Posts by THHuxleynew

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363696764_New_MHE_Experiments_by_D-System

Another perhaps negative comment on the Clean Planet data.

In the high temperature system they now have two ways to estimate excess heat:

(1) radiation (with errors - they use a control to reduce them)

(2) coolant output temperature.

They say they do not use coolant because it has a long time constant. Understandable. But for overall excess power generation estimation that is surely just fine. Look at the 3 day long flat parts of figure 7, showing oil temperature very accurate for time longer than 9 hours, on tests run for 72 hours.

Therefore - it would be most interesting to look at the oil out temperature as a cross-check on their high temperature work. After all, the oil output temperature is a proxy for the real deliverable they want - significant excess output power over long periods.

It is IMHO a great shame that they do not disclose the overall excess power estimates they get from this.

It is good to know that if they ever wished to convince the scientific community they had something then this extra more accurate info could be added (always assuming it is positive).

Quote from Curbina

And please don't feel insulted by the use of the term "pseudo skeptics", I don't mean in with ill intention, is just a trait as being stubborn or resilient. Not an insult.

I will be happy to accept that: if the trait could be characterised in a positive way?

It leaves open, then, the question of whether I or anyone else is a pseudo-skeptic - don't think I can answer that till I know what the term means.

To summarise the interesting paper curbina linked:

the new system is designed:

(1) to allow characterisation at higher temperatures

(2) to investigate dynamics of power evolution

It is however inaccurate, due to varying temperatures vertically over the radiating surface.

They say they deal with this by looking at estimated power out relative to a control. That is sensible. However, they give no information about whether the temperature variations across radiating surface that even 3 TCs cannot pin down enough to make total power out accurate are known identical for sample and control. Obviously what they need here is an error bound looking at this.

I have not seen them do this - and it is what they need to use the new setup as any proof that they actually have excess heat at all.

They have probably decided that they know they have excess heat, and want to understand it.

It leaves my statement that I know of no good evidence for excess heat from them unchanged.

Quote from Curbina

THHuxleynew , in this paper you can see the problems they are having are the inability to capture excess heat, not the contrary. This is a paper from the NEDO project updates by Akihito Takahashi, but they work in collaboration with Iwamura.

https://www.researchgate.net/p…E_Experiments_by_D-System

Thanks Curbina.

Are you sure that is the correct paper? Look at the abstract in italics at end of this post. Nowhere there do they mention problems disposing of excess heat. Rather, they say that they noted problems in their calorimetry of a low temperature system, and have therefore developed a system which will work at high temperatures (not - please note - larger amounts of excess heat).

Specifically they say low temperature work became inaccurate due to coolant boiling. But taht is only because they want to explore characteristics at higher temperatures.

It is understandable that therefore they move to a radiation-based heat transfer system.

Two TC sensors were added in the D-system, for monitoring gas temperature directly and RC center temperature. Variation of RC temperature distribution along the axial direction of RC cylinder in D-system became ca. 30 °C, which is less than 200 °C in the C-system runs 4-6). However, there remains considerable variation of temperature distribution in MHE sample zone for using three points average of sample TC temperatures to estimate excess power. We conceive that estimation of excess power by increment of H-gas temperature from calibration runs is most appropriate at the moment.

(PDF) New MHE Experiments by D-System. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/p…E_Experiments_by_D-System [accessed Oct 01 2022].

So they have problems with varying temperature over the radiating surface and therefore can't do first principle calculation of enthalpy out. Instead they use comparison with a control.

My problem with that is that if the temperature distribution over the radiating surface is so uneven then it may differ between control and active, resulting in errors.

Time response of oil outlet temperature for removing heat by radiation transfer is found to be so slow (as more than 1 hour delay) that we cannot use for estimating time evolution of excess power generation. However, integral heat amount by oil mass flow is correctly estimated for very long time interval as several days. As a consequence, we decided to use excess power estimation by the H-gas temperature in RC for analysis of time evolution of excess power generation pattern, in correlation with dynamic evolution of H/Ni loading ratio1). We found that evolution of temperature at the mid-point of RC is most sensitive to the evolution of excess power generation. We can see rapid and clear AHE indication by this temperature evolution, but accurate estimation for excess power is difficult due to very local variation of AHE status.

(PDF) New MHE Experiments by D-System. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/p…E_Experiments_by_D-System [accessed Oct 01 2022].

As I understand this they are not looking for integrated power out (for overall enthalpy) so all they get from the new system is the radiative info - which is inaccurate.

Since they say this I do not think we can take the system here as providing any evidence for excess heat in their system.

We have studied the so-called AHE (anomalous heat effect) by calorimetry of our C-system. The C-system was designed to make accurate detection of excess thermal power larger than several W/kg-sample. By our latest data with significant increase of excess thermal power of the MHE (nano-metal hydrogen energy) experiment, we have met to needs for improving the system. Especially in cases of observing 200W/kg-sample level excess power evolution using re-calcined PNZ-and CNZ-type MHE powder-samples, we have found some drawbacks in calorimetry with the C-system. We have therefore developed a new system, called D-system. In our new system (D-system), we have made the following improvements: a) Heat recovery system to cover higher temperature conditions as over 500°C of hydrogen gas condition of reaction chamber b) Increase detection points of heat sensors c) Reaction chamber assembly with high temperature-tight performance One drawback of the C-system was due to the problem that calorimetry inaccuracy became very large (underestimation) when coolant oil temperature reached at boiling point (ca. 350°C). In the D-system, we use the heat recovery by radiation heat transfer from the surface of reaction chamber settled in outer vacuum chamber. As a result, we can operate H-gas feeding runs with MHE sample powder to extend for much higher temperature conditions. We can take characteristic AHE data of excess thermal power with additional key data as evolution of H/Ni loading ratio. Characteristic feature of latest AHE data will be shown by another paper in this JCF22 meeting.

Quote from Gregory Byron Goble

LENR is real.

"Fine - so which bits are clearly real?"

After all, some claims discussed here (Rossi) are very tarnished. Others (Mills) are regarded as dubious by many who support LENR. The transmutation evidence (as a whole) is particularly heterogeneous. It is unlikely all correct.

Since there are a wide variety of different proposed systems having some view as to "which is real" is needed:

For the experimenter (want to work on a system that works)

For the theoretician: what signals do we get from the experimental evidence to narrow down possible hypotheses?

LENR FAQ for Studious Skeptics

LENR is real. People insisting it isn't real because of errors in Pons and Fleischmann's experiments have no place here. To engage in arguments with them gives SKEPTICS undue weight and distracts from useful study of LENR FAQ Circa 2022

Nuclear reactions occur in condensed matter systems of LENR, in both the 'wet cell' experiments of 1989 and the contemporary 'dry cell' solid state systems found in the Google/DOE/LLNL patent, NASA LCF, the Fusion Diode... Etc.

Post from GBG with libellous content removed.

Hardly a statement that would be helpful in an FAQ for skeptics?

I also suggest you leave off fraudulent data. You need very strong reasons in science to allege fraud rather than mistake. You do F&P a great disservice in alleging fraud, and you bring emotion into the issue, which poisons objective appraisal. No-one else here has called F&P experiments fraudulent.

I have tagged your post for the mods as being potentially libellous.

Quote from Gregory Byron Goble

Citations within that paper are supportive, exemplary and conclusive.

Yes, I agree. It reads like a review paper rather than a report of novel results from an experiment. It was my initial reason (when recommended it by Jed ages ago) for distrusting its experimental description. Over-general. And in that generalisation you can bury inconvenient facts. Still, it had specific claims, and a specific video referred to in the paper. That is enough - at least for the boil-off estimates.

I have repeatedly asked for the real papers from F&P describing in detail their later (and presumably more useful) specific experiments and that is all I get in response. So I think it is all we have.

Quote from Gregory Byron Goble

You should both do that. I guarantee it will be accepted for publication and critique.

It is a lot of work writing up a scientific paper - ascoli might be up for it. But I am afraid I do not believe your guarantee - now if Jed guaranteed that - yes - I'd believe it.

Quote from Gregory Byron Goble

Of course they discussed hybrid fission and fusion concepts... Some of those predilections are found in the GEC/SPAWAR patent.

predilection is an unfortunate word to use here.

Quote from Alan Smith

Someone who is determined never to change their mind is only here for the arguments. They are often interesting, but not always based on any more than uniformed guesswork.

Surely though - engaging with the details in papers - and arguing about them - is the best way for a rational person to obtain evidence?

And just occasionally, as with the F&P boil-off phase estimate - carefully re-examination of evidence leads to definite conclusions.

I know you don't put me in the no-change-of-mind category since I've wavered (and still do) on quite a few issues. Like, could the "screening + coherent something" stuff work, and "is there a post-Hagelstein theory that would solve the fractionation problem". That one I've given up on at the moment for lack of new work but maybe I am missing it.

And re LEC I changed my mind pretty rapidly about "is it real" although I differ from many about whether it has much to do with LENR. Were I convinced of LENR I'd go for it because it is not understood, real, and might have some bearing on the whole coherent pseudo-particle effects in metals thing. Which makes it pretty interesting.

Quote from Gregory Byron Goble

Further reflection...

Team Google presented their $10 million ten year failure to replicate the original P and F experiment in their Nature article.

My memory is a bit hazy here. Did the say they tried to replicate the boil-off experiment? Or give any details of failed replication attempts?

Quote from Gregory Byron Goble

Quote from Ascoli65

and only later discuss the implications of our conclusion on the LENR field.

Don't add me to "our" here.

I do not like to generalise when things are not understood fully (undoubtedly the case for LENR anomalies). In fact many of the LENR arguments in interpreting that data come from rabid generalisation "it must be LENR because we know that exists". Logically invalid. But equally logically invalid would be "It can't be LENR because one LENR experiment was shown to be invalid".

Nor do I accept that the boil-off evidence is seminal in the LENR evidence. I've never thought it that. Some other here might do so - and it is good that they understand that is wrong. It has been presented by some as a seminal experiment - it was good PR - but that is different.

Quote from Gregory Byron Goble

NO

Excellent! Please then give your explanation for how F&P estimated the volume of electrolyte boiled off - engaging with the above argument? I'd welcome a tenable alternate explanation. Let us see if one exists?

Quote from Gregory Byron Goble

Erik Ziehm received his Doctoral Degree on this lineage. Write up your critique of the 'Simplicity Paper' and submit it to Nature, or Physical Review for publication, not here please. 🥺

GBG - your post very accurately summarises the "good news only" view of how internet comment on LENR should be undertaken.

There are multiple serious groups now looking at LENR. There are some aspects of that work that even a skeptic such as me thinks might be fruitful. And I certainly applaud the approach of those (serious) researchers. If there is science to come from the collection of anomalies noted by LENR folk then I think it will be found.

Why is it necessary uncritically to accept every canon of the LENR faith without question? That surely distorts the background information those now seeking to make progress have. Perhaps RB's intervention - in a coded political way - is agreeing with this? We should de-emphasise those initial D-Pd results? Personally I still find them the most interesting (and unlike many here I never saw the boil-off evidence as strong).

Oh - and you know well that since the view of Nature is that F&Ps experiments have been discredited, a paper now saying that would have minimal novelty value and therefore, however otherwise good, would not be published.

How about ascoli writes this stuff up and published in ICCF25? Or would that be censored?

THH

The last few posts have been interesting.

Since RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

No-one has returned to foam/microbubble-gate.

I note the possible experimental work now - which I applaud - and which might shed further light on things.

But regardless of that, even if LENR is proven tomorrow, that COP=4 boil-off enthalpy estimate has been shown wrong.

Specifically, the video evidence which F&P say they based it in shows conclusively that due to foam and/or microbubbles the "bubble-watching" method used by F&P to ascertain how much electrolyte was boiled off has no validity.

It is quite unusual to get such a strong new understanding of an old experiment.

ascoli - the only qualification of your logic here is that I don't think you can distinguish between foam and micro-bubbles. People here seem to prefer the term micro-bubbles. There is, technically, a difference which is relevant to consideration of the anecdotal HAD evidence.

Anyway since that post we have had a severe case of politics

Specifically - having discredited one central result (not however all of the results in that experiment - we have not yet resolved the HAD stuff, nor the pre-boil-off phase) everyone moved on to different vaguely related material which is definitely off topic for this thread, with a deafening silence on the boil-off result.

ascoli - that is the best you will get here - people agree with you, so the matter can I think be closed.

JATM our UK politicians are giving a very good display of the same technique. When asked about why YK long-term interest rates spiked upward by +3% in one day after the new PM announced her tax-giveaway plans for the economy they simply ignore that question, and instead talk about support for household energy prices.

THH

Quote from Curbina

This has been discussed ad nauseam for years.

And we know Pseudo Skeptics will never accept a report of excess heat as real, and will nit pick anything to cling to the idea that is impossible.

The errors are closely to the same for the control run and the active runs. The excess heat is real.

We won't start over the same issue once again.

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Thanks - could you direct me to the relevant thread (it would be discussing the 1st & 2nd Iwamura papers as published, and whether the 2nd experiment closes the holes they implicitly admit from the 1st).

It may have been something I was not following. I do have a life outside of LF...

PS - insults (pseudo-skeptics - in the sentence above - is an insult, even if generalised) do not help understanding. By setting up this straw enemy of people who will never accept anything you can prevent yourself from processing genuine criticism and the possibility of alternate solutions from what you have previously thought.

Quote from can

At 120V it's possible that a plasma or sparking could occur in the cell depending on operating conditions, but it needs to be verified. Probably not too likely to occur with LiOH at 0.1M concentration instead of KOH.

What will matter for that is the cell voltage. At the very end when it is up at 120V you could not rule that out - though I'd not expect it.

Perhaps a review at this point:

whether we have "microbubbles" or foam affects some arguments about the HAD evidence - but not ascoli's argument about that.

The argument of the last few pages - and the proper one (because HAD was anecdotal) is about the "simple" estimate of enthalpy out from the F&P paper. This is how they get their evidence about the boil-off phase excess heat - that spectacular 3X enthalpy in.

If that last segment of the video has microbubbles or foam, then the change from 50% full to 0% full as determined by level must correspond to less than 50% change in the electrolyte volume.

In fact it corresponds to an unknowable and variable amount of the electrolyte - whose remaining volume depends on the exact density of the microbubbles/foam but is plausibly a lot less than 1g/cc (the density approx of the unmicrobubbly electrolyte).

This hypothesis completely explains the specially high apparent excess enthalpy as not excess enthalpy but an incorrect estimation of the liquid volume change over the last 10 minutes.

The evidence for this is inescapable if you watch the video (the last 10 minutes is foam/microbubbles not mostly clear electrolyte) and follow the logic and read F&P's paper where they say how they determined that the 50% level was 10 minutes before the end.

Finally - just one other circumstantial observation.

The CC source with a high rail is designed to push more power into the electrolyte towards the end, as the electrolyte level decreases and bubbles increase. The extra power will clearly change the speed at which bubbles form and hence the overall bubble consistency. That, in turn, must change in some unquantified way the relationship between level and liquid volume.

Which is why the way F&P estimated their 50% volume in this experiment is so problematic. "Trust me - I'm a famous electrochemist" should not apply in the face of such clear problematic evidence.

THH

Quote from Curbina

This quick dissappearance is more consistent with microbubbling than foaming, and I have to clarify it’s exactly what happens with Ultrasound experiments, microbubbling during the experiment that disappears quickly after shut off. True foam would remain after stopping the electrolysis.

Just to be clear - for the argument ascoli propsoes, and I agree, over the boil-off enthalpy calculation, microbubbles or foam it makes no difference.

Quote from can

Curbina

The electrolyte must first reach temperatures close to the boiling point for that effect to happen. When it does, current starts decreasing.

Not in the case of F&P's experiment! They used a 150V rail (evidence supplied by ascoli) or at any rate (evidence from graphs in paper) a high voltage constant current source.

Thus bubbles will increase the voltage across the cell significantly, but not decrease the current (or only inasfar as the CC source is non-ideal). The effect will be higher power going in and more bubbles! The voltage was initially 5V so you can see that 150V gives you quite a big room for a power boost as bubbles and/or deposits increase resistivity.

It was when I realised this built-in positive feedback (electric, not from LENR) that I wanted to look again at these results as we have been doing here.

In fact - if you assumes the bubbles are uniformly distributed during boiling - the increase in cell volatge (recorded in the paper) is a proxy for the actual density of the liquid. Thus with 2X the voltage = 2 X the resistivity we have only 50% the liquid mass. (well - I am not certain it scales linearly - and we have the effect of additional resistance from electrode deposits separate from boiling - but that would be a good first approximation guess).

Which matters when the boiling level is used as a proxy for the liquid volume, as F&P did.

I just think it extraordinary that this "level of white boiling stuff you can see" is seen by some here as a good way to establish liquid volume when the videos quite clearly show highly variable levels due to boiling and what looks on the videos like foaming but to save Jed's sensitivities I will call "small bubble formation".

EDIT - maybe it was a 100v rail? Sorry I have forgot what ascoli said - anyway it was HIGH.