On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 10:29 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]>wrote:
> Mary Yugo <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> Am I to assume you examined the mathematical modeling and resulting >> curves in the links I provided and have analyzed and rejected them for some >> good reason? >> > > Yes. I have seen blacksmiths at work. I have seen one heat a large chunk > of iron, as big as the reactor core, to red hot incandescence. > The idea is the thermal mass might have tens of kg of mass. I don't think blacksmiths very often work with chunks of red-hot iron weighing 20 or 30 kg. > This is hotter than an electric heater could make the core. > Why? Electric heaters make stove-top elements glow red. The power goes in, something's gotta get hot. > The iron is dunked into a bucket of water. This produces a cloud of steam, > and then rapid boiling for a minute or two. It does not cause the bucket of > water to boil for four hours. There is no conceivable way to store that > much heat in this much iron. > First, it's not as much iron as proposed for Rossi's 100-kg device. Second, it's doesn't have to be bathed in the water. There could be an insulating barrier to slow down the heat loss process. > > You can verify that with a small-scale experiment. Try heating a nail and > putting it in water. > What does that verify? Certainly nothing related to a 100-kg ecat with insulation between the thermal mass and the water. > Evidently the mathematical modeling is wrong. I do not have to determine > the details when it is obvious the conclusions conflict with everyday > experience and fundamental observational physics to this extent. If someone > makes a mathematical model showing that I can jump over the Empire State > building I do not need to prove it is wrong. > Hey, that sounds like the arguments nuclear physicists make about cold fusion. They don't have to bother debunking every new lame claim of cold fusion, when 100 years of experience with nuclear physics tells them it's wrong. The only difference is, their experience is actually relevant; yours is not: It's not rocket science. 30 kg of steel heated to 1000C releases 12 MJ of energy when it cools to 200C. Over 3.25 hours, that amounts to a kW on average. A kW is plenty of power to keep 30L of water boiling gently. The only difficulty is finding the material to keep the flow of heat in check. For this, a phase-change material would be much more compact, lower temperature, and easier to regulate. But to suggest it's inconceivable is just ignorant.
