Yes, I think that if you take a spontaneous endothermic reaction, like dissolving NaCl in water, the temperature of the solution decreases. If you want the solution to stay at the same temperature you must supply heat. I don't see the Carnot efficiency appearing anywhere here.
Of course I am not proposing anything here, just discussing priniciples.
Quote from THHuxley: “All powerplants converting heat into electricity are bound by Carnot.”
@THH: To resolve the mystry: Modern power plants are not pure 'classical Carnot' machines as they efficiently use the kinetic head flow of the thermal…
It will remain a mystery until you provide a substantive reference. Sure, machines can use non-thermal energy as well as thermal, but that is not breaking the Carnot limit. Nor does it help Rossi - though I think we are far, far beyond that...
I just pointed out that a simple guess like THH's 20% is the same foolish comment as the Rossi claims.
Yes, I think that if you take a spontaneous endothermic reaction, like dissolving NaCl in water, the temperature of the solution decreases. If you want the solution to stay at the same temperature you must supply heat. I don't see the Carnot efficiency appearing anywhere here.
Of course I am not proposing anything here, just discussing priniciples.
Right
The question is whether or not Carnot efficiency can be used to set an upper bound on the efficiency of converting heat to chemical energy. Complicating this is that the energy is delivered in two forms: as heat and as phase change. Phase change is chemical or similar. The energy delivered as simple heat is relatively small. Much more energy is delivered as phase change (allegedly). That can be efficiently converted to heat, so a simple consideration of Carnot efficiency, while ignoring the phase change energy, is incorrect, thus Wyttenbach's objection, the legitimate part. It would be like limiting what a "heat engine" can do, when the high-temp reservoir contains a stick of dynamite. To apply Carnot efficiency requires a more sophisticated analysis.
To use the phase change energy, it must be converted to heat. We have a heat engine, all right, but with much more heat than the temperature indicates. I'm not satisfied with the analysis, so far. Something is missing.
Something is missing.
Exactly: A line of trucks moving in and out of the doral site...
THH 20%:
373K - 313K/373K = 20% (roughly). Not a guess.
I specifically allowed for phase change as well (The 20% specifically excepted extra storage without waste from entropy change). The point is that such storage is impractical.
Quote from WyttenbachPhase change is chemical or similar. The energy delivered as simple heat is relatively small. Much more energy is delivered as phase change (allegedly).
After 4 or so pages of you making false statements and being corrected I feel you are making progress. This statement is perhaps not terminally confused, but it is still confused.
Phase change is a physical process in which the degree of freedom of constituent molecules changes - enormously. Which means an entropy change. There is also some (electrostatic) enthalpy due to the bonds that exist in one state and not the other.
What does this have to do with burning hydrocarbons - which was the context in which this argument started and that I generalised to "strongly exothermic chemical reactions".
QuoteThe question is whether or not Carnot efficiency can be used to set an upper bound on the efficiency of converting heat to chemical energy. Complicating this is that the energy is delivered in two forms: as heat and as phase change.
This is a bit confused. Energy can be transformed between heat and chemical bonds (whether a reaction of a change of state which will have a different bond energy). Independently of this, entropy must not decrease.
Phase change is a special case because phase transition: "liquid -> gas" is always endothermic and also can have a much higher entropy of products than "reactants" by setting a low enough partial vapour pressure. That allows means no waste energy. [There are other cases where entropy of products is more than of reactants, just these go from large molecules to larger numbers of smaller molecules so tend to be exothermic - and are not strongly endothermic.]
Unfortunately at such a low partial vapour pressure the process (with water) is very slow and even more rubbish for Rossi. Well, all this stuff is rubbish for Rossi. We are deep in piles and piles of it while discussing these minutiae.
Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
Exactly: A line of trucks moving in and out of the doral site...
Well, yes. But I meant something different. I meant that the analysis of the application of Carnot theory to the problem is missing something. For a very long time, I learn when I notice that something is missing. This is true for me and it is true for science as a whole. What is missing might well be understood by someone else, and under the best conditions, they explain it, clearly. And under the best conditions, they will explain how they know what they believe they know.
Reading through the last few pages, where I have indicated what is missing, the issue is that you regard entropy (the missing thing) as a high-level abstraction. It is certainly an a single quantity that summarises state just as total energy is. It is not high-level. In fact entropy can be calculated from low-level analysis of number of configurations possible within a given macroscopic state.
Regards, THH
373K - 313K/373K = 20% (roughly). Not a guess.
After 4 or so pages of you making false statements and being corrected I feel you are making progress.
Your obvious wrong argument that only 20% of the heat can be disposed needs no longer a discussion. Virtually 100% of the Rossi energy can be disposed, it just depends on material flow in and out. Your Carnot argument simply is a brain crasher. A chemical reaction which changes the entropy can dispose ( ≠ harvest!!) more energy than a circular Carnot process can extract. Entropy changes are not necessary phase changes (which potentially can swallow 100% of all energy!). Splitting a molecul usually increases the entropy too ...But on the way back - recovering the energy - you loose the entropy part again...
I warned You that THH* shouldn't discuss about topics THH is not educated in!
But as a spin doctor your reputation is counted in points won... My interest is to focus on correct arguments and uncover cheap, dirty Spin.
This is my last respose to the 20% THH Rossi heat disposal FUD! Go on and feel free to present your deep knowledge...
THH 20%:
373K - 313K/373K = 20% (roughly). Not a guess.
I specifically allowed for phase change as well (The 20% specifically excepted extra storage without waste from entropy change). The point is that such storage is impractical.
20% of what, then? Imagine a heat engine with two reservoirs, composed of the same substance, and where no phase changes are involved. R1 is at 100 C. R2 (in your example) is at 40 C. The Carnot limit, as I understand it, applies to the energy that can be stored chemically, or other wise used mechanically or equivalently, from that temperature difference. However, this is a small fraction of the energy being supplied by the reactor. So what is missing here is an analysis that converts the full energy, including phase change, to heat energy, which is then Carnot-limited. I think I know how to do it, but prefer to see, at this point, if someone else comes up with it. The Devil is in the details. The process I have in mind, that seems equivalent, might not be.
What my model seems to come up with is the application of the Carnot limit to the entire megawatt.
QuoteWyttenbach wrote:
THH, this is not the only time you have recently lost context. Wyttenbach did not write that, I did. If you intend serious discussion, please be careful.
QuoteAfter 4 or so pages of you making false statements and being corrected I feel you are making progress. This statement is perhaps not terminally confused, but it is still confused.
Great. I wrote that something was missing.
QuotePhase change is a physical process in which the degree of freedom of constituent molecules changes - enormously. Which means an entropy change. There is also some (electrostatic) enthalpy due to the bonds that exist in one state and not the other.
What does this have to do with burning hydrocarbons - which was the context in which this argument started and that I generalised to "strongly exothermic chemical reactions".
Yes. Mixing this with combustion was a red herring.
Quote
This is a bit confused. Energy can be transformed between heat and chemical bonds (whether a reaction of a chnage of state which will have a different bond energy). Independently of this, entropy must not decrease.
Again, I wrote that. The statement seems clear to me and not controversial. Where is the "confusion"?
I'm confused. I love being confused, because it means I have something to learn. However, when I'm confused, I tend to back up into simple statements exploring what is known, and that is what I did.
Knowing physics and knowing how to communicate it effectively, to varied audiences, are very different skills.
QuotePhase change is a special case because phase transition: "liquid -> gas" is always endothermic and also can have a much higher entropy of products than "reactants" by setting a low enough partial vapour pressure. That allows means no waste energy.
Sorry about the grammar, eh? Maybe read your posts before pressing Submit?
That is true, but also will be confusing unless the reader is well grounded in "entropy." I do think I covered this above. The low vapor pressure means that evaporating molecules don't come back. Some will, by the way.
Ah, the discussions I have had with Dr. Storms! I tell him that ice must exist in water at room temperature. It drives him batty. He rejects "room temperature BECs" for the same reason. Of course "room temperature BECs" don't exist. The BEC conditions require very low relative momentum. But that's the clue to how ice can exist in water at room temperature. The question should not be whether or not ice can exist, but *how much ice*? Not very much, obviously! The percentage of water that is ice at room temperature must be very, very low, it is probably undetectable, and the same for BECs as to direct detection. However, if a BEC can exist for a femtosecond, and if this results in fusion, the fusion might be detectable!
(It is argued that theories using this approach are impossible because the reaction rate is known to increase with temperature, wouldn't that militate against BEC formation? No. The BECs would be formed by the equivalent of a refrigerator, a structure that requires a certain input energy. Is this what is actually happening? I can't say, there is a severe paucity of evidence. Takahashi's 4D TSC theory is the only one I know of, however, that actually predicts, apparently using standard quantum field theory, fusion rate from a physical condition that might be possible in condensed matter. If the BEC forms, it fuses! Or so he calculates. The BEC formation rate is not known or even if significant numbers of BECs are formed. Testability exists. If X-rays (soft) corresponding to Be-8 nuclear transitions are found, this could provide strong evidence. The spectrum of such X-rays is not known. Their existence is likely, from what has been seen, but they could have many possible sources.)
QuoteUnfortunately at such a low partial vapour pressure the process (with water) is very slow and even more rubbish for Rossi. Well, all this stuff is rubbish for Rossi. We are deep in piles and piles of it while discussing these minutiae.
Yes. There is a force field surrounding Planet Rossi, that creates these meandering discussions, even at this distance. Imagine what it is like to be in a room with Rossi! Otherwise competent scientists lose touch with reality. There are obviously major distractors, such as "what physics could possibly behind this?" And that will send them off to la-la land, a world of abstract fantasy with endless blind alleys and traps.
Wyttenbach appears to agree: Endothermic chemistry doesn't explain the dissipation of a megawatt in the Doral plant. What does that imply about Rossi? After all, it appears that he designed the Doral process for the "customer."
Yet his answer to the question looked like something made up on the spot. Endothermic! Yeah, that's it! Then, later, he retreated to some from Menu A, some from menu B, and some from Menu C. With no numbers, of course. Actual data is for wimps.
On Planet Rossi, today's discussion about theory, we see disapproval of math, and approval of way-out, wiggy speculations with no quantities or clear relationships (i.e., "math.") Apparently, a blender with ball bearings teetering on the lip, that fall in, and cause massive failure of the blender, is an absolutely perfect analogy for the Rossi Effect. Yeah, it is, but do they realize how?
He's got a few bearings loose!
Reading through the last few pages, where I have indicated what is missing, the issue is that you regard entropy (the missing thing) as a high-level abstraction. It is certainly an a single quantity that summarises state just as total energy is. It is not high-level. In fact entropy can be calculated from low-level analysis of number of configurations possible within a given macroscopic state.
Regards, THH
"High-level abstraction" refers to pedagogy. Entropy can be explained, but is not commonly understood, in a grounded way. Conservation of energy is much easier to understand, though it is still a high-level abstraction. Conservation of mass is trivial, children have no difficulty with it at all.
One of the problems with explanation through high-level abstractions is that if these abstractions are not throughly understood, errors, argument loopholes, can occur that you can drive an ice-delivery truck through. The Lugano team used high-level abstraction and calculation to estimate temperature and then power dissipation, and failed to provide a more direct confirmation, even failing to notice the evidence of their senses.
THHuxley wrote:
Your obvious wrong argument that only 20% of the heat can be disposed needs no longer a discussion.
Wyttenbach oversimplifies the discussion to create a straw man to be rejected. To be sure, THH ignores the incompleteness with his argument, and simply repeats it.
My, my, there is some kind of infection here! Both of these fail to understand how to communicate past differences to find agreement. It's remarkable. There is fundamental agreement on the original issue, that endothermic chemical reactions cannot explain the dissipation of heat, and the strongest reason, well cited by Wyttenbach, is that this would require massive movement of working material and product (in and out).
Phase change energy transfer is not limited by the Carnot limit, which is stated with respect to heat engines that convert temperature difference to work. Phase change energy is not about temperature difference. However, that's not the end of the matter. To use the phase change energy carried by superheated steam (100% evaporated), it would be converted to ... heat. The heat would then be used, and this use could be Carnot-limited. Is it?
Used for what? If it is used to create phase-change, i.e,. melt ice, this can be high efficiency. Little waste heat. The heat is effectively "consumed." (It has actually been incorporated in the increased kinetic energy of the water molecules, so phase change is really heat in disguise. Heat can be converted to heat with high efficiency, is a way of putting it.
What about other chemical products? Reading around on this, I looked at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Enthalpy&oldid=730821585 (current version of Enthalpy article). Notice the banner. When I was active on Wikipedia, this was a constant problem. Experts would write articles that required expertise to understand and read, and would become established editors in the field. Comes an expert who expresses it in ordinary language, the established expert attacks him, because this language is not precise. Edit wars result, users are sanctioned and banned .... and the problem continues, because Wikipedia never established a reliable decision-making process that is not heavily vulnerable to factionalism. Over the years, sane editors left, tired up pushing the boulder back up the hill. Wikipedia is very useful, I use it all the time, but it can be quite unreliable and sometimes not very useful at all.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy the Simple English Wikipedia is worse.
I can see that I am missing a comprehensive understanding of Carnot theory.
QuoteVirtually 100% of the Rossi energy can be disposed, it just depends on material flow in and out.
This seems true, if it is used for phase change. I.e, a megawatt of steam can be efficiently absorbed by the melting of ice, as an example that has been discussed. The only "waste heat" would be losses through the walls of pipes, etc., that would heat the room. And the room could be cooled with ice, as well.
QuoteYour Carnot argument simply is a brain crasher. A chemical reaction which changes the entropy can dispose ( ≠ harvest!!) more energy than a circular Carnot process can extract. Entropy changes are not necessary phase changes (which potentially can swallow 100% of all energy!). Splitting a molecul usually increases the entropy too ...But on the way back - recovering the energy - you loose the entropy part again...
Absent a comprehensive understanding and explanation of entropy and Carnot theory, this is meaningless. There has been no disagreement from THH, so far, placing a limit on phase change "disposal." Contrary to what I wrote earlier, phase change is not the same as chemical change, though it bears some resemblance. Heat changes are changes in a kinetic energy distribution. Chemical changes are actually changes in electrostatic potential and the like. Heat changes are statistical, whereas chemical changes are individual.
I do think a complete understanding of this requires understanding entropy.
QuoteI warned You that THH* shouldn't discuss about topics THH is not educated in!
Unless, of course, he wants to learn, as distinct from "winning arguments."
QuoteBut as a spin doctor your reputation is counted in points won... My interest is to focus on correct arguments and uncover cheap, dirty Spin.
Wyttenbach should not engage in arguments with human beings until he comes to understand them and understands functional communication.
And "Spin" is part of a conspiracy theory, where his thinking is heavily infected with serious self-created spin, heavily influenced by concepts of good and evil, as well as personal identity.
QuoteThis is my last respose to the 20% THH Rossi heat disposal FUD! Go on and feel free to present your deep knowledge...
Whew! Last response!
Meanwhile, there are some people here interested in exploring ideas and learning ... and explaining what they know or believe they know.
QuoteAbsent a comprehensive understanding and explanation of entropy and Carnot theory, this is meaningless. There has been no disagreement from THH, so far, placing a limit on phase change "disposal."
Well phase change has always been possible in principle, though as always given the context, not in practice.
My argument was deployed against the ECW "endothermic reaction" that gained traction purely off the back of a few Rossisays as far as I can see - and like many technical arguments on ECW was superficially correct but in fact deeply flawed. There are some clever guys over there whose sense of what is probable seems to have gone out of the window. (Like the Rossi hot air, which did not!).
While because entropy change provides a loop hole for 100% conversion to chemical energy with no waste (which I agreed at the start) I was then and am now pretty sure that there will be no strongly endothermic reactions doing this. This is a heuristic rule, based on the fact that typical strong endothermic reactions (e.g. hydrocarbon reforming) are also entropy reducing (think lots of CO2 and H2O vs one hydrocarbon and not so many O2) and that we need a lot of entropy reduction to allow spontaneous endothermic reations.
I've found further support from Wyttenberg, who in spite of a heartfelt desire to prove me wrong does not seem to know of any such endothermic reaction.
Regards, THH
I would have been expensive (water isn't as cheap as we think! -- and the water utility will assume that it's going down the drain --
While I'm not here to defend or to denigrate Rossi. I did mention here sometime back that south Florida has in many areas abundant well water, e.g. the Floridan aquifer. While the Floridan is generally fresh, more local and specific aquifers are sometimes brackish or even nearly salt saturated, depending on the source depth and the nature of the specific stratum / sub-aquifer. Many water users, commercial and domestic freely pump from wells there in an unregulated fashion, although the practice is controversial. One individual I know claims he pumps up to 1200 gallons a day for "air conditioning" and in his case the resulting warm water from the heat exchanger in the compressor section of his AC is dumped into an adjacent drainage ditch. However, such waste water could also be pumped back into the subsurface, hopefully in some stratum where it is not picked up by a neighbor's well.
Thus one could imagine an endothermic scenario to consume excess Rossi heat, without the evaporative steam plume. A quite substantial volume of unpurified subsurface water, (which is often not at the 56 deg F assumed, but in south Florida is generally closer to 70 deg F), is simply heated in a liquid to liquid heat exchanger against the purer "hot" water from the Rossi process, depending on volumes, up to some temperature above 70 deg F and returned to a different sub-surface stratum. The only major energy consumption would be the pump work on the well(s) and circulation of the "hot" water from the "1 MW" plant. A well constructed "counter current" exchanger could theoretically get one down to close to 70 deg F for the plant return. In south Florida, unless one happened to have cooler well water, to go lower (say 68 deg F) one would surely have to include a modest refrigeration system, and hence run up the utility bill.
Thus one could imagine an endothermic scenario to consume excess Rossi heat, without the evaporative steam plume. A quite substantial volume of unpurified subsurface water,
Why? Why would anyone go to all that trouble to hide waste heat? What is the point? If anything, he would want to show there is waste heat, because it would bolster his claim. Why do you think he would use an expensive, unconventional method of dumping waste heat when conventional ventilation does the job without violating any local ordinance and without the expense of digging wells.
The whole hypothesis vanishes in the light of real-world considerations. There is absolutely no reason to hide waste heat! Rossi claimed he had to hide the customer's technology because it incorporated secret IP. That at least makes some kind of sense. It is vaguely plausible. But why would anyone need to hide the customer's heat!?! What could be secret about that?
