The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Exactly - but we know more now than then - surely a bulk Pd-D experiment could be documented in detail with expected results.

It was documented, by Storms, Cravens and Fleischmann.

Quote from THHuxleynew

If highly sample-dependent a protocol for identifying a large source of good samples could be established.

See:

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

Quote from THHuxleynew

Such a source would allow replication and testing with the main loss of replicability removed.

Yes, that is correct. However, as I have repeatedly pointed out, several problems preclude this:

• Very few people are capable of doing it.
• It takes a year or two.
• It costs a lot of money to do.
• No one I know wants to do it.

I do not know what experiment the people at Google did. The Nature paper did not describe it in enough detail. They might have tried to this experiment, but I do not know whether they followed the procedures described by Storms and Cravens, or how closely they might have followed them. Storms and Cravens never heard from the people at Google, so they do not know either.

I have a feeling the people at Google did not follow these protocols because when I asked them, they did not answer, but they seemed to have a low opinion of the protocols. I got a feeling they did not think the protocols work. They did not say that directly.

Quote from THHuxleynew

That is all interesting, and deserves airing. Were they incompetent at getting high loading? Or were they just measuring better?

They were using too highly purified Pd. The old stuff that F&P used was not very pure (I could write a book on this topic) and as Ed Storms and others have discovered you have to add impurities to it to make it load to a very high level.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Perhaps Jed, and others, would put forward McKubre's sequence of experiments as that?

Yes, that is what I said. Several times.

Quote from THHuxleynew

It is a shame, for a reference experiment, that they showed relatively low levels of excess heat compared with energy in

No, that is incorrect. They got very high heat several times. You did not define "high." My definition is:

High in absolute terms, up to 2.4 W in the early experiments.

High considering the signal to noise level of the calorimeter.

High compared to input power. 50% in the early experiments. 350% later. Infinite, with heat after death.

High compared to the blank experiments, and experiments that did not produce heat.

Very high compared to the maximum energy chemical species of the same mass can produce.

Nuclear reactions "40 orders of magnitude greater than predicted by conventional nuclear theory."

High enough, and often enough, to be quite certain the heat was real and beyond the limits of chemistry. "Often enough" meaning it worked in about half the experiments.

Granted, not high if you integrate all input power for the entire experiment.

Summary by McKubre:

RESULTS Three conditions were found characteristic of all cells yielding episodes of excess heat: (1) a D/Pd ratio >0.9, (2) initial appearance times of 8 to 23 days, and (3) cathodic current densities above 0.1 A/cm2. Excess powers ranging between a few percent to ~350% were observed, measured to an accuracy of
~0.5%. These excess powers integrated to a total of ~0.1 to 1.1 MJ for a ~2.5 g (1/40 mole) palladium cathode. Thus, the excess heats ranged between 4 to 44 MJ/mole of palladium, which was well above the largest known heats of chemical transformation in this or any other metal. The largest heat of chemical transformation in palladium is to the bromide at 0.9 MJ/mole. If the integrated excess powers are diluted by the electrochemically generated heat during the long initiation periods, net positive heat balances of 2 to 4% are obtained.

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

Quote from Alan Smith

They were using too highly purified Pd.

Is that so? Did they tell you that? I don't recall seeing it in the paper.

Quote from Alan Smith

The old stuff that F&P used was not very pure (I could write a book on this topic) and as Ed Storms and others have discovered you have to add impurities to it to make it load to a very high level.

If the people from Google asked around I expect people told them that. McKubre has been saying that for many years. Ed said that from time to time. He has only recently discovered and reported which impurities, of what size. Size matters.

I guess when the Google project started, people might have said, "impure Pd seems to work better." That is not very helpful. You want to know what impurities, at what concentration. It is only recently that Ed has learned enough to spell that out in detail. See:

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

Quote from JedRothwell

Is that so? Did they tell you that? I don't recall seeing it in the paper.

I had family working at Harlow Metal Company (A JM Subsidiary) where they smelted Pd. I know it could not have been as pure as they claimed because they told me how it was made.

Quote from THHuxleynew

If highly sample-dependent a protocol for identifying a large source of good samples could be established. Such a source would allow replication and testing with the main loss of replicability removed.

You're not the first to have that thought. People have been trying to do exactly that for 30+ years. If it were as straight forward as you suggest, then the problem would have yielded long ago.

Quote from orsova

You're not the first to have that thought. People have been trying to do exactly that for 30+ years. If it were as straight forward as you suggest, then the problem would have yielded long ago.

[identifying good material]

Violante and others in Italy did a great job of this.

https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BiberianJPjcondensedg.pdf#page=66

So did Ed Storms, Imam and others. Imam gave a good presentation on this at the ICCF24.

(Transcript available somewhere . . . I transcribed it! Ask me if you can't find it.)

Storms, Cravens and others showed how to make so-so marginally good material work better, by various methods. This research is difficult and very time consuming.

Quote from JedRothwell

[identifying good material]

Violante and others in Italy did a great job of this.

https://www.lenr-canr.org/acro…JPjcondensedg.pdf#page=66

So did Ed Storms, Imam and others. Imam gave a good presentation on this at the ICCF24.

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(Transcript available somewhere . . . I transcribed it! Ask me if you can't find it.)

Storms, Cravens and others showed how to make so-so marginally good material work better, by various methods. This research is difficult and very time consuming.

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Miles has also achieved great replicability of excess heat with Pd-B alloys, he presented that at ICCF 23, in fact I am a bit surprised he hasn’t published more about this after that.

Quote from Curbina

Miles has also achieved great replicability of excess heat with Pd-B alloys, he presented that at ICCF 23,

Miles was working with Imam. Imam made the Pd-B alloys at the NRL, and talks about them. See, for example:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BiberianJPjcondensedzb.pdf#page=10

Go to the library (https://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/?page_id=1081) and enter "Imam" under "All Authors." Not "First Author." You will see that he worked with Miles, Dominguez, and others.

Quote from THHuxleynew

The first 3 items explain the 4th.

No, they do not. As I have explained, again and again, no one I know wants to do it because --

Most of them are dead.

They did it many times, and they see no point to repeating the experiment. They will not learn anything more. They will not persuade skeptics such as you. You wouldn't believe it no matter how high the power or signal to noise ratio is.

I have described this many times. The authors have written this many times. You never read what we write.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Maybe it would be possible in the light of experience and modern apparatus and technology

If you read the papers you will see that is not true. The difficult parts have to be done manually, and they take time. But of course you will not read the papers.

Quote from THHuxleynew

As to ability to do it - that probably can also be changed with better detailed documentation and practical guides.

The documentation is very detailed. You would know that if you read it, but of course you will not. More to the point, over a hundred experts replicated before detailed instructions were written. They were able to do this because they already knew what should be done. They knew far more than what the instructions described. They knew textbooks full of facts about chemistry and electrochemistry. Bockris wrote the leading textbook. The others sometimes discussed aspects of it that I could not begin to understand.

Quote from JedRothwell

You would know that if you read it, but of course you will not.

there is reading... but skim reading,, in btw getting tedious circuit stuff onto github

the skim reading serves to relieve the boredom

Quote from orsova

. People have been trying to do exactly that for 30+ years.

relative to the $ input into ITER ,, the $ input into LENR has been miniscule for 30 yrs

mainly political reasons

when LENR tech becomes mainstream

many will ask..why couldn't this simple technology have been done 3o yrs ago?

Quote from THHuxleynew

I am interested in whether this could now 2022 be a suitable reference experiemnt that would be replicable (in 2022) and prove LENR.

It is possible that somebody might be doing it. It wouldn't prove anything to the usual suspects though.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I am interested in whether this could now 2022 be a suitable reference experiemnt that would be replicable (in 2022) and prove LENR.

As I said, and said, and said . . . it could be a suitable experiment now if you are an expert, you have a lot of money, and you are willing to spend a year or two doing it. That may sound difficult, but it is a lot easier than building the ITER Tokamak. Cheaper, too. I myself think it would be more fruitful to do other experiments, but that is a judgement call.

Quote from THHuxleynew

The one part of this I think could be clarified is whether TG were disagreeing wi9th those mostly dead people about how accurately to measure loading.

No one doubts the loading measurements. Measuring loading with the 4-wire method, and other methods, takes some expertise. But everyone I know who did it is an expert, including the people at Google. There is no reason to think they measured loading incorrectly. Their results were what you would expect if their loading measurements were correct.

There is a huge literature on how to measure loading. Electrochemists know all about it. You could read that literature, and then you could read the specifics about how McKubre did it. The document I referenced has 55 pages describing his loading studies, including the methods he used and data from 85 tests. You can see for yourself whether he did it correctly. You can read other people's descriptions of various methods of measuring loading. But of course you will never read anything. You will raise empty doubts and "wonder" whether this was done accurately. "Wonder," instead of finding out. "Wonder" meaning you are here to sow false doubts and make people think there might be a problem where no problem exists.

Quote from JedRothwell

They were able to do this because they already knew what should be done. They knew far more than what the instructions described.

For example, Mizuno knew how to do it because it was very similar to his high-loading embrittlement methods. In fact, as I said, one of his embrittlement tests produced a great deal of anomalous heat. Enough to evaporate the electrolyte. Fleischmann told everyone that they needed high loading without fracturing the materials. Mizuno knew how to achieve high loading, so he succeeded. Many other electrochemists knew how to achieve it. Oriani was one. He said it was the most difficult experiment he ever did in his 50-year career. Describing it in a few words, "high loading without cracking" leaves out a lot of detail. Kind of like saying, "transplant a heart" or "climb Mt. Everest." Or "build the ITER Tokamak and make it work according to spec," I guess, except that no one has done that, and it remains to be seen whether it can be done.

It turns out high loading is probably only needed with electrochemical bulk Pd-D. It is a special case. But in 1989 and the early 90s, no one knew that.

It is definitely needed with bulk Pd, at least in the initial phases. Maybe not after the reaction begins. That is what heat after death indicates. The nanoparticle and gas loading experiments indicate that it is not needed with other materials or techniques.

Quote from JedRothwell

It turns out high loading is probably only needed with electrochemical bulk Pd-D. It is a special case. But in 1989 and the early 90s, no one knew that.

In gas loading experiments what has been highlighted recently is the need for flux of the H in the metal, as Celani remarks since ICCF 24. The Chinese team that has been working on this since 2011 had also identified that condition as necessary for excess heat in their gas loading experiments in Pd. Their papers are poorly translated, unfortunately.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I am interested in whether this could now 2022 be a suitable reference experiemnt that would be replicable (in 2022) and prove LENR.

But why?

There are less troublesome experiments. Reasonable minds can differ, but I'd have thought that something like tritium detected in co-deposition experiments would be far more amenable to replication and unambiguous to a skeptic.

Possible excess tritium production on Pd codeposited with deuterium

Tritium production was measured in the liquid and gas phases on Pd codeposited with deuterium from PdCl2 + LiCl + D2O solutions. During two weeks of e…

www.sciencedirect.com

(PDF) A Synopsis of Nuclear Reactions in Condensed Matter

PDF | We have sought to identify, characterize, elucidate and apply condensed matter nuclear reactions using the US patented co-deposition protocol,... | Find,…

www.researchgate.net

Quote from JedRothwell

There is a huge literature on how to measure loading. Electrochemists know all about it. You could read that literature, and then you could read the specifics about how McKubre did it.

The guys at Upsalla Uni have an interesting take on this. They have a balance alleged to be accurate to 7 decimal places. When using it the first thing you check are the tide tables - really.