Several experts in calorimetry expressed doubts about the Celani demonstration at ICCF17. Mike McKubre in particular feels that it is impossible to judge whether it really produced heat or not, because the method is poor. He does not say he is sure there was no heat; he simply does not know. Others feel that he exaggerates the problem.
There were concerns because Celani has programmed in the Stephan-Boltzmann law which multiplies things to the a 4-th power. Srinivasan worried that he makes a mountain out of a molehill. The temperature is measured at one point on the surface of the tube. I asked Brian of NI to give me the actual temperature readings. With 48 W of input power only, before excess heat or with the Ar calibration, in a room with 30 deg C ambient temperature, the temperature rose to 120 deg C. When the excess heat appeared it rose to 140 deg C. Celani says that equals 14 W excess, and that is what was displayed by the instrument. McKubre and others worry this may be caused by decreased pressure in the cell. However, the pressure fell only gradually, and stabilized in the last 2 days. They also worried about changes in conduction within the tube, and uneven heat on the surface. I do not think that such effects can account for a 20 deg C temperature rise, especially given the smooth line produced when there is no heat, with H or Ar. The temperature returned to the same level with 48 W, in Italy, Texas and Korea, after the gas had been changed out twice. Anyway, I would like to note that these people have doubts. Others agree with me that the method is crude but unlikely to produce such a large error. Celani hopes to run it in self-sustaining mode with better insulation. That will put to rest all questions about calorimetry. He hopes to do this as quickly as 2 weeks from now! More power to him. He has run it for as long as a month, so a 1 or 2 week self-sustaining run should not be a problem. Given the mass of wire, even 10 minutes would be convincing. - Jed
