At 02:32 PM 6/21/2011, Harry Veeder wrote:
BTW regarding heat loss issues, the main body of the E-cat is also radiating heat.
Right. However, bottom line, the quantity of interest is how much water is being boiled. The water jacket apparently surrounds the reaction chamber, so almost all the heat being generated in the reaction chamber must heat the water to escape. If the water chamber is insulated, as it is (that's the stuff on the outside, I think), then nearly all the energy ends up as vaporized water.
(plus hot water if there is water escaping. We seem to have no problem with the steam/water being at the boiling point, as we'd expect from the physical configuration here.)
Rossi held up the hose, Krivit had also mentioned this. He didn't want to allow this to continue, he said it was dangerous. Really? How?
How's this for a theory: The E-Cat is not boiling much of the water, only a little. The pump is putting out more water than can boil, so it runs out the hose. It's hot. If Rossi emptied the hose, as he did, it would take some time for the hose to fill up again, Rossi would know how long. He'd have time to hold the hose up to show some steam coming out (which could be quite wet), but if he kept it up for too long, hot water would start coming out the end....
The suggestions many have made for the hose to empty into a container are very much on point; the only argument I can see against it is that steam would then be escaping into the room, which would make it uncomfortable. I'd address that with ventilation, because piping that steam into the sewer demolishes the demonstration. It would make the demonstration more believable!
A more complicated arrangement could make what's happening visible, accumulating water in the bottom of a transparent vessel, but allowing the vapor to escape to the drain.
