Let me expand the following thought a bit:
"The fact that the Rossi reaction will self-sustain without external input energy is a strong negative." Why, you ask? In two words - "chain reaction". This ability to self-sustain is a very clear indication of at least a limited chain reaction. I will define the "limited" part in another post. And, furthermore, if there are any "conspiracy theory" cynics out there who took a fancy to the scenario mentioned previously, in what was admittedly a tongue-in-cheek posting about Rossi possibly being set-up a patsy in an ongoing false-flag type of conspiracy . (and I bet there are a few of you reading this now) . . then you have already noticed that the 'official' purpose (rationalization) of any high-level meddling, whether it comes via agents of the US Navy or Big Oil or whomever, will be to keep this technology out of the hands of people like Iran, North Korea, and so on .. (good intentions gone bad?) Anyway, as a summation, the following should clarify the premise of what is still "highly unlikely" but cannot be ruled out. The hope is at least by airing this out now, it might cause a reappraisal by certain bad actors - such as - if it is so transparent from the git-go that any dilettante could imagine it - should we really go through with it? 1) This device involves nuclear reactions, even if tangential 2) It is shown to be self-sustaining as a chain reaction 3) It will be eventually taken-over and sequestered by higher level authorizes, sooner or later for reasons of either public safety or national defense. And finally, if there is a larger conspiracy afoot to make this happen "sooner, rather than later," such as by double-agents within Rossi's own group of confidants - then what better way to do it then to stage a demo which goes out of control - and the reactor experiences a tragic meltdown at an international conference in India, where the issue of "collateral damage" is of far less concern than in Europe or the USA, and where high officials are routinely bought off. You get the picture: if there are a few fatalities, all the better (from the cynical perspective). Machiavelli was from Florence, a few days walk from Bologna, but when the wind is blowing from that direction can you still smell the stench. Jones . still, with "mostly" facetious intent :-) Pun of the day: The irony of cold fusion is heated confusion . 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
