NASA partners with Global Energy Corporation to develop 10kW Hybrid Reactor Generator

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It seems to me that it would be premature to make any pronouncements about the promise of GEC's process for power generation before getting everyone on the same page about whether it has a scientific basis, given the unknowns.

Does anyone know whether GEC has ever shown the process to the press or the public? How about papers in refereed journals or even elsewhere? I have not followed them closely but all I remember from them are press releases which were very large claims (supplying Guam with power in a relatively short time) and no real evidence. Is that wrong?

What if there is no repelling force, just loaded attraction centrifugal force at play. like an aircraft with a convenional propeller facing forward, the movement pitch and yaw to the CG will not challenge the centrifugal force as It will if the props in loaded in the wing, the aircraft would stuggling to do anything but fly a stright line even with wind shear, it cant fight the centrifigal force of the props in this configuration. the poles would only be the orientation to the orbits.

Quote from H-G Branzell

Any example on that? ... Of course, that is not to say that e.g. removing the electrons would not speed up the decay. The question is, with how much.

Yes, how much is the central question. Note that according to the Gamow calculation, it is adding an electron that speeds up the decay rate, not the other way around. That is because the width of the coulomb barrier decreases a small amount as a result. Despite your (good) reasoning, why does the process of decay work this way (assuming it does)? I don't really know. We get a hint that it works this way, however, in the case of oblong deformed heavy nuclei: it is at the poles that alpha decay is more likely, where there is less Coulomb barrier to traverse for the alpha particle to escape, than at the waist, where there is more Coulomb barrier. Nature is weird.

Here is an example of the dependence of the Gamow decay rate on relative screening. Consider the decay 190Pt → 4He + 186Os + 3252 keV. Here are the predicted half-lives in years as a function of the number of additional electrons screening out protons in the nucleus:

With the addition of 10 electrons, we've brought the half-life of 190Pt down from 1.4e+12 years to 3.8e+05 years. (Calculations here.) This result will hopefully establish that the alpha decay rate is quite sensitive in the Coulomb barrier width (which depends upon the contribution of bound electrons). A similar dependence is seen in the spontaneous fission cross section, an estimate of which can be obtained using the same calculation with different daughters. As Hyperphysics says, "The forces inside the nucleus are balanced on a razor's edge."

There is a valid complaint here: where are you going to get 10 electrons to zero out the contribution of 10 protons on the Coulomb barrier? That is a good question. Here is where it is important to take a closer look at the assumptions in the Gamow calculation. First, it assumes a spherically uniform distribution of charge. What happens if that assumption is violated? Second, it applies to the steady state system. What happens when there are transients in the contribution of electrons to the system, e.g., under the influence of perturbations of various kinds (e.g., those described in William Barker's patent, or in the Simakin and Shafeev paper)?

My high-level conclusions: (1) the Gamow calculation swings across orders of magnitude as a response to a change of inputs, and (2) there may be cases that have not been worked into the calculation that are at play in real life in poorly studied scenarios that cause the result to be even more sensitive to inputs.

Quote from Louis Reed

We do know some things about nuclear reactions.

Quote from THHuxleynew

10pCi / hour is an incredibly small generation rate for Tritium.

In Deuterium fusion, as measured by Stringham, the 3-He part is less than 10^-6 of the 4-He part. The energy usually is in total agreement with the measured 4-He. But 3-He is a very good indicator and more easily to measure as 4-He.

Seems interesting I was looling at it from NOAA herrincane internal structure datasheet for lightning and sprites generation by static discharge.

Quote from Louis Reed

But for whatever reason -- and (imo) to the detriment of science -- the world was *not* skeptical enough of cold fusion for those first few weeks.

You are not familiar with the detailed history of those weeks. You have not spoken with the researchers. You do not have a collection of press clippings, letters from the researchers and the Patent Office, and other original source documents and interviews. I do have those things, from Mallove, Fleischmann, Bockris, Storms and many others. I know a more about this than you do. I say you are wrong. You are no position to dispute what I say.

Many of your statements and timelines are factually wrong. For example, you say that Mallove's collection of nasty quotes were made long after cold fusion began. Some were, but many were within days or weeks of the press conference. So was the MIT poster celebrating the Death of Cold Fusion. You also think that Fleischmann was pleased with the press conference. Apparently you base that on what you take as his facial expression. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a great deal of original source material -- such as letters and comments by Fleischmann in the files at the U. Utah library special collection -- showing that he was dreading the outcome.

Of course there were some enthusiastic people. But there was also strong opposition from the very start -- literally from the first hour. It continues unabated to the present day.

I have uploaded some of these original source documents. I suggest you review them, and read Mallove's book more carefully.

Quote from Louis Reed

So, when you accuse MIT of fraud, it's because they are corrupt, and when MIT accuses P&F of fraud it's also because they are corrupt. That may be your view of it. Another view is that when MIT accused P&F of fraud, they actually believed fraud had been committed, but when you accuse MIT of fraud, it's because of your obvious bias.

No, it is because of the graph that MIT published is fake. Extra data points were manually added. Look at it and judge for yourself. All the proof you need is in their own paper. You do not need to take my word for it (not that you would!)

This has nothing to do with what I believe. It has to do with those round data points in the graph published by the MIT researchers. Count them, and you will see they are fake.

Quote from Louis Reed

Yea, well, not that it matters for this point, but your count is wrong. They were unanimous in recommending no special funding for the field,

That is incorrect. First because 6 panel members did recommend funding, as you see in their papers. The recommendations were not unanimous. Second, the DoE itself recommended funding, but then it reneged. It did not call it "special funding" but it did recommended funding.

Again, I suggest you read original source documents. You will find the papers by the panel member and the DoE recommendations here:

http://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/?page_id=455

The DoE reneging on its own decision is described here:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LENRCANRthedoelies.pdf

It would have triggered a rothschild financial trap all over them just for looking~

Thanks, H-G, I'll take a look when I have a moment. The first question that comes to mind is whether that paper is focused on a minor adjustment to make the larger calculation more accurate. It makes sense that in addition to whatever else electrons do, they would slow down the alpha particle a small amount.

In the meantime, here's a response on physics.stackexchange.com that supports my interpretation qualitatively (although note the quantitative challenge it hints at):

https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/214062/6713

Another way to see support for my interpretation is to plug in values for A and Z into this calculator that imply protons are being screened and observe which directions the decay constant and half-life go: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.g…hbase/Nuclear/alpdec.html.

Setting the question from a no amateurs point of view.

Side note: my argument (really William Barker's argument) is interesting if the decay rate is sensitive to changes in the screening or other features of the atomic electron shell, regardless of whether the rate goes up or down as a function of screening.

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These are credible people from credible institutions we are talking about

So were Focardi, Levi, Kullander, Essen, McKubre, Rothwell, Darden and a lot of other honest and credible people who believed Rossi. Unless they provide evidence other than testimonials and hearsay stories from "credible" people, it is foolish behavior to believe GEC, especially as an investor. Doesn't it seem smarter to be very skeptical until they show a working reactor (or lab experiment) or publish convincingly in peer reviewed literature?

You, dear Shane D. seem determined to repeat the same error. This sort of belief simply because someone one likes or seems trustworthy "says so" does seem to be hard wired in many people.

Earlier in this string, you asked facetiously if skeptics expected some sort of atonement from you and those who believed Rossi. I don't think they do but perhaps they could reasonably expect you to be more circumspect about similarly poorly supported and florid claims. It doesn't seem to be looking that way at all. Good luck with GEC. Want to bet that in two years, there will still be no hardware demonstration from them which somehow manages to show that they can combine low energy nuclear fusion with fast fission or whatever it was they said?

Old ideas, new success ...

Quote from Ahlfors

Setting the question from a no amateurs point of view.

I just had a look at the Ra226 structure from the 4D physics point of view. The 4D core orbits from 226Ra --> 222Rn don't change, what means that the ejected alpha is not bound to the core. From the energy point of view the alpha seems to acquire the inner (2) k-shell kinetic energy + the expected waves. This is a strong hint that the k-shell electron is a kind of pulling/helping the alpha out of the nucleus. This explains that there must be small electric effect.