Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
CLOSE THE LOOP.
He [Rossi] says he can run without any electrical input. Ergo he
/can/ close the loop, without the expense of a Stirling motor and
generator.
Actually, that is heat input, from an AC resistance heater. Presumably
it would work as well with combustion heating. He said he can run
without heat input, but it is dangerous. I do not think he elaborated on
that. I gather it means he uses heat to modulate the reaction.
The Piantelli Ni experiments required high temperature and external heating.
I believe the control factors are heat and pressure. The H2 is at 2 atm,
according to Celani. When you depressurize the cell, the reaction soon
stops. That's good news. Cold fusion reactions are sometimes nearly as
difficult to stop as they are to start.
I assume the Rossi device has some internal self-regulation, or what
Stan Pons called a "memory" that keeps electrochemical cells going back
to the same power level after you refill the cell, tap on it, or disturb
it some other way. I also assume there is something about the Rossi
device that acts analogously to a self-quenching CANDU nuclear reactor.
I am only speculating; I have no knowledge of this. The mechanism would
be something like the metal degassing at very high temperature, cooling
down, and then absorbing the gas and reacting again. That would explain
why it quickly stops when you degas manually. I suspect the electric
heater is in the core, and the cold fusion reaction occurs in the Ni
powder surrounding that. I recall some of the Piantelli devices had
heaters attached directly to the Ni bar.
I think Rossi claimed the internal temperature of this thing is 1500°C.
Ed Storms pointed out that cannot be right, because the melting point of
Ni is 1,453°C. Perhaps that is a misunderstanding, or a mistranslation.
Still, it must be pretty hot in there because the device is small and
well insulated. Even with 400 W or 1000 W from the AC heater it must be
quite hot internally. I assume (but I do not know) that the heater is
the hottest part. That's how I imagine it works.
- Jed
