The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

Quote from RobertBryant

I am basically an engineer

too many words confuse me

and thanks for leaving out "credibility"

you said the error in the volume reading might be 1 ml or 5%

so the D2O could be 18.9 mls rather than18 mls

in that case the heat production by the D2O should be decreased by 5%?

Maybe that might explain away some of the excess heat in the steady phase

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No someone else said 1ml - I was following that.

But you mistake me:

• I make no assumption about what the error of that syringe is
• My remark was illustrative - and iillustrative of the fact that absolute errors (even large ones) would not be a problem.

With the Staker experiment we have limited information about its parameters:

0.775MJ total excess energy over 46 days

3.5% excess power (average).

The problem is this. That 3.5% is not 3.5% of the input power. It is 3.5% of the extra input power above that given to the electroneutral voltage (is that the right term?) anyway the voltage ~1.48V/~1.52V (H2O/D2O) needed dissociate the water.

So the "power in" is the power that heats up the electrolyte. The rest of the input power goes into splitting the water.

The problem is that we have no complete information about the electrolysis current (i_T in [1]). There is one note in [1] which discusses increasing the electrolysis current i_T from 444mA to 535mA. Also fig 7 in [1] implies 444mA was used for some of that 46 days. I think from this we can assume that i_T ~ 440mA for that 46 day experiment. I will do so in the more detailed than before, with this assumption, calculations below.

(1) 444mA * 1.48V = 650mW. This is quite a bit smaller than the (electrolyte heating) input power of ~3W (Fig 6 of [1]). So, most of the input power goes into heating. (Staker says he tries to minimise this by using 0,5M LiOD/LiOH and reducing electrode separation to decrease electrolyte resistance, but his experiment, as most of this type, is of course higher resistance than a topology using flat plates would be).

The Faraday constant = 9.65E4 C/Mol

46 days * 444mA = 46*24*3600*0.444 C = 1.76MC

=> 18 Mol electrons => 9 Mol H2O or D2O dissociated = 162g

That is larger than the 100ml size of the syringes; either they are refilled (quite possible) or the actual current is smaller than 444mA (we cannot really know since it could have been varied throughout the experiment to test thermal runaway etc). Anyway - 162g is the best we have to go by.

Now, looking at Staker's care to increase the calibration constant, keep conditions in cells identical, etc, he gets (as he calculates) very accurate calorimetry. The thing that Jed talks about.

But, accurate calorimetry is only one component of an accurate result. In this case I will assume calorimetry error of 0 - it is certainly small enough - if you believe Staker's calculations - that it is not significant compared to the excess heat results. (For those who hat doing this it is easy to add in calorimetry error to the error bounds).

The two other factors that might lead to error are:

• recombination
• evaporation

You might think that these factors can be bounded low by the fact that the fill-up volume from the syringes is exactly (well - quite exactly) metered. Unfortunately these two effects (if they exist) go in opposite directions. Recombination would increase the total liquid volume in the cell. Evaporation would decrease it. So all we know is the difference between the two volumes.

These two effects also alter the heat balance in the cell. Recombination makes the cell hotter (equivalent to excess heat). Evaporation makes the cell colder (the heat of vaporisation is lost to the calorimeter).

The magnitude of these two effects (per volume of liquid electrolyte added/taken away) are easy to calculate:

• Recombination: heat of combustion of H2O: 286kJ/mol = 16 kJ/cc H2O
• Vaporisation: heat of vaporisation of H2O (D2O slightly different): 2.26 kJ/cc
• (the difference - see later) 13.74kJ/cc

So recombination (adding heat) dominates over vaporisation (reducing heat) when the two cancel out volume difference.

We have no idea what recombination is. Jed (latest contribution here) says that scientists always check it - usually two ways. We know from the published paper that Staker has checked this one way: noting that the fill-up volume (to the precision of his syringes) is 0.

That is almost a good check - if the evaporation from the cell over 46 days can be assumed small it is a good check.

Can we bound that? Yes! The evaporation is given by the partial pressure of H2O at the calorimetry temperature and the volume of dissociated gas. (It could be less than this if the conditions at the cell surface are non-equilibrium).

The dissociated gas is from 162g water => 9 Mol => 9 Mol H2 + 9 Mol O2 => 254*18dm^3 = 432dm^3 = 432,000cc

The typical cell temperature is 67C (Figure 7 of [1]).

The partial vapour pressure of water at 67C is approx 28kPa ~ 0.28 atmosphere.

So the mass of water vapour (maximum) is 162*0.28 = 45g

Of course the actual water content of the exhaust gasses may be much lower than this - it depends on the conditions in the cell and its topology. 46 days is quite a long time so generation of H2 and O2 may be slow enough to allow H2O to equilibrate? Or maybe much lower. I do not know.

Worst case scenario here is therefore 45g recombination and similar evaporation, balancing the liquid level.

The excess heat is then 45g of water (recombination - vaporisation heat) => 13.74kJ/cc * 45cc = 618kJ

These figures are approximate because we do not know exactly the cell temperature nor the cell current over the entire experiment.

This is uncomfortably near to the excess heat. The figures are not accurate, so this tells us that in theory all that excess heat could come from recombination, and not be detected from fill-up volume because of evaporation.

In practice:

• It seems unlikely: if D2O, H2O, and control runs all show fill-up as expected makes this worst case scenario very unlikley.
• The magnitude of these effects means that just assuming recombination and vaporisation are insignificant here is not wise. Documenting the control runs (how long were they?) etc, and the fill-up required is necessary for the effect of recombination in this experiment to be dismissed.
• Assuming recombination is zero I am a bit surprised that evaporation is so low. I am only going by anecdote (cat water bowls etc) where over even one day at a much lower temperature than 67C (20C) the water level can reduce by 1cm or so. You would think that with a water/gas surface of 1cm^2 or so you might easily get up to 1g/day evaporation => the experiment is limited by equilibrium and that 45g evaporation is expected?

It does not add up which means maybe I have made a mistake, or maybe the experiment is not as it appears to be from the write-up. I have tried to decode this but you can see there is some uncertainty.

Now - back to this thread. What does this tell us about LENR experiments? This should be a good quality modern experiment providing (if replicated) irrefutable proof of LENR.

But to be irrefutable it needs more care. none of this care requires better equipment. Nor does it require (much) more time. Merely a different attitude towards experimental work being willing to dot all is and cross all ts.

LENR proponents obviously think this level of rigor unnecessary. However if you wish LENR to be taken seriously by mainstream science then surely a bit of extra effort to do this is worthwhile?

Addendum:

I have not considered syringe error. Why? From my previous post (which some above seem to have misunderstood) it seems negligible. Given that the total volume is small I don't need to consider it. If I did, I could look up the relative error. Probably it will be of order 1%? in which case total error of 1.5cc is about right.

I have not seriously looked at the calorimetry error. I'd want to check what Staker says about this, and how the meniscus level alters the calibration constant. Would bubbles alter it, and if so how? Could different bubbles in the 3 cases (control/D2O/H2O) introduce an error? I do not expect this. But, if this experiment is to be convincing enough to make mainstream scientists see it as certain enough evidence to replicate - then that should be checked.

Perhaps the big take-home from this is that all the LENR community really needs (if LENR exists) is a bit of patience with one accurate and well-instrumented modern experiment like this one. Fund it enough to repeat it in the same lab - with very careful documentation of all results and closing any loopholes as above. that would not be proof without replication - but it would be a very strong incentive for non-LENR replication.

The negative - if it turns out on careful checking of this experiment that the result is not clearcut - as it appears - that is negative evidence.

That is the way science works. To get good positive evidence you need to make experiments certain enough. If you do that, and they fail, you have negative evidence.

No risk, no gain!

THH

For those who read the above post and apply social media (is he for or against?) style analysis please note:

• I am neither for nor against LENR
• I am fascinated by those electrolysis experiments.
• Better data there than anywhere else.
• Seminal results (boil-off etc) lack rigor
• Some good quality apparently positive results, none replicable on demand, all with caveats.
• Good quality negative results (including team google???) explained by electrode preparation not being understood
• Yet - now - Storms, Staker, etc claim electrode is understood well enough to have a replicable (if you try a few times) system.
• Recombination dismissed when - if recombination is elusive - it could happen sometimes and be mistaken for LENR. Yes, as Jed says, recombination can be measured. We need a replicable positive result that measures recombination (or uses closed cells - but those have other issues). I actually prefer Staker's version of open cell because of the comprehensive instrumentation that is possible.
• Why can we not have a clear enough electrolysis result, repeated enough to make certain in one lab, to make its replication - to understand better the anomaly - a sure fire thing*?

I get frustrated by the apparent (from the outside) complacency and hubris of those in the LENR field. What would it cost them to dot is and cross ts - to find out from mainstream scientists what they think the errors could be and close them, carefully, with a very well documented experiment? Instead we get a good experiment like Staker's - done once with positive but not waterproof results - and no money for doing it again with precise protocols and documentation.

It is what I wanted team google to do, what they could have done. Did they do it and get a negative result? I do not think I will understand why that did not work without talking, myself, to the people doing it - there seems a wall of silence here about it - or else unbelievable accusations of bias or incompetence.

My frustration here is that I don't like unsolved mysteries. I am probably unique (certainly unusual) in those looking seriously at LENR that I am equally happy for this mystery to be resolved either way (positive or negative!). Positive would of course be more interesting, but unlike many here, if LENR does exist, I don't see it as a likely way to dela with the climate emergency. we already have the tools to do that - and merely need political will to use them.

Is LENR pseudo-science, or real science? If the latter it needs to forget the 30 years of persecution (whether real or perceived) and engage with the scientiifc community without sacred cows.

If, on the other hand, LENR is some way to get funding for flaky companies that will never have commercial products nor ground-breaking science - well it should have no problem doing that!

Am I unfair? All that is needed is for anything to work - and I can eat my hat. But, if LENR is real but getting things to work as hard as history would indicate, the way forward is to double-down on successful experiments. Replicate them with additional instrumentation and care. From that slow process comes progress.

I can't see that with the modern rash of Ni-H experiments which seem to have only one common thread - much more flaky and unclear calorimetry than the old electrolysis experiments.

THH

* To reiterate. I understand that you might need 8 electrodes to find one that works. That is not a problem for successful replication as long as it is encoded in a clear documented methodology that finds the working electrodes and tests them.

** These experiments do cost money. But not enormous amounts of it. What LENR needs is funding follow-through where a positive experiment (e.g. Staker) is repeated and tightened up, precise methodology, meticulous data collection, all loopholes closed. In the case of his experiment that is possible. That this never happens will (fairly or not) make those on the outside think that it never happens because these experiments in fact cannot be replicated. That all the apparent positives are not real. I am myself not sure whether they are real! I bet many would-be main-steam replicators who are not convinced but could be convinced are the same. More apparent positives with no followup - no ability to answer serious criticism, no matter how annoying and "that is surely not likely" it is, will make no difference. That has been done.

Quote from JedRothwell

You accuse the researcher of some crime, which means tenure does not apply.

Ok. That is vanishingly unlikely in the UK - and only possible when there is very clear evidence. That it should be done framing somone? The framers would get into so much more trouble than the framed.

Quote from Alan Smith

Team Google said they wanted to avoid 'cross contamination' so did not discuss experimental methods with established experimenters in the field. Last I heard ( JedRothwell may know more) they only spoke with Ed Storms about the design and construction of a Seebeck calorimeter. A design they actually used.

It is proper that they should do that when it comes to calorimetry etc. I'd expect it.

The issue is did that extend to the methods needed to obtain and prepare "suitable" electrodes?

If LENR is real, then the excuse that flakey results come from different electrode preparation seems pretty likely (and in that case is not an excuse).

There is a case for their looking at that as well with fresh eyes, of course, but it would be sensible for them also to try replicating what those in the filed claim should work.

THH

Quote from Curbina

I’m inclined to think this post of yours is of good quality, and therefore I thank you for making a reasonable effort to explain your concerns. I think the reason the exhaust gases go to an oil deposit is to be able to see if water (light or heavy, be it from recombination or evaporation) accumulates below the oil, but this is not stated explicitly so is just an inference from the fact that it was reported explicitly that the exhaust goes to an oil reservoir, and I assume is for that practical reason (which I think would be a clever way to do so).

I did not see that.

It is gracious of this site to judge my posts and sometimes find them of good quality. I feel quite honoured that you judge at all - since certainly were you to try judging every post here for quality in the same way (a) you would have a headache and (b) you would get depressed at the amount of stuff that is political (for or against LENR) with no significant other content.

Agreed. If this is outside the calorimetry surface and cooler than the cell (which is 67 degrees), then water vapour would condense. That, properly documented, would make it clear what the evaporation is and hence also, combined with fill-up data, what the recombination is.

That then closes the two issues not properly documented in the report, if the liquid water volume can be estimated. And does so without assuming that both evaporation and recombination is negligible. No extra equipment - just more precise documentation and write-up.

If we can trust the calorimetry it is a good experiment. I think we can: Staker went to quite a lot of care (calibration before/after, control + H2O + D2O, power in control, meniscus level constancy, no temperature shocks (needed for his quite long time constants).

Note the results here: H2O/Pd, H2O/Pt, D2O/Pt => zero excess heat. D2O/Pd => positive excess heat.

That is typical of the classic electrolysis experiments - but it does not agree with what Ed Storms says on another thread. Is electrolysis, specifically, such that D is needed not H whereas all the other experiments work with both?

It makes me happy to focus on electrolysis and understand exactly what the effect is. A differential D/H effect is a lot more interesting than one that "works" using H and D, and where the calorimetry is less certain.

Krivit - who has done the LENR field great harm by making personal accusations - is equally dismissive of Ni-H and D/Pd - He results. The former I think because he sees them all as Rossi-inspired - I am at least loosely inclined to agree. The latter because he supported WL-theory. I don't agree. But I do agree that the excess heat - He evidence thus far is unclear.

Krivit was potentially useful in being someone who challenged LENR orthodoxy. It is needed. But conspiracy theories are not needed, nor accusations of dishonesty. Whether true or false, throwing such accusations around inflames feelings, makes objectivity more difficult, and creates a climate of defensiveness in which genuine mistakes are more likely to be covered up and less likely to be found and admitted admitted. It is necessary to be able to think that results may be mistaken (good example would be Mizuno's reactor calorimetry which does not seem easy to replicate) without accusations.

Note that I am not saying bad things about Krivit - and therefore not copying his style - except that some of his comments are unhelpful as above. Above all accuracy requires trust in the honesty (unless it is very strongly proven otherwise) , good will, and admission of the fallibility of, of scientists. (Of course Krivit was not a scientist, and made more mistakes than most). To get to the bottom of the electrolysis excess heat mystery needs both that trust, and that acknowledgement. And it needs everyone concerned to be open to question. Trust in honesty is not the same as trust in correctness. Everyone should be assumed capable of mistakes. Even if maybe people are dishonest - science quite correctly prefers not to go down the path of investigating that and merely treats the results as incorrect - which - 99% of the time - is what happens rather than anything deliberate.

THH

Quote from Alan Smith

I know people who have been round this track more times than you can imagine. The USPTO is not interested in looking at inventions, that only happens in comic books and movies, they have made that clear on several occasions including to an established researcher at MIT..

Yes, but the gap is when a patent is so vague that it in no way discloses how to make something that might work. You don't have to disclose everything - details are for patent litigation should that ever occur, but you need some idea that if the instructions are followed someone can make a working product.

Obviously not true in this case!

Quote from Curbina

You are forgetting the cracked Pd rod that did not show excess heat, and that Staker repurposes as a control. Why all your proposed sources of error would prevent this rod to show excess heat if the phenomena wasn’t real?

Yes, I do ignore evidence of local and transient heating. That is because these systems can support chemical reactions that locally, or for some period of time, deliver significant energy from chemical sources, or indeed electrical sources where current is channeled through a small amount of material.

if you look carefully at my post above you will see that I do not have any convincing sources of error - which is why replication of this experiment with precise methodology and documentation looks (to me - somone else might find issues I can't see) very worthwhile.

But - asking why sources of error don't happen in specific cases is a mugs game. If FPHE is allowed to be uncertain, sometimes there, sometimes not. Then sources of error are similarly allowed to be so. Since Pd is a known catalyst, and its effect will depend on surface structure etc which is not well defined in these experiments, it is juts as reasonable to allow variable errors as variable GPHE.

I'd recommend focussing on what is for sure anomalous, and trying to make sense of it, bounding error sources until it is very clear, rather than arguments based on what you think is known when this is so incomplete and contradictory at the moment. (And has been like that for 50 years!).

Here we have a relatively easily replicable modern electrolysis experiment that claims positive results and replicability. It is not cheap or trivial to replicate it - but it is straightforward. The results, if they stand up on replication, are clear. So that replication would help to focus attention and a clear and undeniable anomaly (if the results hold up).

It might be for example that the electromigration currents - in some way no-one at the moment can work out - cause an error (they will alter the voltage gradient across the electrodes etc). I cannot see any such error myself. Anyway replication will either find an error, or provide clearer evidence of a true anomaly that many people in mainstream science will think worth attention.

If Staker is wrong, and his techniques do not lead to definite replicability, of course it will just be more of the same where a set of results stands alone and cannot be trusted because not replicable. But anyone who thinks FPHE is a real excess heat effect should be hopeful that this methodology will lead to replicable excess heat measurement.

Just as with the FTL neutrino experiment once you have something clear enough to interest others everyone will crawl over it - maybe finding errors - and also people will try to replicate. The LENR field would get useful mainstream effort - particularly useful because the people doing it would not be convinced LENR was real and therefore would be properly skeptical.

Quote from Curbina

You can’t patent new physic principles or models, only their application to specific problems. However this does serve the purpose of public disclosure and public record that Jurg went for.

In that case normally the public disclosure comes from research papers: which are part of the public record. you can find a journal willing to publish pretty well anything and arxiv is available or even vixra.