According to the news story, the target date for sale of the BrLP device is next spring. Anyone keeping track of dates that would like to add this one to their calendar?
BrLP device has many wonderful things going for it including a self sustaining plasma reaction. This reaction is a earth shaking violation of current beliefs in science. But the mating of this reaction with a tungsten structure and a solar cell array that requires 3000C temperature minimum to function is something that is not going to happen. Why this is will first confuse the BrLP engineers then confound them then the schedule will slip then a high temperature electric turbine approach will be rolled in to replace the solar cells; the production costs will double and maybe more and the BrPL investors will become spooked and stop the funding and there will be another failed R. Mills system that failed to work added to a long list. Sad.
BrLP device has many wonderful things going for it including a self sustaining plasma reaction. This reaction is a earth shaking violation of current beliefs in science. But the mating of this reaction with a tungsten structure and a solar cell array that requires 3000C temperature minimum to function is something that is not going to happen. Why this is will first confuse the BrLP engineers then confound them then the schedule will slip then a high temperature electric turbine approach will be rolled in to replace the solar cells; the production costs will double and maybe more and the BrPL investors will become spooked and stop the funding and there will be another failed R. Mills system that failed to work added to a long list. Sad.
I think your prediction is nonsense ... If PV really would turn out to not work (for whatever reasons) - you can still just collect the heat and turn it into energy using the carnot cycle ... If this technology is real (and not a scam) there will be sooo many ways to collect the energy.
I think your prediction is nonsense ... If PV really would turn out to not work (for whatever reasons) - you can still just collect the heat and turn it into energy using the carnot cycle ... If this technology is real (and not a scam) there will be sooo many ways to collect the energy.
You are repeating back what I said in my post. But adding a heat system makes the SunCell a big and expensive to build and maintain system that requires licences and trained steam operators. Did you not read all the Jed Rothwell posts about the complications of a steam based turboelectric system? You cannot put such as system in a house or a car. The regulators (UL) will not allow it. Rossi has this problem.
But adding a heat system makes the SunCell a big and expensive to build and maintain system that requires licences and trained steam operators. Did you not read all the Jed Rothwell posts about the complications of a steam based turboelectric system? You cannot put such as system in a house or a car. The regulators (UL) will not allow it. Rossi has this problem.
I agree. But in northern climes just plain hot water is a blessing- and also pre-heating feed water for steam turbines up to 99.9C saves a fair bit of money.
QuoteYou cannot put such as system in a house or a car.
In this moment I don't actually see any reason in miniaturization of SunCell reactor. The regulators will indeed fight against every form of distributed energy source for not to lose their profit from grid based energy, but the open-sourcing of technology would wipe them easily. Actually Randell Mills will himself prohibit any application of SunCell, which wouldn't require the grid but IMO he has no chance anyway, once it will turn out, that his process doesn't utilize any hydrinos. IMO it's merely "classical" overunity plasma technology like the Energoniva technology or Langmuir recombination of atomic hydrogen.
Whatever happens, R. Mills et al deserved great credit for stumbling on plasma based self sustaining mode.
But the selfsustained mode can we observed in Energoniva or Chernetski process and probably many others with water vapor or without it.
Mills cannot patent it by itself.
But the selfsustained mode can we observed in Energoniva or Chernetski process and probably many others with water vapor or without it.
Mills cannot patent it by itself.
That is great to know. Can you supply any reference that I can read on this?
It's listed in Energoniva thread, but source is in Russian. Without hydrino stuff Mills does the very similar experiments - just in different arrangement.
@Alan,
I thought that gas fed micro CHP generators were somewhat common in G.B. They claim almost 90% efficiency. Assuming the gas is not too expensive, they seem to be an existing tech, that is approved by underwriters and a good fit for an average home, in your Latitude. BLP seems to be a good fit also to be a co-generator.
Quotein northern climes just plain hot water is a blessing- and also pre-heating feed water for steam turbines up to 99.9C saves a fair bit of money.
Exactly. Which was excellent evidence as far back as early 2012 that Rossi was a crook. There never was a need to develop a "hot cat". The original ecats, had they worked, could have made Rossi billions, simply by selling them world wide as space heaters and water heaters which operated nearly free of energy sources and energy costs. Of course, those did not work so it never happened just like Rossi's military and other "customers" and his robotic factories never happened. That's why Rossi had to invent the hot cat and now the (ROTFWL) Quark so he could find new methods of deceiving gullible reporters, scientists and venture capitalists.
Similar reasoning strongly suggests that BLP and Mills are also blowing smoke up investors' rear ends. Otherwise, they would have vastly better demos and verified tests as well as at least some products for sale by now. Hey, it's only been what, now, TWENTY-FIVE F'N YEARS since Mills has been making grandiose claims?
I haven't been following BLP, and I only know that it's a plasma-based photovoltaic system
Anyone care to tell me if this system produces more energy than is fed in? Joules out/joules in, perhaps
@Alan,
I thought that gas fed micro CHP generators were somewhat common in G.B. They claim almost 90% efficiency. Assuming the gas is not too expensive, they seem to be an existing tech, that is approved by underwriters and a good fit for an average home, in your Latitude. BLP seems to be a good fit also to be a co-generator.
Not that common - I'm not sure how many but the ones I am familiar with are mostly garbage incinerators being used as part of district heating schemes. As is so often the case, Japan leads the way, Tokyo Gas and Electric Co., working in conjunction with Toshiba have installed over 100,000 1kW town gas or hydrogen/air fuel cells in residential premises, each one producing roughly 500 watts of electricity and 500 watts-worth of hot water, with a claimed efficiency of 95%. The installations are heavily subsidised ( cost to user circs $2,000) with the intention of providing flexible earthquake-proof services as well as peak time power. The government's hope is that the programme will eventually result in over 1M of these 1kW units plus more than 5,000 district heating/cooling systems of (eventually) up to 1MW also utilising fuel cells.
That's a whole lot of efficient energy!
APRIL 14, 2017 4:47 PM0 COMMENTS
By Tom Whipple
Brilliant Light Power recently posted an update to their website describing a significant milestone they have reached on developing their SunCell power generation system into a commercially viable device. As some of you will recall, the SunCell, which uses only water as a fuel and emits no dangerous waste, has been under development for several years. The company plans to have prototypes ready for testing by potential customers and partners later this year.
Until recently SunCells could only be operated under manual control with technicians monitoring the device and making adjustments to keep the reaction stable. In the manual mode, the carbide sphere in which the reaction takes place could not be sealed thereby allowing it to operate for only 15 minutes or less during which the streams of liquid silver used as electrodes would vaporize and escape from the device depleting the silver supply.
To turn the early prototype of the SunCell into a commercially viable device which could be made available for outside testing, it was necessary to automate the cell’s operation so that it did not require constant monitoring and the device could be sealed preventing the escape of the silver inside. Once the reaction was taking place in a sealed chamber, the device could, in theory, run for extended periods unattended. The announcement that the firm has achieved automated control of the molten silver levels in the reservoirs and automated control of the SunCell’s thermal profile indicates that a major developmental goal has been reached and that an energy-producing device can now be operated continuously.
In the posting, no mention was made of extended trials; however, Brilliant Light did say that the company is optimizing designs and integrating this new technology into the first “thermal field trial” unit that is currently being built. The use of the word “thermal” in the announcement suggests that engineering of the photovoltaic cells and the accompanying photovoltaic temperature control system is not yet ready for installation on the device. Giving the large amounts of energy that will be radiated from the reaction inside the carbide blackbody sphere, control of temperatures is critical to keeping the device operating for extended periods.
At least in the initial prototypes, only a small percentage of the energy created by the reaction can be converted into electricity by the photovoltaic cells and removed from the device as electrical energy. The remainder must be carried away by an elaborate cooling system and radiator somewhat akin to what is used to cool an automobile engine. Without a properly engineered system, an operating SunCell would overheat and fail.
However, the recent posting indicates that the company is still on track to begin sending out prototypes for field testing by outside laboratories in the second half of 2017. While some may deride the SunCell technology until it is producing the electrical energy it was designed to produce, the laboratories that are likely to be testing the new devices certainly will be able to appreciate the potential of the technological breakthrough they are testing even if it is not as yet complete. Concentrated photovoltaics is already a well-understood technology and adapting it to produce electricity for a SunCell pales in comparison with the importance of the underlying science and technology that allows unprecedented amounts of energy to be created in a volume the size of a teacup.
Brilliant Light’s technology is simply too innovative to be accepted as valid by the scientific community, governments, or the mainstream media without considerable outside testing and verification, but this could change within the next year or so. The recent announcement and the prospect that prototypes will soon be undergoing testing by respected independent laboratories suggest that a paradigm shift in the way earth produces its energy may not be far away.
I try to make a judgment on extreme tech claims by comparing them to what I have learned of reality.
Steorn - perpetual motion. Really!!! So start off extremely skeptical with low expectations less than 0.1%. Steorn did nothing that even slightly convinced me. Actually the promise of public demo's had me more interested briefly.
Rossi - incredible invention so I was skeptical but he had professors on board (Lugano) and serious investors with money (IH) and lots of noise from his supporters, so my judgment around a year ago was 50%.
Then the 1MW test turned into a fiasco and Rossi fails for me on the reputation test. He cannot be trusted so why would I believe him when he says he has this amazing invention?
BLP - my problem with BLP is different. I was strongly put off from the start and I rated it at perhaps 1% chance or less.
The reason is that the chance of any claimant to have a world changing, incredible invention is very low. Most such claims do not stack up.
Additionally the chance of any claimant having a paradigm changing physical theory that works is very low. There are hundreds of theories from experts and amateurs all claiming to fix the problems of quantum mechanics.
Now the chance of someone having both an incredible invention plus a paradigm changing physical theory just seemed a step too far to be even slightly credible.
Of course I cannot know 100% it is not real but history tells me that there are rare geniuses like Einstein who come up with a new theory that works, but great theorists do not come up with great inventions and great inventors do not come up with great theories. Maybe someone could point me to a case that proves otherwise.
I know Einstein produced a refrigerator that was not very successful.
I know Newton is credited with the reflecting telescope but he was not the first to have the idea.
So I haven't spent too much time examining Randell Mills reputation although I have seen some criticisms of his controlled demonstrations and his theoretical work (that it does not hold water - or even hydrinos).
So if I am wrong and Mills invention and theory turn out to be right then he will be a one off and perhaps one of the greatest geniuses of the 21st century. It would be nice if I am wrong.
The nice thing with BLP is, that you can find out on your own what Mills achieved so far while waiting for a working suncell prototype. In his book he gives equations to calculate binding energies, binding angles, internuclear distances, ionization energies of atoms and molecules. You can calculate the molecules by yourself, compare the numbers with literature and judge for yourself what implications that has. The nice thing with Mills GUTCP is that it is a classical theory based on well established physical laws (mainly maxwell - which makes sense when you remind yourself that an atom consists of charged (and partially moving) particles). Having charged particles that have to interact over their electric and magnetic fields and NOT to apply maxwells laws is crazy. Not the opposite.
But just waiting for the suncell is definitly much less work than checking GUTCP from the theoretical side 
Epimetheus said "not to apply Maxwell's Laws is crazy". I agree with that.
My reading of Mills published papers suggests to me that Randell Mills is not changing any paradigm
- he is just applying physics laws as written by Maxwell and Einstein
Mills challenges the prevailing paradigm of quantum mechanics
by showing that his application of
classical physics laws yields
much better agreement with measured parameters of molecules than does QM.
Reading of GUTCP/ Mills is much easier than reading QM, but its still hard work.
Easier reads, while you wait, courtesy of Ed Wall, are:
Thanks for your suggestions.
I am not trained as a physicist, or even a scientist, although I am interested in science.
I know that QM is the most accurate theory ever devised and has passed every test so far.
I see dozens of claims on the Internet from both scientists and cranks who claim QM is wrong and they have THE THEORY.
Nor do I want to spend many hours reading such theoretical papers, I simply don't have the time, but in any case it would be like someone pushing some music in front of me and saying it was a recently discovered piece by Brahms. I would have no ability to say whether that claim was nonsense or not, unless it was very obvious.
So I will continue to watch and see what happens.
The Mills drama appears to be different from the Rossi drama.
Rossi makes mistakes and trips himself up.
Mills just seems to keep about his business but there does seem to be the same camps of pro Mills and Mills skeptics and the differences of interpretation of each piece of news follow these camps.
I guess time will tell with Mills, probably in the next 12 months.
