Cold Fusion Update

by metatron 36 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  metatron

  Razziel, you've hit a good point that worries me since the claimed output is heat. I'm not sure this is ultimately practical unless the excess is truly overwhelming. It's gotta be 'over the top'.

  As to Rossi, you could accuse him of fraud but I would say, if it was me, there's no way in hell I would say anything to expose a commercial secret. If so, I don't blame him a bit.

  However, I still suspect that there is something real here, as to effect and that's why some brave souls are coming forward to investigate further. The principle of a safe way to exploit nuclear action to create energy would be huge.

  metatron
• 

  Razziel

  I believe cold fusion exists after taking quantum physics in college, if only because of the uncertainty principle. There is no reason that I could find that the right atoms, under the right conditions, would not occasionally fuse because of atomic position uncertainty inherent in nature. I asked the Professor this question and his response was "We don't know, but it's definately possible."

  The problem is, Quantum Mechanics is all about probability, and the probability of two atoms fusing in the absence of high temperature and pressure is very low. Therefore if the basis of current cold fusion is quantum mechanical effects, the energy output is also going to be very low.
• 

  metatron

  Cold Fusion has the disadvantage of demonstrating a potentially dramatic effect without an accepted theory to back it up. The rigorous explanation isn't there.

  The one thing I continue to wonder is this: Ultimately, the universe is arbitrary. Reductionism as a facet of science is satisfying but necessarily must fail because you can't spin causes and sub-causes forever. Things just are, eventually. A few scientists have openly endorsed this view, at least exceptionally - such as Victor Mansfield (Astrophysicist with Buddhist/New Age ideas) and Victor Stenger (atheist and skeptic).

  Currently, this realm of the arbitrary is held to be the quantum but I'm not so sure it neatly fits that way. Having lost my faith in a single Creator, I am equally skeptical of a sort of 'Atheistic Theology' in which nice and orderly appearing explanations are extolled and anomalies are ignored.

  It seems to me that, once you reject a personal Creator, you need to start looking at the Universe as a patchwork, that might not be consistent at all. So, ghosts? Poltergeists? ESP? Cold Fusion? Reincarnation? Who knows? Perhaps they "just are".

  metatron
• 

  bohm

  Razziel: A couple of points. First off i think you have an extra %-sign :-).

  Secondly Rossi claim this thing can run in self-sustained mode. It is hard to see that as anything else than cold water in, hot dry steam out... in other words, i wonder where the 5K is from

  Thirdly the efficiency is defined in terms of entropy... when water is changing from one state to another the entropic content chane dramatically. In other words, we should not simply look at the fraction of temperatues. What Rossi claim (specifically, all his claim rest upon this) is the thing produce dry steam out of cold water when running in self-sustained mode. It is a lot easier to convert dry steam into electricity than it is to get electricity from two baths of water at different temperature (eg. a turbine)

  The bottom line is the thing either revolutionize the world, or it is a fraud. Evidence Rossi has released himself now suggest the later.
• 

  Razziel

  Bohm,

  I'll hit the points in reverse order.

  The efficiency is defined according to the specific thermodynamic cycle used. (Rankine, Brayton, Sterling, Otto, Diesel, vapor-compression, etc.) However, the efficiency is always less than the Carnot efficiency (1-Tc/Th) which is the theoretical maximum efficiency of a heat cycle. It is irrelevent the type of fuel, the type of reaction, be it chemical, combustion, or nuclear, it is still a thermodynamic cycle to extract useful energy.

  That is one of the beauties of thermodynamics. Without knowing anything about the process used, you can learn how much energy you can possibly get out of the thermal system based on input and output temperatures alone. This is a great solution check when analyzing a system. If the thermal efficiency of your system comes out greater than the carnot efficiency, you immediately know you calculated something incorrectly.

  The closest analogy I can think of is analyzing a complex electronic circuit with Norton and Thevinin equivalents.

  I won't get into too much detail about state changes, however the additional energy added is fully accounted for by the enthalpy values in a standard steam table or enthalpy-entropy chart. Basically you use constant temperatue at the given pressure and the change in entropy as the steam changes from saturated liquid to saturated vapor to superheated steam (dry steam) and find the new value of enthalpy using the thermodynamic relations. The efficiency is the ratio of enthalpies of the cycle input and the cycle output. There are all sorts of ways to increase the efficiency; superheating, regenerative heating, feedwater heaters, combined cycles, etc, but the thermal efficiency of the system is always less than the Carnot efficiency.

  For the second point, since I haven't really seen what "self-sustained" mode is, who knows. Perhaps after initially heating his water source, the temperature change through the reactor is enough to offset heat loss from conduction out of the system. The system is obviously not abiabatic. He can dump the fluid back in his source tank and keep it at the original temperature. That would be self-sustaining until his reactants ran out.

  Finally, I know it seems counter-intuitive because there are so many other variables involved, but in a heat cycle such as this, temperature difference between input and ouput tells you the maximum efficiency possible.
• 

  bohm

  Razziel:

  Finally, I know it seems counter-intuitive because there are so many other variables involved, but in a heat cycle such as this, temperature difference between input and ouput tells you the maximum efficiency possible.

  For an engine doing work between two heat-baths this is true. For an engine connected to a heat bath and a source of dry steam the story is very different, like you write, and carnots theorem does not hold in the 1-TL/TH form.

  I was ofcourse not calling elementary thermodynamics into question, simply pointing out that Rossis claim (cold water -> dry steam) is one which assuming it is true from a thermodynamical perspective would be immensely practical, and the 1.3% figure do not seem relevant.
• 

  botchtowersociety

  I believe cold fusion exists after taking quantum physics in college, if only because of the uncertainty principle.

  "Cold" fusion exists, of that there is absolutely no question. Many amateurs have built a Farnsworth Fusor in their garage producing a beautiful glow from decelerating charged particles.

  The big question is net energy gained from the reaction, which has been elusive.

  

  However, since there is a grid/framework in the fusion area, too much energy is lost through collisions.

  EMC2 is working on an improved fusion process based on IEC principles, which is very promising.

  It uses a focused elecromagnetic field to contain the negatively-charged particles, and a static electrical field results to accelerate the positively charged ones into it to produce collisions. Since there is no physical grid in the containment area, there are fewer collision losses.
• 

  Razziel

  I'm sorry Bohm, I have to disagree. It doesn't matter what the process is, it's cold water in, hot water out. The process that raises the temperature is irrelevant to theoretical efficiency and it's still governed by elementary thermodynamics. A nuclear power plant uses fission to provide superheated steam (through heat exchangers), but it is still governed by basic thermodynamic efficiency. The process doesn't matter, all that matters is that heat transfer takes place.
• 

  botchtowersociety

  This is WB-6. A newer version is under development. The rings are packed with windings to generate an electromagnetic field.

  
• 

  bohm

  Razziel -- I am a bit confused, what point specifically do you disagree with?