-----Original Message----- From: OrionWorks - Steven V Johnson Jones sez:
> My working hypothesis as of May 3, is that spillover hydrogen is > formed catalytically, at a threshold temperature and collects in > Nickel nanopores, gaining thermal energy from an unknown source at > very close to the Curie point of the nickel. It is that simple. The > reaction is temperature sensitive. It's an interesting hypothesis. Certainly worth exploring. Acksully, I kind'a hope your working-hypo is headed in the right direction as we try to get a better handle on the physics involved. I would infer from your hypo that its probably irrelevant what the percentages of nickel isotopes might be in Rossi's e-cats. It would also suggest that we will not be using up Earth's precious reserves of nickel anytime soon. Heading to the asteroid belt can wait a little longer! ...In the meantime it would imply that we can have as many heated sidewalks & swimming pools as we want. Steven, Maybe the worry is not a future nickel shortage ... so much as good old H2O. Since you are into the SciFi scene - you know the plot of a future problem that pops up on occasion - lack of water. This came up as a major element in the last Bond effort - Quantum of Solace. I guess this was the first movie where the villain was ecologist, another twist. A bit of trivia: produced by EON Productions. Presumably not that EON. Anyway- if hydrogen is the major consumable in the future Ni-H device, then water supplies could be an issue - since cheap energy can support very large populations and every citizen will want the heated sidewalk and other frivolous indulgences. Heck maybe the demand for H2 will mean that too much oxygen will be released, and that will be a secondary problem. How ironic if in the year 2525, the problem is not CO2, but O2. Everything is rusting twice as fast. Can we tie Ni-H reactors smoothly to rising sea levels - and use the extra O2 to terraform Mars?... OTOH if we manage to exploit ZPE or dark energy, can that somehow reduce the amount of it available for our sun to maintain its fusion output. Solar fusion itself may be tied to a constant level of dark energy. Now, this kind of talk should be getting vortex back to its normal noise level of long horizons instead of short tempers ...
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