On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 3:20 PM, Jones Beene <jone...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> ** ** > > *From:* Joshua Cude **** > > ** ** > > First, the fact that this *source* of energy thousands of times more > dense than chemical has to be plugged in (to a high power line, no less) > will turn most observers away.**** > > ** ** > > Not necessarily “most” - only those observers whose ability to deduce and > extrapolate from experience is severely challenged. **** > > ** ** > > For instance, an atomic bomb is initiated by a chemical explosion, and it > is thousands of time more energy dense. > I'm not talking about initiating. I'm talking about sustaining. I have no problem using electricity to initiate the ecat. But if it's a source of energy, it should behave like one and be able to at least power itself. A match is needed to ignite a firecracker, but once ignited, the explosion sustains itself. A match is needed to start a campfire, but not to sustain it. A battery is used to start a car engine, but not to sustain it. And a chemical explosion is used to initiate a fission bomb. But once initiated, it sustains itself using the chain reaction until the fuel is dispersed below critical mass. This is abundantly clear in a nuclear power plant, where the reaction requires no input energy to sustain itself. (And the energy density of the biggest fission bomb deployed (counting it's total weight) was 100,000 times that of chemical, and the energy density of the uranium fuel itself was in the millions.) A hydrogen bomb is initiated by and atomic bomb explosion, and it is a > thousand times more energy dense. **** > > ** > The fission bomb initiates fusion, and the fusion and fission then sustain each other, but again, once it's initiated, it's self-sustaining. (And the energy density is only 10 to 100 times that of the best fission bombs.) Moreover, fusion power will not be considered a success until "ignition" is achieved (and not even then), which represents the point where the reaction sustains itself, even if only on a tiny scale in the case of inertial fusion. ** > > Most observers do not have much difficulty extrapolating from that kind of > known phenomenon - into another kind of mass-to-energy conversion, > requiring a substantial trigger.**** > > ** > Except extrapolation of those known phenomena should end in an energy source that is self-sustaining. The ecat isn't. > ** > > In any event - “thousands of times” more dense is not accurate IMO – > closer to 200 times. **** > > ** > Not sure it's really a matter of opinion. The claim in Levi's paper is 6e7 Wh/kg, which is a few thousand times the energy density of gasoline and more than a thousand times that of hydrogen. That's what I was referring to. And they say they stopped the reaction before it was exhausted. The potential energy density if it's coming from nuclear reactions is millions of times chemical. > ** > > If you understand “recalescence” and then can extrapolate to a reaction > which is recycled around the phase change, then the rationale of adding > energy to gain energy is more understandable. This is a phenomenon of phase > change seen every day in a steel mill.**** > > ** > Except that recycling around a phase change is not going to net any energy, and it has no similarity to what's allegedly happening in the ecat. There, according to the authors, an exothermic reaction is triggered by heat. And if 400 W from the outside of the reactor cylinder can initiated the reaction, I don't see how 1.5 kW from inside the reactor could not sustain it. Ordinary combustion is triggered by heat, and generates heat, and that's how it sustains itself. No one ever talks about COPs with coal or oil or gasoline. The only way I can think of to contrive a similar kind of need of a smaller external source of heat to sustain a larger source of heat is if the external source is more concentrated and hotter. But that's clearly not the case in the hot cat, where the external source is diffuse and at a lower temperature. ** > > > > Next, to complete the explanation - we will need to demonstrate how mass > is converted into energy in a order one-time recalescence event to look > like a succession of events.**** > > ** > Could I have a raspberry vinaigrette with that word salad, please. No matter what lame excuse you or anyone else can dig up to allow Rossi to use input power to sustain the ecat, for it to revolutionize energy, it will have to substantially exceed the COP of a heat pump, and that will allow closing the loop using perfectly standard technology. Since he already claims to be market-ready, failure to run the thing on it's own makes it look like a farce.
