Re: [Vo]:Rossi credibility
Can you tell us anything more about this replication of the Rossi system? What catalysts are they using? Would you please clarify what you mean by 800 watts per liter of powder? Do they have to have one liter of nickel powder in the reactor to produce 800 watts. From: Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Cc: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com Sent: Mon, February 21, 2011 5:38:14 PM Subject: [Vo]:Rossi credibility Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: Okay, to Jed, and perhaps to others, this is confirmation of prior work. But because it's secret protocol it's weak in that respect. It isn't all that secret. I have known that it is Ni-H cold fusion for a year, and people in Italy have known for 2 years. Groups there and in the U.S. are working somewhat frantically to determine what the other 2 elements are. One of them told me that they have achieved the equivalent of 800 W per liter of powder (with a smaller actual volume), which is not far from what Rossi reported. Ed Storms and others at ICCF-16 remarked that Rossi has already revealed the biggest and most important secret: that this can be done, i.e., that high temperature, high power density Ni-H cold fusion exists. Others will soon figure out how it is done. The situation is somewhat similar to what happened after the first use of atomic weapons. Scientists in Russia had detailed reports from spies, but even if they had not had these reports, they would have soon figured out how to make a bomb because the biggest secret was that you could make a bomb. Japanese scientists secretly figured out a great deal about it, hiding their research from the occupation. I agree that the existence of (possibly) similar prior work is supportive, and is reason to be less likely to dismiss Rossi out-of-hand. It is similar. No doubt about it. Assuming Rossi's claims are real, there is plenty of precedent for them. Jed, you have pointed out that he may be shooting himself in the foot with his secrecy. He may yet shoot himself. It is an awkward strategy that can only work for a short time. It's just not true that if he disclosed everything he'd lose everything. It depends on how he discloses and to whom. The only way he can succeed is with a patent. That's what I thought, and discussions with people in the know at ICCF-16 confirmed that. His strategy might be reasonable. But a consequence of that strategy is that I'm not going to believe that Rossi is a demonstration of cold fusion. That's rather short-sighted of you. You do not know what is going on inside a Pd-D cathode either. You can look right at it, and learn all there is to know from the ENEA database, but you still do not know. If U. Bologna publishes a more detailed, convincing report describing the 18-hour run, there will be practically no room left to doubt this. David Kidwell told me that if they could have the Rossi device in their 10 kW-scale testbed at the NRL, they could conclude within an hour that it is real, and they would not have to know the first thing about what is inside it. (The testbed is described in ICCF-16 paper ET01. It is way better than the U. Bologna calorimeter. It resembles the industrial-scale testbed at Hydrodynamics, Inc., which was designed by the Dean of Mech. Eng. at Georgia Tech. That system was bulletproof as far as I know -- and as far as the Dean knew.) Kidwell did say he would insist they conduct a test with Rossi not present. I think this is slight case of magical thinking. I do not see how a person standing in a room can affect dial thermometers and watt-meters. I'm not going to claim that it's fraud, on the other hand. I'm going to claim that *I don't know* and that I think I don't have enough information to decide. You will soon, if we get a better report from Levi. I think you can be 95% sure it is real now. The fraud hypothesis is awfully far fetched, and getter farther fetched with each new test. Frankly, I don't think it is worth worrying about. Again, depending on so many details about which we know nothing, so far, and may not ever know. What do you mean we Kemo Sabe? (Quoting the old joke about the Lone Ranger surrounded by hostile Indians.) I've argued that making a huge fuss over Rossi simply discredits the field . . . I don't see why. For one thing, other researchers are not responsible for what Rossi claims, except perhaps Focardi. Levi is not a cold fusion research. Or he wasn't before Jan. 14. Some of the damage will be done anyway. People are already using Rossi as an example of overblown, inflated claims. I don't see any damage. People will say that it is fraud or inflated no matter who makes what claim. Heck, they say that about Energetics Tech., even after SRI replicated them spot on with some cathodes. So far I have not seen any evidence that Rossi has made inflated claims. On the
Re: [Vo]:Rossi credibility
noone noone wrote: Can you tell us anything more about this replication of the Rossi system? Brian Ahern. I don't know if we should call it a replication since he does not know what is in the Rossi cell. I guess we should call it another Ni-H system producing more power density than the older ones back in the 1990s such as Mills or Piantelli. I think the primary differences between then and now are: 1. Lots more surface area, with nanoparticles. 2. Higher operating temperatures (although Piantelli did raise the temperature -- don't think Mills ever did). 3. The magical two additional elements in Rossi's cell, whatever they are. What catalysts are they using? Mostly Ni, a little Pd. Varying amounts of Pd. Would you please clarify what you mean by 800 watts per liter of powder? Do they have to have one liter of nickel powder in the reactor to produce 800 watts. No, I think it is much less, but normalized to 1 L it would be ~800 W. I told him I think it would be a good idea to increase the volume of material, for the reasons I gave this morning. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Rossi credibility
At 02:22 PM 3/7/2011 Jed wrote Would you please clarify what you mean by 800 watts per liter of powder? Do they have to have one liter of nickel powder in the reactor to produce 800 watts. No, I think it is much less, but normalized to 1 L it would be ~800 W. I told him I think it would be a good idea to increase the volume of material, for the reasons I gave this morning. But how does that relate to Levi's February report that the size of the reaction chamber is 1L ... and gives bursts of 130KW ?
Re: [Vo]:Rossi credibility
On 3/7/2011 5:50 PM, Alan J Fletcher wrote: But how does that relate to Levi's February report that the size of the reaction chamber is 1L ... and gives bursts of 130KW ? Well . . . as I said, I guess you wouldn't call this a replication. I mean, it does not relate all that closely. But it is additional evidence that the Ni-H system can produce high temperatures and high power density. The only previous examples were Piantelli and Focardi. I would say it supports the claims. As I said before, if Rossi were the first person in history to claim heat from the Ni-H system, I would have much less confidence in his results. His Ni alloy and his method of stimulating it are unique, and they are secret. That gives me pause, naturally. It would be a lot more believable if others had independently replicated. They can't, because of the patent situation. That isn't Rossi's fault. I think he is taking steps to have an expert write a better patent. That's good. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Rossi credibility
I wrote: But it is additional evidence that the Ni-H system can produce high temperatures and high power density. The only previous examples were Piantelli and Focardi. And Patterson! Which was also Ni and Pd. Closer to Ahern. High power density at low temperature. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Rossi credibility
It is interesting to me that the hydrogen usage in Rossi's system was around 0.4 g (If I remember correctly) If we knew the amount of Ni, we could estimate the loading ratio It sounds like just surface loading. Dennis From: Jed Rothwell Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 7:14 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Rossi credibility I wrote: But it is additional evidence that the Ni-H system can produce high temperatures and high power density. The only previous examples were Piantelli and Focardi. And Patterson! Which was also Ni and Pd. Closer to Ahern. High power density at low temperature. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Rossi credibility
At 05:38 PM 2/21/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.coma...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: His strategy might be reasonable. But a consequence of that strategy is that I'm not going to believe that Rossi is a demonstration of cold fusion. That's rather short-sighted of you. It would be, perhaps, if I needed to know. I don't. You will soon, if we get a better report from Levi. I think you can be 95% sure it is real now. The fraud hypothesis is awfully far fetched, and getter farther fetched with each new test. Frankly, I don't think it is worth worrying about. I'm not leaning on the fraud hypothesis. I'm merely noting that it exists, and that, given some aspects of this affair, it's not entirely unreasonable. You are now reporting a general confirmation, i.e., someone else reporting high levels of power with NiH. Hey, we might have to toss BlackLight Power in there, too. Again, depending on so many details about which we know nothing, so far, and may not ever know. What do you mean we Kemo Sabe? (Quoting the old joke about the Lone Ranger surrounded by hostile Indians.) The operative word here is may. I've argued that making a huge fuss over Rossi simply discredits the field . . . I don't see why. For one thing, other researchers are not responsible for what Rossi claims, except perhaps Focardi. Levi is not a cold fusion research. Or he wasn't before Jan. 14. this isn't how politics works, Jed. It's how things would work if the world were fair. Some of the damage will be done anyway. People are already using Rossi as an example of overblown, inflated claims. I don't see any damage. People will say that it is fraud or inflated no matter who makes what claim. Heck, they say that about Energetics Tech., even after SRI replicated them spot on with some cathodes. So far I have not seen any evidence that Rossi has made inflated claims. On the contrary, he said it was 12 kW and it was probably closer to 15 kW. That will not surprise anyone familiar with calorimetry. The method they used was very lossy, as I said. That could backfire, for them, but, then, if Rossi doesn't show up with his 1 MW reactor, we end up looking very foolish. I doubt he will complete that within a year! I am hoping we can persuade him to let the NRL and others test the smaller gadget. That's better than a 1 MW machine. More convincing, in a way. I'd agree. I sure as heck would not want to be present in Florida when they turn on the big machine! The radiation Celani detected lasted for a fraction of a second. If something like that lasts for a few seconds, I imagine it might kill everyone within 100 m. It seems like a stupendously bad idea to scale up to 1 MW at this stage. Depends on how they do it. Given that the market for a 10 KW generator might be much greater than the market for a 1 MW generator, I don't understand the thinking If someone trusts Rossi, thinks that his work is solid, great. I wouldn't trust Rossi personally as far as I can throw him. I trust calorimetry. I trust that no stage magician or con-man can fool a watt-meter or thermometer. I have never heard of an incident in which a con-man did manage to fool scientists using their own, off-the-shelf instruments. That's not quite complete. If you can bring in the instruments, but the con man controls the environment, a fraud remains possible. The game Rossi is laying excludes independent confirmation. His choice. Believe me, I have seen and heard of a wide variety of con-men and bogus over-unity energy claims. I am practically an expert on that. None of them stood up to more than a few days of tests. None were replicated, and none were replications of previous work (as Rossi is). Maybe. You say so, and that means something to me. Don't forget that Levi et al. conducted tests and calibrations for 6 weeks prior the Jan. 14 test. It there was something like a hidden thermal mass, they would have seen that in a few hours the first day. You do not have to know anything about what is in the machine to see that. Calorimetry alone tells you a great deal about a black box. As I said, so far, it is the only reliable means we have of knowing anything about the contents or inner workings of the cathode black boxes in Pd-D cold fusion. If there is a con, I don't know who would be in on it. Absolutely, I'm not making accusations against anyone here. I'm just sitting back and saying, if he does what he says he's going to do, okay, it's real. If he doesn't, the world is vast and possiblities endless. Meanwhile, I'm not rushing out to get materials for NiH experiments. I've got enough to do just keeping body and soul together. I have, as you know, some unfinished business.
Re: [Vo]:Rossi credibility
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: I don't see why. For one thing, other researchers are not responsible for what Rossi claims, except perhaps Focardi. Levi is not a cold fusion research. Or he wasn't before Jan. 14. this isn't how politics works, Jed. It's how things would work if the world were fair. N. I don't see a problem here. The mass media has not heard of Rossi. If they do hear about him they will dismiss him instantly as a fraud. They will not bother to run a story. No one outside of a small number of cold fusion aficionados takes these reports seriously. Besides, we have so much political opposition already, a little extra helping will not matter. Maybe if he actually makes and installs a 1 MW reactor, people will start to take notice, but not the the mass media. They'll dismiss it as a fraud without bothering to check. Rossi thinks the 1 MW reactor will give him credibility, but I do not think so. He would gain much more credibility if he would only allow the NRL to test his machine, but I doubt that will happen. I do not understand why, but he does not want more independent tests of his machine. It sure makes him look bad, doesn't it? I cannot persuade him to do anything. Neither I nor anyone else seems to have any influence over him. He politely refuses to consider any suggestions. - Jed
