Rossi vs. Darden aftermath discussions

Quote from maryyugo

I think you are suggesting that if the cell output temperature is constant after boil off, the heat flow from the cell is constant but that is clearly incorrect.

Nope. I did not say that, and neither do the papers from F&P. I suggest you read them more carefully.

To reiterate, in a blank cell, the temperature begins falling immediately after the power is cut off, following Newton's law of cooling. In a cell undergoing heat after death, the temperature rises, and stays high. It does not fall. This is first principle proof of energy production. The question is, how much power does a given temperature indicate? Determining that is somewhat involved, as you see in the papers.

Quote from maryyugo

I think you are suggesting that if the cell output temperature is constant after boil off, the heat flow from the cell is constant but that is clearly incorrect. After boil off, the power out from the cell can be calculated mainly from the temperature, and the equations which describe radiation and convection heat losses (and conduction if not negligible in those cells). But before the coolant is gone, you have to add an evaporative heat component. In this case, the heat flow for a given temperature when coolant is being boiled off and when it is not is not the same. At constant temperature, heat flow is much less when the coolant is gone. Did I miss something here? And I still don't see 100W for days anywhere.

[emphasis added]

You are right to have highlighted the phrase you did in your quote, because it is a fallacious assumption.

Prior to boiloff the F&P calorimetric method predicts heat produced from electrolysis (and any Joule heater input) and heat lost via the electrolysis gases blowing out the vent, radiation, and conduction. I noted in my whitepaper that heat loss due to liquid water entrained in the exiting gases is not accounted for, and I also recall someone (you?) saying here recently that evaporation is not included, which I tentatively agree with (but see quote below). Once the electrolyte volume has been reduced to the point that there is no electrical contact between the electrodes and electrolyte, the electrolysis stops and the losses due to venting gas likewise stop. Thus (with no heater input) power input goes to zero.

However there is still much chemistry to consider. For one, once the electric circuit is broken, there is no longer any means to hold the hydrogen in the electrode, so it will begin to diffuse out and react with the oxygen in the cell, which initially comes from the residual electrolysis gases. In fact the hydrogen in the gas phase may actually be the first reactant. The reaction reduces the total number of moles in the gas phase (2H2 + 1 O2 -> 2 H2O) so there will be a drawing in of gases from the atmosphere, i.e. mainly N2 and O2. That O2 will further the reaction to completely burn the hydrogen from the palladium. This will add heat to the cell just as if a heater was working (the so-called cigarette lighter effect). So there will be some time period, defined by the time it takes to empty the Pd, while evolves hydrogen slowly in ‘good’ CF electrodes supposedly, where some additional heat will be created in the cell. Might this take several hours? No real idea, but I assume so. So the T will remain elevated to some level over what it would if the cell just started to cool off due to cessation of current flow. Also you won’t lose the heat as fast since you no longer have the water-based electrolyte swirling around absorbing the heat from the electrode and transmitting it to the silvered cell wall. IOW, the situation is radically changed, and it is silly to assume the same calibration holds without verifying that (which no one ever does…don’t want to upset the LENR cart…).

You recognized the need to recalibrate, as shown by the section I bolded in your post.

In fact the left hand side of the calorimeter equation found in Jed’s referenced paper (http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf) only has terms based on current flow in it, so it will most definitely not account for any recombination. Also note that F&P say:

“In equation [1] the term [ 1- (1 + b)It/2FM⁰] allows for the change of the water equivalent with time; the term β was introduced to allow for a more rapid decrease than would be given by electrolysis alone (exposure of the solid components of the cell contents, D2O vapour carried off in the gas stream). As expected, the effects of β on Q_f and K^Q_R can be neglected if the cells are operated below 60°C.”

We’re not below 60°C, we’re above, so the beta term will need to be evaluated as the T changes from 100 down to 60 or below as well. Lots of things to give weird results if not accurately and precisely accounted for.

Quote from Alan Smith

But who keeps these guys honest?

The rest of the interested and unbiased* scientific community.

*Everyone has some bias, always, but many let their bias dictate what they say and do, which is unscientific when carried to the extremes true believers or pathoskeptics do. One *has* to look for these problems, illustrated for example, by using faulty logical techniques like strawman arguments to draw conclusions. Another giveaway is when the viewpoint seems cast in stone. 'Good' scientists always allow for the chance that new and better information can change the current status of a field. (And before the TBs jump on this, my CCS/ATER proposal *IS* a proposal. It could be shown to be irrelevant. I am waiting for that day. It hasn''t happened yet, and seems unlikely to, given that as Jed says, everyone doing this work is dead or retired.)

@DW

What do you think of this NASA/DOE/LERF "ripple"? Sound good?

https://www.jlab.org/indico/event/199/

T 9:30

Ahi - pretty good sleuthing!! I don't think this is a ripple effect from the last several years - more like a Letts Co-Dep / China Lake ripple but that is a quickly formed snippet. I was at Jeff Labs a couple of years ago and saw a researcher get reprimanded for mentioning LENR. Looks like a good track to me - what do you think?

Quote from Dewey Weaver

I was at Jeff Labs a couple of years ago and saw a researcher get reprimanded for mentioning LENR.

Since my whole thesis is that there is actually some normal chemistry present in these experiments, this kind of occurrence is also anti-science. The repriimander is going on the mainstream belief that there is nothing there, but that is obviously wrong, the plots show signals. Many would be considered real by any scientist who saw them coming out of his/her experiments. Now if the person bringing up LENR did so as a pathological believer, and the reprimander was commenting on that, then fine. The real question is what caused the anomalies and is there anything worth investigating in them.

Kirk - they have an unexplained heat problem when making their accelerator bells. There is a possible explanation that should be pursued. I met with a world-class metallurgist there who could have helped them.

The discussion and follow-up were shutdown for fear of losing their funding as a result of any association with LENR. Front row seat - heard it myself. I was an observer and attempted to create an opening for further discussion too late in the exchange. I'll be more bold next time as there were no crazed believers skewing the mix - just real scientists trying to figure out a problem / opportunity with scared management.

Well, as I predicted in an earlier post, the Ecat people are intentionally refusing to properly measure the inactive COP of the system. They are doing this by excluding measurements of the controller power. Since every other power/energy system measures controller power as part of the input , I feel they should do so here too.

Group 4: Titanium, Zirconium, Hafnium.

Quote from maryyugo

People kept saying that Rossi couldn't let anyone test his devices because the testers would steal the technology. If theft of technology were so easy, what do you think would happen the first time ever sold one

Rossi knows that his E-Cat will be imitated as soon as it is sold. That's why he wants to introduce his reactor to the market only when he will be able to make mass production so that he can beat future competition with an advantageous price. Much different is the fact that a product is copied when it is still a prototype: the damage would obviously be much greater. It is obvious that Rossi tries to protect himself by not leaving his reactor in the hands of whomever.

Quote from maryyugo

And how do you explain that Darden, to whom Rossi supposedly provided all the secrets for making ecats, is not currently occupied with making thousands of ecat power plants in some unregulated country like China or a poorly regulated one like maybe Brazil or Dubai or an African nation or even North Korea?

And what do you know about what Darden is doing? Maybe he is really organizing a production of reactors somewhere in the world, or (more simply) passing information learned from Rossi to the various members of his portfolio, which maybe he did even when he was collaborating with Rossi.

Quote from JedRothwell

That makes no sense, for two reasons:

1. Over 180 highly reputable universities and government labs replicated, as shown in Storms Table 2. They all had zero involvement before 1989, when no one knew about cold fusion. No one anywhere was associated with cold fusion except Paneth and Peters in 1927, and Fleischmann and Pons in 1989. What you are saying is that as soon as someone at Los Alamos, China Lake or BARC replicates, that makes the institution tainted and we can no longer trust them. So, no institution will ever be able to replicate to your satisfaction.

2. If you insist on "no failures" you will never accept the reality of any physical effect or experiment. Experiments always fail. Even industrial production fails at times. Up until the mid-1950s, with many transistor types, nearly every device in a batch failed. Rockets have been in intense development since 1945, and they often carry payloads worth hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, yet they still often explode.

from wikipedia:

In 1992, Pons and Fleischman resumed research with Toyota Motor Corporation's IMRA lab in France.^[54] Fleischmann left for England in 1995, and the contract with Pons was not renewed in 1998 after spending $40 million with no tangible results.^[56] The IMRA laboratory stopped cold fusion research in 1998 after spending £12 million.^[1] Pons has made no public declarations since, and only Fleischmann continued giving talks and publishing papers.^[56]

You can't pick and choose. A quick search will show there have been likely thousands of failed CF/LENR attempts. Also, a high percentage of the positive claims were retracted once experts used their advanced techniques to study the data.

Quote from Bruce__H

Rossi here is commenting on the events following Feb 16 2016 when the Doral plant was shut down and padlocked after its 1 year test.

In contrast, I am talking about the events of a year earlier, February 2015, near the beginning of the 1-year test. Over the first 2 weeks of Feb of that year, Rossi had brought approximately 50 small E-Cat units online. Those E-Cats were permanently shut down on Feb 19 without Rossi ever complaining that they failed to produce excess heat.

In the interview I mentioned, Rossi tells that he can now enter the Doral Plant again and analyze the reactors that have been turn off since 2016. If you read what I reported, you can see that Rossi speaks about the small E-Cat units and says that they have stopped working almost immediately but he still doesn't know the reason why:

"The big ones that worked pretty well, and the small ones that never worked, because at the beginning they had many problems. [...]In the small ones it will be very interesting to understand now why the heck they did not work, as if in some of them there was simply no charge."

I don't know if Rossi ever complained before about their failure ... but what does it matter? The plant consisted of 4 250kW reactors and 52 20kW reactors, so it was perfectly able to operate (producing 1 MW) even with the small reactors out of order. So what is your point?

Quote from THHuxleynew

In that case you have not been paying attention. We have, as the result of the Trial, a clear understanding now of the aspects of the test that did not make sense.

(1) Rossi was trusted by the profs and viewed as an authority on his device

(2) He was in charge of critical aspects of the test, like heating up the dummy

(3) Before the dummy test started to get hot enough to be used as a genuine control he pulled the plug

In the Lugano report the Professors wrote this:

"The dummy reactor was switched on at 12:20 PM of 24 February 2014 by Andrea Rossi who gradually brought it to the power level requested by us. Rossi later intervened to switch off the dummy, and in the following subsequent operations on the E-Cat: charge insertion, reactor startup, reactor shutdown and powder charge extraction. Throughout the test, no further intervention or interference on his part occurred; moreover, all phases of the test were monitored directly by the collaboration."

Here is no written that Rossi decided what to do. It has been written that Rossi made some actions under the direct control of the Professors and at least one of that action was requested by them. On what basis do you say that Rossi was deciding when to turn off the dummy?

Quote from lenrisnotreal

from wikipedia:

In 1992, Pons and Fleischman resumed research with Toyota Motor Corporation's IMRA lab in France.[54] Fleischmann left for England in 1995, and the contract with Pons was not renewed in 1998 after spending $40 million with no tangible results.

Getting information from Wikipedia is like drinking water from a sewer. I recommend you read the actual results from IMRA, rather than taking the word of some anonymous troll at Wikipedia who names himself after a comic book character.

Read the results, think for yourself, and judge for yourself. See Roulette's paper.

Quote from lenrisnotreal

Also, a high percentage of the positive claims were retracted once experts used their advanced techniques to study the data.

That is incorrect. I know of only a few papers that were retracted, out of several thousand.

A word to the wise guy: You can make up bullshit like this and fool ordinary readers. But you cannot fool me, because I am the librarian and I have read many, many papers. Plus I have tons of electronic notes and summaries from Storms and Britz. I can easily find out approximately how many papers were retracted.

I suppose your goal is to fool other readers, not me. In that case: Carry on!

Quote from Dewey Weaver

There are emails between R and certain researchers in more than one EU country that clearly demonstrate that at least four folks were (and possibly still are) in on "the gig". All of that gets to stay quiet thx to the settlement.

This is big bullshit Weaver Style !

If there were emails docs notes etc they would have been in the trial documents.

If they are not there is because:

a) are not relevant

or

b) do not exist

The real thing is that a lot of documents against Cherokee and Darden exist in the net and they illustrate the "Darden way" to what I call crime.

Darden has been able to avoid and escape the US Justice System....... but nobody can escape forever!

No BS Ele - just truth that you will never be able to handle.

Who knows when the rest of the truth will unfold but my guess is that will eventually happen.

Planet Rossi was left waiting with baited breath for a year anticipating "the ERV". How soon they don't remember / forget. What is truth Planet Rossi? Truth is that it is a morose reality they wallow in every day. Feeling kind of sorry for those cats.