Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
I meant that steam quality was not directly measured, using instruments and techniques intended for that purpose. Plus you have to actually see the steam, by venting some of it with a valve. I do not think this was done.
Yes. I know what you meant. But your expression went beyond that. As you know, I point things like this out, because it creates unnecessary disputes. Something was don, but it was primitive and vulnerable to problems.
We will often see claims in debates like "There is no evidence that ..." when, in fact, there is evidence. It might be weak, it might be misleading, but it's evidence. Perhaps they mean "proof." However, we often do not have "proof," but only a preponderance of the evidence. If we are lucky!
Quote(If it had actually been 1 MW, you would not want to fully open the pipe and vent all of the steam. Even 100 kW produces a huge plume, dangerous enough to kill someone.
Yes. In fact, working with a megawatt is so dangerous that the idea of a 1-year test of a megawatt plant was way crazy, and not only not necessary, but less informative than a more extensive series of tests with a far smaller set of less "powerful" units.
QuoteBut you can open a valve and vent a sample. I have seen this done in factories.)
Yes. Very carefully. Oops! Slipped!
This would not be definitive. There are better ways. The big issue, as I've mentioned, is not "steam quality," generally, but overflow water, which could create a far larger error than a little fog in the steam. It occurs to me that wet steam will be isothermic. I.e., if you add heat to it, the temperature will not increase. How much heat is necessary to lead to a temperature increase would give a measure of steam quality. A steam quality meter could be made on this basis. As it is, there are devices and procedures for measuring steam quality.
http://www.biotech.com/metrolo…s-steam-quality-test-kit/ ... one month rental, $2300.
http://www.carltex.com/steam-q…-healthcare-sq-test-kits/
Then the steam line would need to have a trap that will detect and measure liquid water. I don't this would be difficult.
Here, as well: an article on steam dryness and removing entrained water: http://www.tlv.com/global/US/s…/wet-steam-dry-steam.html
http://www.tlv.com/global/US/s…lines-best-practices.html covers condensate removal using "steam traps," which actually are liquid water traps. In a proper design, there would be one of these on the steam outlet from the Plant, to immediately remove any condensate at that point. Or it could be just before the steam enters the "customer area," because condensate in that pipe length represents power that is not actually delivered to the customer. Regardless, the amount of water collected there would be metered, I'd assume, with a meter of appropriate sensitivity, and that water would be returned by a separate line to the reservoir. A meter in the return line from the condenser, also properly installed with a loop so that it must be submerged, and of the appropriate capacity, would then show only evaporated water.
QuoteMeasuring temperature and pressure are indirect ways to estimate steam quality. As you note, they can be wrong for various reasons. In this case, the temperature was right at the margin, where a slight error would cancel the result. The pressure was clearly wrong, and impossible.
Yes. There is a possibility, though, that a gauge meter was used, instead of the absolute specified. Do remember that the document just revealed was not a description of the Plant, but a plan. Even so, 0.0 is probably impossible, as Murray noted. The pressure at the Plant outlet with a megawatt of steam being generated would definitely be higher, because of flow resistance in the pipes, the customer application, and the condenser.
The Penon plan was clearly not designed to be a solid test, considering possible error sources. It really was the same-old same-old naive Rossi evap calorimetry, as was already widely criticized, and that Penon was not aware of the criticism -- if he was not aware of it -- would show incompetence in itself.
Rossi is quite a puzzle. It's easy to just think of him as a fraud. However, if he was a fraud, two things stand out: the fraud was singularly stupid. Rossi was able to pull the wool over the eyes of fervent supporters and wishful thinkers, but did he think this would stand up in court? Did he think he could get away with a fake customer, once IH was alerted and needing to defend itself from his lawsuit?
Further back, when he was planning his "masterpiece," how in the world did he imagine that this would work?
And then I look at Mats Lewan. Mats has seen enough to know far more what is going on than his recent behavior seems to show. He knows that Rossi is erratic and wants to be seen as a fraud. He actually attempted to confront Rossi on the input power measurements at the Hydro Fusion test in 2012. Reading through An Impossible Invention, again, Mats has seen and knows quite enough to have a model for Rossi behavior, but seems very reluctant to believe what he must see, from his more recent comments.
Sometimes what seems impossible is not. In this case, one can see so many signs that Rossi's claims were fraud or insanity, but it seems impossible! He works so hard! Again and again, Mats considers the idea that the power was fake, and then concludes it couldn't be, more or less because he thinks it would be insane. So he excuses fiasco after fiasco as just bad luck and then several times speculates on Rossi wanting to fail or create confusion and doubt.
And now we have, as IH Exhibit 12, Rossi's explanation of the Hydro Fusion fiasco, that it was deliberate, to get out of his contract with them.
So ... Rossi either lied to Industrial Heat (my guess is that this is the case) or he lied to Mats Lewan, who covers that test in detail (An Impossible Invention, pp 242-249.)
I look at the photo of Rossi on October 6. 2011 (p. 180). I see pain in the vertical lines in his forehead, and I see fear in his eyes. Maybe I'm projecting. Behind him is a similar reactor to the one that showed overflow, in the Mats Lewan video of September 7, 2011. Lewan describes that test on pp. 160-161, but does not mention what he saw, overflow water. Just to make sure, I watched the video again. Yeah. the more I see the less I am impressed. Lewan talks about "steam temperature" at at one point it is 133 C or so. The thermocouple is not in a steam chimney, but inserted, apparently, into the body of the reactor. There is no telling what that is the temperature of. When the valve is opened, water and steam pour out under pressure. The interior has high steam pressure, apparently, and it would store a fair amount of energy. The behavior of such a system could be difficult to predict, but such a thing could definitely be set up in such a way as to be deceptive. Lewan says that the overflow water he found would not be considered in the power estimation, but there is no power estimation, not in the video nor in his ANI report.
The presence of major overflow water did demonstrate that the concerns about overflow were valid. Meanwhile, was the temperature reading used to declare dry steam? One of the classic objections was a "steam thermocouple" that was too close to a hotter reactor body or heater and wasn't actually measuring steam temperature.
So Lewan was there to address concerns, and by that time, the overflow concern had been voiced. So he looked. And what did he do with what he saw?