On E-cat news, the home of the skeptic there is a very interesting comment, which focus on a detail of Lugano test.
As Thomas Clarke and MFMP wrote, the increase in emissivity can greatly reduce the real temperature of the reactor, even if this increase also the power emitted at the same temperature.
Under this hypothesis, which seems credible, but yet to confirm, I disagree with Thomas on the final minimal COP. For him it is a simple heater, COP<1. For me it is about 1.5, because the emissivity change works also for the calibration, and because emissivity cannot increase above the low temp value, and of course not above 1.
This comment adds a point that I noticed also, the change in COP during the test, at constant temperature.
Display MoreI have looked at the Lugano Report. And I have looked at the critique of that report as written by Thomas Clarke. There is no doubt that Clarke does bring some very valid observations to this discussion. After reading the information from Clarke, and the response to that information from a member of the MFMP team, I think there is no doubt that the output power was considerably less than what the Lugano Report claimed.
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So, I decided to look at the data coming from the Lugano Report to see if that data was consistent with the device in question being nothing more than an electric heater.
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I looked at the day to day changes based on the data from table 6 and table 7 in the Lugano Report. As noted by the authors of the Lugano Report, “there seems to be an anti-correlation between the two behaviors, which stands out as a decrease in average consumption values corresponding to increases in production averages, and vice versa.” For example, a comparison between file 6 and file 16 shows that the calculated power out, which is based on the temperature, is higher in file 16, but the power input is lower.
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If this device were nothing more than an electric heater, there should be a fairly direct relationship between power in and power out. An increase in power in, should always result in an increase in power out. I would expect to see a consistent non-linear error between the two, with some noise. However, since the data we have is averaged over a two day period, the effect of noise should be minimal.
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To generate this kind of data with an electric heater, it would require that the test equipment had non-linear, non-constant, errors that changed in direction at random times over the period of the test. The emissivity of the alumina combined with the crest factor issues with the measurement of power would not account for this anti-correlation between power in and power out.
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So, the answer I found is that this data is not the result of measurements performed on an electric heater.
The question remains, for those not supporting conspiracy theories, whether this test was a partial failure, testing the reactor about 900C instead of 1400C, with a real but modest COP, or just as said in the report.
Both positions have weaknesses.
