[subtitled] Survival is fine, but satisfaction is
rough...
For nearly 15 years, experimenters and
commentators have been interested in determining the range of
*quantifiable* explanations for the NON-reproducibility which is seen in LENR
electrolysis and glow discharge experiments.
Oops, for all those years... we may have been missing
something.
From shortly after the P&F announcement, promising
experiments even at MIT (for a while) are reputed to show excess heat and
even nuclear transmutation of electrodes - but only "on-occasion" and not
"on-demand." This is the root cause for engrained skepticism as the
physics-skeptic always... and I do mean always... sees the cup as "half
empty" instead of half-full. Physics demands 100% reproducibility. Alchemy
does not.
Locating ALL of the quantifiable explanation for this lack
of 100% reproducibility might be extremely important in the coming few years,
should funding for an Edisonian-type effort, on the national level, ever
becomes available - and that funding "surprise" may come sooner rather
than later. Even this cynic believes that.
The "writing on the wall" relative to the
increasingly chilling implications of 'Peak Oil' are now visible to almost
everyone, including the plodders with their blinders firmly attached (at DoE).
Many "experts" had assumed that the quick rise in oil from 20 to 60 dollars per
barrel was a temporary thing, and would subside back to normal market dynamics.
Nope. Hubbert's curve (as interpreted by economists) is all about the perversion
of normal market dynamics in a partially "controlled" market, where demand is
essentially inflexible and supply is not.
Many did not realize that implication. This time next
year, it will surprise few of the more cynical among us, if the price
of oil is $100 or even $200. That can happen easily under the Hubbert scenario
(although $200 is more likely for the year 2008 if we cannot substitute
oxygenated fuels (from biomass and coal) fast enough.
As for the other option... Most of this attention at
finding the roots of NON-reproducibility of LENR has previously been focused on
the electrode surface such as Pd (or sometimes Ti or Ni or W) metal of the
electrodes - and of course the possibility of active impurities, such as
lithium or boron in ppm quantities. In the early days impurities
were especially prevalent in Pd, which has been noted but not
positively optimized ... and/or the electrode surface treatment. That
investigative route of focusing on the electrode has given some valuable insight
into what is going on - but not yet provided a satisfactory answer to
NON-reproducibility.
Totally neglected, up to now, has been the role of
the heavy isotope of oxygen: O-18 (18O) - which is more ubiquitous in
nature than many realize. It is 15 time more prevalent in natural
water than is deuterium, for instance. Bet you didn't know that. This
isotope could have gone under the radar because the 16O variety of the gas is
especially stable in nuclear terms - so why look further?
There has been zero side-by-side testing of this
possibility. There is some supposedly "O-18 enriched" water available from a
company advertising on the web specifically as a supplier of such
an enriched product, which will be marketed in the USA as a health gimmick,
but it is not here yet and the enrichment is not great. Otherwise the stuff is
rather expensive (in high purity) and I haven't been able to convince
anyone to try it in comparative side-by-side experiments, because of the high
cost and the fact that double enrichment (i.e. "real heavy" water D2-18O is not
sold as such).
It seems that the particular company with the O18 health
product is not science-based and they are not willing to provide any real
data. Terry has provide the cite for the expensive variety, but who can afford
it? :
However, when inexpensive, slightly enriched O18
water becomes available here, it would be interesting to compare it in liter
quantities against "eau de municipal' or even heavy water,
especially in glow experiments - and I hope Graneau, for one, will try
it against his "rain water". Even if the enrichment is only double or
triple, it might be "telling" in a Graneau arc discharge.
AND... there is always the further (faint) possibility
that O-18 is the under-appreciated difference (active isotope) in LENR work,
more so the glow discharge than the low voltage electrolysis - or at least, it
could be a strong contributing difference in any higher voltage
electrolysis experiment with variable results - since it is always there in
water in such a substantial ratio. Perhaps - (speculation alert) in
addition to the extra neutrons, 18O is also more attractive to a
"third" active or transitory particles such as electronium, positronium, muons
or monopoles. Only an extremely large R&D budget can determine those
issues. Oxygen of both isotopic varieties, in molecules, certainly has an
enormous magnetic moment for an element which has no unpaired electrons, which
is an anomaly in itself. Anyway....
Even in *natural light water* 18O is of about 15
time greater in natural abundance than is even a single deuterium substitution
(HDO) and yet ...in a situation where heavy water is used - it may or may not be
there at all - depending on the technique used to enrich the heavy water
for deuterium. Usually the O18 is reduced in ratio compared to the
natural abundance - not more - as you do NOT want this stuff in reactors,
because of its higher neutron capture cross-section.
Actually, the cross-section data on oxygen can be
deceiving as the thermal cross section for 18O is not that high, but it has a
much higher cross section for gamma photoneutron loss - which then results in
17O, which is the real culprit. 17O has a cross section which is 100,000 times
higher for thermals. That is the problem. You cannot use an 18O enriched water
in a reactor because of this two step process leading to neutron
capture. Yet, most (99+%) of all manufactured heavy water is made for
**only** for that specific use (reactors).
I have been told by an ex-CANDU engineer, that they could
have made the heavy water for their reactors for "pennies on the dollar" using
waste heat fractionalization (compared to the chemical method) except that
the cheap way also enriched the heavy oxygen. IOW
the steam fractionalization technique (cheap way) apparently would enrich both
elements over natural ratios. This is counter
productive.
The practical result today is that most heavy water
is *depleted* in 18O but some heavy water is "real heavy" and some is not -
depending on whether it was produced for reactors or not (most is).
Unfortunately. for such an important subject, there is a paucity of information
on the web specifically for 18O in a nuclear context. And if you are the
purchaser of heavy water from an "alternative" source, you may have no idea what
the 18O content of it should be.
The interesting thing for LENR is this. If you are using
heavy water and do not know whether or not the 18O component has been enriched
or not, then that could be a major problem IF the isotope 18O is active, in a
particular situation (and particularly for a stimulated beta decay). An
accelerated beta decay of this isotope to nitrogen could go unnoticed as the
nitrogen isotope is stable and ubiquitous itself.
In a light water experiment, where there is at
least five atom of 18O "available" per every atom of 16O and that is
naturally available, and the energy content of an accelerated beta
decay is likely to be about 100,000 times greater than chemical energy, then
this alone could easily provide an apparent heat OU with a COP of 1-10 for very
long periods even if all atoms of water are given the same input energy. This
would be totally hidden except possibly to CR-film if you could get it close
enough.
Some details:
The Vienna Standard Mean Ocean
Water (VSMOW) standard, which is supposedly
'official' and says that sea water is 99.984426 atom % 1H, 0.015574
atom % 2H (D), 18.5 x 10^-16 atom % 3H .
Oxygen isotopes in air have 8, 9 or 10 neutrons: 16O accounts for 99.76% while 17O 0.04%
and 18O 0.2 % are heavy.
OK that is 2 atoms per thousand in air are heavy or about
4 molecules per thousand have one heavy atom. In water this varies greatly by
the source of water but the rule of thumb is .5% heavy oxygen in sea water -
that is: 5 molecules per thousand contain the heavy O isotope in sea water
(which is naturally enriched by constant evaporation over geologic time) but
less in terrestrial water (probably back to the 2-4 per thousand), while for
deuterium it is less than two parts per ten thousand atoms - but since water has
two hydrogens, then eight in every 10,000 molecules has at lest one deuterium.
ERGO as to the relative proportion: "heavy O
water" containing the 18O isotope is about 5/.32 or 15+ times more
likely to be found in any given molecule of sea water than is a single deuteron
(HDO).
The range of molecular weight for most water is from 18 (1H216O) up to 22(2H218O) which is very substantial in terms of a high ration and them implication of being amenable to fractional distillation, for enrichment in a few steps. Different vapor pressure is significant H216O 10% > HDO 1% > 1H218O Result: Fractionation occurs marginally during evaporation and condensation and is cumulative over time.
The range of molecular weight for most water is from 18 (1H216O) up to 22(2H218O) which is very substantial in terms of a high ration and them implication of being amenable to fractional distillation, for enrichment in a few steps. Different vapor pressure is significant H216O 10% > HDO 1% > 1H218O Result: Fractionation occurs marginally during evaporation and condensation and is cumulative over time.
Continuous evaporation from a water body (e.g. ocean water) means the remaining water is enriched with H218O & HDO. Lighter molecules are preferentially evaporated. In plants, the leaves are particularly are enriched due to osmotic processes - and in evergreen plants, even more so. I will leave the comments on the health benefits of this to the cadre of marketeers who are just now tuning into the latest gimmick (doesn't mean that it is isn't true)/
BTW - Atmospheric water vapor (especially in hurricanes)
is only slightly depleted in 'heavies' with respect to sea water, but may be
enriched compared to surface water - since far more vapor comes from the
oceans than from inland water especially if there is mechanical agitation.
Consequently, one can make no good conclusion about the
relative enrichment of "rain water" - nor to 18O being actively subject to
accelerated beta decay during hurricanes if lightning is present (isn't it
always)
For the experimenter, substituting purified salt water
should provide some enrichment in O-18 (and possibly other active ingredients as
well) and water derived from plant material should provide even more. And some
mineral water - if purified from real hot springs, should be high. Evian used to
be from hot springs but this is no longer the case.
Collecting the water condensate from a few tons of
Holly-leaf would be nice for the Graneau arc, and I am going to stop by the
Calistoga plant the next time I am up that way to see if they have any water
with guaranteed 18O enrichment. Not that I am into health fads or anything,
but the Cartesian approach (to the possibility of divinity) applies to far more
than theology!
Jones
