[feedquote='E-Cat World','http://www.e-catworld.com/2016/08/10/ecw-poll-your-thoughts-on-the-e-cat-as-a-commercially-viable-technology/']Some people have asked for this, so I though it might be interesting to put a poll out regarding readers’ current thoughts on the E-Cat as a commercially viable technology. For myself, the whole reason for following this story along its many twists and turns is because if real, the E-Cat would represent a very […][/feedquote]
ECW Poll: Your Thoughts on the E-Cat as a Commercially Viable Technology
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If IH is still unsure, I am too.
Although the chance is very small he has something. IMO. -
The chance of Rossi having table top fusion is about the same as the chance of a large, fat pig flying in through your living room window, wearing a saddle, and asking if you'd like a ride anywhere.
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Quote from Shane
If IH is still unsure, I am too.
Based on your comments here - you'd still be unsure if Darth Vader come to earth and started obliterating cities.
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The chance of Rossi having table top fusion is about the same as the chance of a large, fat pig flying in through your living room window, wearing a saddle, and asking if you'd like a ride anywhere.
The nickel and lithium aluminum hydride combination is continuing to provide many experimentalists across this celestial object with a relatively easy track to table top fusion. There is no doubt the number of parties testing this combination will continue to increase and so will the papers providing evidence of XHE. The engima that is Andrea Rossi may be many things. Descriptions of him from both supporters and detractors may both be accurate. But the effect remains.
The XHE generated by nickel and LiAlH4 isn't moved by litigation and lawsuits. It remains.
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The XHE generated by nickel and LiAlH4 isn't moved by litigation and lawsuits. It remains.
There have been seen suggestive indications of excess heat from the recent set of nickel/LiAlH4 experiments. Parkhamov, Songsheng Jiang, etc. — nothing I would call confirmed at this point, and many questions and doubts.Piantelli and some others have seen excess heat in the nickel system, so there's reason for optimism that it can be made to work in the simple setups that people are trying. But what results there are are poorly characterized at this point.
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The conditions to trigger the exothermic nuclear events are poorly characterized. When they do happen by more or less chance, they have often been enormous and represent an effect far beyond what Piantelli and Focardi witnessed. There are probably many reasons for this enhancement. The first and most obvious is probably the increased surface area yielding a greater number of NAE. Using powder, especially highly textured like carbonyl nickel, may have the potential to send the output soaring upwards. Secondly, the use of lithium may release far more energy per reaction than simple nickel + hydrogen reactions. Also, lithium seems to shield the emission of the gamma radiation and neutrons that Piantelli and Focardi wrote about in many of their papers.
I should mention that there are multiple successful replicators that have only published once or a very few times. There were at least two teams of Russians that replicated the "effect" other than Parkhomov. I'm also hearing, confidentially, about other replications "in the works."
The basic effect is indeed real if one has the mental fortitude to peel away the "drama" created by both Rossi and IH.
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MrSelfSustain, you are speaking in broad generalizations, which are not very useful. The more specific you can be about the claims you've convinced yourself of, the more this discussion will be productive.
The conditions to trigger the exothermic nuclear events are poorly characterized. When they do happen by more or less chance, they have often been enormous and represent an effect far beyond what Piantelli and Focardi witnessed. There are probably many reasons for this enhancement. The first and most obvious is probably the increased surface area yielding a greater number of NAE. Using powder, especially highly textured like carbonyl nickel, may have the potential to send the output soaring upwards. Secondly, the use of lithium may release far more energy per reaction than simple nickel + hydrogen reactions. Also, lithium seems to shield the emission of the gamma radiation and neutrons that Piantelli and Focardi wrote about in many of their papers.
When I read this and your other statements, not quoted here, so many questions go through my mind.- Was the gain really more than Piantelli and Focardi? Are the conclusions solid or sketchy at best, and possibly artifact? Is there anything nuclear going on? Have the heat balances been measured correctly? What experiments are we even talking about?
- Is there an NAE? Does the NAE exist? This is Ed Storms's thing. Is he correct?
- Has a lithium effect really been established, or is it just conjecture at this point?
- How on earth would lithium shield gammas?
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I'm not interested in being dragged into a debate over previous replications that have taken place. Picking apart experiments bit by bit to show how every single last one of them could have been designed "better" is not productive. Although I agree that many of these replications were not as extremely sophisticated as could be desired, my opinion is that they were adequate to show high levels of excess heat. What's important is that the work continues to characterize the conditions required to stimulate the fuel into excess heat mode. This may involve fuel prep (a complex subject in and of itself), the atmosphere inside the reactor (crucial for hydrogenation), and electromagnetic stimulation (which won't help produce a watt if the fuel is not optimal and hydrogenation has not taken place).
We can discover the truth only by moving forwards.
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We can discover the truth only by moving forwards.
While I agree with your general optimism, vague generalities do very little to advance the conversation. We can discover the truth only by considering specific details! -
Discovering the truth requires continued and frequent testing.
Personally, I'm unsure what "is" the NAE in the "Rossi Effect" fuel. Andrea Rossi claims the reactions take place in micro-cavities, and his patent claims baking the nickel "for times and temperatures" will produce these surface features. This may or may not be an accurate explanation of where the reactions take place. But there is not a need for exhaustive discussion. What needs to happen is for replicators to test various combinations of fuel "baking" and processing and then utilize the fuel to see what happens. SEM images of the nickel particles from each run would be useful in case a certain method of pre-processing turns out to assist in the production of excess heat. Such repetitive testing takes time, resources, human labor, and money. Sadly, there are only a very few researchers with enough of each of these things -- in addition to the personal drive -- to perform long series of tests.
Me356 seems to be a rare exception. According to Bob Greenyer, he is a work-a-holic who will run his business all day and then run tests each night. He produced his claimed breakthroughs by changing parameters one at a time and then doing more testing. We need a dozen Me356's. However, they need to be willing to openly share their results.
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Me356 seems to be a rare exception. According to Bob Greenyer, he is a work-a-holic who will run his business all day and then run tests each night. He produced his claimed breakthroughs by changing parameters one at a time and then doing more testing. We need a dozen Me356's. However, they need to be willing to openly share their results.
Me356 has shared nothing but claims. That's not science; at least, not science on more than an individual level. Science is an interpersonal endeavor where people consider claims and reports, attempt replications, look for possible flaws, and so on, in an open venue. None of that has happened with Me356. At least Rossi had his carefully stage-managed demos, where there were other people to look on. -
I think we need to be clear about one fundamental concept, and that is that ALL the technology in the Ecats was first discovered and developed by Francesco Piantelli. Rossi merely made use of lapsed patents and the secrets revealed by Sergio Focardi.
As an engineer Rossi has attempted to scale up this technology. On the other hand his lack of scientific laboratory and lack of scientific skills means that his version of the acquired technology usually doesn't work. Rossi knows this and it explains some of his ambiguous behavior.
Piantelli has shown beyond doubt that there is excess heat and that nuclear reactions are involved, (fast charged particles, neutrons). Let's focus on science and not on the claims of get rich quick entrepreneurs.
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Piantelli is someone who has had access to the Holy Grail of energy for an extended time period yet did almost nothing with it. From those I have talked with who know a great deal about him, he is a very good scientist but overly cautious and slow in his testing due to safety concerns. "Get rich quick" entrepreneurs may not always be the best scientists (although Nikola Tesla sure was) but they also have a motivation to get things done with less paranoia about safety, regulations, laws, etc.
All the technology of the E-Cat was not discovered by Piantelli and Focardi. He and Focardi could have taken the technology to the next level, but they did not. Rossi was the individual who decided to use nickel powder to increase surface area, vary the hydrogen pressure rapidly, and add catalysts.
I admit we have zero hard proof that Me356 produced the results he has claimed. But I'm confident about a few things: he has done testing, he has done a LOT of testing, he has been given a lot of ideas to test by third parties. If all of these three things are true -- along with other tidbits that have been passed along my way -- I suspect he is telling what he THINKS is the truth.
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I admit we have zero hard proof that Me356 produced the results he has claimed. But I'm confident about a few things: he has done testing, he has done a LOT of testing, he has been given a lot of ideas to test by third parties. If all of these three things are true -- along with other tidbits that have been passed along my way -- I suspect he is telling what he THINKS is the truth.
I have no hard feelings against Me356 for not sharing more. And I don't have reason to doubt his sincerity. For all we know, he could be on to something. But if the Rossi saga teaches us anything, it is that we should reserve a huge amount of skepticism for claims that are not submitted to rigorous testing in an open manner. Unverified/unverifiable claims can provide reason for optimism, and tips on what to look into, perhaps, but they should not be allowed to dominate the discussion in favor of more boring, incremental experiments that make incremental adjustments to what was done previously to close up possible gaps. I am hugely optimistic about the response of hobbyists to LENR developments in the last few years. But they should not let their engineering optimism and practicality (I can say this as a software engineer) turn this whole thing into a gold rush, and should submit to a rigorous regime of testing and replication. -
Eric Walker,
The "gold rush" mentality (except of course for the IP issues that should be respected) is totally appropriate due to the enormous alleged power output of this fuel combination. One reason why some LENR researchers have been skeptical FROM THE BEGINNING about the E-Cat is the power density. If experimentalists can figure out how to consistently trigger the reaction, super expensive setups and calorimeters with milliwatt sensitivities will not be required. Engineers in their garages would be able to build working prototypes that could produce kilowatts of excess heat from grams of fuel.
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The conditions to trigger the exothermic nuclear events are poorly characterized.
There is one exception: See the sonofusion thread - fusion on demand within micro-seconds. But the COP is still around 4 and may be this could be a limit, if the target foils cannot be optimized.
Sono-fusion is a nice LENR testbed, as it uses PdD2O similar to the originial (Pd-D-D) experiments. Because it's a surface reaction You can see the Alphas fly and also measure the Bremsstrahlung.
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I have no hard feelings against Me356 for not sharing more. And I don't have reason to doubt his sincerity. For all we know, he could be on to something. But if the Rossi saga teaches us anything, it is that we should reserve a huge amount of skepticism for claims that are not submitted to rigorous testing in an open manner. Unverified/unverifiable claims can provide reason for optimism, and tips on what to look into, perhaps, but they should not be allowed to dominate the discussion in favor of more boring, incremental experiments that make incremental adjustments to what was done previously to close up possible gaps. I am hugely optimistic about the response of hobbyists to LENR developments in the last few years. But they should not let their engineering optimism and practicality (I can say this as a software engineer) turn this whole thing into a gold rush, and should submit to a rigorous regime of testing and replication.No matter what the LENR inventor does, no matter how open his experiment is, there will alway be outcries of fraud in his flow meter setup and/or placement to negate the positive results of his experiments. If a optical thermometer is used tp measure heat, their will be doubt about its calibration. That's just the way it is.
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No matter what the LENR inventor does, no matter how open his experiment is, there will alway be outcries of fraud in his flow meter setup and/or placement to negate the positive results of his experiments. If a optical thermometer is used tp measure heat, their will be doubt about its calibration. That's just the way it is.
True enough. It is to be expected. With the scientific community largely turning their back on LENR, the only real alternative is to release a product. Those who cry "impossible, you need billions, and governmental support" I think are overstating their hand. Yes, it would be nice to have. But I think it can be done without such support.
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True enough. It is to be expected. With the scientific community largely turning their back on LENR, the only real alternative is to release a product. Those who cry "impossible, you need billions, and governmental support" I think are overstating their hand. Yes, it would be nice to have. But I think it can be done without such support.
To some extent, I understand the "skepticism about the skeptics". But there is a very real answer and I will put my plug in for MFMP. MFMP (which offered to do a black box test for Rossi but was turned down) has done an excellent job in their open science initiative. If they performed a test and it showed results with high confidentiality, it would be hard to deny. Everything is up front from the start. Results viewed real time. Input is listened to and answered where possible. (Not that they can accommodate every single request). But the extent is that they test, evaluate and then retest to verify.
Speaking of ME356, Bob Greenyer (of MFMP) approached him and originally was optimistic about working on a verification project. However, to my knowledge, it has not came to pass and I am unsure why. If it is stonewalling, then that would not be a good sign for ME356. There may well be valid reasons, I do not know.
MFMP is not perfect. But they are open and I believe honest. If they make a mistake, history has shown they will admit it and attempt to correct it. How science should be done! (And they can protect IP as well, that is not an excuse)
