Pretty cool benchtop demo.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Sounds off to me. Low efficiencies mean very large cooling requirements, which cost. In any case a simple heater has very large market, so why complicate with other stuff till that exists?The answer, for BLP, is that PR is always needed to get funds, whereas working product has been postponed 26 years and I'll bet a large amount will be postponed another 5 (to give the bet a viable termination date). Of course it will be postponed forever.

You got that wrong. It is not "Oh there is this cool MHD technology and we are focusing on that now and throw everything of the past overboard.". They are going for the heat market (simple heat exchanger) and with a parallel program they go for electricity. For the electricity program there is the now the decision in the room: PV and MHD? Only PV or only MHD? Considering a post Mills made yesterday it could depend on wether they find an industrial/scientific partner for MHD development, because they dont have the ressources and knowlegde to do it on their own.

They are not complicating stuff. The core of heat and electricity generation is the "automated cell"/ "light source" / "giant light bulb". And for that to work they estimate H2 2018. The heat exchanger for the heater suncell and the PV for the electricity suncell is already in the hands of engineering partners. They are not dealing with this stuff. BLP develops the core technology.

Of course it will be postponed forever.

Might be. But I wonder on what information your statement is based? There are many people that are way more qualified in scientific and business questions than you that once again bet 20 million that you are wrong. We will see

Epimetheus: " PV and/or MHD?".

MHD R&D. petered out decades ago. The Suncell appears to have some advantages over previous systems. It is small and more concentrated so the MHD unit would be much smaller than those envisaged for nuclear and fossil fuel burning power stations. Also the liquid metal is already an integral part of the process. PV is a much more developed technology. It will probably be used first... but is still a major component of the cost. A lot of R&D will bee directed at reducing the cost of PV and also establishing a cost for MHD.

Quote from Eric Walker

After noting these things and after having taken a closer look at the mathematicalese in the GUT-CP tomes sometime back, which seem together to be an act of mathematical runaround, perhaps seeking to scare away people who might be more critical, I would urge caution on anyone who might be thinking of giving these guys any more money.

I'm sure a lot of people, investors and the like, would be really interested in hearing your professional take on fundamental physics as approached by Mills, why don't you share?

Quote from Roger

I'm sure a lot of people, investors and the like, would be really interested in hearing your professional take on fundamental physics as approached by Mills, why don't you share?

The truth is that not more than basic coursework in functional analysis at the college level is required to strongly suspect that GUT-CP is mathematical runaround. No professional credentials are required to see this. Many people do not have this basis in mathematics, so GUT-CP must seem intimidating and magical.

Damn_right_man wrote:" "magical technologies".

Devilishly correct. Few investors were interested in Faraday's first motor,200 years ago

Here is a less magical version without the quicksilver.

But today artificial motors are ubiquitous

although of course we have trillions of natural ones in our mitochondria.

They are not complicating stuff. The core of heat and electricity generation is the "automated cell"/ "light source" / "giant light bulb". And for that to work they estimate H2 2018. The heat exchanger for the heater suncell and the PV for the electricity suncell is already in the hands of engineering partners. They are not dealing with this stuff. BLP develops the core technology.

Of course it will be postponed forever.

Might be. But I wonder on what information your statement is based? There are many people that are way more qualified in scientific and business questions than you that once again bet 20 million that you are wrong. We will see.

BLP needs to develop a heater that works (energy out > energy in). That is infinitely easier than all the heat/light to electricity add-ons. Why put any time into them when the core competence is needed but not attained? If they has such an energy producing heater they would be disruptive.

My reason for skepticism (other than the scientific judgement that their demos are not sound and Mills' theory is equally not sound) is simply history. What you say now has been true for 26 years, according to BLP, without any working product. You need to understand, in order to assess these situations, that some players find it easy to attract significant money from investors on hope of extraordinary returns as well as saving the world. It is relatively easy to do this with an unsound proposition. After all, there are so very very many investors out there, you only need a few to be willing to take your proposed gamble.

The reaction here with support for BLP shows how easy it is to find takers for such a gamble. There is confirmation bias where later takers look at earlier respectable backers and reckon because they exist, BLP must have something. After 26 years BLP has a lot of confirmation bias.

Wiki: Magnetohydrodynamic generator (OK for main-stream stuff) indicates there has been no significant industrial-strength MHD work in the last ... 20 years? (But that was for coal-fired generators. Maybe if you have a suitable plasma you might be better off.)

Edit : 2014 Update ... Workshop

What is R. Mills go to do with all that light that he is producing?

Where is that light coming from?

See

Marrying superconductors, lasers, and Bose-Einstein condensates

http://phys.org/news/2016-06-s…einstein-condensates.html

High-energy side-peak emission of exciton-polariton condensates in high density regime,

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep25655

There has been indications that polaritons in a condensate can produce the light produced in the SunCell, The QuarkX reactor, and the ECCO light burst.

When polariton condensate is pumped with vigor, the condensate generate light emissions whose frequency is proportional to the density of the polarization aggregation. The color of the light that the polariton condensate generates can be controlled through adjusting the level of pumping that is driving the polariton condensate. Red is produced with low pumping and blue with high pumping.

Alan Smith wrote about the QuarkX reactor:

I do remember. BTW, eye witness accounts claim that the tube itself is transparent, and the electrodes bright silver colour. nothing is visible in the gap. I have no idea about sealing or anything else - except that the plasma can apparently be made 'any colour you like'. The example shown was glowing yellow when energised for short periods. That's all the info I have.

BLP needs to develop a heater that works (energy out > energy in). That is infinitely easier than all the heat/light to electricity add-ons. Why put any time into them when the core competence is needed but not attained? If they has such an energy producing heater they would be disruptive.

Last year they showed a self sustaining plasma, and Mills was proud of the accomplishment. Why not just make the plasma self sustaining 24/7 and show energy out>energy in? My guess is that Mills would say that nobody would care. People need a finished product that produces power for commercial purposes. So the 24/7 brilliant light continually takes a back seat to the add-on, which always seems to be an energineering quest that for one reason or another doesn't pan out. If Mills were to open source his 24/7 lightbulb under a commercial license who knows what people would do with it? Maybe some coal or gas plant operator would design around it. Maybe some defense contractor would figure out a design to engineer around it. Mills recently said that he thinks that BrLp has accomplished more than any other small company in history. If that is true then big business (GE, Siemens etc) will find a use for his accomplishment.

John Goodenough, who is a 95 year old professor at the University of Texas, recently claimed to come up with a huge breakthrough in solid state batteries. Now many of the top battery makers in the world are looking to design around it and potentially license it. If Mills has a breakthrough he should show that it works reliably 24/7 and then let it loose to the world. If his goal is to get rich and famous, then it will happen faster that way.

Quote from Eric Walker

The truth is that not more than basic coursework in functional analysis at the college level is required to strongly suspect that GUT-CP is mathematical runaround. No professional credentials are required to see this. Many people do not have this basis in mathematics, so GUT-CP must seem intimidating and magical.

Where are the countless debunking blogs that would have appeared in such a case, if that's really entry-level hokum, and which could help out investors who have apparently not done their due diligence?

Annotated Suncel MHD generator

The stuff at the bottom looks like an open-topped suncell.

The output plasma (?) goes into a series of tubes between two magnets.

The charge is separated onto two electrodes ... which also serve as the return for .... silver? .. back into the suncell.

At the very top are two tubes for ... steam? ... which go into two turbines, with the condensate returning to the suncell.

Chance of working within 20 years? I'd put my quatloons into QuarkX's

Quote from Roger

Where are the countless debunking blogs that would have appeared in such a case, if that's really entry-level hokum, and which could help out investors who have apparently not done their due diligence?

I have been trying without success to enlist someone here who is enthusiastic about Mills's GUT-CP to fill in the details in the derivation of the neutron-electron mass ratio. People either balk after getting partway into the task, or they drift off to other things, without connecting the steps. My tentative conclusion is that the derivation consists of a series of disconnected mathematical statements, which as such are non sequiturs. In mathematics and mathematical physics, this is an entry-level nonstarter. The hope is that eventually there will be someone who comes through who will be able to disabuse me of this impression by walking through the derivation and making each step explicit.

USA MHD research isn't quite dead yet : $2.5M over 3 years to 6 projects (for the coal industry).

https://energy.gov/fe/articles…dvanced-energy-production

Edit1 : only 3 of the 6 projects are for MHD ... so $1.2M over 3 years

Edit2 : Hmmm .... here's a recent (2009) MHD proposal using liquid metal, for a solar application.

Possible developments in energy conversion using liquid metal magnetohydrodynamics

Eric said "topics of LENR, on one side, and hydrinos (i.e., Mills et al.), on the other, are considered distinct"

I am ecumenical, even polytheistic, I can tolerate LENR and the Cranberry Helios in my ambit

Quote from THHuxleynew

Surprisingly, the cost of off-shore wind power (the most difficult and expensive, but unrestricted) type has decreased by 50% in just a few years in the UK.

They are cheaper than nukes!

http://www.renewableenergyworl…nuclear-plants-in-uk.html

I don't find the rapid price decline very surprising. The trend lines pointed to this years ago.

When you invest tons of money into a technology, it often gets cheaper. Not always, but often. Also, even inherently unreliable technology becomes surprisingly reliable, and Rube-Goldberg machines start to work even though they remain R-G monstrosities. (British: "Heath Robinson contraption.") The best example of that is the manual shift clutch transmission which I recall I someone described "unlikely technology." (I think it was Encyclopedia Britannica?!?)

Some technologies seem to remain problematic and unreliable no matter how much you invest in them. Rockets, for example. They keep blowing up!

Nuclear power reactors are less reliable than I thought, given the Fukushima disaster. The price of building a new nuke is much higher than the experts predicted, as you see in the projects now underway in Georgia. I hope they finish building them, but starting a new one anywhere in the U.S. would be economic lunacy.

Jed said" The price of building a new nuke is much higher than the experts predicted, as you see in the projects now underway in Georgia."

S.Korea has built ( is building) four new ones for the UAE. Probably a lot cheaper than Georgia

Having delays training up the operators.

Hope they run fine... otherwise world oil supplies will be sheikhy

The Georgia nuke is a sad story. See:

Plant Vogtle: Georgia’s nuclear ‘renaissance’ now a financial quagmire

http://www.myajc.com/business/…e/5l16IFMFICknSCeI7RXG6J/

I sincerely hope they finish it, because it reduces greenhouse CO2 and smoke particles.

The good news is that even though it is billions of dollars over budget and many years behind schedule, the power company "CEO Thomas Fanning, who as recently as last year said the project was going 'beautifully,' got a 2016 compensation package worth $15.8 million." Thank God he got the money! What would we do without him? As a rate-paying Georgia Power customer -- as someone who is paying his salary -- let me say that it is a privilege and an honor to reward such diligence. I sleep better at night (even though I turn off the air conditioning to save money) knowing that this schmuck is making over a $1 million a month for being in charge of a world-class engineering and financial fiasco.

Quote from bocijn

Having delays training up the operators.

Hope they run fine... otherwise world oil supplies will be sheikhy

Oil is not used to generate electricity. A small fraction of electricity was generated with oil in the 1970s but that has been phased out. Electricity is generated from natural gas, coal, fission, wind and sun (in that order).