It is a little unclear whether there will soon be a report on this
18-hour test. It may take a while. I have contacted some the people
involved. They did say that if they write a report in English, they will
let me have a few hours to fix the English before publishing it. That
would help reduce confusion. I work mainly as a copy editor, fixing the
English, punctuation and so on, but I do sometimes get a word in
edgewise, suggesting to authors that they clarify a point or add some
information.
I think the first test was better than people realize, but the
presentation was poor because the authors do not speak English well. As
I told them, I sympathize. I have trouble writing reports in Japanese.
(By the way, I sometimes have a back channel means of figuring out what
Celani is up to. His English is hard to understand because he talks so
much. I ask his wife Misa what he means. She's Japanese. She has some
hilarious things to say about life in Italy. She should write a book.)
The test took place at U. Bologna. On Rossi's web page they said earlier
that tests would continue there, and by gum they did.
I do not know if they are aware of the critiques here and elsewhere, but
anyway, it seems they are now doing liquid flow calorimetry rather than
phase-change calorimetry. I guess they heard directly from Celani when
he was there. He strongly advocated that. It is just a matter of
speeding up the flow rate.
I myself did not think the phase change (boiling) calorimetry was a big
deal. I discount some of the criticism of it. However, it is always a
good idea to use a second or third method to measure the same
phenomenon. Suspenders and a belt! So I am pleased they did this. It
would be good to use an IR sensor to estimate how much heat the device
itself is radiating.
This report says 15 kW. My guess, or gut feeling, is that by increasing
the flow they recovered more heat, losing less to radiation from the
gadget. It was probably producing 15 kW in the first test too. The
gadget does not look optimized to capture heat.
- Jed
