orsova Verified User
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Posts by orsova

  • Google (UBC/MIT/LBNL) post Nature updates.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Nature magazine, Scientific American, the APS, the DoE, the New York Times, the plasma fusion lobby, and various other institutions that destroyed the reputations and careers of cold fusion researchers in the 1990s. As Robert Park and the people from the DoE put it, "we are going to root out and fire anyone who so much as talks about cold fusion." They did. They weren't kidding or exaggerating. They will do it again if they get half a chance.


    If you do not know that, or you don't believe it, you are ignorant of history and extremely naive. That is how the world works. Anyone who challenges something like the multi-billion dollar plasma fusion budget will be eviscerated. They will accuse you of being "a fraud, a lunatic and criminal" as the Washington Post put it. What else do you think happens? Were you born yesterday?


    Given the above, I find it hard to fault Google for being careful, and for more or less operating from within the mainstream scientific consensus. If they were to boldly make assertions, decry other parties, or state heterodox beliefs, they would not only get nowhere, they would also destroy their chance of getting anywhere. I don't think they want to assert anything that they can't prove with fresh experimental data.


    They have carefully revealed their intent, and titrated their program into the scientific community. They have stated their aim of finding a reference experiment that can be the focus of a large, multi laboratory study. They have hinted at one of their primary goals being to open up funding for the field. They have published preliminary work including an open sourced calorimeter, a study of Pd loading, and what I understand (?) to be a promising, ongoing attempt to replicate Claytor. Trevithick attends ICCF and has given LF the chance to provide their input. Some hearts and minds at Nature seem to be shifting.


    Sometimes the hands do one thing whilst the mouth says something different.


    What some are reading as ignorance and incompetence, I read as a mixture of genuine reservation and, at times, careful, deliberate dissimulation.


    The Google Team seems to have thoroughly internalised the fact that they must be absolutely unimpeachable.


    Perhaps I'm naive, but that's how I read it.

  • News about Woodford and Industrial Heat

    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    Thanks for that. Losses are down from $15 million in 2017 to $5 million in 2018. There are suggestions in the report that the company will not remain a "going concern" without new investments. I wonder if they will get some.

    I read that as a pretty standard risk disclosure. Though it's an old balance sheet, with 27m in cash, and ~5m of cash burn, they seem to be fine for now.

  • Google (UBC/MIT/LBNL) post Nature updates.

    Quote from AlainCo

    As noticed by gerold.s

    This e-cat world article

    https://e-catworld.com/2019/10…producing-fusion-at-will/

    cites this podcast interviewing Prof. Yet Ming Chiang of the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering about the work of the Google-sponsored research team.

    https://www.buzzsprout.com/244633/1954191

    "We've had almost no negative reaction".


    Encouraging. Seems like the somewhat oblique way that they're approaching the area is doing wonders for the palatability of the program.

  • Google (UBC/MIT/LBNL) post Nature updates.


    It also occurs to me that, to extend (perhaps erroneously) the parliamentary party analogy, public policy is amended by different interests as it winds through a deliberative process, and so the final work is often a piece that is not necessarily highly fidelitous to its origins, but rather, a product that contains a set of accomodations that, hopefully, work to preserve some core aim and truth whilst balancing the conflicting motivations and interests of other, perhaps hostile, forces.

  • Google (UBC/MIT/LBNL) post Nature updates.

    Quote from Shane D.

    In my position, I have been fortunate to be privy to some of the internal gossip. Conspiracy theories run rampant, which actually has been a turn-off to me.


    Some background on Trevithick:


    Venture capitalist Trevithick (Venrock) related that one of his formulative experiences was when he found out he was related to Richard Trevithick, the inventor of the locomotive, a realization which may have presaged a career in venture capital for new technology.

    “I went to MIT in 1988 as a freshman, and in the spring of my freshman year was the Fleischmann-Pons announcement,” he related. At the same time, he was studying quantum mechanics under the brilliant Peter Hagelstein. A short time after graduation, he started and sold software companies. In 2002, he worked on Project Cobalt with Dennis Cravens, Dennis Letts, Michael McKubre and Peter Hagelstein to stimulate LENR-produced power using a laser. In December 2002, they thought they saw an excess heat phenomenon, which they presented at ICCF10. It was early in the development to form a company based on a hoped for technology. For Matt, that ended experiments in cold fusion, but as a result of contacts he made working in this area he found himself “tapped on the shoulder by Venrock,” a top VC firm that has invested $2.6 billion in 450 companies since 1969.


    Accordingly, he projected a number of slides with messages of much inspiration for the LENR community: “Good news! Resources are ready! The smart money in New York, Washington and Silicon Valley is paying attention to LENR and talent wants to ‘Stop doing incremental things.’” “I can vouch for that,” Trevithick assured the audience. “With the hydrogen isotopes in metal systems, something unusual is going on.” He projected a slide of someone sitting on a fence gazing at the sunset, signifying all those people in Washington, California and New York who would be wont to otherwise jump off the fence as far as LENR is concerned.

    “Due diligence is difficult,” it read.


    [...]


    Venture capitalist Matthew Trevithick (Venrock) related that he got an MBA and did his first start-up a few years out of school. “The only way to earn a living was to be an entrepreneur.” But he found his perspective changed when he learned that “being a boss was responsibility. The first crisis

    you have to deal with is that it involves not just your buddies and peers, but people depending upon you. You come out of it a changed person. You’ve been thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool.” He was drawn to the world of future energy technology and LENR, and had worked with Peter Hagelstein of MIT and Mike McKubre of SRI. His worst experience had been a project four years earlier for which he’d raised money for LENR research and ended up in a position of “ambiguity, which was the worst place. If it was negative, I could let it go. . .”


    https://www.infinite-energy.com/images/pdfs/MacyICCF18.pdf

  • Google (UBC/MIT/LBNL) post Nature updates.

    I did wonder (but do not know) to what extent a place like Nature is not so much a monolith, but rather, more like a series of factions or fiefdoms. If one were to think about it the way you would think about parliamentary politics, then managing change is often the process of shepherding incremental moves past those who would arc up and block them.


    I agree with Shane, and think that this, as well as TG's original Nature article, have to be read as being both sociological and scientific documents.


    The older I get, the more I think that interpersonal management and a capacity for nuanced, strategic and self aware rhetoric are crucial in most every occupation.


    If you read it purely as a scientific report then it's a let down. But read with the above in mind, it makes more sense, imo.

  • Warren Walborn, former head of the American Electric Power corporate venture fund, on Brillouin Energy. Sept 2019.

    Another comment from Godes, the key point of which is that they seem to be allowing a thorough due diligence process.


    Thanks for mentioning us! You seem to be expressing concern over our lack of institutional investors to legitimize the technology as well as our lack of retail investors.

    When trying to answer a question I find it is useful to ask questions yourself. First, why might Brillouin Energy choose to only accept accredited investors? Although our company started with a dozen or so friends and family who are not accredited, federal law allows a maximum of 35 non-accredited investors. A brief google search will confirm this:

    How many non accredited investors can you have?https://www.sec.gov/oiea/investor-alerts-bulletins/ib_privateplacements.html

    Under Rule 505, issuers may offer and sell up to $5 million of their securities in any 12-month period. There are limits on the types of investors who may purchase the securities. The issuer may sell to an unlimited number of accredited investors, but to no more than 35 non-accredited investors.

    Of the accredited investors we have, several actually brought people with PhDs in a variety of disciplines to perform due diligence. The investors who brought PhDs working in industry always invest. In contrast, potential investors bringing PhDs from universities never invest. Why is that? It is not a ‘conspiracy’, as you say. That would imply a collaboration, I doubt any of the professors knew each other. However all the ‘institutional investors’ rely on people they deem to be ‘the smartest’ to advise them. Without fail, the institutional investors bring professors. One particular hot fusion investment group claimed a lack of ability to do due diligence on our technology. The investors bring PhDs from industry prove that it is not a lack of ability, so much as a lack of experience.

    You compare us to the “Scuderi Group”, a group fined by the SEC for misleading investors. Brillouin Energy is extremely open about the technology we are inventing and how investments are utilized. All successful developers of hardware who have visited our lab have been extremely impressed by our lab. Several of the PhDs and other founders who have come to our lab were amazed by what we have accomplished given the money we had raised.

    You are almost certainly correct in your belief that all the notable institutions who just invested $145 million for CFS and First Light Fusion were aware of your company. Unfortunately for them, they jumped out of an airplane wearing a backpack handed to them by one of the smartest people who did not recognize the difference between a backpack and a parachute.

    We had a PhD physicist who currently works at one of the mentioned hot fusion companies come and visit us. They stated that they wanted to come and work for us because we are in a great position. We looked at them quizzically. They said ‘we put in an enormous amount of energy and we can't figure out exactly where it all went. People are quibbling over exactly how much energy you are producing’. The physicist also stated how amazed they were at how skilled the founder of their company was at raising money for basic research. When we told them we doubted the founder was telling them that they were raising money for basic research, they looked at us and said ‘well, but that's what we're doing’. Backpack indeed.

  • Warren Walborn, former head of the American Electric Power corporate venture fund, on Brillouin Energy. Sept 2019.

    Some more comments from Godes.

  • Brillouin Energy Corporation (BEC) updates.


    Link: https://michelekearneynuclearw…and-their-low-energy.html


    This link was tweeted by Godes, so I assume it's not wildly different to his thinking.


    I assume that Walborn is involved with Brillouin. Here's his LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/warrenwalborn/


    '18 to 24 months'?


    '[...] their Low Energy Nuclear Reaction breakthrough a few months ago'?


    What to make of these statements?

  • Warren Walborn, former head of the American Electric Power corporate venture fund, on Brillouin Energy. Sept 2019.


    Link: https://michelekearneynuclearw…and-their-low-energy.html


    This link was tweeted by Godes, so I assume it's not wildly different to his thinking.


    I assume that Walborn is involved with Brillouin. Here's his LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/warrenwalborn/


    '18 to 24 months'?


    '[...] their Low Energy Nuclear Reaction breakthrough a few months ago'?


    What to make of these statements?

  • L-F Poll: Best LENR science news of 2018

    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    orsova

    News to me. But I don't follow that closely. Have a citation or link please? Thanks.

    Quote

    The NASA Glenn Research Center replicated the co-deposition protocol. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division with JWK under NCRADA and with NASA and other agency funding, replicated the protocol, analyzed materials, and observed magnetic field effects and thermal responses.


    https://www.researchgate.net/p…tions_in_Condensed_Matter

    Note also: Forsley is now an experimental physicist at NASA, and GEC is working on a hybrid reactor with NASA.


    I don't recall the above quote being in the earlier version of this document, though could be wrong.

  • L-F Poll: Best LENR science news of 2018

    Quote from Shane D.

    Makes it hard to run these "best of" polls, when everyone has to go silent after making their exciting claims. It will be slim pickings for the best story of 2019 for sure. I have been keeping my eyes open, and the only big stories put in the public domain (reported on) are Safire, and Team Google. TG will now go silent until their next paper is published, and probably Safire will do the same once they get funding to pursue LENR effects. So both will be one year stories until such time in the future they are successful, or not. Frustrating, and something I have had to struggle with, but a necessary evil once funding/NDA's/patents come into play.


    Maybe Holmlid, Norront, Mills, and the R20 replications will come through for us?

    Maybe I have my wires crossed, but I think we only learned that NASA had replicated the co-dep work earlier this year?

  • Off-topic posts moved from ICFC-22 threads


    You are correct to note that at the time, Shultz's grandson was not a scientist.


    I mentioned scientists.


    Ergo, I was not talking about Shultz's grandson.


    I was mostly thinking of Professor Phyllis Gardner.


    See: https://www.mercurynews.com/20…is-star-in-theranos-saga/

  • Team Google wants your opinion: "What is the highest priority experiment the LENR community wants to see conducted?"

    I think it's worth highlighting the work of Imam, Miles & Nagel, on Palladium-Boron cathodes, from the just published proceedings of ICCF-21. (https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BiberianJPjcondensedzb.pdf).


    I don't recall this work being discussed in this thread. Reading it, it looks like a high quality candidate for TG's attention. There are two papers, one on the fabrication of the cathodes, and another on experimental results. It's interesting to note that Imam, Miles & Nagel characterise their Pd-B cathodes as one of two reliably reproducible experiments, the other being co-deposition. They observe that both approaches remove oxygen as a variable in the experiments.


    Certainly, if TG intends to continue their work exploring bulk Pd/D, this work suggests avenues for exploring not just loading, but also materials science challenges. I recall that Dr Storms (I hope I'm not putting words in his mouth) suggested that exploring these problems is one of the keys to moving forward.


    I thought it also of note that, according to Imam and Miles, Pd-B alloys also offer the possibility of better hydrogen purification membranes.



    Quote

    Based on almost 30 years of research, two sources of palladium materials yielding good reproducibility for generation of excess enthalpy effects have been identified: (1) palladium materials prepared by co-deposition method and (2) Pd–B alloys. A common feature for both these methods is that they yield palladium that is relatively free of oxygen as an impurity. A beneficial effect of the added boron is that it minimizes the activity of dissolved oxygen in the pal- ladium by converting it to B2O3 during processing. The low density B2O3 floats to the surface and is removed during the molten phase of the Pd–B alloy preparation. Further, the creation of two FCC phases makes the material harder and less susceptible to cracking. That is attractive for some applications. In particular, it is the likely explanation for reproducible LENR energy generation.



    Quote

    Appendix: Other Applications of Pd–B Alloys

    The alloys produced in this work show the same or better strength than pure palladium with much less thickness. This is advantageous for the creation of hydrogen purification membranes because less palladium would be needed to create a membrane and achieve the same results. This is, sturdy membranes of much less thickness are enabled compared to using palladium alone. Put another way, the increased hardness means that a much smaller amount of expensive palladium may be used to provide a membrane of the same capacity compared to costly palladium alone. This would allow much greater membrane capacity through reduced material costs. How much the thickness of the membrane would be able to be decreased with the present composition would depend upon such factors as the geometrical design, gases to be purified, and the extent of purification desired.

    The hardened Pd material would also be advantageous for use as electrodes in etching, polishing, electrochemical machining, semiconductor wafer manufacture and other electrochemical processes. Palladium cathodes hardened by alloying, as described in this paper, retain their superior electrical characteristics and resist erosion better than pure palladium.



    Quote

    6. Discussion

    The major question is why do these NRL Pd–B cathodes produce the F–P excess heat effect while most other palladium materials do not? One possible answer is that the added boron removes oxygen from the palladium by forming B2O3 during the melting process. The less dense boron oxide then separates from the molten metal. Other clues for oxygen effects are the successful Johnson–Matthey materials specially produced under a blanket of cracked ammonia

    (N2+H2). The hydrogen removes oxygen from the metal during the melting process in the form of H2O vapor. These Johnson–Matthey cathodes also generally produced excess energy in F–P related electrochemical experiments [2,3,11]. A possible third clue is the electrochemical deposition of palladium and deuterium (co-deposition) from D2O + PdCl2 solutions which provides oxygen-free palladium and reproducible excess power effects (if done correctly) [12].

    Another possible important factors for Pd–B cathodes is that the added boron produces a material of much greater mechanical strength than pure palladium [1,6]. There is very little volumetric expansion when Pd–B cathodes are loaded with deuterium. This suggests that Pd–B materials are less likely to crack during the loading process. Another feature is that these Pd–B materials load similarly to palladium cathodes, but the escape of deuterium (de-loading) when the current is removed is at least ten times slower than for pure palladium cathodes based on gravimetric studies. A possible explanation for such large differences in the rate of deuterium loading and de-loading for these Pd–B materials is that Pd–B may load electrochemically across the grains, but when the electrochemical current is removed, most of the deuterium escapes along grain boundaries which may be clogged with the boron atoms. With no applied current, there is no electrochemical potential to drive deuterium into other grains. When the cell current is first turned off for pure palladium cathodes, the escape of deuterium gas is much too rapid to be explained by the simple diffusion of deuterium from palladium grains at the electrode surface. It seems likely that the Pd–B materials are somehow much more restrictive than pure palladium cathodes in allowing deuterium to escape via the grain boundaries.


    I think it's also notable that this Pd-B work forms the basis of LEAP (see ICCF-22 outline below). Given that their approach seems to be quite similar to TG's, perhaps an alliance between TG and LEAP could be beneficial to both parties. This doesn't seem like such a stretch, given that Carl Page is involved with LEAP.


  • The Search for Evidence of Cold Fusion - Rick Cantwell (2012) [Coolescence SPAWAR replication attempt]

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    The SPAWAR stuff is strong when read alone but also the type of evidence that I am suspicious of. It relies on experts claiming the only explanation for something is one thing, when even if that is all that a given expert can conceive of, other possibilities remain. The cross checks never panned out, or were never done. Thus if there really were alphas emitted they would be detectable in other ways. Comparing the SPAWAR evidence and the Earthtech investigation I did not find alphas a convincing explanation for those pits. More importantly, if alphas are emmitted from an experiment they can be detected in multiple ways, and this was not found.


    THH


    But it wasn't just pits on CR-39. It was also heat, x-rays, tritium and transmutation.

  • The Search for Evidence of Cold Fusion - Rick Cantwell (2012) [Coolescence SPAWAR replication attempt]

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    if well motivated and documented effortful but negative attempted replications are dismissed then we have a collection of beliefs that can never be changed, and a true cult.


    It's precisely because I don't think it should be dismissed that I posted it. Rather, I think it should be examined closely. As I said, I have reservations about their work. Was the Coolescence work done at a high standard and documented to your satisfaction? Are you satisfied that the people who did the work were qualified to do so? I don't have solid answers to these questions, but I was hoping to start a conversation.


    To me, the SPAWAR work is the most compelling body of work that suggests LENR is real. Consequently, imo, any failure to replicate the work should be looked at closely. As I said, this talk was just published, so I wanted to bring it to the attention of the forum for the above reasons.

  • Team Google wants your opinion: "What is the highest priority experiment the LENR community wants to see conducted?"

    Quote from Shane D.

    This was my first post on this thread I started. Read Matt's question after I say "it would be helpful to know:".


    For what it's worth, I would want a demonstrated fluency with the relevant literature, consultation/critique with/from the appropriate people within the field, and a demonstration that they had worked with the experiment in question for long enough to, for the lack of a better turn of phrase, really get a feel for its ins and outs. My biggest worry with anybody trying to replicate is that they do an experiment(s), get no result, and then briskly move on to something else.


    Whatever experiment TG chooses, I think a demonstrated history of replicability and access to those who have done the work previously is probably vital to success; and I would want to see those two things reflected in the choice of experiment and in the published results.

  • The Search for Evidence of Cold Fusion - Rick Cantwell (2012) [Coolescence SPAWAR replication attempt]

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    Edit: This was only just uploaded, and features Rick Cantwell talking about their co-deposition work. They failed to replicate. I have reservations about their work, but thought it may be of interest.