This is very impressive! I hope it works. As I have often said, it
does seem unlikely that hard-nosed power company engineers would
invest time and money in something like this if it did not work. That
is not proof that it works but it sure is good "evidence" -- in the
legal, not scientific, sense of the word.
Jones Beene wrote:
Now that the voice of liberalism - HuffPo - has picked up on the
tech, it will one more reason for the far right and Big-oil to shun
it... but possibly one less reason that Chu will not change his mind
in the coming months...
I do not think any scientist or engineer will reject or embrace BLP
based on the liberalism of the Huffington Post. That is absurd.
Nearly every scientist rejects it because it violates the theory that
atoms cannot shrink below the ground state. I am sure that is the
reason they reject it; not because of any ulterior motive.
Many people reject cold fusion both on the basis of theory and also
because an irrational hatred of the field has built up over the
years, giving people the impression that researchers are frauds and
lunatics. My sense is that BLP does not have as much of this excess
baggage, but the essence of the claim is enough to instantly
disqualify it in the minds of most researchers, including most cold
fusion researchers I know. A few of them would take the experiment
seriously. They believe that it might be some sort of cold fusion
effect but practically none of them believe in shrinking hydrogen.
Most were pretty upset with Ed when he took that hypothesis seriously
in his book.
Needless to say . . . to mix metaphors: I am not a member of the
(theory) congregation, and I have no dog in this fight. In plain
English I have no idea whether Mills is right or wrong, and I could
not care less about it.
Seriously folks! If Estacado Energy Services, Inc. begins generating
250 MW of electricity, it makes no difference whether it comes from
shrinking hydrogen, shrinking violets, ZPE, or from Mars via a leak
from the 14th dimension. I find it hard to understand why other
people get so emotional about these esoteric matters. Of course it is
important for scientists & engineers to understand the source of the
energy, but why should they care which answer they come up with? A
theory is supposed to be a utilitarian tool, not some sort of
religion or fetish. It is no different than a programming manual. If
I am looking through the Windows system calls to find what I need to
accomplish some task, I pick the one that works best and is most
convenient. Whether it be NtCreateEvent or NtCreateEventPair, or
what-have-you (what-has-Bill), the selection is not something you
should get emotional about. You pick the one that does the job, apply
it, and move on to the next task.
Whether the theory is an actual reflection of underlying physical
reality, or only an approximation, or a mistake that happens to
resemble reality by coincidence -- can never be established. Frankly,
I think those distinctions are meaningless.
- Jed
