LENR vs Solar/Wind, and emerging Green Technologies.

Quote from interested observer

NIMBY is not the worst. There is also BANANA: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.

That is another great advantage to cold fusion. It will not need any infrastructure. Nothing built near anyone anywhere. Everything will be self-contained, and will take up far less room overall than our present energy distribution infrastructure including generators, power lines, power polls, underground power lines, coal mines, uranium mines, railroads, natural gas lines, oil wells, gas stations, etc. There is a lot more energy-related infrastructure than you might realize, and more than you can see at a glance from an airplane. With cold fusion there will be none.

Quote from interested observer

The hypothetical advantages of cold fusion as you imagine it are impressive. As far as I can see, those advantages come from rather radical assumptions about things that are highly speculative and not backed up by actual results.

Then you are not seeing very far. All of my statements are based on actual experimental results that have been repeated hundreds of times in different labs. As I said, temperatures and power density equivalent to a fission reactor core has been achieved, in continuous reactions lasting weeks. Three months in one case. That proves it can be done, and it shows approximately how large the equipment has to be.

What is needed is to make this happen every time, with assurance, rather than once every 3 or every 10 tests. Also, the time it takes to do one test has to be reduced from a year or two, down to a few days. This could easily be done, by replacing manual labor with robotic testing. It should cost no more than $200 to $500 million, according to experts I have talked to. Mainly for automatic test equipment in a modern version of Edisonian trial and error. Since we have no theory, this is the only way to proceed. Similar techniques have been used for the design of radar and for other catalytic effects. Of course there is no guarantee the R&D will work, but R&D usually does work, even without a theory.

After that, it should not be difficult to scale up. Then, it should not cost more than $10 billion or so to confirm safety and design practical applications. I do not know much about that, but experts tell me that's a reasonable ballpark estimate.

This is not speculative. You have apparently not read the literature and it seems you know little about this subject, so you wrongly assume I am speculating, when in fact I have a solid basis for these estimates.

Quote from interested observer

In this thread you stated "Tremendous progress in cold fusion has been made." Please justify that statement with examples of that progress.

Read the literature and see for yourself. If you do not think it shows tremendous progress, there is nothing I can say that will convince you. I suggest you start with this:

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

Quote from interested observer

This is about the fifth time you have told me to read McKubre’s 9-year-old review paper. So I can safely assume that there has been no progress since then.

Indeed there has been little progress since then. I meant there was tremendous progress from the time it was discovered up until the time the research was suppressed, in the mid-1990s. It was discovered in 1927, but little happened until 1989. There was tremendous progress from 1989 to the mid-1990s.

As you probably know, progress stopped in the mid-1990s because most researchers retired or died, there was no funding, and anyone who applied for funding was lambasted in the mass media and summarily fired. Perhaps Mr. Gates is improving the situation but I have no information on that. You can see there is significant progress at the Aerospace Corporation.

But why do you even say that? Surely you realize that progress is impossible when there is no funding and when people are fired for doing the research. It is a miracle the subject has not been forgotten altogether. You can read the literature yourself. You see the dates on the paper, and you know when Fleischmann, Bockris and the other died. You can read the mass media attacks. So you can see all of this for yourself, with no help from me. So what is your point? Are you pretending these are not the circumstances, and if so, why? Why do you ask me for proof, or dates, or the history of this field, when it is all right there in front of you, at LENR-CANR.org and the archives of Sci. Am., Nature, Wikipedia and elsewhere.

As I said, if you read McKubre's paper and you don't agree with me that it describes progress, there is nothing more I can say that will convince you. The discussion ends; we have to agree to disagree. If you think people can make progress when they are summarily fired, I am sure nothing I can say will convince you that's wrong. If you don't think that happened, what do you make of the attacks in Nature? What do you think happens to people who are accused of being "criminals, frauds and lunatics" in the Washington Post and the rest of the mass media? Draw your own conclusions. Don't ask me.

Quote from interested observer

I do wonder about all those folks attending ICCF conferences and reporting on their work since 2009. Do they realize that they have accomplished nothing in the past 9 years? If so, perhaps you could kindly point that out to them since you are a friendly voice.

No one needs to be told that. Evidently you have not read those papers, because if you had, you would see that most of them are rehashes of previous work, or theory papers analyzing previous work. Very few new experiments are reported. Because they haven't done any.

Again and again you make ignorant statements. Why don't you just read the papers before commenting on them? Why do you feel this urge to pontificate about a subject when you don't even want to bother to read about it?

Quote from interested observer

Despite your unwillingness to do so, you managed to answer my question with your withering reply. I am not pontificating about the subject, I am trying to persuade you to provide a layman’s synopsis. I have no desire to do extensive literature research on cold fusion because I don’t see any reason to.

Extensive, hell. You don't know the first thing about it! You keep saying things that contradict the ABCs of cold fusion.

If you do not want to read papers then you should not ask me questions, because the only answers are in papers. The only thing I can do is direct you to the sources. You have to figure them out for yourself. The only way to know about a serious academic subject is to read and understand. There are no shortcuts.

If you will not learn, you have no business expressing opinions or criticizing. You have no right to any opinion. Imagine this were some other subject. Imagine we are discussing Meiji era Japanese literature. Suppose you had never even heard of the authors or read any of their books in translation. I comment about Soseki's attitudes toward money and the autobiographical aspects of his late novels. Would you come flying in saying "that's all wrong, he never wrote that" -- if you have never even heard of Soseki? Do you routinely crash serious academic and scientific discussions with opinions when you don't know the first thing about the subject? That would make you look stupid. So why do you mouth off about cold fusion? Why is it different from any other academic or scientific subject? Never mind me; who do you think you are contradicting the likes of Fleischmann and Bockris? You just told us you have not bothered to read anything. So you have no basis to reject cold fusion, or to accept it.

Quote from interested observer

You won’t accept the idea that I have no real position on the matter.

Don't be absurd! Do not be blind to your own comments! You have expressed very clear positions. All of them technically wrong, all based on ignorance.

Quote from interested observer

However, if anyone asks for reasons why they should care, you tell them to f-off and read a bunch of papers.

I don't care whether you care or not. That's not my business. You ask technical questions. I am the librarian. I direct you to the answers, which are in books and papers. ONLY in books and papers. The ONLY way you can understand them is to read them. This is not an easy subject. There are no pat answers. There is contradictory evidence. Some of it may be wrong, or it may be misunderstood. Some things are clear, but even those you do not understand because you have not made an effort to learn. If you are not willing to do any homework or make any effort, then yes I would definitely say you should shut up and go away.

I do not know what you do for a living, or what you majored in college in, or what subject you happen to know in detail for some other reason. But I am confident that you would tell me to f-off if I started blathering about that subject and then I said: "I have not read anything, and I have no real position, but you're wrong."

Quote from Max Nozin

i believe that without sufficient amount of storage all renewables will be facing headwinds

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci…generate-electricity.html

Similar stories in Canada where on some days us utilities are being paid to use electricity.

Right now it is driven to some degree but politics. Green etc. But if looked at from practical point all the renewables are not as sweet of a deal without storage.

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I dont think this is true. You dont need storage, you just need controllable energy - conventionel power stations with fast response times: A great bunch of gas power stations running at 10% of their max power output for most of their time. If the renewables deliver too much power they go down to 0% and if this is not enough all additional energy is dumped to heat water or power to gas etc. During the 15 days of the year the renewables deliver more or less nothing you ramp the gas power up to 100%.

This is totally doable and we do not need some miraculous storage solution. Of course it is quite expensive to have so many power stations doing more or less nothing 93% of the year, but there is no technical reason against renewable energy delivering >90% of the overall needed energy.

Quote from Epimetheus

I dont think this is true. You dont need storage, you just need controllable energy - conventionel power stations with fast response times:

Actually the world changes faster at some places in the world, that have open access to technology. In Japan the energy net is stabilized by 150'000 fuel cells of the same type used in Toyotas cars. You can couple them with a (excess-) wind to hydrogen electrolysis system then you get a reasonable storage efficiency.

Flow batteries just hit the 100MW barrier. But.. to store the excess energy of one little thunderstorm in the north sea of Europe you need to digest 20GW excess, what is the full production of 20 nuclear power plants.

Other key figure: 20% of the current is wasted in transmission. Thereof 10% in the local grid. Thus the best solution would be local solar with a moderate storage of about 20kwh. Todays solar cells last a long time, e.g. SUN-power guarantee 92% after 10 years and over 80% after 20 years. Some places need cleaning of the cells other protection. The weakest point of the system is the inverter module. But LED's are best driven by DC current also car batteries need no solar conversion to AC, the same holds for any heating machine e.g. in a dish washer. Tomorrows home nets will have both: AC & DC lines.

The other advantage of a home battery; You buy the current when it is cheapest and the net is not overloaded. But all this is against the emperor rule, that likes to have a central control...

Quote from Alan Smith

And who would invest in new gas-turbine gensets that stand idle most of the time? It would be like financing a fish restaurant in the middle of the Gobi desert.

Someone who wants a rate of renewables of >90%, to reduce CO2 emission by 80% and try to do everything possible to stop the melting of the poles.

To answer your question: nobody

My objection to Max Nozins comment was just of technical nature. If our societies would decide to achieve this high renewable energy rate it would be technically possible. That nobody wants to spend the roughly estimated 200 billion € alone in germany for gas power stations that are idleing most of the time stands on another page. We could do it, but we dont want to. That is different from saying "we cannot do it with todays technology".

Quote from Max Nozin

for the record I don't believe in co2 emissions as a reason for climate change. I like solar activity hypothesis.

The most climat effective gas is methane CH4 100 times stronger than CO2 . Unluckily for our planet western people eat to much meat and Chinese to much rise. Cattle and agriculture are the most effective proliferates of CH4.

If the deep sea & Sibirian permafrost stored NH₄ gets freed (what already happens..) then the temperature will rain by 10 degrees in average.

The current CO2 warming effect is absolutely in line with historic data. There is no way to deny this fact. But keep in mind that nobody is telling the full story. In reality the changes our children will see, are at least ten times worse, than the political minimal agreement of the last years wants to tell us...

Don't buy a condo in any coast city!

Quote from JedRothwell

Extensive, hell. You don't know the first thing about it! You keep saying things that contradict the ABCs of cold fusion.

If you do not want to read papers then you should not ask me questions, because the only answers are in papers. The only thing I can do is direct you to the sources. You have to figure them out for yourself. The only way to know about a serious academic subject is to read and understand. There are no shortcuts.

If you will not learn, you have no business expressing opinions or criticizing. You have no right to any opinion. Imagine this were some other subject. Imagine we are discussing Meiji era Japanese literature. Suppose you had never even heard of the authors or read any of their books in translation. I comment about Soseki's attitudes toward money and the autobiographical aspects of his late novels. Would you come flying in saying "that's all wrong, he never wrote that" -- if you have never even heard of Soseki? Do you routinely crash serious academic and scientific discussions with opinions when you don't know the first thing about the subject? That would make you look stupid. So why do you mouth off about cold fusion? Why is it different from any other academic or scientific subject? Never mind me; who do you think you are contradicting the likes of Fleischmann and Bockris? You just told us you have not bothered to read anything. So you have no basis to reject cold fusion, or to accept it.

Don't be absurd! Do not be blind to your own comments! You have expressed very clear positions. All of them technically wrong, all based on ignorance.

I don't care whether you care or not. That's not my business. You ask technical questions. I am the librarian. I direct you to the answers, which are in books and papers. ONLY in books and papers. The ONLY way you can understand them is to read them. This is not an easy subject. There are no pat answers. There is contradictory evidence. Some of it may be wrong, or it may be misunderstood. Some things are clear, but even those you do not understand because you have not made an effort to learn. If you are not willing to do any homework or make any effort, then yes I would definitely say you should shut up and go away.

I do not know what you do for a living, or what you majored in college in, or what subject you happen to know in detail for some other reason. But I am confident that you would tell me to f-off if I started blathering about that subject and then I said: "I have not read anything, and I have no real position, but you're wrong."

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I have been reading a lot on this forum. This is my first written reaction.

I think that Interested Obeserver is raising valid questions and statements.

He is concerned about the usage of coal for energy production. He is defending the better alternatives like wind and solar energy.

He would be more interested in the possibilities of LENR if he would be given a bit of more supportive and easier to access Information about the progress that has been made. He seems to be open and not biased

Reading 100 pages of docs might not be the answer. Could something be done to lower the entry level and as a result raise more public support?

This is no critics to JR. Maybe somebody could publish a LENR for beginners? That is kept up to date with recent evolutions?

It could serve a broader audience....

Quote from Epimetheus

You dont need storage, you just need controllable energy - conventionel power stations with fast response times: A great bunch of gas power stations running at 10% of their max power output for most of their time.

That would be incredibly expensive. Storage should be cheaper. It has to be, for this to work.

If storage isn't cheaper than having unused gas turbines, there is no way to have more than 20% to 30% of electricity come from wind or solar. (Some experts have estimated this is the limit with today's technology.)

The cost of storage depends on the method and the location. Some places are well suited for some methods of storage. For example, pumped storage works well in the Alps.

Quote from Pjfan

He would be more interested in the possibilities of LENR if he would be given a bit of more supportive and easier to access Information about the progress that has been made. He seems to be open and not biased

You are mistaken. He is not open. He is biased and willfully ignorant.

Quote from Pjfan

Reading 100 pages of docs might not be the answer. Could something be done to lower the entry level and as a result raise more public support?

No one suggested he read 100 pages. I suggested he read 14 pages:

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

Or, he can watch a 6-minute video based on this paper. Apparently, even that is too much to ask, because he keeps demanding I tell him things that are in in the video.

http://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/?page_id=1618