Let me second and third some of the counter claims raised about the steam temperature issue.
>From Mr. Lawrence, ... > If the water flow rate is fixed, and the power level is allowed > to vary, then, if steam is coming out, its temperature will vary, > and will be determined at any moment by how much larger the power > is than the absolute minimum necessary to exactly boil away all > the water. Wait a minute. No, the temperature will not necessarily vary. It seems to me the above logic does not take a crucial factor into consideration: Pressure. I confess that I am a little puzzled over the proposed facts pertaining to this latest skeptical claim. From my POV, an output temperature measurement of 101 C seems to me to be what one would expect - IF one presumes external water is constantly replenishing the reactor's reservoir AND that the (boiling) water and steam are not held under undue pressure. Let me put it this way. I recall a 9th grade high school chemistry lab session. Our assignment was to boil a prepared liquid solution which had been placed in a flask containing several unknown liquids previously prepared by our chemistry teacher. Our assignment was to heat the liquid in the flask to the boiling point while constantly monitoring and recording the temperatures. We turned our Bunsen burners on. The liquid in our flasks began to rise. When the solution began to boil the rising temperature suddenly plateaued (remained steady) for several minutes. The temp remained steady until all the molecules associated with that particular solution boiled away. After the initial solution boiled away the temperature of the remaining solution began to increase again. The temperature increased until once again we reached the boiling point of the next unknown solution, at which point temperature once again hovered for several minutes. This cyclical process of plateauing followed by temp increases was observed and recorded to have occurred several times. Afterwords we were instructed to look through a table of boiling points attributed to various liquids in order to determine what kinds of liquids were in the flask. Actually, it was a fun assignment. Any assignment where I didn't break a flash of acid all over myself and my lab partner, or singe the hair off of the top of my scalp, or burn down the lab - I considered the results to be "a passing grade" in my book. The point I'm trying to make here is that water boils at 100 C. You can't increase the temperature of a volume of actively "boiling" water above 100 C - unless the contents are contained under pressure, such as what happens inside of a typical pressure cooker. Was the boiling water within the Rossi reactor "contained" under significant pressure? If not then the steam is going to escape pretty quickly out through the end of the black hose. It seems to me that the constantly generated steam which then immediately makes its way through the black hose will not remain within the reactor core long enough to significantly increase its "steam" temperature - at least not much above the 100 C boiling point temperature of the adjacent water. Again, I'm presuming the combined water and steam are NOT under pressure. Am I mistaken about the water within reactor core contents being under pressure? > It's an enormous coincidence that the temperature of the effluent > was within 2 degrees of boiling. Seems to me it wouldn't be a coincidence at all if the water & steam are not held under pressure - not a "coincidence" at any power level, fixed or variable. It's just thermodynamics at work. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
