Quote from JedRothwell

No, the results are very large. Why do you make up this kind of bullshit? Who are your trying to fool? Obviously you have not read the papers. Do you think no one else has read them?

I suppose I should give the actual numbers from the literature. Obviously, THH never will. THH claims that contamination has not been accounted for, and that the amounts of tritium are small. Here are some quotes from Will et al.:

Contamination

The closed-system procedure has been applied to nearly 100 as-manufactured palladium wire samples of various lots and sizes from two different sources. None of these samples show any tritium contamination within the detection limit of 5 x 10^7 tritium atoms.

Amount of tritium detected

The largest amount of tritium, generated in 7 days of continuous electrolysis, was 2.1 × 10^11 tritium atoms, compared with a background of 4 × 10^9 tritium atoms. The concentration of tritium and its axial distribution in the Pd were determined and
concentrations of up to 9 × 10^10 atoms/g Pd were found compared with a maximum background of 5 × 10^8 atoms g^-1. . . .

. . . The palladium cathode area in all four cells was approximately 2 cm^2 and the number of T atoms generated in the four cells is in a relatively tight band, from 4.3 x 10^10 to 1.1 x 10^11 T atoms/cm2. These values are in good agreement with those obtained by several research groups at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Bombay, India [7]. Their values run from a low of 5 x 10^9 to a high value of 1.7 x 10^14 T atoms/cm2. Predominantly, however, their values are in the range from 10^10 to 10^11 T atoms/cm2. These experiments were run for comparable lengths of time as our experiments. The average tritium generation rate in our experiments varies from 5.8 x 10^4 to 2.0 x 10^5 T atoms/cm2/sec and the tritium enhancement factor (tritium after to tritium before
the experiment) attained values of up to 52. . . .

Quote from Fm1

it's time to block THH posts so the rest of us can benefit from your experience.

52 times background is not small or difficult to detect. I suppose THH has not read these papers, because everything he says is contradicted by them. Perhaps he has read them, and he is trolling us, hoping to deceive people who are too lazy to read the literature. Either way, his behavior is annoying. However, it does prove that THH -- along with the editors and Scientific American, and other skeptics -- is completely wrong. In a sense his contributions to this forum are valuable because they prove that the skeptics are wrong and they contribute nothing to the discussion. So I do not think we should block him.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Papers by F.G. Wills and others may claim that contamination is ruled out. And certainly show that some obvious types of contamination are ruled out in some experiments. But I gave three different error mechanisms - all in play because the claimed results are so very small.

No, the results are very large. Why do you make up this kind of bullshit? Who are your trying to fool? Obviously you have not read the papers. Do you think no one else has read them?

Quote from THHuxleynew

The people who are unsure about those CF results do not doubt the observations* - they doubt the interpretation.

No, they say the observations are mistakes and fraud. You yourself constantly say the results are mistakes because they are small, as you just did. Claiming a result is close to the margin when it is actually high sigma is tantamount to falsely claiming it is a mistake.

Quote from Frogfall

Does that mean that the Adobe AI is dragging extra information from other sources (i.e. from the internet) without letting its users know?

It does seem that way.

When I set up the bot at LENR-CANR.org I set it to use only the information that I uploaded. Of course, it used its own general knowledge of English and things like arithmetic. But I do not think it would extrapolate or cite information not specifically listed in the papers.

Quote from Alan Smith

I think that you need to create a rotating magnetic field. As in a 3-phase electric motor. And you can do that cheaply enough.

I have a submerged pond pump with a built in rotating magnetic field. This is called a magnetic drive. The motor is in a sealed waterproof portion. It produces a rotating magnetic field. The impellor has a permanent magnet. It fits into a circular hole, and the field drives it around. If you need only a small device that can fit into the impeller shaft hole, you could use one of these. The shaft is about 1 cm diameter by 4 cm long.

Pondmaster Magnetic Drive Utility Pumps

Shop at The Pond Guy and browse our Pondmaster selections for a dependable Magnetic Drive Submersible Pump like the Pondmaster Magnetic Drive Utility Pumps.

www.thepondguy.com

The Adobe Acrobat AI described my paper. She added some details I did write. They are underlined in this example:

Control over the reaction: Complete control over the cold fusion reaction needs to be achieved. This means being able to initiate, sustain, and control the fusion process reliably and consistently. Control is essential for the practical and efficient use of cold fusion technology.

I do not see those two points in the paper. They are correct. But I didn't say 'em. It is problematic that the bot is explaining things the author did not. There is a trendy term "mansplaining." I guess this would be "botsplaining" or "AI condescension."

Quote from Alan Smith

You can tell for example from this advertisement that Harrods in London doesn't sell many ironing boards.

That link did not work. Here is an image of the page, which is hilarious:

This is what my mother would call "the carriage trade." For people who have more money than sense. Which is even in the dictionary:

more money than sense

1. used to talk about people spending a lot of money on something that you…

dictionary.cambridge.org

Quote from GRMattson

I would still drive ten miles for gas .

If your car had a small tank with 200 mile range, would you drive 200 miles for gas? No, because you would not have any gas left when you got back home. This is a variation of a statement about energy made decades ago, to wit:

If you were starving, you might pay $100 for an apple. You might even pay $1000. But you would never pay two apples for one apple. The energy overhead of extracting and refining oil is about 10% to 20% of the oil, depending on where the oil comes from. If the overhead reached 50%, it would hardly be worth doing. If it reached 110%, no one would use oil. That is what we mean when we say "oil will run out." Not that there will be none left anywhere on earth, but rather there will none left that is worth the energy overhead or the money needed to extract it.

Getting back to the actual scenario in which many gas stations close, you might be willing to drive 10 miles, but in Atlanta I would not, because going 10 miles in any direction means a half hour fighting traffic. I might continue driving 10 miles to buy gas until my car wears out, but the next car I buy would be an EV just to avoid the hassle. In other words, the inconvenience would drive many people to stop using gasoline cars, even if gas were still available.

Someone suggested to me that if EV become popular and gasoline consumption drops, gasoline will become very cheap. It might even compete with EV electricity. I do not think so. There is a price floor below which you cannot produce gasoline. It costs ~$2.00 to make a gallon of gas. You cannot sell it for less. EV are cheaper than that. I estimated this years ago. The other day I ran the numbers again, as follows:

It costs $20 to $50 to pump 1 barrel of oil from a U.S. onshore well. In Saudi Arabia it is about $10. Offshore wells cost as much as $90.

It is unclear how much it costs to ship oil to a refinery in the U.S. from a U.S. well, or from Saudi Arabia. There is something called the "Crude Oil Composite Acquisition Cost by Refiners." It is presently $72. At the height of the pandemic it was $19. I read they were losing money at that rate. I suppose that means the actual cost, without profit, is around $60. Of course you cannot sustain a business without profit.

U.S. Crude Oil Composite Acquisition Cost by Refiners (Dollars per Barrel)

Anyway, 1 barrel produces 45 gallons of fuel of various types. At $60/barrel that comes to $1.33. Another estimate is $1.39:

What Determines Retail Prices for Gasoline and Diesel? | Volta Oil, MA RI CT

There are four cost components that make up the retail price of gasoline and diesel. Those components include: crude oil cost, refining cost, distribution and…

voltaoil.com

It costs $0.40 to $0.70 to refine the fuel, depending on the quality of the crude oil and whether you want summer or winter fuel. So, total production cost is ~$1.73 - $2.09. That is before shipping it to gas stations, and vending it to drivers.

The average U.S. car gets 21 mpg city, 27 mpg highway. An EV gets 3 - 4 miles/kWh. The U.S. average cost of electricity is 15.73 cents/kWh. Comparing lowest cost to lowest cost:

$1.73 / 27 mpg highway = 6.4 cents per mile
15.73 cents / 4 miles/kWh = 3.9 cents per mile

Highest to highest:

$2.09 / 21 mpg city = 10.0 cents per mile
15.73 cents / 3 miles/kWh = 5.2 cents per mile

As a practical matter, no one can sell gasoline for less than $2.50 and stay in business, whereas the actual retail cost of electricity is 15.73/kWh, and power companies make plenty of profit. So the actual cost of gasoline comes to at least 9.2 cents per mile. It is not possible to produce gasoline at a cost competitive with an EV. Not in the U.S., the EU or the third world. You could compete in Saudi Arabia or Russia.

Also as a practical matter, most people with EV do not pay 15.73 cents per kilowatt hour. They have smart meters, and they recharge overnight at greatly reduced rates. In Atlanta you can pay 25 cents during the day and 6 cents at night:

Nights & Weekends

www.georgiapower.com

Or there Super-EV rate of 1.8 cents, which I do not think they will offer for long:

Plug-In Electric Vehicle

www.georgiapower.com

In parts of Texas with abundant wind power you pay zero cents at night. It is free. They make it up with a fixed cost per month. Anyway, even at 6 cents per kilowatt hour there is no way gasoline could ever compete, even if the Saudis started giving away the oil for free.

Quote from Frogfall

Consider it a gift from BBC license fee payers

I wish Japan's NHK national TV was as generous. You can't even reach it from the U.S. without a VPN. You cannot view it unless you are a Japanese subscriber. And they won't let you subscribe! The Japanese Amazon Kindle books are similarly restricted. It is as if they don't want your money.

Nature:

Is AI ready to mass-produce lay summaries of research articles?

The latest version of Adobe Acrobat has a built-in AI assistant that can summarize papers. It does a pretty good job. Here it summarizes my paper

How to fix global warming with cold fusion

https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJhowtofixgl.pdf

[The links in this forum are not working right]

The document discusses how cold fusion technology can help mitigate global warming by eliminating carbon emissions and enhancing carbon sequestration through reforestation projects.

It continues --

Here are some suggestions you can try:

What are the six things needed to use cold fusion for various applications?

The six things needed to use cold fusion for various applications are:

1. Sufficiently high power density: Cold fusion generators need to have a high power density to be compact and practical for direct use. This is important for applications such as powering electric cars or small devices.

2. High Carnot efficiency: Cold fusion devices should have a high Carnot efficiency, which refers to the efficiency of converting heat into useful work. This is important for maximizing the energy output of the device.

3. High energy density: Cold fusion technology should have a high energy density, meaning it can store a large amount of energy in a small volume. This is important for applications where space is limited, such as portable devices or vehicles.

4. Perfect safety with no tritium, or at least no tritium leaks: Cold fusion devices should be safe to use and operate without any tritium leaks. Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that can be produced in some cold fusion reactions. Ensuring safety and preventing any potential radiation hazards is crucial for the widespread adoption of cold fusion technology.

5. Reasonably low-cost materials and manufacturing: Cold fusion devices should be made from materials that are readily available and affordable. Additionally, the manufacturing processes should be cost-effective to make the technology accessible and economically viable.

6. Control over the reaction: Complete control over the cold fusion reaction needs to be achieved. This means being able to initiate, sustain, and control the fusion process reliably and consistently. Control is essential for the practical and efficient use of cold fusion technology.

These six requirements are necessary for the successful implementation of cold fusion in various applications and to make it a viable alternative energy source.

What is the purpose of cutting deadwood into chips?

The purpose of cutting deadwood into chips is to make it easier to transport and to convert it into charcoal. The deadwood is cut into chips to reduce its mass and volume, making it more manageable for transportation. Additionally, the chips are then baked into charcoal using cold fusion technology. . . .

. . . If you would like to see a summary and sample questions for some other document, let me know.

Quote from Frogfall

For those of you outside the UK, who are probably blocked (are you?) - I'll see if I can capture and extract the audio.

It is available in the U.S.

Quote from Storms

Jed, an observation is always true.

I agree! I am with you 100%. I am just pointing out that THH says the observations are not true. He claims they are all mistakes. All close to the margin of error. That is his method of "falsifying" the claims. It does not hold water. As I said, this is not normal scientific discourse. THH applies this standard to cold fusion only. He would never say this about any other set of experiments. I am sure he knows this is batty. Imagine claiming that the reactor safety group at BARC cannot detect tritium!

Quote from Storms

Yet, I have explained cold fusion and it's impossible to falsify an observed behavior.

I don't mean to quibble, but let's look at how people such as THH and editors at Scientific American claim they can falsify observed behavior. They say that all of the observations are mistakes, or fraud. Let us grant that if that were true, cold fusion would be falsified.

What I say in response is: Observed behavior that has been replicated in hundreds of labs cannot be a mistake. If hundreds of scientists could be wrong, experimental science itself would not work. In normal scientific discourse, no one would say that widely observed, high sigma behavior can be falsified. Ed is 100% right about that.

I also say to THH: if that is your hypothesis, then read the leading papers and show us what mistakes have been made. You have to show why these experiments are wrong. You don't get to claim "there may be mistakes somewhere" without specifically telling us what experiments you mean, and what mistakes were made. A negative opinion does not get a free pass. You have to support your assertion with facts and rigor, just as the researchers support their claims.

THH and the editors at Scientific American refuse to read papers or give any evidence for their claims. THH says the tritium might be caused by contamination. He does not address the papers by F. G. Will and others that show contamination is ruled out.

Quote from Alan Smith

Many petrol stations in the UK have closed over the last 30 years, but it had nothing to do with EVs. Some have become car-washes, others used-car lots, houses, or mini-markets.

In the U.S. there was a wave of closings after the 1970s energy crisis. I think many of those stations remained closed. That wave of closing prompted the article I read in the 1980s about small profit margins and gas stations being vulnerable to a small loss of business.

I do not think there is a problem with small underground tanks in the U.S. Gas stations usually have plenty of room. On the other hand, in the 1990s gigantic gas stations with 10 or more bays become common. I suppose they must have some advantage.

Abandoned gas stations are a environmental problem. They are supposed to dig up and dispose of the underground tanks.

Texas hailstorm damages thousands of solar panels at 350-MW farm

Texas hailstorm damages thousands of solar panels at 350-MW farm

"Golfball-sized" hail fell in Fort Bend County, TX on March 15, and helicopter footage offers a glimpse at the extent of the damage.

www.renewableenergyworld.com

Yikes!

The person writing the tweet showing the damage asks:

"Who pays to fix this green energy? @StateFarm
? @FarmBureau
? @Allstate
?

Or you the taxpayer?"

Answer: The insurance company. The taxpayer would only pay if this were a nuclear reactor. Nukes are so expensive to fix no private insurer will cover them. Uncle Sam insures them.

This article describes steps being taken to reduce this kind of damage. And it describes problems with insurance.

Quote from JedRothwell

I predict they will be bankrupt long before they reach the last 10%. I just used that number to illustrate what I have in mind. I do not know enough about the economics of a power company to judge where the breaking point would be.

I do not know about power companies, but in the 1980s I read about gas stations. When gasoline consumption fell and gas station profits fell around 5%, many gas stations went out of business. They never came back. There are several former gas station spots near my house. I recall reading that a ~20% decline in consumption would lead to zero profit stations and widespread closings. It would be a crisis level.

I read this decades ago and the details are fuzzy but . . .

That does not mean all gas stations would close. Some percent would close, probably more than 20%. Business would be concentrated in the remaining stations, but they would still not make much of a profit. With a 20% to 30% decline, the remaining stations would be far apart. You would have to drive for blocks, or even miles, to fill up your car. It would become a nuisance. It would spur people to buy EVs. On low traffic highways, you might run out of gas.

Here is a modern AI take on the problem.

Me: What would happen to gas stations if gasoline consumption falls?

AI: If gasoline consumption falls, gas stations may face a death spiral as more electric vehicles (EVs) and ride sharing means less demand for gas. For example, California has seen a shift away from gas-powered vehicles, and some speculate that as many as 80% of gas stations in the state could be unprofitable by 2035.

. . . 80% of stations being unprofitable means 80% will be close, leaving large gaps between the remaining ones.

Quote from Alan Smith

Then they will offer subsidised cold fusion generators to the last 10% - because it's cheaper than maintaining the rural grid.

I predict they will be bankrupt long before they reach the last 10%. I just used that number to illustrate what I have in mind. I do not know enough about the economics of a power company to judge where the breaking point would be.

Saying the power companies might subsidize their final group of customers to go with the competition is like suggesting that the last passenger railroads in the 1970s would buy automobiles for their customers. There would be no incentive for them to do that.

The customers would not accept power company cold fusion generators in any case. They would buy them directly from suppliers. I expect cold fusion generators will be sold by HVAC companies and large hardware store chains such as Lowe's and Home Depot, like today's furnaces and water heaters.

Telephone companies today are transitioning low density rural customer from landlines to cell phone service, so they can abandon their landline network. They still get revenue from cell phone service, so there is an incentive for them. It is not as if they are handing over their customers to a competitor.

It is true that power companies today offer Home Energy Improvement assessments. They come in and tell you to install LED lights and to improve your insulation. This is contrary to their interests. It causes them to lose some revenue. But the lost revenue is small, and the PR value of supporting environmentalism is high. If their Home Energy Assessment magically reduced power consumption by half, or by 90%, they would stop doing it! If it resulted in losing 100% of their business, as it would with a cold fusion generator, they would never do it.

Home Energy Improvement Program | Single Family

Learn how to reduce energy use, cut energy costs and improve indoor air quality with the Home Energy Improvement Program.

www.georgiapower.com

People have suggested that cold fusion generators will still need the power company grid for various reasons. Such as --

They say the generator may not be large enough to power the entire house. Why wouldn't it be? A full home natural gas backup generator is not large. There is a photo of one here: https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJmoreaboutw.pdf

They say the generator may not be reliable, and it will need the grid in case it fails. I don't see why it would be less reliable than a furnace or refrigerator. People do not keep a spare furnace in case one breaks. However, even if cold fusion generators are not reliable and need the grid for a week or so per year, that will not bring in significant revenue to the power company. The power company cannot survive as an occasional backup source of power.

They say you will need mains electricity to start up your cold fusion generator. Oh come now!

Quote from JedRothwell

A grid designed to serve a million customers cannot be maintained to serve only a hundred thousand.

Think about the electric wires in Atlanta, GA. In ice storms, tree branches often fall on them, knocking out power for hours or days. Trucks full of skilled workers are dispatched to fix them, even in the middle of the night. Cars sometimes knock over polls. Okay, now imagine that 9 out of 10 houses in Atlanta disconnect from the power lines. They have their own cold fusion generators. They no longer pay $1,380 per year to the power company. The problem is, the remaining customers are scattered around Atlanta. The power company needs as many polls and wires as it did when everyone was connected. Tree branches fall on power lines just as often as they did before. Trucks and work crews have to be dispatched as often as before. But revenue has fallen by 90%. That is untenable.

If you could somehow gather all of the remaining 10% of the customers in one place, and abandon 90% of the distribution grid, perhaps you could make this work. After the introduction of personal computers, the sales of typewriters fell to practically nothing. Despite that, you can still buy a typewriter, and you can still have one repaired. Why? Because all repairs are done by a handful of remaining typewriter stores. There is one in Atlanta, and at least one in New York City. If you live in a city where there are no more typewriter stores, you ship your typewriter to New York and have it fixed. In other words, you can gather together the remaining typewriter customers in one place, and serve them all with one store. You can't do that with electricity. Or with automobiles, or gas stations. You cannot mail your automobile to New York City for servicing.

There are 4.5 million houses and apartments in greater Atlanta. You might wonder how we could maintain 4.5 million cold fusion generators. The same way we maintain 4.5 million space heating furnaces, 4.5 million hot water heaters, refrigerators, washing machines, and so on. If your furnace goes out in winter, you call for emergency service. Middle class people usually have a service contract with regular maintenance, so the furnace seldom fails. When it is old and on the verge of failing, the service company tells you, and recommends you replace it. There are enough furnace and air conditioning (HVAC) companies in Atlanta to keep everyone's furnace working just about all the time. In the future, I expect these same companies will maintain cold fusion co-generators. They will be roughly as reliable as today's furnaces, and they will last about as long (15 to 20 years).

I expect the first cold fusion co-generators will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they may be very complex and difficult to maintain. But inevitably they will become much cheaper and more reliable. Look under the hood of a Prius and you will see a combination gasoline motor and electric generator/motor. It is immensely complex. You can see from the number of parts and tolerances that this could only be assembled by a robot. During operation, it is controlled by a complex computer. If someone tried to make a machine like this in 1975 it would have cost millions of dollars. It would have taken a team of experts to operate, like a Apollo rocket. Nowadays, of course, it is no more expensive to maintain than a gasoline motor, because the maintenance diagnostics are done with a computer. It is like a digital watch; most of the parts cannot be fixed or replaced. I expect cold fusion generators will be similar.

The first hybrid gasoline-electric cars were made around 1911 as I recall. You can make a simple hybrid car, without modern computer controls. But it would not be suitable for today's market. I doubt it would even be legal. It might be possible to make a simple cold fusion generator, but I do not think anything like this would be allowed in a first world country. Consumers and regulators will demand a modern, computer controlled machine, with a display screen and computer diagnostics. It will have to have built in safety devices making it far safer and more reliable than a gas fired furnace. If there is the slightest chance it might produce tritium, it will have to have tritium detection and automatic shutdown. Fortunately, that should cost about as much as a smoke detector.

People always demand higher standards from new technology, than from existing technology. It has to be safer, cheaper, more reliable, longer lasting. That is reasonable. There would be no point to introducing a new technology if it was only as good as existing versions.

Quote from Storms

The amount of power is small at the present time only because we do not fully apply the conditions needed to produce increased power.

Yes. The reaction has produced power density per cubic centimeter high enough to generate electricity. About as high as a fission reactor core. See:

"Power density is compared by volume or by surface area"

Video

Temperatures have been too low for power generation, but I think that could easily be fixed. Control is what is needed. With control you can scale up to make a practical source of energy. Ed thinks he knows how to control and scale up. He may well be right, in which case the problem may soon be solved.

Here are some details about coal fired plants being retired:

"Nearly a quarter of the operating U.S. coal-fired fleet scheduled to retire by 2029"

Nearly a quarter of the operating U.S. coal-fired fleet scheduled to retire by 2029 - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

There are ~200 GW of coal fired plants. They have been retiring at about 9 GW per year. You might think that at that rate the last one will go in 22 years. I don't think so! I do not think it would be economical to have one last coal mine working, and one last set of rail cars hauling coal, and one factory producing replacement parts for the last remaining coal fired generator. You cannot scale down this kind of technology. Obsolete technology tends to decline slowly, and then precipitously in the last phase. Something happens to make it no longer viable. Sailing ships declined gradually from the 1860s until 1918, then suddenly disappeared because there were many surplus steamships made for the war. Old computer equipment might still work, but you can't get replacement parts. I had to give up my ultra-reliable first generation HP laser printer when ink cartridges were no longer made.

I predict that cold fusion generators will replace power company generators and household heating and air conditioning (with co-generation). I predict it will happen slowly at first, and then gradually faster, and then suddenly, as the remaining power companies lose so many customers they can no longer maintain their grid distribution infrastructure. A grid designed to serve a million customers cannot be maintained to serve only a hundred thousand. A gigawatt nuclear power plant cannot be run cost effectively to produce only 100 MW. Older coal fired plants designed to produce baseline power 24 hours a day are now being retired because they are only run a few hours a day. They cannot compete with combined cycle gas, or solar. Maintenance, personnel and other overhead costs are still high even when they are hardly used.

EV will slowly replace gasoline models until sales of gasoline fall about 20%. When that happens, gas stations will begin to close everywhere. Their profit margins are small. It will become increasingly difficult to fuel a car in your neighborhood or on a low traffic highway. It would be like trying to find leaded gasoline today. Leaded gas is available for farm equipment and marine engines, but it is only sold at three gas stations in Atlanta. Holdout customers will be forced to buy EVs whether they want them or not. The same thing will happen if cold fusion cars are made.

Quote from RobertBryant

Of course. without a battery or an electric car much of that Mwh. goes to waste in the daytime

in a residential address

In the U.S. installations it goes to the grid. Nothing is wasted. Quote:

"Net metering is the system that counts inflows of electricity from the grid and outflows generated by rooftop panels, enabling solar owners to build up credits for the excess electricity produced by panels during the day."

In Hawaii, the power companies have been dragging their feet and not installing solar hook-ups. Some people are fed up, and they are cutting off the power company and using only rooftop solar. In that case, the electricity is wasted.