Rumor central: "Quiescence" rears its icy demeanor in Research Triangle.
This subject comes up for discussion here periodically, but many vorticians are in denial that quiescence is a known reality and major problem in LENR. Let's hope the quiescence problem is solvable, but it is not as simple as quality control or other knee-jerk reactions ... it is systemic, and its reappearance is the current rumor from Tar-heel associates. IIRC - McKubre coined the term 'quiescence' as a way of indicating that an operating LENR cell suddenly and mysteriously ceases to produce excess heat. Then just as suddenly, it can return to OU operation if you keep powering it. When Rossi showed the World his big blue box many months ago, most of the pundits were puzzled. Why "super size" the technology at such an early stage? And in fact - the E-Cat units stacked in the blue box were the same form-factor as the ones he had been showing weeks earlier - so this effort to go large was NOT really a scale-up at all. It made no sense to 99% of all observers, but Rossi often has an ulterior motive for everything he does. "Crazy like a fox" is the aphorism. My explanation back then got little support. It was simply this: that Rossi knew quiescence would be a problem, so was not scaling up so much as he was writing himself an insurance policy with Big Blue. That is to say, he guesstimated that if there were 50 reactors running at any given time in an enclosed unit, at least 20 could be in quiescence on a given day- but the other 30 would be operating at high COP. The end result of that would be that net gain would still be impressive - and no one would be the wiser to the problem which he could not explain. Well, fast forward many months and supposedly there will be an independent report coming out in April from IH. My prediction for this report is that it will say two things of great importance to readers of this list (and tout-le-monde) 1) Rossi's E-Cat usually operates at high COP for an extended period and will eventually be a game changing phenomenon despite its problems. 2) However, almost every unit will go into a quiescent state periodically for unknown reason. At that point in time, if this happens - I hope Cherokee has the good sense to look around for those who profess to have insight on this subject, instead of turning to AR's former solution - Big Blue. That route may suffice for now, but it is a worrisome expedient - and there could be a real solution to the systemic problem. IOW there is a way to understand this. But first one must ditch most of the prevailing theories of operation, especially the Focardi claim that nickel is being converted to copper. Jones
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