On Apr 16, 2011, at 10:49 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Horace Heffner <[email protected]> wrote:
Estimating heat output is really very simple to achieve, as I have
noted here before. Simply direct the output into an insulated
barrel and keep track of the temperature. If the output is in the
form of steam, pre-load the barrel with cold water and run the
steam trough a copper coil in the barrel and sparge any steam
output of the copper coil by releasing it at the bottom of the barrel.
I have mentioned this technique several times. This is what they do
at Hydrodynamics, Inc.
However, as I said recently, given the power levels Rossi
demonstrated on Jan. 14, it would not be easy to do this test.
There are practical problems. You need a very large barrel, or a
smaller one that you allow to become very hot in about 10 minutes.
You have to stop the test after that. It does not work once the
water reaches boiling temperature.
[snip more expensive test type information]
Jed, you *assume* here the power outputs claimed were actually
achieved. You have already bought into the hype. Think critically,
scientifically.
What if the total energy out is actually equal to the total energy
in? Maybe some minor amount of heat is added by a radioactive
element. You don't need a very big barrel to see *that* now do you?
If you input over a kW and then 400 watts you can get some steam out
- continuously. Big deal. What does that prove? Nothing.
The methods I provided work especially well long term. They can be
"restarted" at any time in the experiment, and are especially useful
for very long runs wherein any stored chemical energy is clearly used
up.
There is an obvious attempt here to avoid any sensible or even cheap
amateurish first principle measurement of the *output* heat.
Noooo... don't look at what is going down that sink drain in that
little hose! It is too difficult! It is many kW of heat! It can
burn your hand! What a joke. I'd be laughing if it weren't so sad
and so important. This could be a fiasco that sets LENR research
back 50 years. The oil will be gone but hot fusion might even be
competitive by then. No worries, we probably won't be alive to see
the disasters awaiting society in the meantime.
Rossi's demonstrations could be for real, but there is no convincing
evidence this is true. So far there is far more evidence for
experimental incompetence than there is for unexplainable excess
enthalpy. If the demonstrations should turn out to be a fraud, and
not just incompetence, you can bet money has or will change hands.
Who knows, it is even possible that Rossi himself is being bilked.
He is supposedly putting half a million dollars into the effort.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
