LENR is EASY to demonstrate to any educated person. The problem is not
that a plausible demonstration is impossible because skepticism is too
strong. The problem is simply ignorance of two kinds. Ignorance of one
kind has been identified by Jed and many other people. This kind of
ignorance was demonstrated most clearly by Patterson years ago and
Rossi now. Trying to prove LENR is real using heat production alone is
futile. No one, including myself, would be impressed by the output of
any calorimeter because too many ways are available to fake or
screwup. Belief in the reality of the general effect is possible only
because hundreds of calorimeters have been used and combined with
other behavior. A single calorimeter means NOTHING, especially when it
is in the hands of someone who knows nothing about the method and has
a self-interest to be non-objective. Nevertheless, the effect has
been demonstrated well enough to people who read and can understand
what they read. Unfortunately, this is not a general ability these
days, especially when unusual nuclear processes are the subject.
Ignorance of the other kind is based on failure to understand the
basic nature of the LENR effect. LENR makes three unusual and
characteristic products that can be easily measured. These are: heat,
weak photon radiation, and tritium. Showing a correlation between
these three effects in real time would provide overwhelming proof that
a nuclear reaction is occurring. This can be easily done provided the
required skill is available, which unfortunately is not often the
case. This correlation becomes obvious when changes are made in the
operating conditions that affect each of the behaviors. This
correlation can ONLY result from a nuclear reaction and cannot be
faked by unknown applied power.
Occurrence of a nuclear reaction is the only proof that matters. Once
a nuclear reaction is demonstrated to occur, making commercial energy
only requires good engineering. Instead, Rossi, starts by trying to
master the engineering problems without demonstrating the source of
energy. This is like trying to build a fission reactor without
understanding anything about the fission process. I expect Rossi and
DGT are hoping to get enough money to find out how the process works
before anyone else discovers the secret and solves the engineering
problems more efficiently. I predict this hope will fail.
That is my two cents worth.
Ed
On Jul 10, 2013, at 1:34 PM, David Roberson wrote:
It does not surprise me to hear about your lack of a positive
reception by major corporations. I have witnessed similar things
before and it appears to be a combination of fear and disbelief that
slows these guys down. Fear is very real when someone gets behind a
new concept that might fail. The rewards for success generally are
not known, but if you cost your company many megabucks by making a
major mistake, they will remember it well. The funny thing is that
once one group demonstrates that LENR devices are real and sellable,
then everyone will jump on board. No one but the brave need attempt
the introduction of new technology that is unproven.
And the second problem you faced is lack of credibility which is
much like what we see from the pseudoskeptics on this list. There
is no amount of proof available that they will accept. Cude would
rather boil in oil heated by an ECAT than believe that it is
possible. Until the physics community agrees that LENR exists, we
will always run into stiff resistance. In this case, I suspect that
Rossi has the correct idea. Who can doubt the existence of a device
that can be bought at a local hardware store?
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: DJ Cravens <[email protected]>
To: vortex-l <[email protected]>
Sent: Wed, Jul 10, 2013 2:59 pm
Subject: RE: [Vo]:DGT or ECAT? Same Process?
Thanks, but I am not really trying to compete with DGT or Rossi. I
am just doing it to see if it can be done, and to give my swansong
farewell before I retire to my arm chair. That is enough for me. I
tried the commercialization path and got burned..... never again. I
have published papers on practical methods to observe the effect.
The knowledge base is there for anyone who wants to look.
I had a working device on a board table of a major corp, (actually
two different companies) and had their technicians measure and
verify and it went nowhere - back in the CETI days. I don't believe
a word that Jed says about corporations jumping in and throwing
money at commercialization. The proof and methodology is already
there. We must first change the public perception.
:) If you show up at NI, stop by, introduce yourself and I
will heat up a cup of tea for you. (OK only COP 1.1 - I hope-----
but still ) :)
I really do want DGT to upstage me.
Dennis
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Vo]:DGT or ECAT? Same Process?
From: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 14:21:37 -0400
Thanks for the clarification Dennis. I wish you luck at the NI
booth and perhaps DGT will have something that trumps yours, but it
appears that you are in the running.
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: DJ Cravens <[email protected]>
To: vortex-l <[email protected]>
Sent: Wed, Jul 10, 2013 10:42 am
Subject: RE: [Vo]:DGT or ECAT? Same Process?
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Vo]:DGT or ECAT? Same Process?
From: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2013 22:38:55 -0400
That is very interesting Dennis. If I understand you correctly, you
solve the thermal run away problem by extracting heat fast enough to
keep the thermal positive feedback loop gain below unity. That
should work provided there is enough energy released per pulse of
drive to achieve a high enough COP.
Yes, that is the way I look at it. You can get large COP at lower
outputs and lower temps. For example I have a small unit with no
sparking that has infinite COP but only fractional watts of excess.
The behavior that you describe would not depend upon very much gain
being augmented by thermal feedback as I suspect that Rossi is
relying upon. Do you understand why a spark would be so efficient
at producing LENR? You mention local heating as a possible factor,
which certainly could cause small hot regions to develop. Is this
the key to high gain without meltdown?
There must be a thermal path out of the region to take away the heat
at the right "speed". I assume that that could be done by adjusting
the particle size and "packing", but in my case, the metal host
occupies pores within carbon.
Once a hot spot is initiated, what prevents the heat from spreading
rapidly into the adjacent material and causing a sudden extreme
burst of energy? Perhaps the distribution of active hydrogen in the
NAE is such that areas capable of spreading the heat only exist in
small patches and are easy to extinguish. If this is true, new
active regions would need to form in time to take over the process
as others die out.
Again, I believe the rates have an exponential them. coef. Notice
in my case the active regions are isolated via the carbon. So as
the heat spreads other regions would not be at as high a temp. and
have a much lower heat production rate. The slowly extinguish as
the spark moves to other regions.
So what functions does the spark perform in a system of this type?
Heating of a small region makes a great deal of sense as each spark
strikes the surface. Also, do you expect that the spark breaks
apart the hydrogen molecules as a second function? I can imagine a
rain of protons falling upon the metal due to ionization as another
possible piece of the puzzle.
The spark just causes very high local temps. I don't really see the
spark functioning to ionize the H (my case D and H). I think it is
the H already in the lattice that reacts.
Has there been evidence of enhanced reaction caused be the magnetic
field associated with the currents entering or leaving the metal
surfaces? If I recall, DGT speaks of dipole behavior of Ryndberg
hydrogen helping out. Can you describe any evidence of this?
Yes, it seems that the reaction is almost linear in respect to the B
field. (also linear with mass, and expon. in terms of Energy of
vacancy formation. (that is why Ag helps Pd system and Cu and
Pd ..... helps Ni systems.) I believe that the H occupies or must
move through the vacancies. The occupation of H in a vacancy is
likely in a controlling pathway.
Your bowl shaped targets are quite interesting to consider. Does
the bowl tend to spread out the spark contact region?
Yes, think of the plasma globe type lights. I have a central
electrode (actually W rod held by a Cu tube). It is within a brass
sphere holding my material. But the material is only "stuck" to the
lower half on the wall.
From what you describe it appears that your reaction is almost
entirely a surface effect. Would you expect a very thin layer of
active metal to work in the same manner? A thin coating layered
upon another passive metal might be helpful in preventing a large
scale thermal event. Maybe one of Axils heat pipes underneath could
extract the heat quickly enough to enhance the net energy density.
Yes, one configuration (I have 4) has variable heat conductive heat
pipes. I have to juggle the heat extraction and production.
(changes contact areas)
Do you have to worry about the destruction of your active material
as the process operates?
If I "turn it up" to much my material is destroyed. In one device,
I use internal B fields (added Sm 2 Co 17 powder) and it will
demagnetize.
Are you planning to demonstrate one of your devices at the conference?
At NI Week (Booth 922). It will be just a "golly gee" type of demo
not a science "prove it" demo. Small in the few watt range. I hope
to be upstaged by Defkalion.
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: DJ Cravens <[email protected]>
To: vortex-l <[email protected]>
Sent: Tue, Jul 9, 2013 9:29 pm
Subject: RE: [Vo]:DGT or ECAT? Same Process?
My take on their process is that the control and the sparks are
related to the positive heat coef. of the reaction and the rate at
which the heat is extracted.
My best empirical model shows an almost exponential increase in max
power output with temperature (due to vacancy production). A few
very hot regions can produce a large fraction of the output.
My reoccurring problem is to balance the temperature of the reaction
species with the rate at which I remove the heat. You remove too
much heat and the reaction sites cool down and the reaction slows.
Most people seem to be looking at the global average temperature of
the bulk and not the temperatures of local areas. By sparking to
your sample you can have very high local temperatures and thus
higher local reaction rates, IF your material is such that its
resistivity increases with temperature. Notice this is the case for
most metals. Since the sparks target the paths with greatest
conductivity, the sparks are to new regions with lower temperatures
and lower resistance. i.e. you hit new regions. I believe that
they are basically sparking to a flat area within a cylinder. I
prefer to use a spark into a bowl shaped target.
You just simply make sure that your heat flow out of the system is
large enough to stop any runaway reactions. (you are also saved by
the 4th power law) For my system, it is a balancing act between
heat production and heat transfer out of the system. I do that by
both having a variable heat conductive path (variable contact areas
by turning- think variable air caps) for rough tuning and then
changing the spark rate (I use a strobe circuit).
Dennis
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2013 18:39:06 -0400
Subject: [Vo]:DGT or ECAT? Same Process?
Whenever I read about the DGT device I get the impression that it
behaves much differently than the ECAT. The main difference I focus
upon so far is the method of control. We have discussed the ECAT
thermal positive feedback control on many occasions and have
developed models that appear to explain its operation. The same is
not yet true for the DGT beast.
Thermal control such as that used by Rossi seems to have difficulty
achieving a stable COP of 6 for the basic device excluding
electrical power generation and feedback. Of course it is expected
that one will be able to use the fed back electrical power to drive
the device one day and achieve a net COP of infinity. This should
become possible fairly soon and Rossi appears to be working hard to
arrive at a reasonable design.
DGT suggests that they potentially can already obtain a large COP,
but I have questions about the design since little has been
demonstrated in public. My reservations can easily be disposed of
by additional information and I anxiously await that time.
The spark plug like ignition system of the DGT animal bears little
resemblance to the thermal operation of Rossi's ECAT. I have the
suspicion that there is something important to be learned by the
fact that these various devices both function. How can that be?
What is it about the DGT design that appears to efficiently use the
spark induced reactions while maintaining excellent control? We
certainly are not interested in hot fusion products which tend to be
associated with high voltages such as spark discharges. If
acceleration due to high voltage is present then why does this not
occur? Does DGT balance the spark magnitude carefully enough to
avoid this fate while achieving adequate LENR activity?
I want to learn from the DGT device as well as the ECAT. There
appears to be an understanding among most of us that some form of
NAE is present which allows LENR to proceed, but what form does it
take? Is it the same for both designs? What does the spark of DGT
offer that heat alone seems to neglect in the ECAT? It seems as if
the ECAT would love to thermally run away without much provocation
while the DGT device does not seem to exhibit that behavior.
Perhaps DGT has done a good job of hiding this problem, but they
offer information that suggests that this is not happening with
their design. I find the description that the DGT design can be
turned on and off rapidly to potentially find applications that are
diverse such as transportation, the gold standard of mine as
evidence. If thermal run away were a major issue, then the rapid
control might not be so easy to demonstrate.
From the information that I have gleaned, both systems appear to
offer excellent energy density and good power output. This is
extremely important for future applications. It will be interesting
to witness the race between these two horses in the near future. Of
course, others might enter the fray soon and we all will benefit it
that occurs.
I realize that I have touched upon a multitude of interesting issues
in this post and I hope that some of our esteemed members can add
important information to the discussion. And if the answers to some
of my questions appear, then that would be fantastic.
Dave
