Posts by WhatRoughBeast

If the diversions have settled down for now, I thought it appropriate to bring up a bit of perspective on the importance of the GEC/GRC contract.

Let us, for the moment and for the sake of argument, accept that NASA is not simply a passive "partner" in this endeavor, that it actively supports GECs efforts to produce a 10 kW to 100 kW generator. Does this have larger implications for the future of power generation?

Probably not. You need to keep in mind what NASA wants such a generator FOR. They don't want to generate power to light homes, they want power for long-term, deep-space missions. And what are they using now? Radioisotope Thermal Generators (RTGs). Yeah, the same sort of thing Matt Damon recovered in The Martian. This document gives an overview of the costs involved, and a notable number which can be backed out is the cost per kilowatt. In round numbers, the Mars RTG ran just about a million bucks per watt. Cassini was better, on the order of 100k per watt.

None of these numbers is remotely interesting for terrestial power generation, but NASA is intensely interested in any technology which would (credibly) promise increased efficiency, as this would lower payload weight. A fission/fusion hybrid would seem an obvious approach, since the byproducts of one process would boost the other - and I notice that on this thread there does not seem to be a consensus as which process would be which.

But none of this can be considered of obvious importance to the larger world of power generation. NASA's requirements simply diverge too far from everyday needs to make them "important". While the principle would bear paying attention, there is simply no guarantee that such an approach would scale up to something practical (where "practical" is understood to be for non-NASA values of practical).

So, I submit that the OP counts as interesting, but at this stage of the game (even granting the assumption of partnership in the enthusiastic sense that OP used - and I firmly believe that sense is inappropriate) calling it "important" seems a gross exaggeration.

Quote from THHuxleynew

For those not familiar with electrostatics. Why does electric potential - which indeed would be 10MeV or more relative to ground inside a Van de Graaf ball, not alter the Coulomb barrier?

Because potential wrt ground is irrelevant. Within a Van de Graaf ball, the local electric field is essentially zero, just as the gravitational field inside a hollow earth would be zero, and for the same reason: the Shell Theorem.

Charge is free to redistribute itself, and does so so as to produce a zero field in the shell. It gets a little more complicated since the shell is not a closed sphere, but the result is the same.

If a sample were suspended between a VdG shell and ground, you'd get a field which varies with position, but that's been dealt with on this thread. Within the shell, you get nothing at all.

Quote from Shane D.

WRB,

They say right there in the agreement that GEC is to be referred to as "partner", and that the partnership "shall be for the purpose of NASA and GEC to develop a 10kW thermal power generator".

So the headline is not sensational, and is factual. That said, after further reading of the agreement, I made a comment in a later post that GEC is "doing the heavy lifting".

This is quite a newsworthy story in LENR land, and it baffles me that you choose to focus on that, instead of the ramifications of NASA and GEC partnering up.

And this is not all there is to the collaboration, as Ahlfors hinted to you about in his pictorial message.

There are other areas of cooperation between NASA/JWK/GEC/SPAWAR that have been the topic of a few other threads.

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And you are working very hard to misunderstand.

Yes, GRC and GEC are partners - within the bounds of the contract described.

And that contract does not in any way, shape or fashion imply that GRC (let alone NASA as a whole) is attempting to develop GEC's concept. The two organizations are partnered to run tests of one or more reactors which GRC will provide. And the only certain benefit which GRC stands to gain is $341 k.

If you will refer to your OP, you stated that " this important document that shows GEC, represented by Dr. Jay Khim, signing an agreement on 12/20/2017, to partner with NASA GRC to develop an LENR based 10kW (later to be scaled to 100kWs) generator" . It's only "important" if NASA is involved in attempting to help develop such a generator. If GRC is simply being paid to run tests, it's interesting but not important.

And GRC is simply being paid to run tests. Read the documents you linked to.

Quote from Shane D.

...this important document that shows GEC ...signing an agreement on 12/20/2017, to partner with NASA GRC to develop an LENR based 10kW (later to be scaled to 100kWs) generator.

Well, no. GEC will pay GRC 341 k to conduct tests of GECs reactor. GRC will provide space and utilities, and assist in data recording, The two organizations are not partners in anything other than running some tests. The responsibilities of GRC are quite specific, and participating in development is mentioned nowhere. Milestone 3, "The parties to jointly identify desirable fuel material," would seem to apply to safety and material handling issues. In light of the rest of the agreement it seems quite unreasonable to read it as suggesting that GRC will identify fuel material which will make GECs concept work.

The purpose of the tests is developing several iterations of thermal generators, but that is GEC's purpose, not GRC's.

There is some weirdness, I agree, in the last, 87k, payment, which is predicated on "demonstration of excess power (less than 10 Wth)". While I'm not a lawyer, this looks as if an unsuccessful test (no excess power) will exempt GEC from this payment. However, note that the power level specified is LESS than 10W, (Milestone 4) and LESS than 100W (Milestone 5) rather than greater than either 10 kW or 100 kW.

Frankly, hyping this as a partnership smacks very strongly of Rossi touting a "partnership" with National Instruments, when all NI could possibly do is provide test instrumentation and advice on how to use it.

Quote from Pascal Marchetti

I am quite disappointed the case resolved in a settlement. While the US civil practice wouldn't have set in stone the validity of the Doral test (because of lack of court 3rd party ordered tests on the plant), I would have been interested in reading the transcript of the deposition of the following people:

- De Giovanni: who is? What is this American Platinum Trust? What are his interests in the matter?

I have recently discovered this thread, and can't help but notice that your questions (post #3 in the thread) have gone unaddressed.

Henry Johnson's deposition answers part of your question. American Platinum Trust (APT) was formed on 14 June 2014 by Johnson, with Johnson as trustee and DiGiovanni as beneficiary. DiGiovanni, during the visit to Johnson, was accompanied by Rossi. Despite the beneficiary/trustee relationship, Johnson had no contact of any sort with DiGiovanni until ca November 2016, after the suit had been filed.

JM Chemical Products, Inc, was formed on 27 June 2014.

The purpose of the trust was specifically to hide the ownership of JM Chemical Products, Inc. ""The concept was to keep the ultimate beneficial ownership private."

DiGiovanni did not produce a deposition, but there has been no evidence produced (in court or online) to indicate that DiGiovanni had any relationship at all with Johnson Matthey.