http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2010/34/342incoherentexplanation.shtml
I've read this issue of New Energy Times and am
puzzled. Krivit rejects the hypothesis, it
appears, that helium collection in these
experiments is not complete, that some helium
remains in the system and is not analyzed,
whereas if calorimetry is performed, generally,
it will measure all the heat produced.
This hypothesis leads to the conclusion that the
Q value, calculated in MeV/He-4, will exceed
whatever value is associated with the reaction
that produces the helium, and that only by
careful extraction and measurement of the last
bit of helium would the value measured approach the true value.
If, indeed, there is one true value. Until we
know the reactions involved, we cannot know what value to expect.
However, what has generally been said about the Q
value is that it is "consistent" with the
hypothesis that the reaction is d + d -> He-4.
Deuterium fusion, by whatever process or
intermediary, would lead to a Q value of 23.8
MeV/He-4. That is, if the "fuel" is deuterium and
the product is He-4, that much energy must be
released. However, it is possible that with some
intermediary reactions, some energy would be
involved in creating other reaction products. If
so, this would reduce or increase the measured Q
value. Loss of helium would increase the Q value,
so if half the helium is not found and measured,
the Q value found would be (if the heat and
helium measurements are sufficiently accurate) 47.6 MeV/He-4.
However, in some experiments the measurement
accuracy is not high, so greater variance can be expected.
Storms covers this topic in some detail in "The
Science of Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions" (2007).
He points to the work of Miles, starting with
noting that 12 studies produced no excess heat
and no extra helium, compared with 21 studies
that produced excess energy, of which 18 produced
extra helium. (There were differences involved in
the three studies that produced no helium: two
were studies with a Pd-Ce alloy, not well
studied, and in one there was a possible error in
heat measurement, according to Storms.) This is a
stunning correlation, indicating that the
production of helium is strongly associated with
excess heat. Okay, at what value?
Storms then notes the retention problem.
"The measured helium values are expected to have
a negative bias because some unknown amount will
be retained by the palladium. The values obtained
by Miles et al indicate 46% was retained in their
study, a very reasonable amount if half of the
emitted alphas went in the direction of the bulk
material and were captured, while the other half
went into the solution and were detected." Of
course, the 46% value assumes the 23.8 MeV from d-d fusion.
Storms goes on, "In addition, some extra energy
might result from other reactions, such as
transmutation without helium being produced. The
values reported by Bush and Lagowski are
consistent with 42% of the helium being retained
by the metal -- a reasonable amount in good agreement with the Miles value.
Storms then shows a chart from Gozzi et al. This
chart is tricky to read, it took me a while to
figure it out. The heavy line is excess heat,
plotted against time. The light line showing data
points with error bars is measured helium
referred back to energy at the value of 23.8
MeV/He-4. So how the two lines track each other
is an indication of how well the excess heat is
consistent with the 23.8 MeV/He-4 hypothesis.
It is quite consistent! What we should remember
is that it's astonishing that He-4 is found even
within an order of magnitude of what would be
predicted from deuterium fusion being the main
source of excess energy. It becomes very
difficult to explain this away as helium
measurement error, and as well difficult to
explain away the excess energy values as likewise
being due to measurement error. The two errors would have to be correlated.
Storms then shows a chart from McKubre et al, the
Case experiments, showing energy/helium
consistent with about 25% retention of helium by
the solids; this experiment used palladium
deposited on coconut charcoal, and it's
reasonable to consider that the materials might
be less effective at retaining helium. And then
there is the Hagelstein/SRI report, where
extensive effort was made to extract as much of
the helium as possible, and the Q value obtained was 24.8 +/- 2.5 MeV.
Storms then reviews the data and comes up with an
upper limit of 43 +/- 12 MeV/He-4; if 50% of the
helium were retained, this would become 21 +/-
12. MeV/He-4. He combines the measurements to
suggest a value of 25 +/- 5 MeV/He-4, and says
that "although this value is consistent with d-d
fusion being the source of energy and helium,
other reactions may also be consistent."
Now, Krivit dismisses the concept of retention of
helium by palladium, but does not appear to
understand it. He writes, "2000/2004 authors
obfuscated distinctions between (1) the fact that
helium may penetrate through cracks and crevices;
(2) their ad-hoc suggestion that helium is
soluble in metals, which conflicts with century of evidence to the contrary."
However, I have not seen any suggestion that
helium is "soluble" in metals. Krivit does not
quote any such suggestions, he simply asserts
that this "suggestion" is being made. Straw man argument.
There are difficulties in determining the exact
relationship between excess heat and helium in
LENR experiments. Krivit raises some of these
difficulties. But he seems to have missed the
primary hypothesis as to why some helium would be
retained, and some released: the reaction is a
surface reaction. Whatever forms helium, and it
is clear that helium is being formed, is doing so
near the surface, but it may be just below the
surface. When helium is formed, it may be
expected to be hot, i.e., to be alpha particles;
how hot would depend on the reaction sequence.
But alpha particles will penetrate palladium to
some degree. If the surface of the palladium
becomes cracked or fractured or if melting
occurs, we can expect helium trapped in the
disrupted region to be more likely to escape. If
an alpha particle is initially formed at the
surface or close enough to the surface, with a
track toward the surface (or if it formed at the
surface with a track not into the bulk), we can
expect the helium to escape. But if the track of
the particle is toward the bulk, it could easily
be caught by intact metal and be unable to
escape, or at least to easily escape. That is,
the insolubility of helium in the metal is actually why it would be retained.
The Krivit article is laden with sensationalist
polemic and straw man arguments. It is
disappointing. Where is this coming from? Well,
Krivit is one of the few proponents of the
Widom-Larsen theory, and he credits Lewis Larsen,
pointing to a web-published slide presentation,
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/WL/2009Sept3LatticeEnergySlides.pdf.
Indeed, this presentation presents similar arguments, using similar polemic.
Larsen faults Hagelstein, et al, in their
presentation to the U.S. Department of Energy in
2004, for "implicitly' assuming
"that only one heat--producing nuclear process
could possibly take place in their system: d-d
'cold fusion.'..." In fact, d-d fusion was (and
is) a hypothesis, not an assumption, and it was
examined as such. Long before the work that
Larsen discusses, Preparata had predicted that
helium-4 would be found as the nuclear ash, and that was confirmed by Miles.
Larsen does not contest the heat and helium
measurements, but insists that the value found of
31-32 MeV/He4 was accurate, and calls this a
"discrepancy" with the d-d fusion theory.
However, Larsen appears to be promoting his own
theory, so his text assumes that d-d fusion is
*not* the reaction. Yet if we are generating
helium, and if the fuel is deuterium, we would
indeed expect the 23.8 MeV figure, but with some caveats.
1. Any other energy source, such as a different
reaction that *also* occurs, could raise the
figure. For example, tritium is also found, and
likewise energetic neutrons, which indicates,
possibly, d+t fusion taking place (at low levels) as well.
2. Transmutation reactions might raise or lower the Q value.
3. Any missed helium, either through leakage or
through incomplete recovery, would raise the value.
Larsen dismisses the incomplete recovery with the
same apparent incorrect assumptions that Krivit
makes. He gives these possibilities for the
helium deficit (he calls it a "discrepancy," this
is missing helium from what would be expected to
be correlated with excess heat at 23.8 MeV/He-4)
Quoting Larsen:
1. During experiments, Helium was being absorbed
and/or adsorbed by one or more materials found
inside the sealed vessels (including vessel
walls); in order of physical abundance and
exposed surface area, these materials included:
Carbon (C charcoal), Palladium (Pd), and
316(316--series stainless steel (Fe, Cr, Ni, Mo, MnMn) )
This is stated incompletely. If helium is
generated within the palladium, it isn't "absorbed or adsorbed." It's trapped.
2. If it were truly present above levels
attributable to external contamination, He-4 is
undeniably a product of nuclear processes. That
being the case, perhaps other He-4-producing
nuclear reactions besides d-d fusion took place
in their Case Pd/C/D experimental systems (not
considered by McKubre et al.; no other "nuclear ash" besides He was assayed)
Possibility 2 is certainly reasonable, though an
obstacle that this hypothesis faces, as to
producing a significant contribution to the heat,
is the significance of deuterium as a fuel, where
experiments with light water, and thus with very
low deuterium concentration, produce much less energy.
3. He-4 was actually being consumed as a
reactant by other other non-fusion nuclear
reactions that transmuted it to some other
element besides Helium (not considered by
McKubre/Hagelstein et al.; only considered Item 1.)
Possibility 3 is somewhat likely, i.e., if hot
alphas are being generated, some of them would
become involved in other reactions, some of which
might reduce the energy appearing as heat. Some
might increase it. Larsen agrees that helium is
being generated. I don't think he has proposed a
mechanism that would produce anything other than
hot alphas, and the LENR is known to take place
at the surface or close to the surface of the
palladium. So we would expect some trapped
helium, unless the process damaged all the
lattice in the area of generation and beyond to
the point where the alpha particles would create
(in which case it could escape.) Larsen, however,
doesn't seem to even consider the issue.
We do know that transmutations are taking place,
so exact correspondence between He-4 and energy
production is not expected; the issue would be
the degree to which this would affect the measurements.
Larsen quotes Hagelstein in slide 26, "pp. 7 "If
helium were created in the cathode interior, then
one might expect to see helium dissolved in the
metal. If helium were produced near the surface,
then perhaps it would show up in the surrounding
gas." It appears that "dissolved" is
misinterpreted. It means that the helium would be
trapped in the lattice, not that it has
"dissolved" there by ordinary diffusion ("absorption").
If helium is being created, it is to be expected
that, normally, it would be hot, by whatever
mechanism it is produced. If, for example, it is
produced by decay of unstable elements formed by
transmutation processes, it would be emitted with
energy, probably significant energy.
We know from multiple evidences that the "cold
fusion" reaction is a surface effect, it is
taking place at or near the surface of the
palladium. Thus if hot helium is being created
there, some of the helium would be trapped in the
metal, we could expect. Depending on the depth of
formation, and the effect of the reaction and
other conditions on the metal, more or less might
be trapped. Hagelstein correctly notes an
expectation that helium would be trapped if it is
formed in the interior of the cathode. However,
cracking and melting of the cathode would release
some or all of this, depending on whether or not
the cracking or melting reaches the sites of the trapped helium.
An erroneous "cold fusion" conceptual paradigm
clearly influenced their experimental approach
(e.g., did not bother to look for any other
"nuclear ash" besides Helium isotopes) and
hampered their ability to properly interpret
numerous anomalies present in their reported experimental results.
The fact: Hagelstein and others have variously
attempted to test the hypothesis of d-d -> He-4
"fusion," and some have assumed this reaction in reporting results.
Krivit notes this in his critique of the Violante
work, where he seems to have misunderstood
"expected value." Violante reported helium and
energy measurements, then added a green dot (as
shown in Krivit's critique,
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2010/34/343inexplicableclaims.shtml),
which translates the energy measured into an
"expected" value for helium based on the
assumption of 24 MeV/He-4. Krivit reads this as
if "expected" means that prior to the experiment,
the researchers had an expectation for how much
energy would be released, and thus considers this
an error. No, it was simply showing the excess
heat translated into a calculated value
("expected") based on an expectation of 24 MeV.
Of the three experiments, one showed roughly that
Q value (but the chart is not very accurately
plotted, as apparently Violante acknowledged
later), the other two produced expected helium
that was higher than the energy would indicate at
24 MeV/He-4, and thus there is "missing" helium based on the hypothesis.
In his analysis, Krivit clearly did not
understand the report, he missed a number of key
points and flatly contradicted in his analysis
that Violante had even done any calorimetry, when
the report spent considerable text on the exactly
calorimetry done and reported the results in kJ
for the three experiments. Krivit claims that the
energy was simply calculated from helium, which
is preposterous (and would not explain the values
given at all, except maybe for one out of the three).
Missing in all this critique is the likelihood
that, indeed, the reaction is not as simple as d
+ d -> He-4. Many signatures expected from that
known reaction (at high temperatures) are
missing. Much more likely is some reaction of the
nature of m*d + ? > ? > n*He-4 = ?, where m = 2*
n. Probably. In addition, there is quite likely
more than one reaction or reaction pathway
involved. However, the heat/helium measurements
do support a hypothesis of a reaction which takes
in deuterium as fuel and generates helium as ash,
and, except for other reactants or ashes being
involved, this would produce the expected energy of 23.8 MeV/He-4.
Larsen is correct that there are other
possibilities, but he is improper in criticizing
the work of Hagelstein et al as not having
"bothered" to search for other forms of ash.
Other researchers have done this, and other ashes
have been found, but the *predominant* ash does appear to be helium.
Now, I'm trying to understand what predictions
Widom-Larsen theory would make for helium
generation as correlated with excess heat. I'm
not at all averse to the concept of neutron
involvement, but two basic questions: what's the
fuel? i.e., what are the initial reactants, and
what are the catalysts, if any? And what is the
ash? W-L theory apparently predicts transmutation abundances, or does it?
Trying to find a good summary of W-L theory has
not been simple.
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/WL/2009Jan30LatticeEnergySlides.pdf
is mostly promotional hype, of the kind we have
seen from many prior and failed efforts at
commercialization. What specific predictions has
W-L theory made, confirmed by subsequent
experiment, that would allow rosy predictions of cheap, clean energy?
And the kicker: in the above slide show, I find
this statement: "Using its unique, unpublished
proprietary understanding of LENR, Lattice is now
ready to begin device engineering programs." In
other words, "We are not telling you what we know."
Steve, are you sure you want to hitch yourself to this star?
Much of the flap is over semantics. If
low-momentum neutrons are being absorbed by
nuclei, this is, by any broad definition, nuclear
fusion, of neutronium, i.e., atomic number 0,
mass 1, with other nuclei. It is, indeed, "cold
fusion," that is nuclear reactions resulting in
higher mass number products or nuclear
rearrangements with fused nuclei as intermediates
(fusion/fission), taking place at low temperatures.
The Widom-Larsen slide shows appear to be quite
unaware of serious alternate hypotheses, such as
Takahashi's Tetrahedral Symmetric Condensate or
Kim's work with Bose-Einstein condensates. In the
end, absent the normal process of prediction and
test, no theory can be considered proven. What
predictions is W-L theory making? What tests have they "bothered" to research?
Take home: "d-d fusion" does not refer only to
smashing together two deuterium nuclei,
"violating the coulomb barrier," but to any
process that takes in deuterium as fuel and
produces helium as ash. Such a process is also
expected to produce other ashes when other nuclei
are involved; for example, if a TSC intermediate
forms per Takahashi, the TSC is neutrally
charged, it sees no Coulomb barrier, and, like
slow neutrons, it could cause transmutation if it
encounters a palladium nucleus during its short
life. He-4 produced could easily be hot enough to
trigger secondary nuclear reactions. Minor
pathways of the primary reaction could produce tritium, perhaps. And on and on.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
http://lomaxdesign.com/coldfusion
