Given that this report was the milestone that persuaded [lexicon]IH[/lexicon] to release $1.5M I thought I should look at it in detail. I have to say I have not done this before. These reports often go on giving with detailed study so this is just a preliminary comment.
The report was released by Rossi together with some raw data (the temperature and calculations, but not the input power) and a large set of corrections. I'm not sure who wrote the corrections, it looks like Rossi?
Anyway there are several issues in the report, not all of which I have time for here. The most obvious, corrected in Rossi's corrections, is that the radiated power is estimated to be the sum of that from outer and inner concentric cylinders. Of course that is weird. The outer cylinder surface radiates. All other radiation internally is reabsorbed, except for a small amount from the end of the device whether the inner cylinder is visible.
This is a very obvious mistake and something a competent (for this task) person could not have made. It overestimates power. However, it is corrected in the set of additional corrections published with the report. I guess this is why some people view Penon as unsuitable for the job of ERV.
There is one problem that for me beats all of the others, I'm not sure if it has been noted:
Quote from PenonE-Cat power supply was effected through a control box panel provided with a kWh meter which did not allow separate evaluation of the voltage and current supplied to the module.For this reason, a voltmeter and a clamp ammeter were installed downstream from the control box, so as to monitor power data independently from the panel meter. Due to the fact that panel meter data were found to be quite discordant from those measured by the voltmeter and the ammeter, it was decided to ignore the former and use only the voltmeter and ammeter data recorded manually in the course of the test. Voltage was gradually increased step by step to higher values as E-Cat temperatures were shown to stabilize.
If this means what I think it means it is very bad news. There are a number of reasons why the voltage and current data (multiplied together) may be different from the actual delivered power and therefore the kWh integrates input power. But equally the kWh meter is uncalibrated and could be all wrong. The fact that the two readings are very different shows a problem. You'd expect only a small difference due to the control box dissipated power.
Here is why the actual power delivered will be possibly be larger than the power calculated by Penon from V and I (the A reading):
(1) If the V and A meters are average RMS (not true RMS, which requires internal processing) the pulse nature of the triac output from the control box, which has a high crest ratio (= is very spiky) will lead the delivered power to be larger than the average voltage X average current. With, for example, a square wave at 1/n duty cycle the average V X average I scales as 1/n^2 but the RMS power scales as 1/n. So you expect an underestimation of input power by a factor of n/2 (the half comes from the fact that average meters compensate to generate true power for sine waves). For triac control n can be anything up to 20 or even more so that is a power error of up to 10X.
(2) Even true RMS V & A meters can go wrong. If there is a high crest value in the waveform the V or A meters could saturate even when they are nominally in range, so again giving an underestimate of the true input power.
Penon has:
- Not specified the equipment used (so we can never evaluate whether (1) or (2) apply)
- Not specified how the equipment used was calibrated (I guess it was not)
- Not checked either (1) or (2)
- Not investigated the discrepancy he notes between power and V X I
- Taken the likely LESS accurate figure (V X I).
I have sympathy with 5. Using the kWh meter would be unsatisfactory because it was provided by Rossi and could have been very badly calibrated. However personally I think it more likely that it was OK, and either (1) or (2) caused a large underestimate of the input power delivered. (Although, for completeness, we don't actually know who provided the V and A meters. That could well have been Rossi).
So my take home is this:
We have a definite error mechanism for this test which would underestimate input power and fits the data quantitatively - it could easy generate the claimed data (average COP = 2.2) from an electric heater,
- Penon is grossly innappropriate to do this test (and therefore also the one year test, even at a most basic level). He is not aware of basic issues of test protocol, of electric theory, of radiative power calculation. The danger with such a person is that they will rely on Rossi's setup and ideas, and not be able to detect mistakes in them. We know from Lugano that mistakes can happen.
- [lexicon]IH[/lexicon] were either badly advised, or did not realise the importance of rigor, when evaluating this test. It is badly done at a most basic level and this can be shown from the report.
Perhaps all this stuff is known to everyone - I know the Penon report was not well received at the time.
Am I being unreasonably hard on Penon or [lexicon]IH[/lexicon]?
Obviously the plethora of ECW rationalisations for why [lexicon]IH[/lexicon] want to break the contract and be dishonest even though Rossi's stuff works can remain, I don't think they can ever be ruled out and if your assumption is that Rossi's stuff must work, then you are drawn to them. I guess though that if (as one poster on ECW claimed) Darden & Vaughn are both committed Christians that make sense of their "save the world with LENR" stance and also makes deceit from them a bit less likely.
(I have not dealt with the heat after death claims - these are very speculative - I'll do so below if anyone feels they prove extraordinary behaviour).
Do we have a report for the 24 hour test that released $10M?