENR is ab ovo denied.
DAILY NOTES
a) If we want a LENR Technology, the first step is to avoid/eliminate the LENR impossibilities, that is its specific scitech taboos.
In other words, accept that the impossible exists - in more damaging forms- and stop trying to do the impossible(s). Doing the impossible, stubbornly is the surest way to failure
Sherlock Holmes, the famous forensic scientist investigator has stated
" when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,however improbable, must be the truth"
I have missed only the very first day from the history of Cold Fusion; the next day when the Exxon Valdez oil spill happened showing us that fossil energy is risky and has to be replaced- I was already committed to the cause and will remain so up to the last second of my life, but I will fight my way- this being also the aim of this Blog.
Now I have started a list of the impossible things- the obstacles on the road to a LENR Technology:
it is impossible to obtain a reliable and strong effect without the contribution of surface dynamics (i.e. at low temperatures- say < 400 C);
- it is impossible to obtain a reliable and strong effect without deep degassing of the active surface resp with blocked active sites;
- it is impossible to obtain a reliable and strong effect without a system of stimulation or without a form of catalysis;
- it is impossible to create the conditions for a strong and reliable effect- i.e in which LENR can be born, live, survive, grow and develop without a decisive contribution of Technology;
-jt is impossible to obtain a reliable strong effect in LENR when focusing sharply on measurement and not directly on the intensification of the effect.
Stop the wet, cool, dirty, static, inert, rigid, weak make it hot, dry, clean, dynamic, actionable.
Do forward thinking, boldly, focus on the future. optimistically, apply practical problem solving in a radical mode. Dare to think and do NEW things!
JeanPaul is a good friend. dedicated to science and truth, he has answered seriously
and smartly ali the 5 quasi-impossible fundamental LENR questions.
I have enjoyed tremendously reading Jean-Paul's book:
http://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/news/index.php/News/81-Jean-Paul-Biberian-publish-his-book-Fusion-in-All-Its-Forms-in-English/
a treasure of science, culture, history, personal philosophy and I will read it again.
As told, I think that what Jean-Paul answers is genuine truth but perhaps not the complete truth and there are other possibilities
1- WHY had the field such a bad start, lack of acceptance and funding , outright hostility, bad press and its reputation is still not completely fixed?
The field of LENR is a disruptive science, so this is a normal behavior for a scientist to be reluctant to change. There are too many consequences to this change of paradigm. Unfortunately, most scientists are sheep, they follow the leaders, they cannot think by themselves and make their own opinion. They need the rubber stamp of some authority. On the other hand, the people having real power cannot change their mind, they will loose their credibility, since they were not capable of giving good advices to governments. New people would come and take over their position. So they have to reject the whole field.
2- WHY the field had a slow development, and its vital problems- as explanation, management of the experiments- intensification, reproducibility, scale-up are still far from solutions
We are walking in the dark. We are working in an area of science that is supposedly impossible, therefore we have to walk slowly and carefully. Remember before the Ferrari there was Model T. We can be lucky and have some good experiments, but in order to have progress, one must have a clear picture, at least phenomenologically, not necessarily theoretically. That is why progress in slow. There is no short cut, it will take time and effort.
3- WHY the field is so fragmented that it needs a rational taxonomy and holistic vision now, being ruled by uncertainties, ambiguities, complexity, diversity, conceptual chaos?
I don't think that Pons and Fleischmann were aware of all the implications of their discovery. We are in a very vast field of science that will take decades of work before we understand the extend of it. There are many routes to explore: liquid vs gas, DC vs AC, gas vs discharge, Pd vs Ni or Ti or U or alloys. H vs D, He vs neutrons or gammas. We need to explore all these domains in order to have a panoramic view of the field. Without that no theory can be developed. That is why at this point in time we seem to be in a chaos. We are at the time of before Mendeleev. In order to find a new Mendeleev, we need data, lots of data
4- WHY despite its tragic past and fuzzy present the field is full of wonderful realistic possibilities as an energy source in various forms, the best, most powerful, cheapest cleanest, most handy, versatile New Energy, the leading Energy Technology of the future?
Sure LENR is still an energy of the future, we know that it works, but we are not ready yet to have a commercial device on the market. Most of the scientists in the world ignore LENR, but industries are certainly monitoring the field with great interest.
5- WHICH is the shortest and fastest way to these valuable, novel technologies?.
Nobody knows. Personally, I am following 4 or 5 different tracks at the moment. I don't know which one is the most promising. When nuclear power plants were built, there was a large amount of knowledge on nuclear science. Probably the Manhattan project helped a lot, but in any case in two decades with the best scientists of the world and unlimited amount of resources nuclear industry was afoot. We are not in the situation of the forties, so it will take and it is already taking longer to go from basic science to industry. We need time, money and people. As one person said with nine pregnant women you cannot make a baby in one month!
ANSWER: true, however the technological embryo of LENR has already spent 308 months in the scientific womb- too much!; the E-Cat is the child of other parents
DAILY NEWS
1) LENR Household Nuclear Reactor
http://listverse.com/2015/12/06/10-insane-nuclear-versions-of-normal-things/
Most of the nuclear devices described here have been war-related, but Chicago entrepreneur Lewis Larsen believes that the future of nuclear reactors is to use them in the home. Larsen spent most of his professional life bouncing between jobs, but in the 1990s, he began to investigate nuclear energy with the goal of creating small nuclear reactors. Since then, his name is synonymous with the field.
Larsen is looking at developing the low-energy nuclear reactor, or LENR. Larsen’s LENR could power a house with almost no emissions and would beas small as a normal microwave oven. According to him, all of the technology and research supports the possibility; all that is left is the engineering. Skeptics claim that Larsen’s LENR is suspiciously like the University of Utah’s cold fusion reactor, which ended up being a hoax.
However, Larsen may be onto something. Recently, NASA began research into LENR power plants for houses and space planes. Physicist Joseph Zawodny takes Larsen’s research seriously and states that Larsen’s LENR research is fundamentally different from cold fusion. Zawodny is heading a NASA team tasked with developing house-safe nuclear reactors. While the idea may seem pretty far-fetched, the US Department of Energy began putting small amounts of wodny’s work in 2013. We’ll have to wait and see if it pans out.
2) At Rossi's Blog
Tom Conover
December 5th, 2015 at 1:33 PM
Dear Andrea,
Please remind us, it has been awhile, about SSM functions.
1) Does the E-Cat X spend some time in SSM?
2) Does the 1MW plant spend some time in SSM?
3) Does the E-Cat X configuration with 3 parallel use one or two or all of the 3 units as a “mouse”?
4) Does the 1MW plant pick appropriate sub module(s) to use as a “mice” for synergy?
Thank you!
Tom
Andrea Rossi
December 5th, 2015 at 3:24 PM
Tom Conover:
1- yes
2- yes
3- no
4- no
Warm Regards,
A.R.
Most of the nuclear devices described here have been war-related, but Chicago entrepreneur Lewis Larsen believes that the future of nuclear reactors is to use them in the home. Larsen spent most of his professional life bouncing between jobs, but in the 1990s, he began to investigate nuclear energy with the goal of creating small nuclear reactors. Since then, his name is synonymous with the field.
Larsen is looking at developing the low-energy nuclear reactor, or LENR. Larsen’s LENR could power a house with almost no emissions and would beas small as a normal microwave oven. According to him, all of the technology and research supports the possibility; all that is left is the engineering. Skeptics claim that Larsen’s LENR is suspiciously like the University of Utah’s cold fusion reactor, which ended up being a hoax.
However, Larsen may be onto something. Recently, NASA began research into LENR power plants for houses and space planes. Physicist Joseph Zawodny takes Larsen’s research seriously and states that Larsen’s LENR research is fundamentally different from cold fusion. Zawodny is heading a NASA team tasked with developing house-safe nuclear reactors. While the idea may seem pretty far-fetched, the US Department of Energy began putting small amounts of wodny’s work in 2013. We’ll have to wait and see if it pans out.
Tom Conover
December 5th, 2015 at 1:33 PM
Dear Andrea,
Please remind us, it has been awhile, about SSM functions.
1) Does the E-Cat X spend some time in SSM?
2) Does the 1MW plant spend some time in SSM?
3) Does the E-Cat X configuration with 3 parallel use one or two or all of the 3 units as a “mouse”?
4) Does the 1MW plant pick appropriate sub module(s) to use as a “mice” for synergy?
Thank you!
Tom
Andrea Rossi
December 5th, 2015 at 3:24 PM
Tom Conover:
1- yes
2- yes
3- no
4- no
Warm Regards,
A.R.
3) in case you missed it
MISSION INNOVATION
Accelerating the Clean Energy Revolution
4) A good and well composed example of LENR as Cold Hot Fusion:
The Cold Fusion Question - YouTube
5) Gregory Goble relates about a lively LENR discussion- here:
AXIL's COLUMN
I copied this design from Ken Shoulders.
Firstly, the spark can be generated at the tip of a sharply pointed electrode when a large negative charge (2-10 kv) is applied. A dielectric plate (preferably fused quartz or alumina, typically 0.0254 cm thick) intervenes between the emitter cathode and the collector anode. I believe that Rossi uses fued quartz because a particle of silicon oxide was found in the pretreated fuel by the Lugano fuel analysis.
A thin channel is cut in the dielectric as a holder for the 5 micron nickel powder. This allows the spark to follow the channel and interact with the nickel powder.
The arc makes a streak of light as it travels across the surface of the dielectric following the channel, and imparts a localized surface charge. An amount of time suffent to allow the electric charge produced by the spark to disperse so that the next spark will follow the channel. Unless this charge is dispersed, it will cause the next spark to follow another path. A witness plate of metal foil may be positioned to intercept the spark, and will sustain visible damage from their impact. The foil thus serves to detect and locate the entities even if they are invisible.
The anode current value can vary from 1 to 6 amperes. Shoulders has found that a 1-ampere level of anode current is produced by a chain of 3-5 EV beads whose overall diameter is about 3 micrometers. A sufficiently low load resistor must be used so that the voltage will not rise and deflect the EV. For a 2 kv pulse, a rise of 500 volts at the anode is a reasonable maximum. The rise rate is very high, and a wide-band oscilloscope is required to measure it. Otherwise, a capacitively coupled load must be provided for the EV. There is an upper EV size or current limit that can be collected for any particular wire size. The EV generator is typically about 10 mm. long, but the generation and manipulation of EVs can be accomplished with structures as small as 10 micrometers. The materials used in its construction need be very stable and durable to withstand the high energy of EVs. The generator also can be tubular, and it can be designed to operate in a vacuum or in a gaseous atmosphere. In a high vacuum system, the space between the cathode and anode should be less than 1 mm for a 2 kv charge. In a gaseous atmosphere of a few torrs pressure, the distance between the electrodes can extend to over 60 cm if a ground plane is positioned next to or around the tube.
The negative pulse can vary from a few nanoseconds to continuous DC without unduly influencing the production of EVs. A series resistor is placed between the pulse voltage source and the EV generator, and a scope is used to monitor the voltage. The current is calculated from the resistor value and the voltage drop.Long pulse conditions in a gas atmosphere require the use of an input resistor to prevent a sustained glow discharge within the tube. The discharge is easily quenched under low pressure or vacuum conditions. Using a pulse period of 0.1 microsecond, for example, a resistor value of 500 to 1500 ohms is practical for operation in either a vacuum or gaseous regime.
The cathode may be constructed of copper or a wide variety of other materials (Ag, Ni, Al, etc.). I would suggest nickel. It must have a sharp tip or edge so that a very high field can concentrate there. However, the dissipation of energy by EV production destroys the electrode tip, which must be regenerated. This can be accomplished with a liquid conductor such as mercury. Non-metal conductors also may be used instead (i.e., glycerin doped with potassium iodide, or nitroglycerin/nitric acid). The pulse rate of the power applied to the cathode must be low enough to allow migration of the liquid conductor. Rossi probably uses mercury as the liquid cathode because of the heavy element residue present on his nickel fuel particles.
The cathode also can be embedded within a guide groove in the dielectric base. Such a cathode may be made of metallic paste. The residue on Rossi fuel leads me to suspect that the following method was used to process his fuel. Molybdenum powder is preferable because silver or copper are too soluble in mercury to be useful in such a film circuit. A surface embedded cathode enables the propagation of EVs with only 500 volts and a much higher pulse rate. Molybdenum was found in the Lugano fuel analysis.
Pausing for some observations about the Lugano report:
"Sample 2 was the fuel used to charge the E-Cat. It’s in the form of a very fine powder. Besides the analyzed elements it has been found that the fuel also contains rather high concentrations of C, Ca, Cl, Fe, Mg, Mn and these are not found in the ash."
I believe that these elements were transmutation products produce by the fuel pretreatment process. Also, the large numbers of heavy elements that were welded onto the surface of the nickel powder were produced in preprocessing.
The elements on the carbon adhesive might be considered additive. However I doubt that they were added in separately. But the elements on the surface of the nickel particles were welded and produced by a high temperature transmutation produced by fuel preprocessing.
Continuing on with the description of the process: an EV can be guided across the surface of a dielectric if a positively charged ground plane or counter-electrode is positioned on the opposite side of the dielectric. The path of the EV also can be influenced by RC (Resistance/Capacitance) and LC (Induction/Capacitance) guides.
This process must be done in an isolated atmosphere of vacuum where the mercury and moly vapers can be diverted away from the experimenter.
Hey Peter,
ReplyDeleteHow is Dekalion doint these days? I expected great things from their Hyperion. Have you talked to your friend, Hadjichristos, recently? What did he have to tell you about progress and re-emergence of the company? Thanks!