On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 3:27 PM, Hoyt A. Stearns Jr. <[email protected]>wrote:
Maybe the higher radiation environment at high altitude facilitates LENR. The possible link between lithium ion batteries, ionizing radiation at high altitudes and LENR is an interesting one. Here are some additional details: * At higher altitudes, there is an increase in ionizing radiation, including x-rays [1]. There is an effort underway to classify airline crews as radiation workers [2]. * Most batteries in handheld devices use lithium cobalt oxide (LCO), a kind of lithium battery that has known safety issues [3]. * The lithium ion batteries in the Dreamliners are also lithium cobalt oxide [4]. * There was an interesting LENR study done by Iraj Parchamazad that made use of cobalt [5], and I recall him mentioning in the video that he was seeing one of the highest energy densities seen in LENR experiments. Apparently the LCO batteries have high energy storage density but are prone to overheating. Rob Woudenberg pointed out that there are hundreds of devices that have lithium ion batteries (and probably LCO batteries) in flights every day, suggesting that if there were a structural defect we should be seeing more failures. But I wonder whether any effect would necessarily be pronounced. Perhaps if you did a study, you'd find that the batteries run at a higher average operating temperature at high altitudes, but not necessarily ones that goes above the specs of the batteries in most cases. Eric [1] http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q444.html [2] http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/for-frequent-fliers-a-radiation-risk-in-the-skies/ [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery [4] http://www.technologyreview.com/news/509981/grounded-boeing-787-dreamliners-use-batteries-prone-to-overheating/ [5] http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg71537.html
