Guest post by Ric Werme
Six months ago I posted, with Anthony’s consent and misgivings, Cold Fusion Going Commercial!?. It’s time to take a look at how Dr Rossi and his Energy Catalyzer are doing. In a word, Wow. There’s a huge amount of information and blogish speculation on the web now despite there being still very little in the mainstream press. There’s a new blog that looks pretty good, other new blogs I haven’t checked out yet, existing blogs have a lot of information, and it may be quite a while before I get back to teasing information out of Rossi’s blog.
First, a quick summary. Andrea Rossi, associated with the University of Bologna, took research from Sergio Focardi and scaled it up with a nanostructured nickel substrate and an undisclosed (but supposedly inexpensive) catalyst that fuses hydrogen with nickel releasing heat and some gamma rays. A demonstration unit in January took 400 watts in and put 12 kilowatts out, boiling some 8.8 liters of water in 30 minutes. He says units have run for months heating his laboratory, designs that don’t need a continuous source of input heat can be built but are unstable and difficult to stop. The reactor produces copper, but it’s still unclear just how hydrogen is overcoming Coulomb repulsion without needing particle accelerators or pressures akin to the center of a star.
In January Rossi announced that a 1 MW reactor was going to be the first commercial development. That is proceeding. Manufacturing rights have been split between Defkalion Green Technologies S.A. in Greece and AmpEnergo Inc. in the USA The former gets Europe, Asia, and Africa; the latter gets the Americas and Caribbean.
Defkalion is building the 1 MW reactor based on an array of small modules similar to those used in the January demonstration. Ampenergo may use a similar approach, but may not be producing modules yet.
Let me do the rest of this in a question and answer format:
Umm, what is this good for? What am I supposed to be excited about?
Ah, a very good question. I’m going to take a very conservative approach to the answer, i.e. squash the hype. First and foremost, all the usable energy this produces is heat. The major limitation of this is the maximum temperature the reactor can run at, Rossi says they keep it at no more than 500°C. Modern power plants can produce steam at 600°C and a pressure of 250 bar. While this is unobtainable from from the Rossi device, it could be used in a two stage boiler – an E-cat stage to get the temperature up to several hundred degrees and a conventional plant to finish it.
So the E-cat device by itself would have to run at a lower temperature and the laws of thermodynamics mean that the E-cats alone will have to run at a lower efficiency than conventional plants. Let’s assume for now that the E-cat device can’t heat water to a point where it can be used efficiently in a steam power plant. Let’s ignore that lower efficiency may not preclude it from being cost effective. Let’s also ignore combined heat and power systems.
So then all we have is something that produces a lot of something that the existing power plant operators would call waste heat. Portable heat at that – the 1 MW pilot reactor will fit in a 20′ x 40′ container (6 x 12 m). What’s that good for? Industrial-sized space heating for one. A long time ago I read that genetic engineering would have a greater impact on the agricultural business than on human medicine. Ever since then, I’ve looked at the Ag business as really big business. One big consumer of propane is drying grain post harvest for shipping, storage, etc. A little corner of the AG world in New England is maple sugaring. Typically 40 units of maple sap is boiled down to 1 unit of syrup. Some processors do it the old fashioned way with wood fires (usually scrap maple!) or the not so romantic oil burners. There are reverse osmosis systems for removing the bulk of the water, but it has to be finished (and cooked!) in a boiler. Why not have nuclear powered maple syrup?
Patios, sidewalks, driveways are sometimes heated to keep them snow free. Some airports and cities have big melters that pay loaders dump snow into and propane heaters turn it into water to dump down the storm sewers.
There are a whole lot of things you could code that would fry the arch-conservationists, like heating entire roads or keeping open air swimming pools open through the winter.
My favorite idea is small scale, but incredibly practical – Antarctic research stations need to stock up on enough fuel oil during the summer to keep warm during the winter. A heat source that is refueled once a year would thrill the physical plant personnel.
Energy production needs energy, and the E-Cat could fit in to some current applications (assuming the applications are still viable). Distilling ethanol from the biological fermenters used to convert corn to ethanol is one. Another providing the hot water used in oil sand and oil shale extraction. Currently that’s provided by burning natural gas, and there may be plenty of that associated with the source that it’s remains the sensible heat source.
So, the answer is that simply heat is well worth getting excited about.
Yeah, but what about me?
Rossi is concerned about keeping some of the intellectual property a trade secret. That, and concerns about shutting down the reaction made me assume that the home heating market would be the last to develop, but Defkalion is planning a small box that can hold 1-6 5 kW modules for a combined heat and power application, including residential use. If I recall correctly, a typical residential oil burning furnace burns oil at the rate of one gallon per hour. That’s 40 kW, so yeah, If the fears for some brutal winters come true, Defkalion may be very busy!
Dude, what about the US, you keep talking about Greeks!
Well, living in New Hampshire, I’m pleased to report that Ampenergo is located in NH. The principals are Karl Norwood, Richard Noceti, Robert Gentile, and Craig Cassarino.
Robert Gentile was the Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) during the early 1990’s. That’s okay. He is/was President of Leonardo Technologies Inc., an Ohio company that may have been set up by Rossi and is related to the Leonardo Corp in Bedford, NH. The links are weird, I haven’t figured them all out.
Richard Noceti co-wrote a paper titled Synthesis of Hydrocarbon Fuels using Renewable and Nuclear Energy and is listed as National Energy Technology Laboratory and LTI Associates. That’s good.
Karl Norwood is the President of The Norwood Group, a large real estate company based in Bedford NH. Hmm. His Linked-in entry says “Karl Norwood’ss [sic] real estate experience is multi-faceted, from multi-family to office and industrial properties. In business for over 40 years, he has been actively involved in all forms of commercial brokerage, negotiating on behalf of both landlords and tenants.” Whoa, shouldn’t we have a few manufacturing folks here?
In January, I went looking for the Leonardo Corp and was surprised to find it shared the same phone number as Norwood Realty. So I stopped there one day in January and the receptionist gave me Craig Cassarino’s phone number and said he was in Brazil that week. I eventually called him a month or so later. He knew little of cold fusion history or other research that went on in New Hampshire, he’s more of an international business consultant. Exportnh.org says “Craig Cassarino has spent decades focused on sustainability of resources in both New Hampshire and Brazil, so it’s very fitting that now, as New Hampshire’s Commercial Consul for Brazil, he is serving as a resource for Granite State businesses interested in doing business in Brazil.” Oh my.
So it sounds to me as though Ampenergo will be a middleman between sub licensees and Rossi. I’m sure they have lots of contacts to work with. Frankly, I expected to find something like a General Electric throwing hundreds of engineers at designs of all scales and dozens of scientists to build higher temperature devices, better heat flow management, figure out the nuclear physics, etc. Perhaps GE is, but are doing so quietly. At any rate, look to Defkalion for early results, perhaps Ampenergo can get factories set up throughout the Americas (or just in Brazil) later. I think the modules for the 1 MW reactor are being made in Florida.
How about producing electricity with thermocouples?
A “classic” thermocouple relies on the relative ease of moving an electron from one metal to another in a heated junction. They’re used in gas fired boilers, temperature sensors, etc. To get a decent amount of power requires a lot of wires. Something I wasn’t very familiar with until I started researching this is semiconductor thermocouple that uses lead telluride. Recent research has improved its output by adding some dopants that produce points where it’s easier for heat to knock off an electron. Rossi is very interested, but I suspect that there may not be enough tellurium to go around. I have a small thermoelectrically powered fan that you put on a wood stove. It also serves as a good guess about the smoke stack temperature, as the hotter the stove gets, the faster the fan spins.
Cute device, pretty pricy. I’m sure there will be good applications, but overall I don’t think it’s thermocouples are efficient enough, inexpensive enough, and raw material plentiful enough.
I hear it’s a scam.
Well, suppose it is, we’ll find out soon enough. I think it’s likely for real, but there are several other opinions and red flags worth keeping in mind. If it is a scam, it’s a heck of a complex one.
The obvious opinion is it’s all been faked or that Rossi, et al, are seeing what they want to see and it’s all a fantasy. Early LENR devices had so little excess heat that it took painstaking measurements to find it. The device Rossi demonstrated produced so much heat that there’s simply no question it was producing heat. Even the input power, supplied by a piece of lamp cord, is nowhere near the 12 kW that was being produced. (On a 230 VAC source, that lamp cord would have to carry 50 amps to bring 12 kW into the test device. 50 amps generally requires AWG 10-11 gauge wire.) Other parties, including Swedish nuclear experts have concluded the device is real and is too small to provide the demonstrated energy chemically.
There are detractors, primarily science journalist Steve Krivit. He’s a longtime follower of the cold fusion/LENR scene and is quick to point out it’s not “real” fusion. He visited Rossi et al in Italy, burning bridges along the way. There’s a personality conflict, I think Krivit was looking for a science discussion about how it works and if it works, while Rossi was taking time out of another busy day building a 1 MW reactor expecting it will work much like his smaller modules, because they’re using many of them.
Krivit’s trip to Italy left both sides annoyed with each other. From that page, follow the subsequent posts to the actual interviews and observations of the system.
Krivit states “Thus far, the scientific details provided by the E-Cat trio have been highly deficient and have not enabled the public to make an objective evaluation.”
Rossi retorted later, “Mr. Krivit has understood nothing of what he saw, from what I have read in his ridiculous report.”
Krivit’s focus is on the boiling water test, and thinks that the output steam flow was “wet” – that water droplets cam out with the steam. Rossi set up another demonstration with much higher water flow to stay with liquid water, and measuring the flow and temperature gain. The results showed more heat release than before.
What sort of “red flags” should I be aware of?
Here’s a list, some are holdovers from cold fusion history:
- It sounds too good to be true.
And therefore requires extraordinary results.
- Scientists have come away impressed, but scientists are lousy at spotting fraud.
It would be nice if James Randi would take a look, there are a number of doubters on his discussion board. However, so much energy comes out of the device that it can’t be powered from the wall outlet, can’t be battery power, can’t be burning hydrocarbons (that second test released the equivalent of burning 7.9 gallons of gasoline). There’s not much else it could be, e.g IR lasers or microwaves.
- What’s with Rossi’s legal problems in the past?
I haven’t read too closely, but Rossi was involved in a trash to oil project that didn’t get very far, but some accounts point to corrupt Italian officials shaking down a company that was beginning to make money. (I’m shocked!) Those issues may be one reason why Rossi is working with Defkalion, a Greek company.
- And how about Ampenergo in the Americas?
I’ll contact them in a while. They’re going to have to move and move quickly. At least they didn’t spend much time on a name. 🙂
- If Rossi were a real scientist, he’d describe the catalyst.
Yeah, but he’s an inventor/entrepeneur. He’s focused on getting a product out, one that he wants to protect until things are more established. He may talk about it more in November after the 1 MW reactor is shipped.
- And how expensive is the catalyst.
Rossi says it’s cheap. There’s some other work that used palladium on carbon, I wouldn’t be surprised if the nano structure is from nickel on carbon fibers or even just charcoal. It may be his biggest advance is increasing the surface area of the nickel.
- This converts nickel to copper, which isotopes?
Uh, can I get back to you on that? Sergio Focardi says that what is produced does not match natural copper. Physicists from Sweden say “the used powder is different in that several elements are present, mainly 10 percent copper and 11 percent iron. The isotopic analysis through ICP-MS doesn’t show any deviation from the natural isotopic composition of nickel and copper.” If the copper produced has the natural percentages of 69.17% 63Cu and 30.83% 65Cu, that’s a big red flag and and means either the result is contamination with natural copper or that the processes that make copper in the E-cat are similar to the natural processes, which should involve exploding supernovae.
On the other hand, if the ratio is different, then that’s very strong evidence that copper is being produced through nuclear chemistry.
No one seems to be talking about the iron. Iron is a couple steps before nickel, and that suggests alpha particle emission, but that’s more common with very heavy elements.
I’m still reading, I want to know more!
A remarkably amateurish but informative video was created by Nobel Laureate Brian Josephson at the University of Cambridge. I think it exists because there just wasn’t a decent video introduction. Is it an appeal to authority if the authority is yourself?
A blog dedicated to Rossi’s Energy Catalyzer has appeared as http://www.e-catworld.com/. It’s run by Frank (admin). I think I know who Frank is, but he never replied to my query. I think it will be a good source of information.
In a July post from Pure Energy Systems, there’s a list of Web sites focused on the E-Cat device. I’ve only had a chance to look at a few. (The last is one I found elsewhere.)
An interview with Sergio Focardi gives a really good background on developing the E-Cat. Focardi doesn’t know what the catalyst is, but suspects it’s involved in splitting molecular hydrogen into atomic hydrogen (ordinary hydrogen is a molecule with two atoms).
Wired had a good summary of LENR research in 2006. One person referenced, Les Case, was a solo researcher in New Hampshire and longtime acquaintance of mine. He died of natural causes a year or so ago.
What’s next?
The next big step is the completion, testing, and delivery of the 1 MW reactor. After that, Rossi might have time (or might be surrounded by reporters) and be willing to talk more about what’s inside.
I’m just amazed that the mainstream media haven’t picked this up. I don’t know how much of it is bad memories from the science by press conference days of Pons and Fleischman, and how much is pursuing more important stories, like which celebrity is entering or leaving rehab. When they do pick it up, they may overhype it, but it’s easy to show that maintaining a high standard of living requires access to cheap energy.
While the E-Cat device will not supplant many current uses for petroleum products, it doesn’t have to. It wouldn’t take much of a demand reduction to chase the speculators out of oil, and it could help reduce the cost of producing products from crude oil to refined fuels.
Whatever happens, our “interesting times,” as the Chinese curse goes, are about to become more interesting.
All very interesting, really. But a few notes:
1) I am not aware of any geothermal electrical production from anything more than 500F – in fact it is mostly less than 350F. With few exceptions, the turbines are turned using a low pressure working fluid like isobutane. – see Ormat for example: http://www.ormat.com/. This allows the best efficiency for even the higher temperature resources. Most geothermal is very wet steam -only a few resources, like the Geysers in California, produce dry steam from a hole in the ground.
2) It doesn’t have to be a scam to be incorrect. It can just be a bad explanation for an observed phenomenon – even a poorly observed one. Not everyone is just out to make a buck. Although in the case I’m certainly holding onto my wallet.
4) These folks are not the only researchers that use poor or questionable data collection techniques – I have seen others in more “respectable” areas of science. It does not necessarily mean that the entire concept is bogus or that WUWT should run from it.In fact, I find it rather similar to some climate data collection and manipulation problems.
3) The more interesting issue for me is to explain overall what many have observed – unusual “energy” events using hydrogen and platinum, palladium, or in this case, some sort of doped nickel. So, assuming it’s not LENR, what are they seeing and can it be used somehow?
Jim,
We shall see in October.☺
Rob,
I haven’t “pigion-holed” you as anything. You say: cold fusion and all its variants have been thoroughly debunked. So have the CO2-CAGW conjecture and all it’s variants. You objected to posting an article here about cold fusion. I trust you have the same objection to the thoroughly debunked CO2=CAGW conjecture, no?
Smokey,
Apparently you did not get the hint when I objected to being pigion-holed as a warmest, so let me say this real slowly for you: I think “CO2=CAGW” (as you put it) is bunk.
So what is your point? Is that some kind of damn test I have to pass for you? Do you require others to swear allegiance to your point of view on one topic (CAGW) before you will entertain their position on an entirely unrelated topic (cold fusion)?
http://www.youtube.com/user/freeenergytruth#p/u/7/xRry6a3U0Cw
Don’t shoot the messenger please.
Kwik: “Lubos, you are taking this too serious! It is a discussion, right? Pros and Cons. I think it is interesting, nomatter what it ends up with. If it is a scam, how will it end? For Rossi and his people?”
It won’t mean anything for Rossi et al. because most people – like you – no longer consider scams to be acts of evil or acts that should be punished. Instead, they – and you – think that every new scam is “interesting” no matter what it ends up with. Some of the people explicitly say so.
Well, I beg to differ. A proposed technological breakthrough is only interesting if it actually has some merit and leads to something. If it doesn’t – and if it’s even possible for everyone to become certain that it doesn’t at the very beginning – then the collection of capital for this kind of activity should be viewed as ordinary fraud.
This is not just about two extravagant armchair researchers. Defkalion Greece – look at the website, a typical “green energy” website for the gullible people – and the analogous U.S. company will clearly try to get millions of dollars out of it and it’s clear in advance that all their methods will be fraudulent because the gadget cannot work.
As is well known, fusion is a PHYSICAL process, which fuses the nuclei of one or more atoms, while all CHEMICAL processes consist of an interaction among the electrons in the shell of two or more atoms. Catalysts have an impact only on chemical processes.
To fuse two nuclei their the repulsion from coulombic forces has to be overcome, and no mechanism has been proposed for cold fusion, neither by Rossi or other. Instead, a secret catalyst has been brought into the play (“a nanostructured nickel substrate and an undisclosed (but supposedly inexpensive) catalyst”).
It very much looks like a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from the issues by focussing on catalysts. This is further evident from the use of fashionable catchwords like “nanostructured” and “undisclosed” and “inexpensive”. Just like a magician does its trick by focussing is audience onto irrelevant things.
Makes it more likely to being a scam than simply sloppy science.
PerterF says:
August 6, 2011 at 1:08 am
“As is well known, fusion is a PHYSICAL process, which fuses the nuclei of one or more atoms, while all CHEMICAL processes consist of an interaction among the electrons in the shell of two or more atoms. Catalysts have an impact only on chemical processes.”
To fuse two nuclei their the repulsion from coulombic forces has to be overcome, and no mechanism has been proposed for cold fusion, neither by Rossi or other. Instead, a secret catalyst has been brought into the play (“a nanostructured nickel substrate and an undisclosed (but supposedly inexpensive) catalyst”).
It very much looks like a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from the issues by focussing on catalysts. This is further evident from the use of fashionable catchwords like “nanostructured” and “undisclosed” and “inexpensive”. Just like a magician does its trick by focussing is audience onto irrelevant things.
Makes it more likely to being a scam than simply sloppy science”
Epitaph.
Ric Werme says:
August 5, 2011 at 9:12 pm
Rob says:
August 5, 2011 at 5:51 pm (Edit)
I have to ask: Why does Anthony disallow discussions of conspiracy theories like “chemtrails” yet allows pseudo-science cold fusion crap like this? I think this topic would be better placed in “Free Energy Times” or “Above Top Secret” or related nutball backwater of the internet.
“It took me a bit of effort to convince Anthony to let me post my January article. Even after carefully crafting the first paragraph to make clear that the topic would be controversial, Anthony still added his own disclaimer.”
It is most unfortunate that you were able to convince Anthony to post your current promotion of this scam.
“I wanted to write the first post to let WUWT readers know about something they might be talking about as soon as the mainstream media picked up the story. (Boy, that prediction flopped.) Reasons for this post included looking around beyond the demonstrations, trying to set reasonable expectations, and to let WUWT readers know about something they might be talking about as soon as the mainstream media picks up the story when the 1 MW reactor is installed. (Okay, that prediction will likely flop too unless we have a cold October.)”
Why the promotional cheer leading spin rather a sober physics – based review?
“I won’t answer for Anthony why he allowed these posts but not chemtrail posts. The reason I wrote posts about Rossi’s device is that the data supporting LENR is stronger, more people have studied it with appropriate tools, some of them are quite respectable scientists, and if true, it will have a bigger impact on society.”
Every aspect of this “E Cat” waves big red flags and yells “scam” from the rooftops.
“If you don’t like it, it’s just two posts to ignore. Possibly a third in October. Sorry.”
No you’re not. Your scientifically illiterate posts promoting known scams demeans, and open to valid accusations of promoting crackpot, a site that Anthony Watts has worked very hard to build up.
Smokey says:
“Are you saying that the topic of CO2=CAGW also belongs in the trash? Because there is no more evidence that CO2 causes catastrophic AGW than there is that cold fusion has been demonstrated.”
Smokey: Don’t go there. I made a simple post expressing my disappointment in Anthony’s allowing a cold fusion discussion on what I consider to be an otherwise respectable blog, and you have pigion-holed me as a warmist. Don’t do that. You don’t know me.
The fact is, cold fusion and all it’s variants have been thoroughly debunked. But hey, you don’t have to take my word for it. Just keep waiting for this magic machine to go commercial. I’m sure that will happen any day now.
“The fact is, cold fusion and all it’s variants have been thoroughly debunked.”
Now that sounds like a “warmist” statement if I have ever heard one.
Rob,
Thanx for speaking so slowly, it helps me to understand, thick as I am. You asked, “What is your point?” It is this: you objected to Anthony’s inclusion of this article, but not to the numerous CAGW articles. I just wondered why one was OK and not the other; they’re both scams, IMHO. That said, it seems we’re both on the same page. I didn’t intend this to be an argument, just a point of consistency. Peace out, my brotha from another mother.☺
There is sufficient phenomena occurring during these cold fusion R&D projects to warrant further effort and investigation. To ignore or refuse to consider, any possibility, that our present paradigm is complete enough, to rule out all possible reactions, is hubris at a damaging level. In fact, no scientific progress can be made, with such closed minds.
There are plenty of reactivity effects observed in our present fission reactors, which took decades to understand and account for. I doubt that we could produce a exact theoretical heat balance with present day fission reactors. We did not scrap fission reactors merely because we were unable to account for all the energy. As long as the net result was kinetic energy imparted to the fission fragment, in sufficient quantities, to form sufficient delta T… we were satisfied.
I agree, that a completely open mind, is no mind at all… but a completely closed mind is worse, as it allows for no progress, what-so-ever. Any subject can be approached safely, with a proper, skeptical, scientific mind. Those that are afraid, to look foolish, by examining reported phenomena, or discuss reported/claimed breakthroughs, do not have sufficient trust in the scientific method nor their competency with it.
Something is going on, and if we don’t investigate… WHO WILL? If it is a scam, then the sooner we get to the bottom of it, the better. I don’t like being scammed anymore than anyone else. That’s why I don’t invest, by claims alone, and neither should you. GK
I’ve a “theory” (..ok – lets say, it’s rather idea or hypothesis), why the cold fusion of hydrogen at nickel is proceeding so smoothly – the protons are passing through electrons of nickel, which are shielding positive charge of nickel atom nuclei. The same shield absorbs fusion energy and releases just the heat outside. All other lighter elements require to bring more energy into proton fusion, which makes the resulting atom nuclei unstable and decaying into many fragments = radioactivity. With compare to it, heavier atoms have no reasons to fuse at all – compare the binding energy graph – nickel is sitting just at the top of the curve.
We can compare the influence of electrons to the damping layer during crushing of nut with stone. If we crush the naked nut with stone, many fragments will be released into outside. But if we pack the nut first into thick layer of fabric, the nut can be crushed without formation of fragments and the whole action will proceed quietly and smoothly. I presume, the electrons around atom nuclei are serving as such damping layer fabric during cold fusion. I admit, it’s sorta miracle and gift of Nature, which people don’t deserve at all – but it doesn’t contradict the known laws of physics and it can still work. I’ve met with another example of such anomalous reaction at the case of water splitting with radio-waves.
http://aetherwavetheory.blogspot.com/2009/07/burning-water-and-water-memory.html
The splitting of water with such low energy is like the splitting of atom nuclei with visible light – the energy barrier is 108 lower in both cases. Nevertheless it works. Note that during splitting of water a highly unstable mixture of hydrogen and hydrogen peroxide is formed. Such mixture cannot form during splitting of water at all, as the water always decomposes into thermodynamically much more advantageous mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. The reason is, hydrogen reacts with hydrogen peroxide violently – nevertheless, from some reason, this energetic reaction doesn’t occur. I presume, the same mechanism applies at the case of hydrogen fusion at nickel – the brute force in tokamak would always lead into release of high amount of neutrons.
For complete understanding, what could really happen during cold fusion of nickel we should realize, the binding energy of electrons in bottom orbitals of nickel is so high, it becomes comparable with binding energy of neutrons inside of nickel atom nuclei. For complete ionization of nickel atoms you should use hard X-rays – such energy is so high, it can initiate excitation of nickel atom nuclei itself. So that neutrons released during fusion are reacting with electrons and the protons are restored. In such way, the protons literally tunnels into atom nuclei of nickel without spallation.
http://www.aetherwavetheory.info/images/physics/nuclear/fusion/cold/nickel_fusion.gif
IMO the main trick is, the physicists always considered the naked protons and/or atom nuclei during their calculation of cold fusion probability. They considered, electrons flying around nuclei cannot contribute to the reaction mechanism at all, because they can be expelled and removed easily with protons and/or products of fussion. This is indeed true for tiny atoms with small number of electrons, i.e. for first, second or even third electron. But with increasing size of atoms the energy required for removal of additional electrons from atoms (so called the ionization energy) increases fast. The bottom layer of electrons are binded to the heavy atom nuclei so strongly, it’s virtually impossible to remove them without serious damage of atom nuclei itself. It’s like the difference in peeling of peanut and mango. Small peanut can be peeled off easily, but nickel atom nuclei is large like the mango and it cannot be pealed from its stone so easily.
Briefly speaking, the cold fusion of hydrogen with nickel nuclei is incomparable to the hot fusion of naked protons inside of tokamak and the difference is quite interesting even from solely theoretical perspective. It would be definitely worth of future study even without perspective of practical applications. Contemporary society has no legal tools, how to take legal steps against the a crime of negligence, but my stance is, everybody who is ignoring this opportunity is actually enemy of human civilization and life environment. Even the people, who are downvoting cold fusion related posts are such an enemies, because their ignorance is helping anybody.
I know, many influential people spent huge money into nuclear reactors and exploitation of fossil fuels, so that eventual success of could fusion would virtualize their huge investments and social power. Such people will attempt to ignore if not prohibit further cold fusion research and practical applications by all means possible. Whole countries are prepared to gain their power from the lack of fossil fuel sources. Even politicians will not be happy of distributed source of energy, which would enable every individual to generate and consume energy in a way, which cannot be controlled with central government.
But the ignorance of clean sources of energy is just a willful negligence and malicious destruction of both life environment, both unrecoverable sources of oil. Without fossil fuel replacement we are facing global nuclear conflict for the rests of sources. We need oil as a raw material for plastic industry, we cannot burn all the oil anyway. Without switching of carbon based energetic we have no chance to survive at Earth from long term perspective (every huge asteroid will wipe out human civilization), not to say about colonization of the rest of Universe. Therefore it’s the question of our private responsibility and self-preservation instinct to support cold fusion research in all means possible.
PerterF says:
August 6, 2011 at 1:08 am (Edit)
“Catalyst” covers more than just chemical processes. If you Google |”muon catalyzed fusion”| it will claim about 25,200 results (likely really only 500 or so – those numbers serve to market search engines more than they serve users). I first heard about that at a tour of a hot fusion experiment at Princeton (? somewhere in New Jersey, back in the mid 1970s when they were predicting it would take 30 years for fusion technology to come online.)
People have even suggested muons from cosmic rays may be catalyzing cold fusion experiments – Svensmark meets fusion!
_____
Typhoon says:
August 6, 2011 at 3:49 am (Edit)
Yeah, you’re right. I was only trying to be polite. Fortunately my sister and brother (marine biologist and geologist) still talk to me. In fact, my brother made sure I knew about Luboš Motl’s comment and post at http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/08/andrea-rossi-and-cold-fusion.html so I could go and corrupt that site.
_____
By the way, I’m pleased my post has gotten several commenters reading related stuff. One thing no one has brought up is that I’ve all but dropped Sergio Focardi from the “Focardi and Rossi” team. I did link to an interview with Dr. Focardi, and that confirmed to me I made the right choice.
Focardi is not at all a bit player, but he pretty much gives Rossi credit for taking Focardi’s work and taking it to commercialization. The interview is light on science (Focardi doesn’t even know what the catalyst is and can’t explain what’s happening in theoretical detail), but it does provide some good insight to Focardi’s work before and after linking up with Rossi.
Well worth reading: http://22passi.blogspot.com/2011/04/sergio-focardi-father-of-ni-h-cold.html
I’m glad this was placed here. I lack the education basics to evalulate this on my own and find the discussion on the topic very interesting. It makes it easier for me to judge the merits. As of now I’m going with it being either a scam, or a case of self delusion. The Inventor might believe he has actually achieved something, like the owner of Clever Hans.
On another aspect of this, the lack of Patent, or devulging of data at this point. I agree with the various comments about that, but I’d add one. If I had by some means come up with such a device that I believed was valid, I’d do everything in my power to behave in a manner that would lead people to assume it was a scam. The better to give me a head start on bringing it to market. With the exception of course, of the nessessary investor.
Mind you, that is a heck of a good way to pull off a scam like this. Scam one whale into believing in it, and they convince him that it is nessessary to present the product in such a way as to cause people to draw the conclusion that it is a scam, to protect his investment.
Bigdinny says:
August 5, 2011 at 11:47 am
“Dave: I hate to admit it but my memory is on a par with yours. Remember party lines? Our number was 5221. For some I am sure we are speaking Greek.”
We didn’t have a party line at my house that I can recall but I seem to remember that people who lived on dead end roads outside of town usually had to share a wire. Some of them didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing either.
First, I’d like to point out that human history has lots of examples of engineering practice leading ahead of science. Metallurgy has many rich examples. To the “scientists” who claim the Ecat can’t work, I award one Bronx cheer. There’s a vital difference between skepticism and cynicism. or just entrenched mediocrity.
Second, I see this as one of three potentially huge black eyes for Big Government Science. Obviously, we are all here because we are skeptical of government funded AGW science. Then, this Ecat, if successful, will poke at the $billions spent each year on hot fusion. The other is the nascent trend toward commercial companies breaking the government monopoly on putting people and stuff into space. I am personally horrified that there is ever greater separation between those who create laws and regulations and live on tax money, and those who create wealth, who understand how the universe works, and who pay taxes.
Third, I’ve been following “cold fusion” since the ill fated press conference of Fleischmann and Pons. Many who tried to replicate their experiment failed. But not all. There were silly measurement mistakes e.g. the difference between Power Factor and Watts. But examples of transmutation were corroborated, which alone is reason enough to continue investigations. Instead, cold fusion (and even small scale hot fusion e.g. Polywell) were sneered at by the Big Government funded hot fusion in-crowd. I do not include the USNavy in my scoff, they did the right thing as much as they could.
Finally, thanks for your high school Physics story, Ric. I never took high school physics. I browbeat my high school guidance councilor to let me commute to the local state college for physics instead. The grade I got there was used as my high school grade.
I remember when cold fusion came to the fore. All physicists I knew at the time were intrigued and started calculating and waited for developments. As the amounts of energy given off were on par with the energy spent to create the palladium lattice interest faded fast and the subject fell by the roadside.
Now this is claiming a lot of energy output, factors of 30 and 40 to input. Almost a match to a piece of coal.. This cannot come from lattice energies the way palladium was explained away.
There are two issues:
a) their experiments cannot be trusted and their numbers are cooked, a complete scam at first level.
b) They do get the the energy multiplication factor without tricks.
If a) the first people who buy their machines will go on a lynching party.
If b) some physicists instead of eating their hats should start to seriously think of the physics that could explain this energy multiplication.
We do not have long to wait.
I will again add that crystals have surprising ways, due to quantum mechanics, of behaving as a whole matrix , and various hand waved models that have been suggested might have merit. If their machines work, the theory will be found.
Also it cannot be a perpetual motion machine as somebody was suggesting. It is a machine that according to them burns nickel and will stop working when the nickel is exhausted.
On the other hand, a lot of experiments should be done which cannot be done under this secrecy code that enhances the intuitive feeling that something fishy or delusional is going on.
Luboš Motl says:
August 6, 2011 at 12:26 am
“This is not just about two extravagant armchair researchers. Defkalion Greece – look at the website, a typical “green energy” website for the gullible people – and the analogous U.S. company will clearly try to get millions of dollars out of it and it’s clear in advance that all their methods will be fraudulent because the gadget cannot work.”
That is a very good point, Lubos! There are plenty of EU research projects that leads to exactly nothing but friction heat.
PerterF says:
August 6, 2011 at 1:08 am (Edit)
As is well known, fusion is a PHYSICAL process, which fuses the nuclei of one or more atoms, while all CHEMICAL processes consist of an interaction among the electrons in the shell of two or more atoms. Catalysts have an impact only on chemical processes.
““Catalyst” covers more than just chemical processes. If you Google |”muon catalyzed fusion”| it will claim about 25,200 results (likely really only 500 or so – those numbers serve to market search engines more than they serve users). I first heard about that at a tour of a hot fusion experiment at Princeton (? somewhere in New Jersey, back in the mid 1970s when they were predicting it would take 30 years for fusion technology to come online.)”
Unlike the bogus claims of the so-called “E-Cat”,
muon catalyzed fusion was theoretically predicted from first principles in physics and has been experimentally observed.
_____
Typhoon says:
August 6, 2011 at 3:49 am (Edit)
“If you don’t like it, it”s just two posts to ignore. Possibly a third in October. Sorry.”
No you’re not. Your scientifically illiterate posts promoting known scams demeans, and open to valid accusations of promoting crackpot, a site that Anthony Watts has worked very hard to build up.
“Yeah, you’re right. I was only trying to be polite. Fortunately my sister and brother (marine biologist and geologist) still talk to me.”
Lucky for you that that blood is far thicker than ignorance.
“In fact, my brother made sure I knew about Luboš Motl’s comment and post at http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/08/andrea-rossi-and-cold-fusion.html so I could go and corrupt that site.”
Luboš Motl thoroughly discredited your and the “E Cat” scammer claims with physics based arguments.
Not only do you not have any clue about the subject you’re posting about,
it’s painfully clear that you don’t have a clue that you don’t have a clue.
My chemistry professor for both frosh year and physical chemistry liked to say “One clean experiment is worth a thousand dirty equations”. I’m waiting for the one clean experiment scheduled for October. It’s only two bloody months, folks. Chill out.
For the sake of the public’s view of science, the “consensus” on cold fusion had better hold because both the climate and fusion “consensuses” going down in the next year or so might destroy any credibility for a generation. With luck that will be averted, but the snark should stop *now*. It’s ugly when the RealClimate crowd does it, and it’s ugly when LENR proponents are called scammers and worse.
Kudos to WUWT and Anthony for allowing articles like this which demonstrate that the WUWT community is both genuinely interested in alternative energy and possible new science and is consistently skeptical of claims at the same time.
The Pons and Fleischman experiments were a fascinating episode in science, when respected and careful practitioners found their calorimetry work that was as excellent as any that had survived peer review in their field for nearly a century, was suddenly found wanting. Both the scientists conducting the experiments and those attempting to analyze them and account for any possible source of error, were humbled by the complexity of what we didn’t know and couldn’t rule out regarding a rather small and simple apparatus.
If only those trying to perform calorimetry on the whole earth climate system, had learned a little humility from that episode. Is there currently a half watt per meter^2 energy imbalance? Is an average temperature over a complex ocean and land surface a meaningful statistic? Is heat being stored in the ocean? Can we attribute that heat to a cause?
One thing that really gets me is the reference to the power cord. I am an EE working in the appliance industry, and can tell you it would be really simple to determine power input to the system. Why not do it? Why is there a reference to the power cord size? The only thing you see is a clamp on current meter.
Another thing is a lack of data. There are inexpensive and easily attainable recording power meters that would readily interface with the computer. Thus, you would have Power In, Temp In, and Temp Out all recorded. Looking at the New Energy Times site it is plainly obvious that even the basic questions are obfuscated by Rossi and associates. All of the offers that would define the energy performance of the product are handily refused, and only when Rossi controls the entire show will it be demonstrated.
It would be a simple thing to test the system for true energy conversion. Every small college has the equipment required to perform this task. However, Rossi will not allow it, and gets belligerent when asked. We are all told to wait for the 1MW plant to be completed. Why? Is it because to show that the system does not work would make completion of the plant irrelevant? To not perform the basic energy calculations on this system make it impossible to believe that it is real.
Medici-worthy; Machiavellian. (And far beyond the ken of capital-S Skeptics.)
I had the impression that public experiments had been conducted with meters attached.
One point in favor of Rossi is that several scientists from his university have been peripherally involved for a while in his experiments and vouch for them and him.
With respect to Lubos and the other physicists here,
In science, phenomena precedes theory.
Current theory being unable to explain a phenomena, isn’t an argument for the phenomena not being real.
I’ve read enough cold fusion (or call it what you will) papers to convince me there is a real phenomena or group of related phenomena.
And Rossi’s device turning out to be a scam won’t alter that assesment.
Although as others have noted, if it is a scam, its a peculiar one. Scammers don’t usually predict shipping a commercial system in 2 months time.