I think it is a very good development. It is even more evidence that the reaction is real and robust.
Safety is NOT the big issue here. The biggest issue is if this works. If the NRC has a problem with this technology I think that Rossi should just go to African nations, China, or India and try to license it to them. It would serve the USA right not to have access to cheap/clean energy if the NRC tries to prevent this technology from being commercialized. ________________________________ From: Jones Beene <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sat, January 22, 2011 11:00:10 AM Subject: RE: [Vo]:Monday Update to Release Information on Self Sustain Mode Jed, all Yes, this development is important, but not exactly for the reason specified. In fact, IMO - it makes the device far riskier in the eyes of “authorities.” (and more subject to eventual political interference by Oil interests). Not to nitpick, but going from 20:1 P-out/P-in is ALWAYS self sustaining, if *controlling the reaction via input energy is not required*, i.e. if the “quality” of the input does not need to be specific (i.e. RF or ultrasound, etc). IOW – if a special kind of input energy such as resonant ultrasound is not needed, then with a high COP – it is merely a matter of insulating against heat loss well enough to retain what would be the equivalent input heat, or to extract less heat than the input. So if you believe the demo as presented, then this announcement is a strong negative, not a positive. The fact that they can do it without P-in indicates to me NOT that there is any fundamental improvement or change from before – but that a ‘runaway’ is more likely due to failure of controls. The so-called ‘holy grail’ can easily exist in circumstance with P-in required, and in fact that could easily be preferable. You want a failsafe control mechanism. Otherwise a runaway is more likely. In fact as far as the ‘grail’ metaphor goes, I think most engineers would STRONGLY prefer to control the reaction via P-in. Instead shutting it off such a by controlling H2 pressure - is much trickier. If you want to keep the Nuclear Regulatory people from shutting down your entire operation – then the very first thing you MUST avoid is a runaway reaction, even if the radioactive release, is minimal. A runaway could squelch everything from the start. It would not surprise me at all if our NRC were not already in talks with the equivalent agency in Italy over this very issue – and some of that could be due to political pressure from either Oil of the multi-billion hot fusion recipients. Jones This is important! Rossi is saying that on Monday, they will upload a report by Levi et al. describing a self-sustaining run. This is the Holy Grail of cold fusion: a self-sustaining device that produces commercially useful levels of power. People may have some doubts about Rossi's credibility, but I think there is no reason to doubt Levi and the others. If they say they saw the thing self-sustain, I for one will believe it. As I said before, this development is not all that surprising. There is plenty of supporting evidence from other experiments. There is no reason to doubt that a scaled up machine can be built. It is a little surprising that the breakthrough came with Ni-H. The temperatures and power density with Ni-H have usually been low in the past, as far as I know. Pd-D has achieved greater power density. - Jed
