Posts by Louis Reed

Quote from Zeus46

I highly doubt that Thomas Clarke, an experienced engineer, would use Q to represent COP.

They're not unrelated in the right context. Q as a ratio of powers (or energies) is used in hot fusion, and it's called the "fusion energy gain factor". Here's an unsolicited lesson in COP, Q, and ignition in power generation technologies. Enjoy:

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1. Refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pumps

In refrigeration or air conditioning, COP = Qc/W, where Qc is the heat removed from the cold reservoir, and W is the input work, usually electrical energy used to run a compressor. In a heat pump it's COP = Qh/W, where Qh is the heat delivered to the hot reservoir.

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2. Overunity devices

Cold fusion and other "overunity" fantasies have adopted COP to mean (as nearly as one can determine) COP = Qout/Uin, where Qout is the total heat delivered to a reservoir, and Uin is the total input energy in any form, usually electrical energy for electrolysis or for resistive heat.

COP > 1 indicates generation of energy within the device attributed to nuclear reactions in the case of cold fusion. This is often claimed, but not yet accepted outside the cold fusion community.

(It's not entirely unambiguous, because the electrical energy is often generated from burning fuel at an efficiency of 1/3 or so, so if one compares output thermal energy with the amount of input thermal energy necessary to make the electricity, one should really multiply the input by 3. But that's a quibble, often abbreviated "Q")

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3. Hot fusion

In hot fusion, the "fusion energy gain factor" is represented by Q = Pfus/Pheat, where Pfus is the power produced by fusion, and Pheat is the thermal power absorbed by the plasma required to maintain the plasma in a steady state.

Q > 0 indicates generation of power by fusion. This first controlled fusion plasma (Q > 0) was achieved in 1958.

Q = 1 is called breakeven, even though it does not represent ignition (self-sustaining plasma). Since much of Pfus escapes (in the form of neutrons for DT fusion), Q > 10 (some say 20) is required for the plasma to sustain itself. Q=1 has been reached (or at least claimed) in 2012. Ignition (Q > 10) is still a dream, but is expected with ITER some time in the 20s. (Maybe sooner if NIF gets enough funding.)

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4. The relation between Q and COP

The connection between hot fusion's Q and cold fusion's COP is not simple. But since all the input energy in hot fusion experiments eventually ends up as heat somewhere, the total generated power would be Pin+Pfus, and so

COP = (Pin+Pfus)/Pin = 1 + Q*Pheat/Pin.

Therefore, if Q > 0, the COP > 1. So, using the cold fusion definition, COP > 1 is achieved in essentially every hot fusion experiment.

But Pheat/Pin -- the efficiency with which energy can be delivered to a plasma -- is a very small number in hot fusion, definitely less than 10^-3, and maybe as low as 10^-5. But no one in the business really cares about Pin, because once ignition is achieved, Pin is no longer needed. That is, the plasma sustains itself, and an arbitrary amount of power can be generated. That's the ultimate goal.

(Now, it's not quite that simple because the output is limited by accessible fuel, and in inertial confinement fusion (ICF), even complete consumption of the fuel in a pellet will not generate as much energy as required to ignite that pellet. Somewhat different limitations exist in magnetic confinement, but the point is, ignition is not the final solution. Still, once ignition is achieved in principle, ways to scale up the fuel delivery are expected to be rather more pedestrian type engineering problems.)

So, that's why the COP is a pretty useless figure of merit in hot fusion, because it gives no indication of how close we are to the all important ignition. For that Q is a much more useful metric.

Likewise, in cold fusion, far more attention should be paid to what is needed to reach self-sustained operation (zero input). Not only would that make a far more convincing demonstration, but a self-sustained device would finally be more useful than a heat pump. The problem is, to identify a metric that indicates the proximity of ignition requires knowledge of the process, and no one seems to have a clue. Even so, if it's just a matter of maintaining a certain temperature as has been claimed recently, then a COP > 2 should make ignition possible. And that's why no one should believe a claim of (thermal to thermal) COP > 2 if it still needs an input.

bocijn wrote:

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EUV continuum for H2 gas found by Mills.versus that found for He.

Corroborated here. "EUV spectroscopy of hydrogen plasmas" 2008

No mention of EUV continuum found for Helium.

If you're trying to make a lame defense of Mills, lamer still, you've succeeded.

I don't know your expertise or experience in this particular spectroscopy, but it's a safe bet that most of the audience in this forum has very little, and that includes me.

So, when someone with no particular scientific credibility (Mills) claims some elevated background represents evidence for a revolutionary theory, it doesn't impress me, and neither does my inability to provide an alternative explanation for the elevated background. I'm just not qualified to make a judgement based on this rather subtle evidence.

But,

(1) I am aware that unexplained elevated background is common in spectroscopy, and that it is rarely an indication that a revolution in science should be contemplated. For that, much more specific, quantitative, consistent and discriminating evidence is needed.

(2) The theory also predicts a source of energy with an energy density some 2 orders of magnitude above ordinary chemical sources, and that is something I do understand, and for which evidence can be conceived that requires minimal expertise to understand. In the 30 years Mills has been claiming this, he has not been able to provide any convincing evidence of such an energy density, in spite of assurances that he has had working products, and so his far less compelling claims ring hollow.

(3) There are scientists who do have expertise in this spectroscopy, and if the results really did represent support for a revolutionary theory, and for the fallibility of quantum mechanics, I have confidence they would not hesitate to jump aboard the hydrino train to get their name up there with the fathers of modern physics. After all, when Davisson and Thompson found evidence for wave-like behavior of electrons, they were not ignored for decades, but given a Nobel prize. The man in the street would not be impressed by their diffraction patterns, but they would be impressed by the recognition they received. When Bednorz and Mueller discovered high temperature superconductivity, contrary to theory, they were not ignored, but given the Nobel prize the following year.

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So, in response to my skepticism you went looking for independent "corroboration", and what did you find? It's more than a decade since Mills' first claims of spectroscopic evidence for hydrinos, and you come up with an MSc thesis, and one that basically says Mills is probably full of it, albeit in polite academic language. Let's break it down:

(1) The "most remarkable" results that Mills originally claimed in 2003 were not reproducible. So some of what he used to claim hydrinos had other origins, even if it took years to show that. That makes it much easier to believe that the other (less remarkable) evidence may similarly have other causes.

(2) There are features in the spectra that are still unexplained, even after invoking hydrinos, emphasizing that a lot can happen in this kind of experiment that is not understood.

(3) Some predictions of Mills' theory are not present in the spectra.

(4) The author considers it plausible (or at least not "unthinkable") that contaminants or unknown reactions can account for the results. A claim like hydrinos will not be taken seriously until alternative mundane (even vague) explanations are truly rendered unthinkable. Especially when far more manifest predictions of the theory are not observed.

But what else is in the literature? If the results have been ignored to the extent that no other group has even addressed it in the refereed literature, it's a good indication that scientists who have experience in this field are not impressed by this background, thinking it highly likely to have mundane origins, and that the absence of quantitative and unequivocal evidence (esp after 30 years) pretty much rules out hydrinos.

And lastly, to come back to the helium continuum: It's not mentioned, but it's there, both in Mills' paper and this thesis. It's just smaller by a factor of 10 or so. So, it's the difference that needs to be explained, but until the small helium continuum is explained without heliuminos, why should I be impressed with the absence of an explanation for the larger hydrogen continuum.

(As a casual lay observer, it looks to me like a simple case of unresolved peaks. The "continuum" correlates pretty well with the peak concentration, and the thesis emphasizes the presence of a large number of small peaks in the hydrogen spectrum, not part of Mills' explanation. If there are more such peaks in the hydrogen spectrum (as seems to be the case) and they are only partially resolved, that would cause an elevated baseline, as observed. But this is only idle pondering. Notwithstanding the above, I'm not really interested in hashing over the minutiae of the claims of an almost certain Shyster.)

"140 letter limit teaches economy plus use of props."

pity it doesn't teach accuracy or good judgement...

bocijn wrote:

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Louis said

" being demonstrably wrong in the moment, as you were."

So you proved me wrong. Congratulations.

To be clear, it was not about proving you wrong. I don't know you from Adam. It was about showing that a defense of Mills based on the history of nuclear power has no merit. To me, Mills resembles a charlatan much more closely than the scientists involved in the development of nuclear power. His story is similar to that of Rossi, Brillouin, Steorn, Papp, etc.

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Louis, do you have any idea why helium does not produce EUV and hydrogen does, on pages 18,19,20?

First, it does. There are peaks in the EUV. Mills is trying to argue the He spectra do not show a *continuum* in the EUV, but even that is wrong. There is a continuum. It's just smaller. He hasn't explained where it comes from. Are there also heliuminos, maybe?

Second, I can't explain how David Blaine can keep live frogs in his stomach and bring them up at will, or how he does his card tricks, but I'm reasonably sure magic is not involved.

Third, unexplained continua are utterly common in spectroscopy, and each one is not an occasion to throw out quantum mechanics -- which actually has specific, robust, and reproduced evidence.

Fourth, don't you find it unbelievably lame to have to fall back on an unexplained background to support Mills' crazy ideas, when the theory predicts straightforward implementation of new energy sources that would be as indisputable as superconductivity or nuclear power, and Mills has not only been promising them in the next year for 30 years, but claimed to have sold practical power devices to large companies?

Finally, why should we even believe his results, considering his public demonstrations that demonstrate nothing, and the lack of evidence for his claimed reactor sales?

bocijn wrote:

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Louis Reed wrote:

"explained theoretically in January 1939 by Lise Meitner.."

Lise used 1905 Einstein E=mc2 to explain nuclear fission

Yes, I know, but not *just* by E=mc2. The explanation involved knowledge of nuclear structure, and the reason the average binding energy per nucleon is larger for fission fragments than for the fissile nuclide. The fact that in nuclear reactions the mass change is measurable, and fit E=mc2, made the explanation especially compelling.

But E=mc2 by itself could not predict such exothermic fission without knowledge of nuclear structure. As I said, E=mc2 is similarly satisfied in chemical reactions and would be in hydrino reactions, were they real. That doesn't mean it can predict either.

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Louis wrote:

"no you are mistaken.."

Perhaps I am mistaken

Lise Meiner "No-one really thought of fission before its discovery"

But then others cleverer than me have been mistaken too

Rutherford :1933 "Anyone who expects a source of power from transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine"

Einstein: 1934"There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable.

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Those quotations are what I was referring to when I said scientists were famously skeptical of harnessing nuclear energy, even though they accepted E=mc2.

And they effectively illustrate the difference I was talking about between E=mc2 being the predictor of nuclear power and Mills' hydrinos being predictors of hydrino power. Mills claimed from the beginning that his hydrino theory represented the possibility of a practical energy source.

Moreover, there is a difference between being proven wrong by subsequent evidence and being demonstrably wrong in the moment, as you were.

Not that being wrong (even in the moment) is so egregious, but it does weaken the defense of Mills considerably.

Finally, I would argue that Rutherford and especially Einstein were *not* wrong in those statements.

In 1934 there *was* not the slightest indication that nuclear power would ever be obtainable. The indication that it would be obtainable came in 1939, and was recognized as such by all scientists in the field, including Einstein.

Rutherford made his statement in a lecture about his experiments with fission of lithium by proton bombardment, and while fission of lithium to alphas is exothermic, the input energy required made it impractical as a source of energy. To this day, no source of power from transformation of *these* atoms exists.

The key to nuclear power is that the reaction sustains itself, and fission of large elements provided a (conceptually) simple mechanism for this because neutrons from one fission induced more fission, and this was not understood until 1939. The problem with fusion energy is that the only self-sustaining process conceived of so far involves using the heat from fusion to induce more fusion (like chemical combustion), and this involves extremely high temperatures.

Quote from Zeus46

"Heat flux" is Q/Time.Area... Not Q/time.

Strictly speaking "flux" refers to flow rate Q/t. "Flux density" is flow rate per unit area. But "flux density" is often shortened to "flux" where context makes the meaning clear.

Heat flux (according to wikipedia) is heat flow through a given surface, and measured in watts; hence q/t. Heat flux *density* has SI units of W/m^2.

The entry on radiant flux is more explicit, defining radiant flux as dq/dt, and giving a table showing clearly that flux is measured in watts, whereas flux density in W/m^2.

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There is literally no other accepted way of (briefly) saying "the rate of heat energy transfer through a given surface per unit time".

"Heat flow rate" serves nicely and not much less brief. But I agree, "flux" is not an obsolete term.

And "through a *given* surface" does not mean "per unit area". Quite the contrary.

Epimetheus wrote:

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"Fission of large nuclei was discovered in the late 1930's"

That was when there was consensus on mainstream physics that it is possible.

That was when it was observed experimentally and explained theoretically. As Wikipedia puts it: "Nuclear fission of heavy elements was discovered on December 17, 1938 by German Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann, and explained theoretically in January 1939 by Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch." The possibility of a chain reaction based on neutrons was realized by Szilard in that same year and communicated to Roosevelt by Einstein.

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But when was the time the first scientist THOUGHT it could be possible?

Probably about the same time, but if you know of significantly earlier suggestions, I'd be interested to see them.

It's not the possibility of nuclear fission that's relevant here, but the possibility that such fission could be exothermic and self-sustaining. The neutron was not discovered until 1932, and no understanding of the nucleus to predict such exothermic fission is possible without understanding the role of neutrons. The strong force was not understood to any degree until 1935, so the idea that the binding energy per nucleon peaks and then decreases really wasn't understood until then.

Of course, the idea of exploiting nuclear energy occurred to scientists from the time of Rutherford's discovery of the nucleus in 1906, or even from the discovery of radioactivity a decade earlier. It's just that a mechanism to exploit it was not known. Most of the ideas were related to fusion or to concentrating naturally radioactive elements, and scientists were famously skeptical that these were feasible. This is in marked contrast to the case of Mills, where he has claimed for 30 years that he could exploit hydrinos to make useful energy. The parallel to this situation is the discovery of fission of heavy elements and the realization of a chain reaction based on neutrons. The subsequent development of the two sciences are completely different.

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And from there it was just 25 billion $ (so says wiki) and a national effort to have a working device...

Yes, I was correcting bocijn's attempt to compare time lines, not costs.

So, let's look at costs. The Manhattan project cost around 25B in 2007 dollars, but a very small fraction of that was needed to create the first working reactor in 1941 (Chicago Pile-1), which proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the theory was correct. (Mills has not reached that point yet.)

To make weapons was another kettle of fish. There was little doubt it was possible, but the scale of the effort was enormous. Highly enriched uranium required isotope separation on a truly massive scale, and production of Pu-239 required reactors on a huge scale. It was big and it was expensive, but conceptually, scientists were confident it would work.

Mills' proposals (like LENR proposals) have no such large scale needs. If his theory were valid, it could be exploited, by his own claims, on a rather small scale, with rather small investments. Indeed that is the appeal of it.

It's a bit like comparing a trip to Winnie the Pooh's Hundred-Acre Wood with a trip to moon. The first, if it were possible, would be cheap and easy. The second was obviously possible, but required massive investment. We've gone to the moon. I predict we'll never find the Hundred Acre Wood.

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There is a 1994 (?) paper of NASA replicating Mills. They had not enough funds to get rid of all alternative explanations for the observed energy gain.

Or, the energy gain was too minuscule to exclude alternative explanations. Therefore the experiment failed to convince those who might fund further investigation.

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Is this Mills fault or the fault of society?

There are many claims of free energy that do not get the funding requested to exclude alternative explanations. It is the onus of the claimant to convince society to give him money.

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There are a thousand threads here on this forum explaining why the term "widely accepted" is not necessary a measure of reality.

Yes, of course. One doesn't need even one thread to reach that conclusion. A simple look at history is enough.

I did not use the term to prove Mills was wrong, but to indicate the significant difference between the development of nuclear energy and hydrino energy, and that no useful insight favorable to Mills can be gained by examining the history of nuclear power.

bocijn wrote:

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Randell Mills isn't doing too badly compared to nuclear power. He hasn't been lounging on a beach somewhere for 31 years

1905 Einstein E= mc2 ------> first commercial nuclear reactor Calder Hall:1956: duration 51 years

1986 Mills: Hydrino theory ------> first commercial hydrino reactor Cranbury: 2018 duration 32 years

No, you are mistaken. Mills is doing abysmally compared to nuclear (fission) power. Not only is E=mc2 not analogous to Mills' hydrino claim, but Einstein was famously *skeptical* of nuclear power, until uranium fission was discovered.

The only difference in the role of E=mc2 in chemical energy from its role in nuclear energy is one of degree. In both cases potential energy (appearing as mass) is converted into kinetic energy or photons by rearrangement of bonds (whether chemical or nuclear).

Therefore the time from Einstein's equation to useful energy based on mass-energy equivalence is *negative*.

For that matter, unless Mills rejects E=mc2, you could as well say hydrino energy stems from the 1905 theory, making it more than a century old.

But the breakthrough insight (analogous to Mills' hydrino claim) that made fission power possible was the observation of fission of large nuclei, increasing the binding energy per nucleon, and importantly, the possibility to induce such fission with the neutrons the fission itself produced. Fission of large nuclei was discovered in the late 1930's, and the possibility of a chain reaction with neutrons was realized in 1939, and the first nuclear reactor with unequivocal evidence ran in 1941, 2 years later. The first explosive based on the principle was demonstrated 3 years later, and left no room for skepticism.

In 30 years, nothing Mills has done has brought acceptance (outside a small band of eccentrics) to the idea of hydrinos, let alone to the possibility of a practical device. Furthermore, unlike the situation with fission power, Mills has been claiming imminent products for decades. Really, the two situations are worlds apart.

You would have a better case by comparing to hot nuclear fusion, but even there, widely accepted evidence for the basic principle -- still lacking for hydrinos -- has never been in doubt from the time of the earliest claims, since it rises every morning in the east, and of course fusion weapons have been demonstrated, and controlled fusion is well-established, if not yet energetically profitable.