This is just a short introduction to the parameter
problems in LENR; more has to come when we will study the Report No 2 of
Rossi’s Professors.
The most frightening statement from the long Cold
Fusion-LENR- new name(s) to come- multi-saga is, probably this:
"not only are the anomalous
fusion reactions found to take place in only a very few chips (obtained from
the same piece of titanium) but even in those chips, tritium production is
restricted to a small number of selected localized 'hot spots' (by
Mahadeva Srinivasan in "Nuclear fusion in an atomic lattice: An update on
the international status of cold fusion research," Current Science, vol
60, no 7, April 10, 1991, p 417.)
It is absolutely irrelevant that it is about Ti and
tritium, the same is painfully true also for palladium; heat and helium on the
cathodes of electrolytic cells- this is the very spirit of cold fusion, where
uncertainty is the rule- both globally and locally.
Recently I was very much interested in the heroic efforts
of our best men to show that wet PdD is not unmanageable scientifically and
dead technologically. See please: http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2014/09/the-death-of-wet-pdd-was-highly.html
The stakes for me are high, I have decided irreversibly
that if a team will obtain 100% long term reproducibility with a PdD cell without
deep degassing or covering the degassed cathode with a membrane permeable only
for hydrogen and impermeable for all other gases, I will retire from the field,
playing chess or activating in some anti-vegan movement (“The cruel veganists
are killing plants, let’s eat ham and eggs!”)
I will be 77 years old soon, this will happen probably in
my late 80’s so I am still not so scared just now.
(When I just wrote this, the Internet has sent me a
message: “Hey you narrow-vision-old-boy, do you really think that only LENR
is complex- give a look to this: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2014/09/25/key-catalytic-factors-in-carbon-dioxide-reduction/)
True, but is it a consolation? No, but I think it is something to be
learned from this.
Also, I have developed a good habit to discuss important
LENR problems with people who are smarter and more knowledgeable than me. I am
listening to what they say with care and openness- and if they say things in
accordance with my own ideas, usually I consider and apply their teachings.
OK, I have discussed about PdD
with Ed Storms. Many people think he is the most advanced in the study of LENR
and his merits are obvious even to a computer.
The discussion has started with
my question if the nanocracks- nuclearly active sites in Ed’s new theory are-
an “actionable parameter” i.e a variable that can be changed thus that you
obtain the desired effect (more or less in practice). Ed who has studied the
problem thoroughly says: Yes! “Nanocracks can be created on purpose”
I, less educated in the subjects
of fragility and fragilization of palladium and of other metals, plus because I
have developed a kind of nanocrackophobia bound to the long term integrity of
the metal – cathode or in other form, - I have serious doubts that nanocracks
of the optimum sizes can be manufactured at will for long time. For short time
too. Ed Storms knows t methods and thinks that Andrea Rossi has found a good
method
for making plenty of productive
nanocracks...
“So have done other people
occasionally but they have unfortunately misunderstood their findings and were
unable to discover the truth. The formation of cracks is a complex subject-says
Ed Storms we ( the other people) still have to understand correctly)
The problem, thinks Storms, can be solved for both Pd that forms large cracks
too easily and nickel, that forms cracks with too much difficulty.
Ed Storms has also
emphasized the decisive role of impurities- contaminants. Even small
concentrations of impurities will have large effects on the ability to form
cracks.
“Consequently,
finding the relationship between the material properties and LENR has been
difficult. As McKubre and others discovered, slightly impure Pd works better
than very pure Pd. When electrolysis is used, the surface is changed by
the slow deposition of Li, Si, O, and Pt. That slow change to produce a brittle
surface is the reason why electrolysis has to be applied for a long time before
LENR starts. This effect has been completely overlooked. (citing Ed Storms)
About the role of the contaminants: “The
reproducibility is low because the role of impurity is not correctly
identified. None of the efforts focus on the critical variables. Yes, the
impurity content is variable both locally and as an average. This fact is
ignored. When people actually take the critical variables into account,
reproducibility will improve. Most people have not looked at the surface
using SEM and have not considered that the effect is very local where the
impurity content is very different from the average.” For me this
raises the problems how the impurities or contaminants can be “made” into an
actionable parameter. Say I have the responsibility
to manufacture 1000 functional F&P Cells per day- how will I manage the
impurities- in-Pd problem? How will I select and treat the assortments and
batches of this metal? How can I select the lots with the same composition but
with some batches having a random distribution from those in which the
contaminants are grouped in islands of different sizes? I fear I will lose my
job and cursing the purity parameter will not make me happy.
We also have discussed about the gaseous
impurities or contaminants; Ed Storms thinks they have a secondary role and I
am obsessed with them. He is right; I indeed think they are the main cause of
the Reproducibility problem.
However it seems we have hit a hornet’s
nest- and we have to start professional discussions about the LENR
parameters; they can perhaps help us to understand better the problem and
much later even to solve it.
Making our bureaucrats happy: the definitions
Words are excellent to hide our thoughts; however with a
bit of care they can also be used to express thoughts, ore or less precisely.
English is quite difficult being poly-semantic- so many words have a broad
range of senses. I am reminded about this daily by http://www.wordsmith.org/ and other
inspiring sites I am subscribed to – from my web-searcher journalist period
(1999-2010)
Now I want to speak about those measurable variables of
the LENR processes that have to be changed in controlled and coordinated ways
in order to get lot of excess energy and limited harmful side effects. I will
emphasize the great difficulties due to extreme complexity and fuzziness.
Definitions used from Web dictionaries:
PARAMETER: a
measurable factor forming one of a set that defines conditions of operation.
ACTIONABLE: able to be done or acted on; having
practical value; also goes: adjustable, controllable.
The other sense of “actionable:
giving sufficient
reason to take legal action” is not relevant for our case.
The first condition of a parameter is to be measurable with a
good precision and I remember values of trivial parameters as temperature,
pressure, flow, pH, mixing speed etc. in combination with so many non-culinary
recipes. Including tens of sorts of functional additives.
My constructive discussion with Ed Storms has revealed me the
sad fact that some parameters –as contaminants can be measured only with great
difficulty –especially in LENR- purity control with its local effects and
temperature differences too small sometimes due to weak heat excess effects.
We can move parameters upward and downward in many combinations
and we can find the optimal values both for continuous and discontinuous
processes- in some rational and practical limits. Myriads of possibilities in
the technologies.
For the wet electrolytic PdD systems even the ‘simplest’
parameter, temperature is limited by the presence of the liquid to max. 100 C.
Recent advances show that promising CF activity starts above 200 C. Fleischmann
and Pons have built cells with boiling and refluxed heavy water in the glorious
IMRA France Cincinnati
Therefore temperature is an actionable parameter only for the
dry gas-phase LENR systems as those of Piantelli, Case, Rossi,
DGT.
Parameter Paralysis.
This essay is not intended as/for a complete study of LENR parameters;
however I want to call your attention to a situation
I have met in practice: sometimes a system is conceived and
built in such an auto-limiting way, that almost all the parameters have a
restricted variability and are not well actionable.
I remember without details (because I could not test it) a
cavitation device somewhat similar with James Griggs’ Hydrosonic Pump on which
nothing could be adjusted.
An interesting and tragic case is that of the Cincinnati Cell
see please it in some detail:
The authors, Stan Gleeson and Don Holloman, were my friends
because they were good men, idealists and have tried to do good things. They
were Charismatic Christians and have worked from divine inspiration. They
wanted to clean the Planet of radioactive wastes and have built their fine
zirconium Cell. They have worked first with Thorium but later with Americium
and both have died young by leukemia, more than probable due to being exposed
to radiations.
We met, became friends and they have donated me one of their
Cells and I was very grateful and proud, however a bit confused about their
choice. As you can see here
we had some warm- human, cultural and scientific discussions.
(It was the worse period of my life I already knew about the cancer of my son)
At my Institute ITIM, my younger friend Manu Surducan and I have
tested the cell and the first impression was: “it works as it will and you
cannot change much” You connect the cell to current it starts to heat up, the
resistance increases rapidly and in short time it behaves as having distilled,
pure high resistance water in it. You can change only the speed of increasing
the voltage but not much. An unique scenario.”
If you open the Cell after the test the liquid phase is not more
radioactive, however significant quantities of a white grey precipitate are
formed and the radioactivity is there.
The two electrodes (see the first Infinite Energy link) are
damaged, eroded in more and more places.
The worst thing- if you measure the radioactivity of the entire
Cell before and after the high pressure electrolysis- it remains
unchanged: no measurable transmutation takes place. The radioactivity is just
relocated inside the cell.
But what happens actually, why has the test such a rigid
evolution? Why is the zirconium “consumed”?
Then I suddenly remembered an English newspaper article
about a Russian guy who added a good quantity of cyanide to
water, put the mixture in a similar electrolysis cell with electrodes of iron made
a lot of sparking, filters the water then could drink it without any health
problem. The trick is spark erosion due to the current drops of molten metal
(zirconium for the Cinci Cell ns iron for water cleaning) fall in the water and
embed, englobe, include strongly any substance except H2O- water is
demineralized.
I had great practice with bad news so I solved the problem to
communicate these results too and have collaborated many years
with the chemist of the Cincinnati Group, Rob Liversage and we
have tried many variants of the process e.g. alkaline solutions.
