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Quote from Daniel_G

That is exactly what we plan to talk about. The calorimeter becomes part of the system and they influence each other. The calorimetry can be perfect but if it removes too much heat in the measurement process, then excess heat will be difficult to detect.

Yes. This is why I have been developing a simplified model of a heat-activated exothermic process in a thermal mass. The model is robust. It depends on the topological relationship between the temperature-dependence of the LENR activation and reactor cooling curves rather than on precise parameter values. The model predicts that sort of heating that Daniel_G claims to have should result in inflection points in heating and cooling curves, hysteresis with respect to the input power, and temperature escape to meltdown. It wil be interesting to see if any of these things show up in Daniel_G's data.

Quote from JedRothwell

That is not necessary. It is a distraction. Just have qualified people such as Beiting use good calorimeters to independently confirm the excess heat. A good scientist will be persuaded by that, and might even be put off by a turbine or other "showboating" demonstration. You want to convince good scientists. Ignore bad scientists and people who do not understand calorimetry.

I agree. The LENR community is full of people willing to accept "it's confidential" or "Its proprietary" as a substitute for good evidence. Community standards need to be higher than this.

Quote from JedRothwell

That is not necessary. It is a distraction. Just have qualified people such as Beiting use good calorimeters to independently confirm the excess heat. A good scientist will be persuaded by that, and might even be put off by a turbine or other "showboating" demonstration. You want to convince good scientists. Ignore bad scientists and people who do not understand calorimetry.

I suspect your meaning is that focusing on a "useful device" impairs a stronger incontrovertible proof of effect. Possibly. What I feel the need to respectfully disagree with, is "That is not necessary". Which implies to my reading mind "We need not make anything useful."

I also expect we are actually on the same page, Jed. The world needs both. So for me. A useful device must manifest.

I hope we can agree to disagree if I have overstepped here in my interpretation of your meaning.

I try to respect other's advice and viewpoints. Showboating is definitely not a thing for Mizuno nor myself. We may disagree on how to move this technology forward but I fail to see how a practical working device will cause any problems. Brillouin is already moving in this direction and I don't see it causing any problems for them. Hats off to the BEC group who have worked tirelessly for decades to move this technology to the practical stage in a very hostile environment.

I think they represent the model case for how to move this technology forward.

In any case this decision is up to our team and supporters and just as Elon Musk didn't mind blowing up a few rockets on the path to improving rocket technology, I think we also need to take some risks because good engineers always always learn even from (or especially from?) failures.

Quote from Daniel_G

We may disagree on how to move this technology forward but I fail to see how a practical working device will cause any problems.

A practical working device causes problems for several reasons:

It is a distraction. It sucks away time and money that should be devoted to better experiments, and more clear, compelling results.

You, or Brillouin, do not have the expertise to make an actual practical device. At best you can make a proof-of-principle demonstration.

It is unlikely you will make a working device that is as persuasive as a good experiment. It may seem odd to say that, but I have seen many semi-practical devices, including the Brillouin one, that are not persuasive. You cannot tell by looking at the Brillouin device whether it is actually producing energy, or whether it is an experimental error. Whereas a close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons cell showed that the cathode was producing heat, the anode was not, and the bubbles were all from boiling, which was definitive proof of anomalous excess heat.

The explanations provided by Brillouin in the video and press release were insufficient. They will not impress scientists. Scientists should be your target audience, not the general public. There were several technical inaccuracies in the Brillouin video and press release, such as the use of the word "efficiency." Efficiency cannot produce more energy out than you put in. It cannot reach 100%. These inaccuracies will be red flags to any scientist or technically oriented person (such as me). Instead of making a proof-of-principle device, they should have concentrated on a convincing demonstration with a technically accurate presentation. That is what I think, and some leading cold fusion researchers agree with me.

Quote from Daniel_G

Brillouin is already moving in this direction and I don't see it causing any problems for them.

I see many problems. Even more than I described above.

Quote from Daniel_G

Hats off to the BEC group who have worked tirelessly for decades to move this technology to the practical stage in a very hostile environment.

BEC stands for Brillouin? They are still light years away from a practical device. It will take billions of dollars to achieve that, and it can only be done to 21st century standards by experienced industrial corporations such as GE or Hitachi. Going 10 feet closer to a goal that is a thousand miles away is not progress. It is a waste of time. Instead of trying to do this themselves, they should be demonstrating the effect to companies such as GE and Hitachi, and leaving any practical stage development up to them.

It is as if the Wright brothers in 1906 stopped their work and tried to develop retractable landing gear. Retractable landing gear was essential to the progress of aviation, but it was far beyond the technical capabilities, engineering knowledge or funding available to the Wrights in 1906. It was not developed until the 1930s.

The Wrights -- and BEC -- should do what they are good at, and leave other jobs to other organizations. It is never a good idea to try to be an expert in all things. You end up being a jack of all trades and master of none.

Quote from JedRothwell

A practical working device causes problems for several reasons:

It is a distraction. It sucks away time and money that should be devoted to better experiments, and more clear, compelling results.

You, or Brillouin, do not have the expertise to make an actual practical device. At best you can make a proof-of-principle demonstration.

It is unlikely you will make a working device that is as persuasive as a good experiment.

Arguably, there have been many great and compelling experiments produced by the field the past 33 years, but it is no further down the path to acceptance. Maybe it is time to give skeptics what they have demanded all along...a device clearly demonstrating excess heat with some practical consumer use? It was Garwin who said something like "boil me some tea".

Quote from JedRothwell

"X watts of electricity are input (shown here in this meter), and Y watts of heat are being produced (shown by thus-and-such method)"

In that demonstration, one method of measuring output might be to measure the mechanical power of the Stirling engine.

Maybe. Maybe that is not possible. It depends on how much power the engine is producing. Again, I cannot judge because I have no idea how much power is going in, how much is coming out as heat, and how much as mechanical power from the Stirling engine.

It would be best to measure both output heat and mechanical power.

Quote from JedRothwell

There were several technical inaccuracies in the Brillouin video and press release, such as the use of the word "efficiency." Efficiency cannot produce more energy out than you put in. It cannot reach 100%.

I assume the people at Brillouin know perfectly well that improved efficiency cannot produce 100% or more. They are accomplished scientists and engineers, after all. I do not understand why they said this. Let me speculate and suggest they said it so that ordinary folks would have an idea of what they have accomplished. People know that machines can have lower or higher efficiency, and that high efficiency is good. Perhaps the people at Brillouin would say I am quibbling. They might say, "you know what we mean, and there is no point to being more technically accurate because it will only confuse the reporters." If that's their game, they made a big mistake. Scientist and engineers who understands they are measuring more power out than in will say they are idiots. They will say: "That's not efficiency!!" You don't want to alienate scientists and engineers, or give them the impression you don't know what "efficiency" means.

Maybe they were trying to hide the fact that the device produces energy. Because that sounds controversial, like a perpetual motion machine claim. I do not think they mention "cold fusion" anywhere, perhaps because that is controversial. If they are trying to avoid controversy, that's a fool's errand. They will not get away with it. People will see it is producing energy and it is cold fusion. Who are they trying to kid?

There were several statements in the press release that will rub engineer or scientists the wrong way. Such as:

"At its current stage, the HHT is immediately applicable to dramatically lowering the cost of, and reducing the
carbon footprint of, hot water boilers and hydronic (radiant) heaters on both a residential and commercial
scale."

Oh come now! At its present stage it is good for nothing. The ability to power a small Stirling engine is ~3 orders of magnitude too small to be of any practical use in a house. Do they have much larger ones? If so, they should say how large. Be specific: tell us how many kilowatts.

This is also silly because if the gadget works at all, why would it "reduce" the carbon footprint? Why isn't it self sustaining? That would make it eliminate the footprint, not reduce it. Are they saying it only works with some level of input power? If so, tell us what that level is. How much input power for how much output. Be specific, and quantitative. These claims are too vague, and they are not expressed in proper engineering terms.

https://theworld.com/~mica/cftpre2aug2020.html

A practical device is one that is not a Rube Goldberg contraption, or not the size of a skycraper, or needs a tether to space to operate correctly, etc.

It doesn’t mean it is ready for commercial applications, although it may.

What they are asking for is something that works, can be demonstrated without huge difficulty, and is not a dream or figment of an inventor’s imagination.

Many people claim these things, and yet they often fail to actually have such a thing.

This reminds me of the story of Harold Edgerton, inventor of the flash bulb. He showed it to Kodak and Kodak said there was no market for it. Then he took his invention to a boxing match and caught the exact moment the knockout punch landed on the chin and splattered this photo on all the leading newspapers.

Then Kodak made an offer.

I would hardly call Mr. Edgerton's antics as "showboating". It was a creative way to find an angle to get his new technology accepted.

As Paradigmnoia says, building something that can continuously produce 1kW of electrical power that sits on a desktop is not a moonshot. I disagree that its a waste of money or resources. I may be wrong but before the end of this year we expect this device to be operating and then, if I am wrong, I will bow my head and say I should have listened to Jed.

I also used to work for Hitachi. I spoke with the R&D Director who knows me. I don't think you understand how a large company like this works. Just being large is one issue. They are not nimble enough, nor is GE. Being a large and JAPANESE company means that the upper management will take zero risk to their face. Older Japanese managers abhor risk. With your experience in Japan I would expect you to know this.

I tend to think outside the box. Let's see what happens. Business development is not the bottleneck. Mizuno is saying that the physics is done. Only the engineering is left to do. We will test this hypothesis. If we are wrong in any case we are sure to learn something in the process. Hitachi/GE will take this from dozens or hundreds of units a week to thousands or more. But they will never get us from the lab to the production floor.

Daniel_G

Where did the Edgerton story come from? It sounds wrong to me. Edgerton perfected the strobe light. If you have ever seen the photo below of a drop of milk hitting a hard surface and the edges splashing back up to form a crown ... that is Edgerton. It was famous at one point. He also participated in the development of sidescan radar.

Quote from Shane D.

Arguably, there have been many great and compelling experiments produced by the field the past 33 years, but it is no further down the path to acceptance.

May be we soon will publish a simple experiment for producing gammas a very low T. But you still will need a tiny reactor and a good highly sensitiv gamma spec and some heavy water...

Quote from Ascoli65

Could you please explain why this behavior should be considered a "definitive proof of anomalous excess heat"?

Where "this behavior" is briefly summarized:

. . . A close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons cell showed that the cathode was producing heat, the anode was not, and the bubbles were all from boiling, which was definitive proof of anomalous excess heat.

Several reasons:

It was a clear, high resolution, color video with sound, unlike the time lapse ones. So you could see what was happening. People were shown. A hand was seen close to the cell, so you could see the scale of the device. (The scale was given, but you could verify it.)

This was not a half silvered cell, so you could clearly see the cathode and anode. Like most F&P cells, the cathode was a rod and the anode a spiral around it, so you could clearly see both of them. Where the anode is something like a mesh, you cannot see the cathode, because the anode should extend beyond the ends of a rod cathode, or the cathode will not load.

Electrolysis produces bubbles on both the anode and cathode. This phase was shown in the video. The bubbles from electrolysis are numerous and fine, similar to CO2 bubbles in a soft drink. They are all about the same size. When the cathode heated up, it began boiling the electrolyte. Bubbles from boiling look very different from electrolysis bubbles. They are much larger, and they vary in size. Electrolysis power was turned off before the water level fell below the anode and cathode, unlike in the time lapse videos. At that point, boiling continued at the cathode. All bubbles from the anode ceased. So, you could see that electrolysis had stopped, and you could also see that all of heat was being produced at the cathode.

The heat production was far higher than could be produced by deuterium outgassing and recombination at the cathode surface. So, this was anomalous heat. A cathode of this size and dimensions cannot produce enough recombination heat to boil water. Fleischmann described this here:

https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf

The reaction continued far longer than any chemical reaction could have, according to the people who made the video. The video itself did not continue very long, as I recall, so we have to take their word for it.

Quote from JedRothwell

The Brillouin demonstration failed to do that. I am not saying the Brillouin demonstration did not work. I am saying that I and others do not think it clearly demonstrates anything.

To be sure, the demonstration itself might have been very good. I should say the video presentation of it was inadequate. If the video had shown the instruments, instrument readings, the configuration, and sample data, it might have been totally convincing. I have no way of knowing any of these things, so I cannot judge whether it was a good demonstration or a meaningless one.

I cannot understand why anyone would make a video of a demonstration and not show these things, and not give all relevant quantitative data, such as input and output power, temperatures and so on. It baffles me.

Quote from JedRothwell

The heat production was far higher than could be produced by deuterium outgassing and recombination at the cathode surface.

I would not even mention recombination as there also was a splitting input energy. So nothing ever can be produced by this....

Just look at Fleischmanns full equation which takes care of all chemical equilibrium...

Quote from Wyttenbach

I would not even mention recombination as there also was a splitting input energy. So nothing ever can be produced by this....

After electrolysis stops, the deuterium in the cathode will gradually emerge and this does produce heat from D2 formation. During loading there is a heat deficit. (It is endothermic.) In other words, the splitting input energy comes first, and it is stored up. It is released later. Overall there is no excess heat. You are quite right that if you look at the data for the entire experiment, you see no excess unless there is cold fusion. However, if you only look at a video of a large cathode after electrolysis, you might see boiling. Not with this cathode though. It was too small, according to F&P.

The emerging deuterium rises to the surface of the electrolyte and leaves this cell. With a closed cell it recombines with oxygen in the headspace. The recombiner gets hot. This heat cannot cause boiling because it is above the water.

Quote from JedRothwell

If you can do this, it is a good idea. From what I have seen of cold fusion experiments, including Mizuno's, I do not think anyone knows how to do what you describe. It is possible to make a reactor that produces ~1 kW. That has been done by Mizuno and others. But you cannot make it reliable. You cannot replicate on demand. If you happen to make one by chance, I agree it would be an excellent idea to show it to people from large corporations such as GE and Hitachi.

You should take care to demonstrate it in such a way that the calorimetry is readily understandable. The Brillouin demonstration failed to do that. I am not saying the Brillouin demonstration did not work. I am saying that I and others do not think it clearly demonstrates anything. It might not be producing excess heat. We can't tell.

For the record, I don’t think that a tabletop kW device is necessary, although it would be great, if not ideal.

A tabletop device that makes an obvious excess power, heat, whatever, would be relative to whatever device would be presented. A 5W, 10x chip would be as good as a 15 cm hot tube making a kW with much less input, I think.

Running the measurement until fractures, - fractals may be more interesting. just like the earths crust.

Quote from JedRothwell

The Role of Appropriate Calorimetric Methods for Scaling-up LENR Devices and the Irrelevance of Coefficient of Performance (COP) - Daniel Gruenberg | Mizuno Technology, Inc., Thailand

Do you have a link to it? The "online" event was to boring to wait for 1-2 interesting sessions.