On Sat, Jun 1, 2013 at 3:54 AM, Joshua Cude <[email protected]> wrote:

But the ecat just uses electricity to make heat. So if the ecat already
> makes heat, it should self-sustain on that. Like combustion.
>

I passed over this point too quickly.  One question is why in Rossi's
device the heat generated by the reaction would not be sufficient to
sustain the reaction, as in combustion, without some kind of external
drive.  This does seem like an odd requirement.

Giving Rossi the benefit of the doubt, the fact that an
external stimulus is required in the form of resistance heating (also heat,
as has been pointed out), this seems to indicate that one of two phenomena,
or both, would need to be occurring:

   - The general area of the reaction is somewhat localized, and the normal
   thermal gradient that would lead heat to dissipate from that location must
   be countered from outside of it by the resistance heaters, so that
   sufficient heat is retained in that area.
   - The reaction depends upon a flux of heat, and not simply elevated an
   temperature on its own.

My knowledge of thermodynamics is limited, so I might be missing something
important.

Eric

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