--- OrionWorks wrote: > Any comments from the Peanut Gallery? Yes. Just a short nibble from this cracker ;-)
Below is a table which some of us have commented on before, from BLP and in the new stuff, which is cited this week by a Blog which focuses on the New energy scene - and in this case- the new BLP "solid fuel" reactor. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_VyTCyizqrHs/SKS-iqJIymI/AAAAAAAABH4/Xx0e_-M_dCA/s1600-h/BLPclaims2.jpg The WWW is awash with the slick PR releases from the company, apparently being sent out to every journalist on the planet in its glossier partially-vetted form, which is quite impressive! UNTIL one looks deeper. BTW - as for personal bias: I "want" to believe this reactor is real and "on the way", and have a gut feeling that it is -- but cannot do so logically, intellectually nor honestly from the facts presented. I have no 'agenda' - but have keenly followed the Mills story for almost 20 years. From this vantage point, it seems that most of the blogsters are missing an obvious, even glaring basic problem. Here is a recent blog, but there are dozens like it: http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/blacklight-power-follow-up-and-other.html The point worth a critical appraisal is this: The most effective combination BY FAR (for gain) clearly involves strontium - either with argon + H2 or with only H2. That is a most important point. There is simply no other useful catalyst at low temperature, except K (not listed here). Look carefully at the table. Assuming that the well-known electrical discharge in hydrogen is not efficient for visible light flux (according to mainstream ~10%) although it could be more if hydrogen were self-catalyzing, then the same discharge in Ar + Sr + H2 is about 600 times more gainful in terms of visible radiation flux! This would be as much as COP = 60 for light photons alone, which is within the range, but lower than what Mills has claimed in prior releases for net energy from hydrinos. This one finding of gainfulness would literally be worth billions of dollars of investment capital, if it could be believed. Yet, the upcoming reactor from BLP is said to use sodium hydride and hydroxide as fuel. Na + H2 - which you can see from the table can have *less light output* than H2 alone. Yes, as we know- light is NOT heat precisely, and the new reactor is designed for heating, but read on. There has been an attempt to explain all of the inherent contradictions (between the new product and the old theory) but what is offered by the company is not remotely satisfactory to any thinking scientist: http://www.blacklightpower.com/papers/WFC052708webS.pdf Perhaps there is strontium or potassium involved, and BLP wanted to keep that as a poorly disguised trade secret by focusing on the Na, which clearly is NOT gainful except at extraordinarily high energies. Mills is tossing around mass/energy levels of 60 eV and higher in this paper, as if they were routine! They would melt a reactor in seconds if routine! It is little wonder to me that he receives such strong and harsh criticism from those experts who do not believe his experimental data. *Experiment* not theory, is his most redeeming asset; and if it was not competently performed ...? As Robin and others have mentioned, there could be doubly ionized oxygen, which is catalytic at lower levels than Na. Or self-catalyzed H2. Yet, an O++ catalyst is hardly mentioned in the paper nor by Mills, and apparently not of enough interest to include in the table above for cross comparison. All of this is assuming that the table in question is not a total fiction which has put together by PR men and investment fund-raisers. There are a few critics who say that BLP is "on the rocks" due to the high burn-rate, and is very desperate to raise new funds; making all of this new material little more than a PR charade (according to critics). I think not! or rather hope not; but BLP has put itself in the horrible position where that dreaded possibility (near-scam) cannot be written-off - due to silence on all these glaring inconsistencies and other problems. These beg for clarification. The bottom-line conclusion, based on the table above, is of the absolute NECESSITY for Strontium (or K) as a catalyst, assuming that radiance is proportional to energy, which is not necessarily true at low output. BUT if the two are not closely related in the temperature range where the output energy is useful (i.e. can be converted to electricity cheaply) then that outcome is a bigger News story than even hydrinos. IOW this table is SOOO very relevant to everything they claim, and yet ultimately so damning to the rest of the information on the reactor in the Press Release, that one wonders why it is even included. Look at it another way. What would any "logical" business plan try to do, instead of this? What would you do in Mills' shoes? Simple, my dear Watson. If you want the public involved at all, and BLP must care about that - then why do we not see a simple Ar + Sr + H2 filled pyrex tube, surrounded by photoelectric cells - and self-powering? With a 60-1 gain or higher, that is so easy and obvious- a cheap solar cell array will be sufficient to self-power - that its *absence* must be noted. IOW - that step would eliminate all doubt and its absence serves to actually create FAR more doubt, when anyone looks deeper, and critically. If BLP are really desperate to raise capital, as critics (and neighbors) claim; and if they really do have a highly gainful technology as the company claims, then a small self-powering demo eliminates ALL DOUBT - and that is the way to go - no question about that. The only logical conclusions then are either that they cannot do it, that the table above is misleading, or that doing it gives away too much trade secret information. As for the later, they do have a few patents and numerous applications world-wide, so the risks from competition are low - and if they really are "on the rocks" of insolvency, then giving up a few secrets to the general public, if it comes to that- in order to keep your ship afloat, is not an unwise choice. Jones
