On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 2:15 PM, OrionWorks - Steven V Johnson < svj.orionwo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Joshua, > > I waited in anticipation to see if you could help explain to me the > errors I might have made in my reasoning. And yet you responded to everything except the part where I explained the errors in your reasoning at the end of the post. Namely, that the input power must equal the output power or the ecat will heat without bound. I was astonished to discover > that the jest of your replies struck me as being just as much of a > "seat-of-the-pants" explanation as you apparently accuse me of doing. > The balance-of-power argument is completely quantitative, and it is not seat-of-the-pants. In fact, you could calculate the expected temperature of the steam based on the claimed ecat power (17 kW) and the flow rate (5 g/s): P1 = Total ecat power (including electrical) = 17 kW P2 = Power to heat water to boiling = 5*4*80 W = 1.6 kW P3 = Power to vaporize water = 5*2200 W = 11 kW P4 = Power to heat steam = 5 * 2 * delta T W/K At equilibrium, P1 = P2 + P3 + P4 Solving for delta T gives 440C, so the steam would have to be at 540C. This calculation is the same as the calculation that Rossi does except for the extra step needed because the power here is assumed to exceed the amount necessary to vaporize all the water. > For example: > > > The air in a furnace also has free rein to exit > > immediately, and still it gets hotter. > Yes, this is a seat of the pants argument, but it was used to illustrate that even a seat-of-the-pants argument can show that the steam must get hotter. But it was not my only argument. > In my view, your counter argument - where you use the heating of air > passing through a furnace to make your point, is not an appropriate > analogy to use with Rossi's eCat configuration. Heating "air" as it > passes through a furnace most certainly gets hot, very quickly so. > Thank heavens it does! I live in Wisconsin, and it gets pretty darn > cold up here in February. But your analogy doesn't take into account > the fact that in Rossi's reactor configuration, the furnace "air" > doesn't have to contend with passing a gauntlet of nearby liquid > water, which by the very nature of its state can never be above 100C > at sea level. > The steam doesn't pass a nearby gauntlet of liquid. At some point in the ecat, the water has all changed to steam, and from there on, the steam contacts only the hot walls of the ecat. I don't see why you think contact to water at 100C is so much more of an influence than contact with the ecat walls at say 1000C, anyway. > > > After all the water is converted to steam, > > you can't convert any more water into steam. > > You seem to be implying that there is a point where there might not be > any water left in Rossi's reactor core. Where did you come up with > that premise? I was always under the impression that there is ALWAYS a > supply of water replenishing what has been converted into steam. > What's your point? > OK. Let me try to explain what I mean by all the water is converted to steam. I thought it was self-evident because Rossi has been saying it all along. We don't know the exact geometry of the ecat, but it doesn't matter, so we can model it, at least for this purpose. Think of the heating ecat as a horizontal tube, say 10 cm long with heating wire around it (cold fusion wire, if you like). The tube can even be clear so we can see what's going on inside of it. Put it in a vacuum so the heat is not conducted away. The water passes through the tube and gets heated by it. If the heating power is high enough, then all the liquid that enters leaves as dry steam. (This is Rossi's claim.) That's what I mean when I say "all the water is converted to steam". If you increase the power, you can't convert more water to steam; the water just gets converted earlier in the tube. So, in Rossi's scenario, the last of the liquid is converted to steam at the 10 cm mark of the tube. If you increase the power, you don't get more steam (how could you?), the water is simply converted to steam earlier in the tube. So, maybe the last of the liquid water might get converted to steam at the 5 cm mark in the tube. Then the steam will travel the remaining 5 cm of the tube as a pure gas in contact with the hot walls of the tube, and will therefore get hotter. So yes, there will always be water entering the tube, but the point at which it is all converted to steam will vary depending on the power. That's my point. > It was at this point that I arrived at the astonishing realization > that any sense of intimidation I might have felt in regards to most of > your conjectures was misplaced. How do you come up with a scenario > where "all" the H2O in the reactor core would possibly be in the gas > state? When does that ever happen? Fresh new water constantly replaces > the rapidly expanding & exiting steam. The reactor core is never empty > of water. > Right. At the entrance, there is always liquid water. But if the power exceeds 12 kW, at the exit there is only steam. Somewhere in between there is a point at which the last of the liquid is vaporized, and from there on the steam contacts only the hot walls. > To be honest the terminology I used was a bit clumsy. I should have > stated more clearly the fact that as more energy (thermal heat) is > presumably generated within the reactor core a higher VOLUME of H2O > gas would naturally be produced. Again, if the water is coming in at 5 g/s, and the ecat turns it all into gas, then the output gas leaves at 5 g/s. Increasing the power will not change the amount of gas that is exiting, and therefore the only way the volume can increase is if it gets hotter. This translates to the simple fact of > physics where (assuming there is no deliberate containment going on) a > higher volume of gas has no choice left but exit the reactor core > chamber more quickly than it would do if the reactor core was cooler. > Therefore, the rapidly exiting H2O gas doesn't have much time to > absorb additional heat from the walls of the reactor core. > Again, once the power reaches the point that all the incoming water is converted to steam before it leaves, more power does not mean the gas moves faster, unless it is also hotter. > > I've come to the conclusion that it is pointless for me to carry this > conversation on any further with you, Joshua. My time is finite, and I > have no desire spending it endlessly trying to correct > misrepresentations you may have made (intentionally or > unintentionally) concerning my POV on the matter. > There are clearly misrepresentations and misunderstandings happening here. I respectfully suggest that you live in a glass house. > > Maybe my conclusions are right, and maybe they aren't. Or maybe I'm > only partly right. I dunno. I'm content to wait it out. > And so you end your reply before you come to the part of my post that was not just seat of the pants argument. That asks where does the extra 5 kW go. If it only takes 12 kW to produce dry steam at 100C, and you put in 17 kW, where does the other 5 go?
