Peter Forsberg November 3rd, 2014 at 3:14 AM <http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=864&cpage=1#comment-1020042>
Dear Andrea, I am probably in deep waters here, so correct me if my thinking is not adequate. I do not understand why you use the COP measurement as and indicator of the ECat performance. I have never understood this. For me the COP measurement is like comparing apples with pears. Or, rather apples with rotten pears. You divide heat energy with electrical energy. They are really not very compareable. Heat energy is the most useless type of energy that you can have, whereas electrical energi is a very versitile type of energy. It is easy to go from electrical energy to heat, but not vice versa. We can use the exampel of electricity produce by a nuclear power plant. A nuclear powerplant has an efficiency of 33%, so alot more energy (heat waste in the powerplant) has actually been used by your ECat than the electrical energy that you use in your calculations. So, I think that you have to multiply the COP with 0.33 to get a realistic measurement of a modCOP. If modCOP > 1 then the ECat has produced net energy according to my thinking. Luckilly, the ECat is guaranteed to produce at least COP 6 according to many reports over the years, so modCOP is then 2. Regards Peter Forsberg ---------------------------------------------- Andrea Rossi November 3rd, 2014 at 7:58 AM <http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=864&cpage=1#comment-1020127> Peter Forsberg: Thank you for your comment. I think we must make a distinction between the COP under a scientific point of view, related to the Thermodynamic first and second principles, and the commercial point of view; besides, we also have to make a distinction between thermal energy market and electric power market. The COP ( Coefficient Of Performance) under a scientific point of view is correct as it is calculated in all the existing literature on the matter, because of the equivalence, under the energetic point of view, of a thermal kWh and an electric kWh. Thermal energy is a necessary commodity, without thermal energy most of the industrial activities could not be performed and 3/4 of mankind could not work ( or survive) during the cold months. To say that thermal energy is a useless type of energy is groundless. The fact that nuclear plants and also most of the existing electric power generators working with the Carnot cycle waste about 2/3 of the energy does not mean that thermal energy is a waste, means that we waste 2/3 of the energy, which is a completely different thing. In the smartest plants heat is recovered, as you surely know, by co-generation and by the most recent tri-generation, and the heat is sold, not wasted. Your Country ( Sweden) is very advanced in centralized heat distribution, as you obviously know. Still remains a part of heat ( about 20%, if I am not wrong) that necessarily gets lost , not because heat is a waste, but because exhaust gases must be expelled above a certain temperature ( if I am not wrong about 150°C) to avoid looping and fogs, and this is an unavoidable cost in terms of heat for power generators that use the Carnot cycle. On the contrary, you are right about the fact that the commercial ( not physical) COP of the E-Cat must be divided by a factor 3 in case of electric power production, because if we use electricity to drive the E-Cat, to make 1 kWh of electricity is necessary to burn 3 kWh from a thermal fuel. As you correctly say, to make the E-Cat convenient to produce electric power we need one of the following at least: 1- get a COP > 3 2- make the E-Cat work with gas instead of electricity, issue upon which we are making strong R&D with problems to resolve ( casually, your comment arrives after the day during which- while riding my bike- I got a very good idea that could resolve the problems: if this new invention works, soon we will have the gas driven E-Cats, but there is work to do). Thank you for your intelligent comment, Warm Regards, A.R. ------------------------------------------- My thoughts: I have always believed that the Ni/H reactor should have been based on a liquid metal heat pipe concept. The heat pipe concept is required to keep the reaction zone inside the E-Cat free of combustion gases that might come from using natural gas as a external heat source. The heat pipe is a great heat isolation and transfer technique used to move heat in a controlled manor. Heat flow in heat pipes can be setup to use computer controlled flow valves to regulate how much heat stimulation that a E-Cat might receive. As central Lithium storage reservoir can connect all the 103 E-Cats together whereby the heat from a subset of hot E-Cats could stimulate the reaction in a subset of cooler and less active E-Cats. The common Lithium reservoir might be initially bought up to operating temperature using natural gas. As the E-Cat array got rolling, the natural gas external heat source could be shut off and the E-Cat array could run in self sustaining mode. Furthermore, the excess heat from the reservoir could be used to power a turbine to produce electricity at high efficiency as well as provide high quality industrial heat and hydrogen for the chemical industry. A lithium heat pipe system would be a good fit to operated in a Ni/H reactor heat range of about 1300C to 1400C. It is possible that a Rossi competitor using this idea or a similar one could beat Rossi at his own game in the high end industrial heat marketplace.
