Re: EarthTech's (Scott Little's) magic touch

[Stephen A. Lawrence]

Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:


Mike Carrell wrote:

<snip>

And it's also very different from what Mizuno did in similar
circumstances.  Whether Scott's right or wrong in his assessment of
Mizuno's work, he got a reasonable amount of help, including the cathode
he used in at least one run, from Mizuno's lab.

In short, Mizuno acts like a researcher who's trying to track down the
workings of an interesting effect.  Mills at BLP, on the other hand, 
seems
to act like he has something to hide.  It's unfortunate.



Huh? Just how does Mills' massive book, dozens of detailed experimental
reports, and journal papers add up to acting like "he has something to
hide"? Compared to comparable R&D efforts, his disclosure is massive and
unprecedented. He is following a coherent commercial development strategy
designed to protect the investments of his investors. He discloses in
quantity to establish a "reduction to practice" for patent purposes and
cooperates with those who wish to partner in commercial development, with
BLP serving as a license laboratory. He is not disclosing "know how" to
optimize and scale up the reactions to commercial viability.

Mills has been chastized by critics for revisions to his book and various
experimental reports, acting like Mizuno "who's trying to track down the
workins of an interesting effect". Mills is assisted by a staff of 
PhDs who
do the lab work. Mizune is essentially working by himself on a shoestring
budget, doing very good work.


Equally unfortunate, IMHO, is the fact that Scott didn't fly to Japan
(with a few meters stuffed in a bag) to observe one of Mizuno's 
successful
runs first hand, and determine for himself whether Mizuno's voltage and
current measurements and cooling curve determinations were up to 
snuff --
but that's another story..



Making proper electrical powere measurements on something as noisy as
Mizuno's plasma electrolysis cell is definitely not done by a "few 
meteres
stuffed in a bag" unless these are very carefully selected widebasnd 
power
meters made by a few manufacturers in the world. I have seen no evidence
that Eartth Tech has these instruments, which Naudin has used.


Does Mizuno's lab have such instruments?

This is something I've wondered about, a little, with regard to Ohmori 
as well -- if Ohmori's doing work which requires measurement of very 
noisy input power levels, and, as Jed says, he's using instruments which 
date from the early 20th century, how can he know how much power is 
going into the cells?

In Little's third series of "Mizuno runs",

BTW during the Mills electrolysis runs and during the Mizuno runs, 
Little was using a "Clarke-Hess 2330 Power Analyzer" on which he seemed 
to depend to get his power input measurements.  He also used a Fluke 
true-rms current meter, which, he says at one point, was _apparently_ 
not true-rms in DC mode: he found it was apparently reading average 
rather than RMS current during at least one run on the Mizuno 
experiments.  (That determination was made by comparing its reading with 
the Clarke-Hess readings, from which I conclude that he was using the CH 
meter as his "gold standard".)

I have no idea if the Clarke-Hess meter can be depended on to produce 
accurate readings with very noisy input.


trials four and five, in 
which he was trying to duplicate Mizuno's results, he apparently used 
the same calorimetry and general cell design as Mizuno.  His results 
showed a pretty clean zero in run 4 (168,000 joules out, 167,000 joules 
in, difference < 1%), and a complete failure to boil in run 5 
(consistent with input power being less than output power), which 
suggests that, despite the noisy nature of the input current and 
voltage, his _measurements_ were correct (odds of a bogus meter reading 
showing power-in == power-out in run 4 would seem to be pretty low -- 
you'd expect to see either excess power or an unexplained power loss in 
such a case, and in run 5, the lack of boiling was consistent with the 
meter readings).

Obviously lots of other things could have been wrong, including the 
possible use of a steel anode in place of platinum (quoting Jed, in old 
email -- dunno for sure what anode Little was using on those runs).  If 
he'd packed up his meters (which appear to be portable) and taken them 
to Japan and observed a successful run in Mizuno's lab, it would have at 
least made it pretty clear whether it was something going on inside the 
cell or something going on with the measurements which made his results 
come out differently.

Please understand, this is a kind of "Gee I wish..." thing rather than a 
criticism of anyone.