ICCF21 Thread

It is difficult for me to communicate with just this itty-bitty computer, so I will probably not say much more. But anyway --

Overall, I would say the people selected to give oral presentations have upped their game. The quality is better than most previous conferences. Several other experimental papers impressed me. I will list them below. Here are all the abstracts:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sp7…uUL0v3NrkY7BPYPKDA_a?dl=0

Letts & Cravens

Mizuno (if I do say so myself)

Takahashi

Hioki - These two describe different aspects of the same project. Unfortunately, the funding for it ended last year

Tanzella

Staker

Beiting

Biberian

Olafsson

Zeiner-Gunderson - Both about Holmlid. Not exactly cold fusion, but good.

That's just the first two days. Impressive.

Note that I cannot judge theory papers and I have nothing to say about them.

Yes, Letts and Cravens are working with I.H. Good experiment.

This thing is a Chromebook, which is admittedly one step up from an iPad, which is one step up from a cell phone.

I agree with Jed that the Beiting talk was one of the best so far. I do not have any of his documents, but here are my rough notes from his talk. There are likely some errors below from my rapid note taking as the slides went by.

E. J. Beiting

TrusTech, Redando Beach CA

Expertise in OAMP at Aerospace Corp think tank

Idea was for AHE to eliminate solar panels for space applications

NASA has 38% efficient Sterling engine at 850C

20 KW power busses can drive several 5KW thrusters

ZrNiPd ribbon prepared by Ames. Arata/Ahern prep

2/3 Zr, 1/3 Ni + 3% Pd

Mixed in ground SmCo magnets to one of the cells

Cell with magnet material has much more excess heat. That one was used for long term tests.

Heating wire. Control cell N2, active H2

Embedded type K theromocouples

Ran test for 2 months

42 days of excess power integration

Cal curves for 2 active and control cells at different pressures

Excess power around 1 W for 12W in

173 MJ/kg including all fuel

635 MJ/kg for just active part of fuel (Ni+Pd?)

Greater energy density that the most dense chemical fuel which is around 100 MJ/kg

Possible errors due to embedded thermocouples above 600C but if it happens, it would lower the measurement of excess making results even more conservative.

Quote from Robert Horst

Possible errors due to embedded thermocouples above 600C but if it happens, it would lower the measurement of excess making results even more conservative.

Good summary, but that last sentence is the hilarious part about Garwin. I was planning to write it up. From my notes:

Richard Garwin of the Jasons was brought in to evaluate the experiment. He said there is a problem because it uses K-type thermocouples which are susceptible to errors from exposure to hydrogen. Beiting pointed out three problems with this hypothesis:

1. The thermocouples were shielded.
2. The damage only happens at ~600°C and these cells were run at 300°C.
3. The damage causes the thermocouples to show a lower temperature. It would reduce the estimate of excess heat, not increase it.

Garwin is grasping at straws, trying to find an excuse to dismiss the results. He said the first thing that popped into his head, which could not have happened and would have had the opposite effect if it could. Soon after cold fusion began, Garwin was called in to evaluate SRI. The gist of his report was: "I could not find an error but I am sure something must be wrong."

Quote from seven_of_twenty

The first thing that strikes me is that they calibrate with nitrogen in both cells and then compare a nitrogen filled cell with a hydrogen filled cell during their active run.

Thermal conductivity of hydrogen gas 0.168 W/mK

Thermal conductivity of nitrogen gas 0.024 W/mK

https://www.engineeringtoolbox…l-conductivity-d_429.html

After the talk, he was asked this question (about nitrogen calibration). He quickly described how he made a correction to account for that, but I did not completely follow it. Once someone gets a copy of his report, they could let us know more.

Quote from Robert Horst

After the talk, he was asked this question (about nitrogen calibration). He quickly described how he made a correction to account for that, but I did not completely follow it. Once someone gets a copy of his report, they could let us know more.

Didn't the speaker give the error bars on his measured numbers? You said they measure 1W excess on 12 W in, that suggests to me their error must be <1W, maybe <0.5W, to consider 1W significant. Did they explain how they determined their 1W signal wasn't just noise?

Quote from kirkshanahan

Thermal conductivity of hydrogen gas 0.168 W/mK

Thermal conductivity of nitrogen gas 0.024 W/mK

Beiting knows that, and took it into account. More to the point, Garwin knows that, but he did not try to use that as an excuse to dismiss the results, so even he realizes it is a losing argument. You, on the other hand, will still be saying this years from now, unless cold fusion becomes generally recognized.

Quote from kirkshanahan

Didn't the speaker give the error bars on his measured numbers?

Of course he did.

Quote from Shane D.

Anyone know if Ruby or anyone else who can be trusted to get the word out is going to be there ?

Ruby of Cold Fusion Now! is at ICCF21.

Quote from Shane D.

Plenty of others there in a position to report on every aspect of the conference. I see BG, Ruby is obviously there since she provided the photos, Jed Rothwell, and then of course Abd. My guess is that this will the best covered, and reported on of all ICCF's.

I hope Ruby will have the opportunity to snag some interview opportunities for the Cold Fusion Now! -podcast series. I hear she has USB-sticks in there with all the current episodes and some of the documentaries she has created and some papers in PDF format contained within them, too? Has anyone seen one?

Quote from JedRothwell

Beiting knows that, and took it into account.

Good. I'd like to see how he does it.

Quote from JedRothwell

More to the point, Garwin knows that, but he did not try to use that as an excuse to dismiss the results, so even he realizes it is a losing argument.

Why would I care what Garwin knows/thinks/says?

Quote from JedRothwell

You, on the other hand, will still be saying this years from now, unless cold fusion becomes generally recognized.

Well, it's true, now and in the future (unless the universe changes...) And I'll still say the thermal conductivity of hydrogen is significantly higher than nitrogen, even if someone finally proves LENRs exist.

Quote from JedRothwell

Of course he did.

Of course. I only ask becasue the CF community as a whole has a very bad habit of not accurately estimating error bars. Take McKubre's post in the Mizuno bucket thread where he claims '90sigma'. That is true if and only if the only important noise factor in these experiments comes from instrument baseline noise. Unfortunately that's rarely true. And, in the case of Ed Storms' data that I reanalyzed for my 2002 paper, he claimed an ~80mW baseline noise and thus claimed an ~10X signal (780mW peak) (aka COP=10), when I showed that a 1-3% change in cal. constants flatlined his signal, which means he was at 3sigma, at best. McKubre's 90sigma is another example of this. So of course I wondered how Beiting did it, as there was no info in the abstract, and of course you failed to even mention what he claimed the error bar was, let alone explaining how he got it.

Quote from Shane D.

The ICCF 21 organizers did not accept Kirk's poster:

Yeah, it's a shame. Might have saved them some time and effort.