Huge News: E-Cat US-Patent granted! 50% Ni, 20% Li and 30% LiAlH4

Alain,
You said:

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the calibration was done at 450C, 450W verified by thermocouple, and emissivity was verified 0.7 emissivity of alumina does down above 450C, whatever you imagine of the effect of fins, transparency, it will stay stable or go down.note that 0.7 is incompatible with claim of 0.9... mystery. It suggest we a wrong, me and thomas.

This summary appears to share the same mistake made by the profs. That is, you think alumina emissivity is characterised by a temperature-dependent number.

If you read my paper page 3, col 2, para 3 and around you will see that what matters is the spectral dependence of the emissivity, which means that the temperature dependent total emissivity (which they use) is very different from the (much less temperature dependent) band emissivity.

The big effect is due to this discrepancy, which changes headline total power enormously because the power scales as T^4 but the band power scales as more like T^1. In this work what I enjoy is being surprised. this fact surprised me - I did not expect it, and although in retrospect it is clear at the time it was difficult to believe and motivated a lot of quantitative work both theoretical and numerical.

I was not the first to notice this issue - others have made similar comments - you can find them referenced in my paper and perhaps will prefer their explanations. I however was the first to follow this to its logical but surprising quantitative conclusion and see what the data, correctly processed, gave.

One validation of this process is that my way COP for the two high temperature tests comes out identical. There are many variables - so the overall headline COP is uncertain +/- maybe 30%. But these variables tend to affect the two different temperatures identically. The apparent "acceleration in COP" at higher temperature seen by the profs is thus shown exactly to be an artifact of their miscalculation. The fact that my calculation exactly compensates for this, as would be expected, is additional and (at the time) for me unexpected validation. In fact it was this very neat validation that motivated me to write up the result properly.

I think maybe you argue that the dummy tests remain anomalous. True it is not accurate, untrue it is anomalous. The approximations that allow decent accuracy at higher temperatures break down at lower temperatures where convection and conduction are more important. Also the reactor electrical setup was changed between dummy and active, possibly even the reactor was changed. While I don't think that changed anything it adds uncertainty. You will note that the profs also found their calculations for the dummy test to be out by some 10%. They said that this was within measurement error and set errors arbitrarily without reason to make this so. I don't blame this, since the whole system at these temperatures where convection is 50% of power loss is very complex and the ad hoc empirical relations used by the profs to calculate this are possibly wrong and certainly incomplete because the edges of the system are not modelled.

Note that at high temperatures errors (of 10% or more) in the convection calculation do not so much matter because radiation predominates.

FreethinkerLENR2 said:

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It is utterly useless to engage you, Thomas Clarke, or any other pathoskeptic on this matter. Mind you, it is not a lack of trying. But it is useless and a complete waste of time. And in fact, it is what you want.

As one of the replicators you might be interested in a correct evaluation of the Lugano reactor performance, since that is what you try to replicate. Specifically the idea that there is an acceleration in reaction rate at higher temperatures comes initially from that test - but is incorrect as above.

You may feel that Parkhomov, who also claims to have a similar acceleration, is the convincing test to replicate. Fair enough. But worth knowing that the evidence for acceleration is much less well documented than would be the case if the Lugano profs conclusions were correct.

I'm not against replication. I'd like replicators to be as rigorous and well-informed as possible. Personally I think replicating LENR+ is misguided - it is even less plausible than vanilla LENR. But the beauty of science is that anything can be tested, however unlikely. I support that to the hilt. It is through a wide diversity of endeavors that knowledge is advanced.

In fact I admire those who follow dreams and test almost certainly futile ideas. It is valid, and can always lead to real discovery. I support MFMP's testing and those of others who do the same.

However, what I do NOT support, and will argue against, is drawing wrong conclusions from tests, or lazy science that ignores possible error mechanisms. That does a disservice to all the other brave testers. What you get from genuine skeptics is what you might value, a critical appraisal of what given measurements mean. Starting with the same for the Lugano test, which started this whole replication effort.

So although I've noticed you tag a good number of my posts on this topic with dislikes, which I'm sorry about, and although my "take home message' is broadly unpopular here, I'll continue to point out the merits of doing rigorous skeptical science as well as actually contributing to that from time to time as I did with the Lugano data.

Smooth as ever, but it makes no difference. It is not how you say, it is what you say, when the irrelevance is removed, that matters.

Quote from FreethinkerLenr2

Smooth as ever, but it makes no difference. It is not how you say, it is what you say, when the irrelevance is removed, that matters.

Let me translate this: as far as I can.

You mean:
(1) The logic of my argument here is compelling and you cannot fault it.
(2) I'm saying something different from what you want to hear.

I agree with both of these points - you've made your views on this matter clear in this thread.

Quote from Thomas Clarke

Let me translate this: as far as I can.

You mean:
(1) The logic of my argument here is compelling and you cannot fault it.
(2) I'm saying something different from what you want to hear.

I agree with both of these points - you've made your views on this matter clear in this thread.

Sorry if my poor linguistic skills in English (not my native tongue) have you to stride to understand, but like I said, you have shown your face before, basically equalling 25 years of LENR research with Sasquatch chasing in remote forrest wilderness in North America or elsewhere. You also regularly portrait A Rossi a criminal, currently involved in a scam of enormous magnitude, and any skilled person being allowed close to verify his statements, either co -conspirators or simply gullible fools. Hate, hard words and unreason.

Useless, Thomas Clarke. That is what it is to engage in debate with you. You don't accept the existence of LENR, and all and everything you write or say on the matter aim at discredit it of those who have accepted it. No matter how you disguise it, no matter how smooth you are.

but feel free to have a go at me. I will discontinue my argument with you, as the uselessness it represent in wasted time, can be used to do some more experiments. Something like a science person like yourself should feel inclined to involve yourself in, instead standing on the sideline, whinging and moaning.

Quote from FreethinkerLenr2

You also regularly portrait A Rossi a criminal, currently involved in a scam of enormous magnitude, and any skilled person being allowed close to verify his statements, either co -conspirators or simply gullible fools. Hate, hard words and unreason.

That is untrue. I am not bound to one view of the Rossi saga, and therefore I have explored many possible explanations. That Rossi is a criminal is a fact - he spent time in gaol. Maybe he was unjustly sentenced - or maybe not. I don't argue from that fact often, and rarely state it, because as I said above, I prefer to argue science facts not psychology (whether he is incompetent or fraud, what is his motivation). Unlike Mary I do not spend my time trying to prove he is a fraud based on past actions. That is just not my style because it is arguing personalities, not facts.

It is absolutely untrue that I've argued any person close to Rossi is a co-conspirator or gullible fool - except inasfar as we all are that. Humans are unduly swayed by charisma and Rossi, however unlikely it may seem, is clearly in his way highly charismatic. To say that somone so convinced is a gullible fool is itself foolish. Look in the mirror before you do so!

However, I do say that the Lugano testers responsible for the second report showed bad science - many people not experienced infra-red thermographers could have made the mistake they did, but few would be so arrogant as to fail to cross-check temperatures one way or another. What they did was against all good practice.

I also say the Lugano testers - again whomever is responsible for replying to the report - have shown very poor scientific form. They put their paper into the public domain, officially, by publishing at UoB. My reply which was polite, substantive, and definitively contradicted the main conclusion "abundant heat production", has gone unanswered. This is all the more surprising because they have explicitly said here that they would be following comments on the report and making clarifications.

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You don't accept the existence of LENR, and all and everything you write or say on the matter aim at discredit it of those who have accepted it. No matter how you disguise it, no matter how smooth you are.

Science is not binary you know. Hypotheses have probability. It is just that I judge teh probability of LENR existing as a real phenomena to be pretty low. say less than 1%. You presumably judge it higher.

That is no crime. It is everyone's right to come to an informed view. It is also your right to refuse to engage with people whose informed view is significantly different from yours. That is your loss, because if you do not continually test your ideas against people with different ideas how can you have any confidence you are correct?

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but feel free to have a go at me.

I have done so with pleasure - you are in this post doing what I detest - personalising arguments. That is what Mary does - painting Rossi as fraudulent and therefore unreliable.

Much safer is to look at facts and make no assumptions good or bad based on the veracity of proponents. I don't assume what Rossi says is correct. I travel with Mary to the extent that I realise what Rossi says, especially technical comments, is grossly contradictory - so he is superficially unreliable. Equally - I don't assume that just because he is known unreliable and appears technically incompetent his device does not work.

Were there no external evidence and all decided on Rossi's statements his unreliability would make those poor evidence for extraordinary Nobel Prize worthy Physics. There is however lots of external evidence in the form of known failed tests.

Quote from AlainCo

about the idea tha convection may explain the COP>1,
it is not credible as from the 800 to 900W, even with emissivity stable (wether it is 0.7 or 0.9), and since convection dissipate proportionally to temperature difference with ambiant, while radiation dissipate in Tabsolut^4 (-Tambiant^4 which is very low), it woudl require that all dissipation will be done by convection, and even more.

I don't understand that argument. It seems the wrong way round. But if you can state it a bit more clearly I could reply.

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you can eventually claim that it is POSSIBLE that the emissivity error, plus the uncertainties, plus errors in convection, plus errors in thermocouple, plus intervention of the Pope, converge in allowing +/-10% COP=1

The numbers show that for the high temperature tests - no mystery. For the dummy test the numbers are less accurate, but as I said the unknowns there from convection are much higher.

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as a skeptic, this kind of "mysterious unilateral convergence of luck" make me dubious.

Exactly. I don't think coincidences are likely. So when I was playing around with the real numbers (which you can do yourself) I found headline COP could be anything from 0.9 to 1.3 depending on how you choose parameters etc. However the two tests always had the same COP to within 1%. That was not something I fudged.

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anyway who cares, the business evidence, the game theory say:
- that Rossi gave a reactor that he supposed was working (could not take the risk of physicist making good measurements, using high emissivity fluid, high emissivity dots or cones, using HT thermocouple)
- that tom darden have clear evidence the reactor have worked (or he would nro have invested or would have flee)
- tom darden have clear evidence the powerplant is working (or he would have raised a warning to his share holders)

OK - so as I point out the business evidence is less reliable than the science, from my POV.

Even from the business evidence, your points here seem wildly different from what most people would think.

(1) If Rossi has nothing it does not mean he is a fraud. Look at all the other failed free enrgy ventures. How many have been found fraudulent? It is remarkably difficult to prove even when "morally" true.
(2) Darden has given money to a long shot venture (one of many LENR ventures, it seems) and has an avowed hands off policy. Did you not listen to his statements at ICCF? If Rossi proved fraudulent it would be embarrassing, but no more. If as is much much more likely Rossi just fails that is normal.
(3) Do you think VCs comment on the business progress of their investments? Especially long shots? The money for Rossi is a tiny amount of any VC fund and has negligible affect on returns unless it pans out. That has never looked likely.

There is BTW some mystery about the exact status of the Darden money. Rossi, it seems, owns all the IP and controls development, not [lexicon]IH[/lexicon]. We have no idea on what terms the money was given. I'm not even sure we know it was Cherokee money rather than some other Darden related fund: "free money for free energy to save the world". Arguing validation from such transactions is frankly weird.

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now even in the improbable case the test have COP=1, one can blame the physicists, and the experimental setup, or simply coincidence of reactor break with bad measurements...

I guess you are not an experimental guy, nor an engineer. Experiments like the Lugano test and all the replications are inherently flakey because the heat production is extrapolated from temperature differences but the relationship depends on many variables. Pay attention to all the workable replications (ie everyone who has robust enough equipment not to overheat it) and you will notice that many such anomalies have been identified already.

With such inherent large errors COP=1 from the results is highly unlikely.

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the more I look at the evidence the more the hypothesis the COP is above 3 is credible. I bet we have made an error with emissivity... our theories does not connect well. it stinks.

This statement is an extraordinary triumph of wishful thinking over fact. How can you possibly get COP=3? From what?

Perhaps the clue is that you think your theories are inaccurate. That is true. The whole Lugano experiment is inaccurate, inherently so. I've worked through the figures, which you could too if you wished. If you did that you would have a feeling for the inaccuracy, and also you would see that undoubtedly the high temperature tests (dominated by fairly well understood radiation) show COP of around 1, but with errors maybe +/- 50% worst case.

Until you go through the figures in detail (read my paper for a starting point and all the code I used - it is python and easy to use and adapt) you are just hand-waving.

Quote from AlainCo

you increase or decrease estimated precision, and probabilities depending on your desire. a symptom of pseudo science.

In what way? I can't say whether I desire 30% errors, 50% errors?
It is difficult to quantify but I'd put the radiation errors - which come from the fact that other parts of the system radiate as well as the reactor body - and though these are included they have different temperatures, and the alumina emissivity which depends on its exact microcrystalline structure - at likely +/- 15%, almost certainly within +/- 30%. Convection errors are higher, so I guess I would find it difficult absolutely to rule out +/- 50% total especially at low temperatures. So I tend to quote +/- 50% or +/- 30%.

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I agree that the experiment le huge doubts, but your hypothesis and mine too.
What remains is game theory, and your conspiracy theory is just laughable.

Alain - I'd like you to be more accurate in summarising what I say. I don't believe I'm suggesting a conspiracy. It is not the way I tend to think. Certainly for the Lugano results all that is needed is Rossi mistaken as to whether his device works (with, in deference to Mary, a lot of evidence against his delusion that it works) and the Profs blinded by their own hopes and Rossi's charisma, making the same mistake in thermography that Rossi does.

Otherwise [lexicon]IH[/lexicon] does not have any validity except that Rossi is using money donated by Darden. Certainly no-one has been able to find such evidence of an independent entity with people making informed deceisions. Rossi may or may not, with this money, have hired additional engineers for help.

Where is the conspiracy?

The nearest I get to thIs is Frank Acland's behaviour running ECW with censorship as a propaganda mouthpiece for Rossi. But such things happen, and I've never suggested conspiracy there!

Hi,

I have always been quite miffed that the hot Cat could work at such high temperatures. As far as I understand the Lugano test seam to have too much uncertainties to actually take as proof that it works. On the other hand I would expect that the normal ECAT at lower temperatures is way easier to evaluate and by know I just cannot fathom that [lexicon]IH[/lexicon] and Rossi would not know if it works or not. So for me it is out of the question that Rossi is doing a huge misstake with the ECAT. The hot cat perhaps, but not the ordinary ECAT. I don't put our current theoretical understanding especially high when it comes to QM and Atom, nuclear and particle physics. We do have a good understanding of what we know though e.g. that we have a good fit with our models. Usually our modelling leave out parameters that we can statistically match and hence as an afterthought of our experimentaiton makes upp the good fit. Don't get me wrong QM does have predictable power in many areas. But it is overly clumsy and a bit inaccurate like not able to predict hydrinos, which I beleive exists after reading about Mills theory, which really is what we shoul use to try understand cold fusion. Knowing that we have such a bad theretical tool just screams for on paper unbelievable phenomena like the ECAT and cold fusion in general to actually be real. That's why I am optimistic that we can have a real effect here( but my bet is on BLP to outperform any of the current traditional cold fusion endavours).

I'm on Thomas boat in this discussion though. Nothing is proved and we as outside bystanders should be careful until good proofs really appears and I am a bit skeptic that the hot cat really works well. The ash analysis is interesting if it's not a fake though.

But why is everybody concentrating on replicating Rossi's hot cat? Why not try to get en effect at lower temperatures? He does claim good performance there as well and the lower temperatures are easier to handle.

Quote from stefan

Hi,

I just cannot fathom that [lexicon]IH[/lexicon] and Rossi would not know if it works or not. So for me it is out of the question that Rossi is doing a huge misstake with the ECAT. The hot cat perhaps, but not the ordinary ECAT.

I have some sympathy with this view. But I think the capacity of humans to deceive themselves completely, against all evidence, is often underestimated. So in this case self-deception and deception are not easy to distinguish.

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But it [current theory] is overly clumsy and a bit inaccurate like not able to predict hydrinos, which I beleive exists after reading about Mills theory, which really is what we shoul use to try understand cold fusion.

Mills' Hydrino theory does not stack up. For experimentalists because it is not credible that such an obviously different state of matter could exist and not leave fingerprints elsewhere in science. Mills' own "proofs" are very unconvincing. For theorists because it does not cohere mathematically. QED is very beautiful and validated experimentally to very high precision. Mills' ideas contain internal inconsistencies and make no predictions subsequently confirmed (I know he claims this - but look at the details!). I realise this is not easy for a non-expert to detect, and that if as is traditional you distrust all experts you may take a different view.

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But why is everybody concentrating on replicating Rossi's hot cat? Why not try to get en effect at lower temperatures? He does claim good performance there as well and the lower temperatures are easier to handle.

Why Rossi gave the profs his hot cat is of course not easy to answer. I'd say because it was his best bet of a device and measurement setup that gives positive results - you need high temperatures for the emmissivity error to be more significant. For this test the profs were using much better supply input measurement so issues with mistakes in 3 phase power measurement would not work except for the very obvious one of a reversed clamp - and that would depend on the testers being very clueless about three phase measurement.

Why everyone concentrates on replicating this is more interesting. Initially, it was because Parkhomov appeared to replicate Rossi with a similar system, and the fuel was well enough documented for near exact replication to be possible. The other e-cats do not have the precise composition of fuel known.

Since then it has been clear that Rossi's device did not actually generate significant excess heat, and Parkhomov's replications (by himself) have been highly unconvincing. He moved to a less robust style of calorimetry on not strong grounds, and then published results that were highly processed - the famous cut and paste waveforms.

So why is everyone stuck on this? It is still the one thing that is simple enough and precisely specified enough for easy copying. Also (and this is psychology, so I'm happy to be contradicted) I think there is something compelling about these glowing alumina sticks. Much more fun than low temperature calorimetry where all you have is a number on a thermocouple.

A final attraction is that the high temperature tests are difficult to conduct properly. It is easy for them to break. Every time a test breaks you have:
(1) No proof it did not work / would not have worked
(2) possible speculation that it broke because of some LENR-based excess heat

Best wishes, Tom

Can you imagine what is the cost to register 64 patents? Even one patent costs money that you will really do not want to spend just for the fooling.

I know that Rossi is absolutely confident about his reactor for many years. Actually he is trying to behave that he is not so sure but it is all about his patents. Until he have patented everything he will be publicly unsure about results to get more time and halt competitors.
He was waiting all the time for granting the patents, obviously it was not easy at all.

He do not want to convince anybody, he want to protect his invention, block each competitor and then as the last step release the product and earn LOT of money.

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Mills' Hydrino theory does not stack up. For experimentalists because it is not credible that such an obviously different state of matter could exist and not leave fingerprints elsewhere in science.

Hydrino formation is not expected to show up unless in very tiny fractions on earth and when so it does not give away any spectral hints which basically makes it invisible. Any hydrinos surfacing the earh will move up in the atmosphere
and be ventilated out into space. This process has been ongoing since the earth birth and would only again leave extreamly tiny fractions of it naturally. To me it looks like you really need to know what to look for
to find it. Also getting normal hydrogen into a hydrino form is not easy else Mills would be ready by know. Again only tiny quantities of spectrally black matter. There really aren't much of fingerprints to see regarding hydrinos
that's why it is claimed to be forming the black matter of the universe which is logical.

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Mills' own "proofs" are very unconvincing. For theorists because it does not cohere mathematically.

I think that the mathematical proofs are ok. You need to add something unknown to the equation to prove it's existance or not with math as far as I know. Hydrinos are a solution to a search
of a nonradiating charge distributions which really is not a distribution of point charges. But something unknown that manifest itself as source terms in Maxwells equations. The true physics of these
source terms, which is not described yet as far as I can tell must be used to claim what you say. That means that the theory is an indication that hydrinos exist and Mills resent plasma experiments with
high current yields EUV spectra that I have not found an explanation for with more than hydrinos exists. Here we should try harder to exclude an explanation whithin normal physical domains to claim proof.
but it's interesting.

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QED is very beautiful and validated experimentally to very high precision.

Theories can have a perfect match sometimes and not sometimes. To me it looks like the QED theory is targeted a certain geometrical setup of the Electromagnetic fields found in Mills theory. But if the fields
have a topologically different form I would expect that you need to change the QED formulation to match the electormagnetic fields. Also QED seam to be a trick that although have a nice form is really clumsy
compared to what you do with a direct Electromagnetic modelling. You typically can't take on multi body interactions like for example oxygen with more than approximations. Mills seam to do this with paper and
pen like theory and no supercomputers.

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Mills' ideas contain internal inconsistencies and make no predictions subsequently confirmed (I know he claims this - but look at the details!).

I followed Mills derivation of the Landau g-factor and it's correct. He is almost as accurate as QED on this, but QED is probably too exact due to the complex nature of
calculating a divergent expansion (you need to leave out terms) and risk overoptimistic selection bias. I've seen a lot of claims of inconsistance, none which I found compelling
what's your take on that, I'm curious.

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I realise this is not easy for a non-expert to detect, and that if as is traditional you distrust all experts you may take a different view.

I'm am an expert in math. You cannot calculate the landau g-factor with that many decimals correctly and be a bogus theory. It's impossible. It's all a straight line from a simple assumption
of non radiation Maxwells theory and known electrodynamics. I do have seen a lot of experts falling into various traps out on the internet and claim way to fast their finding to be an inconsistancy.
I would really like to see a true inconsistancy but have just found hot air and badmouthing.

Take care and keep up the good work!

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As to Mills, the problem isn't so much the theory, bonkers though it may be. It's that he's been promising dozens of kilowatts and associations with power companies for DECADES. And the piece of trash he produced lately is powered from the main through a giant welding power supply. And one wonders why it makes bright arcs? Really? Let me know when the guy actually does something.

Yes a welder produces light. That's true. But EUV spectra is more energetic photons than what you typically get from welders with low voltages and high current. For high voltages you get EUV spectra that's true.
Also if you leave out the water then you will not see this spectra. (the high conducting substrate is still there) It's a kind of plasma mystery why the spectra show up. Maybe the high current can accelerate electrons
to produce the light but the direct understanding is missing. Maybe Mills have searched and hit an unexplained part of physics and prematurely assumes hydrinos. Let's wait and see. I believe that it is hydrinos there
are other analytics as well that proves the point and Mills is not doing bad regarding physics, he does do mistakes, but listen to the critiques and adapts. Previously his instrumentation was wrong doing conclusions
from results outside the spec of the instrument. It turns out that with better instruments he was right.

/Stefan