Posts by JedRothwell

frankwtu asks: "Do you think Woodford, Cherokee, and the Chinese investors trusted Rossi and Penon, if so why?"

I have never heard of Woodford or the Chinese investors and I have no earthly notion who they trust or whether they have heard of Rossi and Penon. Where did you hear of these people? From Rossi's blog? I don't read it. I know nothing about his business, and nothing about I.H.'s.

Cherokee is Darden's company, isn't it?

I've heard of Rossi and Penon. I spent a couple of days at the Williamsburg conference talking to the people from NASA that Rossi almost blew up. Based on that, not only do I not trust him, I would be wary of going into a room where one of his machines is operating. The outlet hose was plugged up, steam was leaking out the seams, the temperature was climbing, and they realized there was no pressure relief valve on it! Cra-zee.

He reminds me of Ohmori, who used to experiment with large open test tubes of boiling toxic electrolyte, spewing and fuming onto the table. Yikes!

frankwtu wrote:

Your response: Two things:

"1. There is more than one ERV."

Well, I meant there are three designated expert people in the lawsuit filing: Penon, Barry West and Fulvio Fabiani. I guess I thought an "ERV" is a person. I apologize for not using the term "ERV" correctly. I assumed all three will report their results. I guess the contract says Penon is the designated expert.

Soon after I said that I listed the names of the people, so that's who I meant.

"Who are the others?"

Barry West and Fulvio Fabiani, as I said.

"IH has the right, in the agreement, to have advisors who question and observe the ERV, but they don't sign the final document."

I don't know who signed the final document. If that's what the contract says, I misunderstood. Sorry about that.

"2. It would be insane to pay $89 million based on a report written by Penon. I would not pay 89 cents. It would be insane to agree he is an expert. I am sure I.H. did not do that."

I meant it would insane for them to commit to paying $89 million no matter what the report says, no matter how bad it may be, and no matter what their own expert observer says. If that were the deal, Penon could write two line report: "It works. Pay up." And they would have to pay. That's absurd.

Also, I have a low opinion of Penon, based on his 2012 work.

Naturally, if expert witnesses say it is a good report, then they should pay up. If I.H.'s own experts had agreed it is good, surely they would have. They want cold fusion to succeed. $89 million is a cheap price to pay for a gadget that produces 50 times input.

frankwtu asks:

"Are there two ERV reports?"

How the hell would I know?! I never said there were two. Rossi says there is one, written by Penon. The lawsuit lists three people involved in the evaluation. I am pretty sure one of them is from I.H. I am 100% sure that I.H. sent various experts to observe the tests at times.

All I know is that the experts at I.H. disagree with Rossi's conclusions. That is what the March 10 statement said, and what their press release responding to the lawsuit said. Rossi said the gadget produces 50 times input, and I.H. said they "failed" to "substantiate" the results. If that is not a clear disagreement, what would be?

Do you think I.H. will hand over $89 million even though their experts say they failed to substantiate the results? Just because Penon wrote a report they disagree with? In what universe would that happen?

I cannot say which side is correct, but I trust the skills and and abilities at I.H. more than I trust Rossi's or Penon's. Rossi has conducted many bad experiments. He almost blew up the people from NASA. Penon wrote an inept report in 2012. The I.H. people seem sharp to me, but that is just my impression. It is not scientific data.

Shane D. wrote: "IMO, if Jed is going to be IH's pipeline to us, he might want to stop referring to Penon as an 'certified idiot" . . .

I think he is an idiot, based on his 2012 report. Read it and decide for yourself. Would you prefer I hide my opinion of him?

". . . and be careful with his legal opinions about the case."

Oh give me a break! I have as much right to express opinions as anyone else. I have experience in business and in lawsuits. In my opinion no judge will compel a company to pay $89 million on the basis of one report. If I.H. can demonstrate that expert witness such as licensed HVAC engineer disagree with the report, I expect they will win.

On the other hand, if expert witnesses say the machine does produce 50 times input, I expect Rossi will win.

"Unless, that is what his IH source is telling him, and he is just passing it on?"

IH has told me ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the lawsuit, or their business. I would never ask. I have only discussed scientific issues with them. My opinions about the lawsuit are entirely my own.

Eric Walker wrote: "I think the part about there being a second ERV was a misunderstanding that is still floating around. What we know of IH's objection (which is very little) does not require that there have been a second ERV. What is needed is a dissenting opinion from a technically competent person, possibly an observer, which the license agreement allowed for. . . ."

Yes! That is all I meant. Three people are listed in the lawsuit filing. I am sure that I.H. sent various observers. So, I just meant that I.H.'s experts disagree with Penon. That's what the press release says. They were not able to "substantiate" the reaction. Okay, that is a little vague, but surely it means their experts do not think it produced 50 times input.

I did not mean there is another ERV official report. I don't know where that came from, but I did not mean to say it. I just meant "I.H. disagrees." That's what they said!

I know nothing about the contracts or business arrangements, except what is in the lawsuit filing, which gives me a headache to read.

Shane D wrote: "That makes me wonder about his supposed relationship with IH. Maybe I misread him earlier, but I got the impression he was in touch with them NOW, and they told him the plant didn't work."

I am in touch with them now. But not often, and they do not tell me much. Everything I said was based on their press releases. I.H. did briefly confirm to me that a failure to "substantiate" the claim means they do not think there is significant excess heat. But what else could it mean? What other interpretation can there be?

I think you should take both press releases at face value. They mean what they say. Rossi believes the device produces 50 times input. Whereas I.H. believes the tests failed to "substantiate" the claim. One of them has to be mistaken. There is no way a machine that produces 50 times input would fail to "substantiate" the effect.

If you think there is some other interpretation to "substantiate" or you think there is some hidden meaning or motivation, you may be right, and that makes me wrong. I am not claiming any proof more compelling than the press releases and lawsuit documents which everyone has access too.

To summarize: I do not wish to give the impression that I have super-secret or privileged access to information, and you should believe me on that basis. I don't! Just slightly better access than others. I try to base everything I say on published sources you can see for yourself. Which is not to say you must agree with my interpretation! Perhaps you have reason to think the press releases are not trustworthy and should not be taken at face value. If you are right, then I am wrong.

Please do not ascribe this view to me. I did not depend on any inside sources. I.H. made it clear they do not agree with Rossi's ERV report in their March 10 announcement and in their response to his lawsuit. Look at the two press releases:

Rossi claimed the machine "often generat[ed] energy exceeding fifty (50) times the amount of energy consumed during the same period."

I.H. came back and said, "Industrial Heat has worked for over three years to substantiate the results claimed by Mr. Rossi from the E-Cat technology – all without success."

Whatever meaning you ascribe to "substantiate," surely that sentence rules out a machine that produces 50 times input!

Either Rossi is making a big mistake, or I.H. is. You cannot judge who is right until you read their reports. But you can guess. I suppose Rossi is mistaken, because he has made big mistakes in the past, whereas the people at I.H. seem competent to me.

That's all there is to it.

You wrote: "Surprisingly, the ERV concluded the test and showed a continual COP greater than 6 and occasionally higher than 50. So it's simple, [lexicon]IH[/lexicon] must pay."

That is surprising. However, I.H. disputes the finding. In their latest press release they say there was no heat. If that is true, they do not have to pay. We will have to see the ERV report before we can judge which side is correct.

Yes, Penon is the author of a previous report, from 2012. See:

http://coldfusionnow.org/wp-co…09/105322688-Penon4-1.pdf

Google translate is here:

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lenr-forum.com%2Fforum%2Findex.php%2FAttachment%2F527-20160302062724813-pdf%2F%3Fs%3D6ece1266061942ef254cd4b092cfeddd9c90227b&edit-text=

I have to say, at first glance this looks better than Jiang in some ways. The internal thermocouple is cooler than the wall thermocouple at first, as it should be. After time 1400 it gets significantly hotter, as you see in Fig. 8. That would indicate anomalous heat.

Google does not translate the text in Fig. 8 because it is an image. As Google more or less said, the Fig. 8 caption is "changes in relation between heating power and temperature." The text in this figure is similar to Japanese so let me just translate it:

Y-axis: temperature °C / pressure bar / power, W
X-axis: time, 30 minute [segments]

In the graph, from top to bottom:

Top left:
2016 January 18-19
Dat 0149
reactor #4 (2)

Top right:
Anomalous heat: ~100 W, 1295°C

150 minutes

Text box:

Red dots: [Some sort of??] reactor: reactor internal temperature thermocouple
Blue dots: [Some sort of??] reactor: reactor wall temperature thermocouple [As Google notes, this is between the container and the furnace]
Green dots: Pressure x 10
Purple dots: Power x 0.1

[The only words I cannot read describe the reactor.]

Here is a rough translation of Fig. 8. I am reading it in Japanese but words like this are pretty much the same in both languages:

https://drive.google.com/file/…BMjYtS1U/view?usp=sharing

Let me try inserting the image here:

Hmmm . . . I don't see it, but anyway, click on the link to see it.

The abstract is in English, and Google translate does a pretty good job of translating the whole paper. Go to:

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lenr-forum.com%2Fforum%2Findex.php%2FAttachment%2F520-20160301-125433238-pdf%2F%3Fs%3D3a03aad919292f429f6fa5106e356d459314aa42&edit-text=

Shanahan wrote:""Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" (to unsophisticated observers)."

The calorimetry in the experiments described by Miles was developed by J. P. Joule in the 1840s. It is not advanced. It is well understood. When calibrations are performed daily, and they show no significant deviation from the calibration constant over many months, it is not possible the instrument is deviating only when it shows excess heat. That is Shanahan's hypothesis. It could not be more unscientific.

Oystla quoted a paper: "To explain the excess heat in these experiments, Shanahan invokes what he calls a Calibration Constant Shift (CCS). This CCS is nothing more than a hypothesis and should be stated as such (CCSH). . . ."

This is quoted from:

Marwan, J., et al., A new look at low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research: a response to Shanahan. J. Environ. Monit., 2010. 12(9): p. 1765-1770Y

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MarwanJanewlookat.pdf

When you quote a paper, I recommend you include the title and web address.

Shanahan's response to this and to other critiques are nonsense. His CCS hypothesis is irrational and without a shred of scientific validity. It boils down to: "magic happens when instruments proven to work magically stop working, and then during the hours when they are recalibrated daily, they work again."

Ignore the trolls. They are harmless. If anything, they provide a useful window on the world, because their views are widespread.

Thomas Clarke wrote: "F&P's open cell results were subject to the artifacts that you well know, which is why replication led to most of the claimed excess disappearing . . ."

That is incorrect. There are no examples of that in the peer-reviewed published literature as far as I know. Which papers do you have in mind? What artifacts? An open cell would only cause a problem if recombination were not measured or accounted for. It was measured carefully, and in any case, the excess heat greatly exceeded limits of recombination in many tests.

"100 labs worldwide did not find any evidence of inexplicable heat or reaction at the time would have been different."

92 labs replicated by September 1990. F. W. Will, the director of the National Cold Fusion Institute compiled a list, which is here:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/WillFGgroupsrepo.pdf

180 labs replicated by the mid-1990s. See the list in Storms' first book.

Majorana wrote: "THAT was the reason why P&F and others lost their reputation."

That is incorrect. Fleischmann and Pons had been doing these experiments for many years. They were quite certain of the results, and indeed these results were soon replicated by over 100 laboratories worldwide. They were experts in calorimetry. They did make a mistake measuring neutrons, but that had little to do with the claims.

Fleischmann and Pons lost their reputation because they were attacked by Nature and by many scientists. These attacks were scurrilous and totally without basis.

Quote from Pathoskeptic

Actually, as far as I know, Bill Gates never, ever has mentioned lenr anywhere.

He definitely talked about it when he visited the Italian National Agency for New Technologies (ENEA) cold fusion laboratory. The people there told me he spent all day talking about it. You can see photos of him talking with various experts during that meeting here:

http://foto.ilmessaggero.it/bi…ea_di_frascati-90096.html

Here is description of the visit in English:

http://www.e-catworld.com/2014…-does-he-know-about-lenr/

Figures 12a and 12b show the reactor is incandescent. It looks to me like the wrong color for a surface temperature as high as claimed. I would say this is about 900°C. See this color chart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I…e:Incandescence_Color.jpg

If this reactor surface is at 1400°C it should be white. Are there other photos of the reactor showing white incandescence?

Figures 12a and b show the reactor was incandescent at times. Dark portions towards the end of the reactor and at the caps were at a lower temperature, and were not incandescent. Figure 10 shows that the IR camera reading were split into 10 zones for the cylinder, and additional zone for the caps.

At the time the photos in Fig. 12 were taken, what temperatures were recorded by the IR camera for the 10 zones and the caps? Was there a very large difference between these temperatures?

I ask this because questions have been raised about the source of the incandescence, and the transmissivity of alumina. It seems to me that if the incandescent light is coming from inside the reactor, and the temperature reading on the surface is an instrument error, then the real temperature must be roughly 750 deg C, and the false temperature reading in the incandescent portion must be on the order of 1300 to 1500 deg C. Such large temperature differences are not possible, because alumina is a good thermal conductor.

By the way, a correspondent wrote to me with another reason to doubt this hypothesis. This is not an exact quote, but he wrote:

A quick look a the literature shows transmissivity of alumina quickly drops to zero past ~7 micron wavelength. Much of the data seems to be in relation to the crystalline variant (e.g sapphire) vs non-crystalline.

http://www.janis.com/Libraries…nCurveDataSheet.sflb.ashx

Notice the Ecat report clearly states on page 4 “The spectral range for both cameras is from 7.5 to 13 μm.” That seems to indicate that any transmitted IR through the alumina wouldn’t be detected by the IR cameras.

During the test, is the cell filled with hydrogen, or air?