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JedRothwell Verified User
  • Member since Oct 11th 2014

Posts by JedRothwell

    Britain should overhaul its daily coronavirus death figures to split them up by vaccination status, MPs have said.


    And the casualty toll should be divided into how many had received a booster shot, how many were double-jabbed and how many were unvaccinated.

    This would only be a good idea if the results were shown on a per capita basis, to avoid the base rate fallacy. This is especially important in the UK where most of the population is vaccinated. If 100% of the people were vaccinated, all cases would be breakthrough cases, but that would tell you nothing about the nature of disease. It is also important to break down the statistics by age, because an older vaccinated person is in more danger than a young unvaccinated person.

    @Jed Rothwell true, but you are not factoring in as is the case for Tesla cars the cost to the environment of factories producing the solar panels or cars. What is the energy cost in relation to photosynthesis?

    The energy cost for using the product of photosynthesis is sometimes higher than the energy you get out of it. Especially with ethanol. It is an energy sink, not an energy source. By the time you irrigate the crop, harvest it, and process it, the energy that goes into it is far greater than what you get out by burning it. See "Food, Energy, and Society" by Pimentel and Pimentel.


    If you could use all of the stored energy from photosynthesis directly, with no processing, the way you use photovoltaic electricity, it would be a positive energy source. It would be roughly 10 times smaller than photovoltaic electricity, but still positive.


    Burning wood directly instead of producing ethanol is a net positive source of energy, but it is extremely wasteful, destructive, and dirty.


    The energy and dollar cost of making a Tesla car is far smaller than the cost of ethanol agriculture, conversion factories, ethanol distribution to gas stations, and burning ethanol. The latter has has extremely low Carnot efficiency, except perhaps in a hybrid car. Tesla cars powered by photovoltaic or wind produce no CO2 during transportation, whereas the production of ethanol produces more CO2 than any other source of energy, and -- as I said -- it is a net energy sink. It uses more fossil fuel than gasoline from oil does. The only way to power an automobile with photosynthesis is to make ethanol, or to burn wood and generate power. Both options are environmental and economic nightmares.


    Electric cars can be produced in factories powered by photovoltaics or wind, whereas with present technology, ethanol requires the use of gasoline, for farm equipment and transport to gas stations.

    Shane D. reported:


    "There has been another successful replication [of the Pd Ni-mesh experiment] by a third party Japanese publicly traded company. They are working on the final report now, and when done it will be posted here on the forum. Not sure what reactor, but results were 644W input/764W output."

    RE: Mizuno reports increased excess heat

    This is good news. Mizuno and I have done all we can to support verification and replication of this experiment. This effort has not worked out as well as we hoped, but it has not failed either. There is a range of different ways to verify or replicate an experiment:

    Verification during a visit to Mizuno's lab. Independent observers brought in their own instruments and confirmed the temperature and airflow measurements. This was helpful!

    Verification in another lab. Mizuno helped others in Sapporo build a calorimeter, and he loaned them a reactor. They confirmed excess heat. Mizuno has to be there in person and do hands-on work to accomplish this, so it can only be done in Sapporo, especially with the pandemic.

    Verification in another lab where they build their own calorimeter and use a cell loaned to them by Mizuno. This is the latest report from Shane D.

    A partial replication in which Mizuno and I provide samples of mesh and other materials for replications. Unfortunately, as far as I know, these efforts failed. Apparently there is something about the reactor itself which is essential to success. Either that or the mesh is contaminated during shipping, or there is some similar problem. I have no idea what the problem might be.

    Independent replication by people who only read the descriptions we published, and did not receive any materials from us. There have been two reports of this, one in India and one in China. Power levels have been much lower than the best experiment by Mizuno.

    Replication with a different kind of calorimeter, in China. Even better. Using a different kind of calorimeter ensures there is no systematic error in calorimetry.

    Independent replication with high power. This has not yet been accomplished. I would like to emphasize that it is far more important to confirm there is excess power than to replicate the high magnitude power. Heat that is high enough to measure with confidence is far better than nothing. Higher power would be icing on the cake. I would rather see ten low power replications than one high power replication. (Low, but not so low that it is close to the margin of error.)

    Independent replication with improvements. This would be the best outcome. It has not yet been accomplished.


    So can anybody justify to me the point of solar panels vs chlorophyl-plant based systems?

    Solar panel efficiency ranges from 11% to 15%. Plant photosynthesis with sunlight is 3% to 6%, but in terms of energy storage it ends up at about 1%. If you were to burn the plants to generate electricity, you would get only about 1/3rd of that energy, making the total ~0.3%.


    photosynthesis - Energy efficiency of photosynthesis
    photosynthesis - photosynthesis - Energy efficiency of photosynthesis: The energy efficiency of photosynthesis is the ratio of the energy stored to the energy…
    www.britannica.com

    These companies are not specialists in calorimetry but corporate entities performing unpaid validations based upon our supply of reactors and using their own equipment for calorimetry.

    It is good that they made their own calorimeters. At this stage, that is more important than making their own reactors. In fact, their own reactors probably would not work. "Unpaid validations" does not sound good. Who is not paying? Mizuno is not paying them? Or their own companies are not paying them -- and the work is being done after hours. If you mean the latter, that tells me the companies do not take this seriously. It could be bad news.

    its a question of rupees .. hopefully Ramarao can push for as many

    as were spent on the Akash missile which he worked on.

    I do not see why calibration points would be a question of rupees. They take only time. At most one day per point, I think. Spend 3 days calibrating and you get 3 points. 5 days giving 5 points would be better, I think.

    Being the year it is...

    A thread for Martin Fleischmann quotes might be apropos.


    Usually, if you have a new idea, you very rarely break through to anything like recognizable development or implementation of that idea the first time around - it takes two or three goes for the research community to return to the topic.” - Martin Fleischmann

    What is the source of all these quotes?

    Something's wrong with the Calibration system (Blue) .... it's non-linear.

    Good point.


    That is not necessarily a problem. It depends on the details of the calorimeter. If the calorimeter is an insulated box with thin insulation, you would expect the curve to bend down at high input power. Over a smaller range of input power, with only small heat losses from the box, you couldn't see this effect. Almost all of the heat would be captured by the flow calorimetry.


    On the other hand, the blue and dotted lines reach higher temperatures, yet they seem more linear. They do bend a little. That is odd. I think we need more information to understand why it is acting this way.


    There are only 3 calibration points, which bothers me.

    Now, i don't expect some evolvement about the process mastery or real understanding of what is happening.

    A reliable method of producing significant heat could be a tremendous help. It might be used to master the process or develop a real understanding. It is awfully difficult to master the process when you have to spend all your time just trying to make it work once in ten experiments.


    It could help. It is necessary, but not sufficient. You also need skill, and luck.

    I think describing it as 12.4% is the wrong approach. The absolute value of excess power is more important than the percent.

    Looking at it in the other direction, 1.00 W of input and 1.12 W output would be difficult to measure. Much harder than 640 W to 760 W.


    Of course it depends on the calorimeter. 120 mW excess would look gigantic with a microcalorimeter.

    "We evaluated the full packet of public health measures as it was implemented in the beginning of the pandemic, but lesser mitigation measures may have worked just as well to reduce lives lost," Yakusheva said. "The fact is, we just will never know. At the time, we had to work with the information that we had. We knew the pandemic was deadly, and we did not have therapeutics or a vaccine."

    I think that is the critical point. It is all very well to say that in retrospect we should have done this, or we shouldn't have done that, and maybe the lockdowns went too far in some cases. But, when you do not know much yet and lives are at stake, is is better to overreact than to underestimate the danger.


    I am reminded of a quote from WWII. During Congressional testimony a Senator asked a general, "How many tanks do we really need? Are we sending too many to Europe?" The general answered, "better a thousand too many than one not enough."

    A review of the Japanese government COVID response:


    Opinion | What Japan Got Right About Covid-19
    The country embraced the science of the coronavirus early.
    www.nytimes.com

    What Japan Got Right About Covid-19


    By Hitoshi Oshitani

    Dr. Oshitani is a professor of virology at Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan. He has helped advise the Japanese government on its Covid-19 response.


    SOME QUOTES:


    Japan’s unique way of contact tracing also gave us more clues into how the virus spread. While other countries focused on prospective contact tracing, in which contact tracers identify and notify infected people’s contacts after they are infected, we used retrospective contact tracing. . . .


    I suggested a basic concept: People should avoid the three C’s, which are closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings. The Japanese government shared this advice with the public in early March, and it became omnipresent. The message to avoid the three C’s was on the news, variety shows, social media and posters. “Three C’s” was even declared the buzzword of the year in Japan in 2020. . . .


    Drastic measures, such as lockdowns, were never taken because the goal was always to find ways to live with Covid-19. (Japanese law also does not allow for lockdowns, so the country could not have declared them even if we had thought them necessary.) . . .


    When it comes to the numbers of cases and deaths, Japan has fared well compared to other countries. It has had about 146 deaths per million people in the pandemic so far. The United States has had about 2,590 deaths per million.

    The absolute value of excess power is more important than the percent.

    In an experiment, I mean. For a real world application it would be important to lower the input power. The difference between 644 W and 764 W can be measured with high confidence, but it would preclude any practical use for the device.


    I doubt this is a long-term problem. If they can control the effect, I expect they can lower input power to the point where it makes little difference. We sometimes forget that practical generators and motors have high overhead energy, from friction and low Carnot efficiency. If someone could make a cold fusion device with 250 W input and 1,000 W output, I think it could be made into a practical generator without much trouble. It would produce a lot of waste heat. It would be inefficient and bulky. I doubt you could use it for an automobile engine, given the additional losses from low Carnot efficiency and mechanical friction. But I think it could be used for generator. I think it would also be good for a small, low powered thermoelectric device, perhaps for something like a cell phone. Maybe not? Maybe it would be too hot for your pocket? Certainly it would be good for a space-based generator, a robot on Mars, or a railroad crossing signal and gate in Alaska. (People use natural gas-fired thermoelectric devices for railroad crossings in northern climates, rather than photovoltaics.)

    644W input/764W total heat or about 12.4% XH. 80W absolute XH. max.

    I think describing it as 12.4% is the wrong approach. The absolute value of excess power is more important than the percent. 120 W excess power is easy to measure even with high input power. As I have often said, input power is not noise. It is very easy to measure and subtract from the total. Depending on the calorimeter, you might have difficulty measuring output power to within a few percent, but input power from resistance heating can be measured with confidence to within a fraction of 1%.


    Granted, if this were the difference between 12,800 W and 12,920 then subtracting the input power would be more tricky.


    Anyway, it is great news! It will be a considerable relief to me personally if this pans out.

    The Vaccine Death Charts Could Shock All Americans: In most countries the number of Covid-10 deaths started to grow AFTER introduction of vaccines

    There is nothing remotely "shocking" about this.


    Obviously this is because it takes a while to vaccinate a significant fraction of the population, and because it takes two month to administer two doses. This graph shows the introduction of vaccines in January 2021, shortly after the vaccines went into production. It was not possible to vaccinate more than a small number of people before the peak of deaths in February. As soon as the number of vaccinated elderly people became significantly high, deaths dropped sharply. That proves the vaccine was working.


    What else would you expect? Do you think that after the first few vaccinations, the death rate would magically drop to zero? Among people who were still not vaccinated? How would that work?