Kyle Mcallister wrote: > --- "Stephen A. Lawrence" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> [Robin von Spaandock wrote:] >>> I suspect not. CF (or LENR) is finicky, and no one >>> is yet certain of the precise >>> requirements (though there are now a few claims of >>> complete replicability). >>> Those who can achieve it have been trying for >>> quite a while to get it right. >>> Even then, I think a reasonably well equipped lab >>> is a prerequisite. It's not >>> something you can do in your garage, and expect to >>> work. > > Saying it can't be done in a garage is going a bit too > far. It depends on /what/ one has in his/her garage.
Yes, indeed. I think I've heard Ed Storms does some of his work in a (very well equipped) garage. > People are building fusors in their garages. It takes > brains, determination, cunning in designing with what > you can scrounge, someone to listen (hard to get), and > motivation. >> There is something else as well. >> >> There are some reproducible, repeatable experiments which work, if >> not every time, then a good fraction of the time. But reliability >> is not what stands in the way of making a tea heater. There are two >> other problems with making a gadget which does something useful. > > OK. Exactly how do we set up the reproducible > experiments, what specific (read: NOT unobtainium) > substances were used, etc.? I'm not an expert, but two come to my mind which seem worth pursuing: See the SPAWAR experiment replication, with which Steve Krivit was involved, seemed reasonably successful. There should be a lot in the Vortex archive on that, but in any case here's a relevant link (this is *not* to a complete paper, just something with references): http://www.newenergytimes.com/Library2/2008/2008Krivit-CurrentScience.pdf Also see the recent gas phase experiments by Ed Storms et al; a paper is here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEdetectiono.pdf There was a wet-cell paper posted to Vortex recently which claimed 20/20 runs produced positive results, and 0/20 control runs produced positive results. That seems worth pursuing too but I don't have the link off hand. > Why do we not concentrate > almost exclusively on that which we KNOW works, and > expand upon that? Make variations of this one setup > that demonstrates excess heat, eventually using > materials from different sources, testing equipment > from different manufacturers, and so on, and then toss > that into the public eye? > >> Second, and more important, the same bugaboo that plagues hot >> fusion is at work here: The best of the wet-cell CF experiments is >> nowhere near breakeven. > > It's as bad as all that? What, the breakeven problem? Yes, it certainly is. Hot fusion, cold fusion, or fusor-fusion, you've got the same problem: energy out is smaller than energy in, and if you count the cost of the equipment in the energy budget, energy out is *much* smaller than energy in. It's almost like we're initiating the fusion reactions one at a time, grabbing individual pairs of atoms with a tweezers and bashing them together, and it's very hard to ramp that up and get something useful. The Sun, or an H-bomb, does it en masse, and the results are very different. Here's a rule of thumb: If you need a calorimeter to tell whether your reactor is working, you can be quite sure it's not producing a useful amount of energy. > Why the hatred towards hot > fusion by the cold fusioneers? Seems neither is doing > well. The late Bussard's group a possible exception, I > am watching that one with great interest. I think the initial extremely negative reaction of hot fusion people to reports of cold fusion has a lot to do with the bad feelings. > > I will say this: an army of willing amateurs is > nothing to sneeze at. > > --Kyle > > > >
