Mark Gibbs <[email protected]> wrote: Are the fine details of the Toyota experimental set up known? >
Not known to me. But some details are straightforward. You can see from the paper it was bulk Pd-D at high temperatures. When the Pd loads and the effect turns on, high temperature increases the reaction rate, so it is no surprise they got so much heat for so long. The most important factor in a cold fusion experiment is the choice of host metal; the Pd cathode in this case. As Miles showed in Table 10, if the person doing the experiment is skilled, the success rate varies from zero to 100% depending on the material. (This is one of the things I will talk about at ICCF18.) The Pd at Toyota was supplied by Johnson Matthey (JM). As shown in Miles Table 10, JM material in the 1990s was FAR better than anyone else's. It worked 100% of the time and it produced 10 to 100 times more power. Nowadays the ENEA might have caught up. I wouldn't know about that. Anyway, back then JM knew how to make this material and everyone else was guessing and shooting in the dark. Tanaka Precious Metals was trying to figure it out. If they had listened to Storms they might have done better. JM learned how to make this material in 1930s, for their palladium filters. It happens the two applications have similar requirements. Martin Fleischmann understood that. He knew that before he began the experiments in the 1980s, because -- as he told me -- "I told JM what I was looking for, and they gave me this Pd." He was a complicated person but sometimes he used the direct approach. Anyway, JM supplied all of the materials used in the Toyota lab. They did all of the post-experiment analysis and other materials work. The materials got better. The electrochemistry got better. When it began to work like gangbusters, Toyota and JM began arguing about who owned what, and they both ended packing up their marbles and going home. I have my own opinions about who was more at fault, but I'll keep that opinion to myself. The point is, when it began to smell like a trillion dollar market, both sides decided they wanted all the marbles. That often happens in business. That's the story I heard anyway. A typical cold fusion tragic fiasco. You don't know whether to laugh or cry. So, JM knows. Or knew. The people there who knew are retired or dead. > Has anyone tried to replicate that configuration? > ENEA, as I said. They are doing pretty well. > and regarding the NEDO project "we never replicated" (which was an >> outright lie). >> > > Who were the "others"? And who delivered the outright lie? > I refer to the work done by Fleischmann there, and also Miles, which he described here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesMnedofinalr.pdf The agency is NEDO, the project was called NHE (New Hydrogen Energy). When Miles started getting excess heat, he invited the Japanese managers to come down the hall and look. They did not rouse themselves to do that. After he left, they published a report that did not mention the work of Fleischmann or Miles. As I recall, they published an absurd version of his graph, physically impossible, with negative heat (impossible endothermic reactions). He reproduced it in one of his papers. As I recall, the official report ignored Fleischmann and Miles. They published a confidential report, in Japanese. Someone at NEDO leaked it I guess. Fleischmann and Miles sent me a copy. I translated it. It distorted their results and denigrated them. They were pretty upset! That's where the story ends. Clearly, the fix was in. They did not want any excess heat. My gut feeling is that they wanted it when the project began but by the time Miles was there, they had given up hope and they wanted to close the program down. The project was pretty much as waste of money, as McKubre and others agreed. It was basically a bunch of highly skilled corporate engineers learning electrochemistry by trial and error on the government's dime. They did not have any professional electrochemists involved. Mizuno was 40 minutes away, right there in Sapporo, but they did not invite him. When the staff started talking to him, they ordered them not to. They did not want to be associated with any cold fusion researchers I guess. I got a sense the the NHE people considered cold fusion researchers to be freaks and losers. They were going to take over the research and show how to do it right. - Jed
