Mitchell Swartz wrote:
At 11:50 PM 7/23/2005, Ed Storms wrote:
I think people in the CF field know and appreciate that two separate
issues are important to the field. The first addresses whether the CF
effect is real or not, and the second addresses whether commercially
useful energy can be produced. It is clear that the effect is real,
but it is not yet clear whether useful energy can be made. A few
watts in a laboratory does not count when addressing the second issue,
which is the thrust of the NG article. Most laboratory devices can not
be scaled up in their present form. Until the effect can be produced
near the kilowatt level on demand, the phenomenon can not be
considered useful. Of course, this fact does not justify rejection of
the claims as is common these days. I might add that the same criteria
should be applied to hot fusion. In this case, the method is not
useful unless excess power is in above megawatts because the size of
the device is so large.
Ed
With all due respect, Ed Storms is wrong two ways.
I think we first need to avoid looking at this discussion as a conflict
between right and wrong, but a discussion from two different points of view.
First, utility is dependent upon location and availability. Although
Storms' very low level less-reproducible devices are not useful
as he states, others' cold fusion devices are higher power and higher
reproducibility, and do appear to be useful.
The issue is what we consider to be useful. A laboratory instrument is
useful when it produces reproducible results based on an understandable
process. The level of power only has to exceed the sensitivity of the
detection devices by a suitable amount. Many cold fusion devices do this
including the calorimeter used by Mitchell Swartz. A device useful in
solving the energy needs of the world, which was the basis of the
discussion in NG, is an entirely different animal. Granted, once CF is
understood, small devices producing 50-100 watts will be very common.
However, as far as I can determine, no one understands the effect well
enough to create such a device or to amplify the effect in a practical
way to levels that would be useful outside of a laboratory. I suggest
the debate needs to focus on the real world and not on what we want to
see happen some time in the unknown future.
The debate is now shifting from the reality of the effect to its
"usefulness". If we in the field want to be part of that debate, we
need to acknowledge the important issues in this debate, not the issues
in the last one. The important question in the present debate is how
can the effect be amplified using a device that is simple, cheap, and
long lasting. I suggest the electrolytic method, although useful for
study, does not qualify. Even the plasma methods would not scale easily.
The only method that looks practical is direct gas loading of the
nuclear active environment (NAE). The limitation to scaling to high
power using any technique is not knowing the characteristics of the NAE.
Therefore, this is where I suggest the discussion needs to focus.
Ed
Utility is in the 'eyes of the beholder' As example, the Rover on Mars
has a power dissipation of circa 50 watts.
Therefore, 50 or 100 watts excess energy converted to electricity using
cold fusion might increase project longevity
or in situ system availability by a factor of 50-100%. That is GREAT
utility, and is only one example.
Also, corroborating this, we have made electricity for years using
cold fusion systems [since before our
first report in Fusion Facts (Hal Fox, editor) a decade ago when a small
light bulb first turned on by CF,
and have shown clear excess energy demonstrated both by temperature rise
AND by electricity generation
in subsequent systems. This electrical generation is important because
it has utility at least two ways.
These cold fusion electric conversion systems have GREAT utility both
for convincing skeptics (beyond the simple temperature
rise of the MIT Demo shown at ICCF 10) AND for new useful products (e.g.
as discussed above, briefly).
Second, our realization that cold fusion is real and reproducible has
directly paralleled the generation of
useful excess electrical energy, especially in the prism of increasing
in excess power density.
Therefore, the "two separate issues" appear to not be separate but
rather appear to be linked
[perhaps in a way as are electrical conduction and electrical
polarization through Hilbert space].
Mitchell Swartz
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Update of Cold Fusion Times
http://world.std.com/~mica/cft.html
also http://world.std.com/~mica/cftrev12-2.html
