FP's experiments discussion

Quote from oystla

I believe your green and Blue lines are incorrect.

I'm sure they are not fully correct. I also put a couple of question points along them. But they are representative of what happened in the F&P cells during the boil-off experiments.

What really matters is the blue line. Its trend is easily recognizable until the moment of image I. The position of the level on image J has been roughly estimated observing the level drop during the 47 minutes between images K and I and considering the 89 minutes (almost the double and at a higher power level) to get to image J. This level also complies with the estimate made in (1).

Quote

As I said before, the video have degraded from 1992 until it was digitized some 17 years later.

Until now, we have identified 4 public videos. You don't know when each of them was digitized and when it started to circulate within the LENR community (btw, this is one of the most interesting thing to know).

The longest and more detailed video is the one posted on YouTube by Rothwell in 2015, 23 years after the test. But Rothwell also wrote that (2): "This video was provided to LENR-CANR.org by Prof. Martin Fleischmann, IMRA Europe". Fleischmann retired from IMRA in 1996, so it is likely that Rothwell received that video in 1996, or even earlier, already digitized "in a gigantic file" (3).

Quote

It is not possible to see the actual water levels from pictures.

If you mean from the images on my jpeg (4), you are right. For this reason I have specified for each image its exact position in the video from which it was obtained. Watching the videos allow to more easily locate the position of the interface between the different layers.

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Flweischmann had an easier job when the video was fresh.

Sure. He and Pons also had the possibility to observe the buildup of the foam in real time just by looking directly at the cells. But this only reduces the chances that what is reported in their ICCF3 paper derives from an involuntary mistake.

In their paper (5), F&P wrote: "As it is possible to repeatedly reverse and run forward the video recordings at any stage of operation, it also becomes possible to make reasonably accurate estimates of the cell contents. We have chosen to time the evaporation/boiling of the last half of the D2O in cells of this type and this allows us to make particularly simple thermal balances for the operation in the region of the boiling point."

Robert Horst, a serious, competent and active member of the LENR community, has recently admitted (6): "However, I looked at the video a couple dozen times and am inclined to agree that the arrows are foam levels, not liquid levels."

The videos are now "out of the bag". It's time for everyone to take their own position: foam or liquid?

(1) FP's experiments discussion

(2) https://www.mail-archive.com/v…eskimo.com/msg102718.html

(3) https://www.mail-archive.com/v…eskimo.com/msg102627.html

(4) FP's experiments discussion

(5) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf

(6) FP's experiments discussion

Quote from kirkshanahan

That is covered by a 2% increase in kr'.

May be you have forgotton that there was always a drift before the refill. After refill there was always decrease... Please read what Hansen says about the overall accuracy of the calorimeter! You also never refuted the claims by other reviewers that did exclude any energy relevant recombination.

Quote from Ascoli65

As I have already told you (1), Hansen's analysis was not independent at all.

May be you could tell us about your independence...

Utah state University at least believed that Hansen was independent. May be they (Fleischmann, Hansen) had once a common ancestor in the Neandertaler ages...

Quote from Shane D.

If true, it does not make sense.

Krivitised truth has a grain of truth but not much.

The DOE contract was worth $10million... not much to do with these coldfusioneer:noncoldfusioneer tribal wars.

Anyone Interested in doing a useless thesis: "the sociolingual context of the CFer/nonCFer wars 1989-2019?

Quote from RobertBryant

Sometimes Krivit makes valid statements....sometimes

Actually not often. Thanks for the link though, I hadn't seen that particular page before, as I don't follow Krivit. He posted a long response to the JEM comment I wrote claiming the editor wouldn't publish it, which I agree with as it was not very 'scientific'. Instead Marwan and the other 9 authors wrote that infamous response where they completely misrepresent what I said (the "random Shanahan CCSH" in their parlance). The page you linked to has nothing on it I need to comment on. I would also remind you that I was asked by Krivit to respond to a question, and when I did he completely misrepresented what I said in a post on his site. See: Miles-Fleischmann-Szpak-Mossier-Boss Article in IE132

Also, I responded to his original long-winded complaint about my JEM article in an Appendix of my whitepaper.

Quote from Shane D.

According to Krivits, Shanahan was paid by the DOE to critique he and Marwan's paper:

Ah yes, the conspiracy theorists at work again. I find it funny that you can recall all these other details about LENR goings-on, and not recall all the posts I have made on this. Sounds like you're part of an anti-Shanahan conspiracy to me....

To remind you, I work for the Savannah River National Laboratory, which is one of the US DOE labs. DOE owns the facility and contracts a management team to operate it. Thus, I am paid indirectly by the US DOE, but I work for a contractor to be exact. They and DOE always require I put the funding source in any paper's acknowledgements.

I got involved in watching this field because if what the CFers claim is true, I and several hundred of my co-workers are at risk for a runaway LENR event in the Pd and La-Ni-Al alloy bed-based chemical operations and lab research that we run here. Plain and simple, it is a safety issue. We are very concerned about safety here and in the DOE in general.

This has all been posted many times and in many places. No surprises, no conspiracies...

As to Krivit's specific claims, he is incorrect as usual. I was paid to do my job, which includes being aware of and fixing safety issues. I do the CF stuff in my spare time, while accomplishing my primary job responsibilities. Check my publication record (which was also posted here as well) for details of my normal job activities.

Quote from Wyttenbach

May be you have forgotton that there was always a drift before the refill

Maybe you missed my edit where I addressed that...

Quote from kirkshanahan

Edit: BTW, the fact that the Qf curves are not flat indicates the model used to compute it needs improvement. Especially for a 'blank' cell, it should be flat (and at 0).

Quote from Wyttenbach

You also never refuted the claims by other reviewers that did exclude any energy relevant recombination.

No one ever did what you claim here. If you think you know of such a paper, please cite a reference.

Quote from Wyttenbach

May be you could tell us about your independence...

As Ascoli noted, Hansen accepted most (all?) of F&P's assumptions without question. That was his primary mistake.

Quote from oystla

Wrong, many replications and strong signals.

Like the excact copy of Lonchampt and colleauges, but with improved data logging, and confirming F&P results.

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LonchamptGreproducti.pdf

a.) Since I assert there is a real FPHE, it is not surprising that someone would see the effect.

b.) I searched L's paper for 'recombination' and found no hits. That means they did not consider it at all, which is the basic error all CFers make to date (noting that some do consider it, but incorrectly).

c.) Therefore the Lonchampt paper does not resolve the issue of "LENR or ATER?".

Quote from kirkshanahan

alloy bed-based chemical operations and lab research that we run here. Plain and simple, it is a safety issue. We are very concerned about safety here and in the DOE in general.

I guess you should once ask Boing what they think about possible LENR runaways of Li-ion batteries during a flight.

7Li has a very low work-function to induce LENR. Additionally batteries can have high currents/strong fields what is also a promotor of LENR.

Pd only will show problematic behavior if it is significantly loaded with deuterium, what is quite unusual if you talk of alloys. But I very well know what concerns you!

Quote from Wyttenbach

I guess you should once ask Boing what they think about possible LENR runaways of Li-ion batteries during a flight.

7Li has a very low work-function to induce LENR. Additionally batteries can have high currents/strong fields what is also a promotor of LENR.

Li-ion batteries have well known problems that have nothing to do with LERN. much research is ongoing to make them more stable...normal, mundane chemical research. 'LENR' is not in the running for the cause, except in your mind.

Quote from Wyttenbach

Pd only will show problematic behavior if it is significantly loaded with deuterium, what is quite unusual if you talk of alloys. But I very well know what concerns you!

I can't make sense of what you say here about alloys, but I seriously doubt you "very well know what concerns you[me]!".

PdD shows the FPHE after appropriate treatment. But there is a proposed mundane chemical cause for the FPHE. No nuclear required.

Quote from RobertBryant

What error have you, Ascoli, estimated for Lonchampt's paper and with what confidence interval?

My estimate is that Lonchampt's errors coincide with the excess heats he reported in his paper (1). No confidence interval. This is my preliminary evaluation, based on the assumption that if someone claims to have reproduced a wrong result, his result is also wrong.

As for the merit of the possible specific cause of these errors, it may not be so easy to find because his paper lacks many information and we don't have any video, as in the case of F&P's experiment. It is also inaccurate in many details. Just to cite one, in the first row of Table 2, which reports the experimental data of his best test, the sum of the "Enthalpy losses" and of the "Available Enthalpy" doesn't match the "Enthalpy Input" as it happens for all the other tests in the table.

However, as Lonchampt is considered the only one to have successfully replicated the F&P boil-off experiment (the most important in the CF hystory), its paper deserves a more thorough examination. But for the moment the priority goes to the original, the F&P boil-off experiment that he claimed to have successfully replicated.

So let me ask you. Have you watched the "IMRA time lapse" video whose link was provided by Robert Horst (2)? What is your opinion? Is it liquid or foam that, for example, fills Cell 1 at 21:23 and thereafter?

(1) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LonchamptGreproducti.pdf

(2) FP's experiments discussion

Quote from RobertBryant

What error have you, Ascoli, estimated for Lonchampt's paper and with what confidence interval?

Lonchampt et al, used 0.5 A current. Using 1.54 V as the thermoneutral voltage, that means they have a maximum available recombination heat if 0.77 W. Anything less than that could be ATER.

They mention halving the current at one point. That halves the maximum too. But it does not necessarily mean you will see a halving in the apparent excess heat if the amount needed can still be sustained by the lower current.

Note they report .07 to .17W excess heat. That is 22% of the 0.5 amp max, and 44% of the 0.25A max. Well within the recombination heat available. I would also note that a 20% value is frequently seen as I recall.

And yes, I know I am not Ascoli65...

Quote from Shane D.

Yes, I know all that Kirk. My post was not intended to be about you, but why the DOE would contract you out to counter a relatively benign article about LENR.

They didn't. I work for the SRNL. My job includes being concerned about safety. As a matter of fact, my management often felt I was wasting my time. Out of several mangers, I've really only had one who understood the underlying safety issue. The rest were like the rest of the 'mainstream' and thought CF was junk science.

Quote from Shane D.

why this one in particular required a response

Because I wanted to?

Quote from Shane D.

pay you on top of your salary

Nope. No additional bonuses. Unless you count the Lamborghini they gave me for my first paper, and the 40-bathroom mansion for the second, and the private Lear jet (with pilot and gas forever) for the third, and, of course, the small island in the Bahamas for my summer home for the infamous JEM paper...

Quote from Wyttenbach

May be you could tell us about your independence...

I admit my strong dependence on what I see and, looking at the video linked by Robert Horst (1), I see foam, a lot of foam, where and when F&P had instead reported seeing liquid water rapidly boiling away thanks to their nuclear FPE.

And you? What do you see in that video, liquid or foam?

(1) FP's experiments discussion

Quote from kirkshanahan

Note they report .07 to .17W excess heat.

I fear, that we addressing two different sources of alleged excess heats: the low level XP who was claimed to happen even at low temperature - and that can be easily explained by one or more sources of CCS - and a much higher XP, that F&P claimed to have obtained only when their cell was brought to boil-off conditions and that can be explained with the foam issue.

I'm dealing, for the moment, only with this second HL-XP because it is the specific subject of the F&P paper presented at ICCF3 (1): "We present here one aspect of our recent research on the calorimetry of the Pd/D2O system which has been concerned with high rates of specific excess enthalpy generation (> 1kWcm-3) at temperatures close to (or at) the boiling point of the electrolyte solution."

So I think that also RobertBryant was meaning this last larger source of excess heat, when he asked about the errors in the Lonchampt's paper.

Both the LL and HL excess heats have played important roles in the development of the F&P affair, however I fear that mixing up them does not help in understanding which were the real causes of their respective miscalculations.

So, if you agree, I would propose to deal with one of them at a time, or at least to indicate clearly which XP we are talking about, the LL-XP or the HL-XP.

(1) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf

Quote from Ascoli65

I fear, that we addressing two different sources of alleged excess heats:

You are correct. The latter heat, near boiling, however was claimed to be a 'Heat-After-Death' event, which is distinguished from excess heat during the run by the fact that current flow was stopped. As I indicated in my whitepaper, the HAD claim was nonsensical. You have added teeth to that claim. But the bottom line was that the method was never used again. In fact Pons later reported on an 'improved' calorimeter system where "Foam rise in the calorimeter at the boiling temperature has been minimized." (http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RouletteTresultsofi.pdf) I don't know why they would do that if it was a better method to detect excess heat...

Quote from Alan Smith

I was under the impression that you also think LENR is junk science. If it doesn't work, why should you be concerned that it might cause a safety problem for you and your colleagues? That doesn't really make sense, like worrying about people having accidents driving cars with no engines.

Well Alan you are only partly correct. I think the idea that LENR is real is unlikely to be true. All the studies I have seen reporting it have 'fatal flaws', normally in the arena of force-fitting a conclusion to data that doesn't support the implied certainty. Secondly, I am stubborn, and I'd like to see an admission from the primary CFers that their 'proof' that my CCS/ATER idea is bunk is actually bunk. I had hopes when McK signed on her, but alas, no such luck. Thirdly then, I see people like you who keep trying other things and seeing 'LENR', although I admit I'm not as interested in your experiments because I don't normally work in your temperature regime. Fourthly, I do a lot of equilibrium chemistry, which means waiting around for things to equilibrate. reading and replying to posts fills the time when I have nothing else to do. There's probably several more minor reasons. Like, maybe I'm actually wrong and one of you guys will finally get a reproducible, incontrovertible result proving I do need to worry about runaway heating or radiation production.