Jones- The article notes that centrifuges will be used to enrich “Ni-62” not Ni-63?
That may be correct, since Ni-62 is what is used for LENR. Bob Cook From: Jones Beene Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2017 8:29 AM To: Vortex List Subject: [Vo]:Nickel isotopes, cat-mouse and Russia Interesting article turned up, for those following the ongoing Rossigate drama... starting about the 7th paragraph concerning Russia, and the deployment of nickel isotopes for power, first to replace strontium-90 but also "with possible applications for space travel." http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2016-04-russia-setting-up-for-new-radioactive-batteries-months-after-norway-helped-shut-down-the-old-ones According to the article, the active fuel will be Ni-63 which has been produced from Ni-62 "in a centrifuge". That info is a bit senseless without more detail - but it does point to two things. First, Russia is already deploying Ni-63 as a beta emitter which is a fully developed fuel source, not an inventor's dream, and second the active isotope is derived from Ni-62 in some undisclosed way - possibly as a byproduct. We already know that there is large market for Ni-62 which Russia dominates - since the US stopped making it twenty years ago. Moreover, Ni-63 has a short half-life of 73 years and only releases electrons of moderate energy - 67 keV which would NOT have been noticed in LENR. For a light house, with an intense light beam, it would require kilograms of Ni-63 so it must be moderately affordable to Russians, in that context. The present price here is about $20,000/gram and all US sellers get it from Russia. There is further implication from this scenario - possibly that Ni-63 could be produced from Ni-62 more easily than being irradiated in a nuclear reactor and then separated by centrifuge. LENR. Many theories of NiH suggest that dense hydrogen acts as a virtual neutron. Would the route for gain then first involve using dense hydrogen to convert Ni-62 to Ni-63 using dense hydrogen in situ? Funny thing, Rossi initially staked everything in his IP on a patent application which protects the use of Ni-62 and admitted in his blog that he was using it. Then the patent application appears to have rejected, and we hear nothing more on it after the IH contract. Ironically - for some idealist reason, even Rossi's strongest supporters balk at the suggestion that his secret is a rare isotope, despite its obvious fit, his many messages about it and the original patent application. They apparently resist the implications of a required costly isotope because of a preconceived notion about the larger field of LENR providing almost limitless "free energy". But, it is easy to see how the rare isotope fits into the category of "mouse" if you believe that myth... so the inventor may have thought he could solve the high-cost problem by using less of it, as a trigger. It is unwise to be too idealistic about cheap energy such that one refuses to consider what is becoming most likely from looking into the public record, which includes the reality of Lugano being gainful, but less gainful - and not with the salting of the ash with Ni-62, but with the isotope being the actual fuel from the start, but the inventor needing to hide that fact. This viewpoint suggests: 1) LENR can happen with NiH far more easily with enrichment of the isotope of nickel-62, which converts to Ni-63 via dense hydrogen 2) LENR as a robust energy source is therefore dependent on the cost of a rare isotope, limiting its market 3) Ni-63 can be converted in situ and then produces about 50,000 time more energy than combustion. 4) Even though the Ni-62 isotope will be brought down in cost, eventually, in a similar way that U235 was, it will be expensive and thus LENR will not propel society into the lofty realm of energy independence as idealists want to believe. 5) To explain the failure of the megawatt system - this is of course hypothetical but probably relates to the inventor's own self-deception about steam, along with the fact that a two-stage "cat and mouse" system with a tiny amount of Ni-62 as a trigger does not work as well as he imagined, since he thought all along that his data was real when it was bogus from the start, thanks to Penon. Rossi fooled himself to the end. In conclusion, it looks like the Ni-62/63 reaction, would provide a compact source of energy as is already being implement by the Russians, but likely too expensive for widespread civilian use, except for a few niche applications. The big $ market could be military and aerospace - where any small advantage can be "priceless" as they say in MasterCard lingo. The fact that Penon moved to Russia may not be coincidental.
