Posted on 08/07/2012 7:01:36 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog
National Instruments, a major U.S. company that produces tools for engineers and scientists, sponsored a demonstration of a nickel-hydrogen gas low-energy nuclear reaction reactor on Monday at its annual NI Week trade show at the Austin Convention Center in Texas. National Instruments is also sponsoring talks there on LENR research.
According to a source at the show who spoke with James Truchard, co-founder, president and chief executive officer of National Instruments, Truchard is very interested in LENR research.
New Energy Times spoke with Julia Britts, media relations manager for National Instruments, on Monday to get more information about Truchard’s interest in LENR, but neither got back to New Energy Times before we went to press.
A Hot Demo Francesco Celani, a physicist with the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Frascati, Italy, brought a LENR device he developed that uses hydrogen gas and a specially treated nickel wire. The concept was pioneered by another Italian, Francesco Piantelli, in the 1990s. Celani’s demonstration shows that the nickel-hydrogen gas system is robust and predicable and that it demonstrates the leading edge of LENR research. New Energy Times first reported Piantelli’s nickel-hydrogen gas LENR research in 2008.
For many years, unlike most of his colleagues, Celani has been one of the few LENR researchers open-minded about using normal hydrogen as opposed to deuterium in LENR experiments. Most LENR researchers assumed that some kind of deuterium-deuterium fusion reaction was occurring and therefore did not believe the work of the LENR researchers who were working without deuterium. In 2008, for example, Peter Hagelstein, an associate professor of electrical engineering at MIT and a LENR theorist who has been recognized as a leader in the field, questioned the reality of light-water excess heat and made a public mockery of it.
Piantelli had been inspired, in part, by the 1989 announcement by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of their “fusion” discovery. But Piantelli’s concept was radically different from the Pons-Fleischmann concept because Piantelli’s uses hydrogen, not deuterium, and operates in a gas phase rather than an electrolytic configuration.
Palladium-deuterium electrolytic systems had been favored by most LENR researchers for many years. Michael McKubre of SRI International and his colleague Vittorio Violante at the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment, in Frascati, Italy, for example, worked with palladium-deuterium electrolytic systems almost exclusively, but with only marginal success.
In 2009, Violante reported one of his few light-water experiments. Even though his group tested and found anomalous elements after the experiment, he dismissed the results. He attributed the anomalous elements, all 12 of them, to a variety of ordinary contaminants despite the fact that the experiments were performed in a class-100 clean room.
On Monday, New Energy Times spoke with Dennis Letts, an independent Austin, TX-based LENR researcher who assisted Celani with the demonstration. Letts said that the experiment uses a thin nickel wire that is enclosed in a chamber. That chamber is filled with hydrogen gas; typically, the hydrogen sits in the chamber for about three days and absorbs, or loads, into the nickel. Excess heat begins to appear after this loading period.
Francesco Celani loading the LENR reactor with hydrogen on Sunday night at Lettslab. (Photo credit Dennis Letts)
For this demonstration, Celani loaded the nickel wire for three days in Rome before bringing it to Texas. Because he and Letts could not bring cylinders of pressurized gas into the convention center, they took the wire that had been pre-loaded in Rome and loaded it a little more in Letts’ lab on Sunday night.
“We tested it, saw that it produced excess heat, shut it off and went home at midnight,” Letts said. “On Monday morning, we came back to my lab, disassembled it, brought the reactor into the convention center and reassembled it there.
“As soon as we applied the electrical power to the internal nichrome-wire heater (48 Watts DC), we began to see excess heat. There was no incubation period. Celani has eight thermocouples in the reactor, and he measured between 58 and 68 Watts heat output. So, conservatively, it produced an average of 10 Watts of excess heat continuously from the time we started, at 1 p.m., until we left, at 7 p.m. – for six hours.”
Letts was happy to see the effect but realized that the conditions were not perfect. New Energy Times asked Letts if he and Celani had data on the integrated energy, but they did not have that information yet.
Dennis Letts, Francesco Celani and Chad Evans. (Photo credit Dennis Letts)
Letts told New Energy Times that a precise calibration was not possible because of time limitations and regulations that prevented them from bringing gas cylinders into the convention center.
“We would have preferred to run control experiments there using noble gases to obtain a baseline, but that wasn’t possible,” he said, “It was also impossible to control room temperature and thus obtain very precise calorimetry, but the variance in room temperature as it might have affected the output would have been minimal.
“I’m happy to see it. It seems like a solid effect, and I also would like to have seen the device running for some time during the loading period to see the baseline, with no excess heat, for a few hours.
“Celani has another way that he checks the system. His configuration includes another wire that is inert going into the cell. He can switch the power over from the active wire to the inert wire, without changing anything else in the system, and he can use that to establish a baseline.”
Letts told New Energy Times that National Instruments provided three engineers to assist with the configuration.
“The engineers from National Instruments did a fabulous job in putting it all together and doing the wiring and getting all the parts we needed,” he said. “And of course, we were using LabVIEW.”
Frank Gordon, formerly the head of the Navigation and Applied Sciences Department at the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, told New Energy Times on Monday that Celani will be packing up the demonstration device and taking it to Seoul, South Korea, for the 17th International Conference on Cold Fusion, which will take place there next week.
Gordon is the co-chair of the ICCF-17 conference. He told New Energy Times that National Instruments will send an engineer to Korea to assist with the demonstration reactor.
The Experts Speak On Tuesday at 4:45 p.m., National Instruments will host a one-hour “Experts Panel Discussion – Quest for Alternative Energy: Anomalous Heat Effect (AKA Cold Fusion).”
The panelists are Andrea Aparo, senior adviser of research and development at Ansaldo Energia SpA, Akito Takahashi, professor emeritus at Osaka University and senior adviser at Technova Inc., Michael McKubre of SRI International, Robert Duncan, vice chancellor for research at the University of Missouri, and Gordon.
Robert E. Godes, president and chief technology officer of Brillouin Energy Corp., had been scheduled for the panel, but he has been given his own speaking slot on Wednesday, along with Takahashi.
Brillouin is based in the San Francisco Bay area and has applied for a LENR patent. New Energy Times spoke with Godes on Monday. Our first question to him was how to pronounce the name of his company.
“Brillo – like a Brillo pad – then ‘in,’” Godes said.
“National Instruments asked me to come and talk about commercial aspects of the technology because people realize that I am onto something,” he said. “I’ve got control of the heat effect, which is the key to making this phenomenon a technology.”
Godes is another of the few LENR researchers who has consistently worked with light hydrogen rather than deuterium. Godes’ research has been with nickel-hydrogen electrolytic systems and will soon include gas-phase nickel-hydrogen systems.
Takahashi will speak on “The Status of CMNS/CF/LENR Research at Kobe-Technova.”
John Hadjichristos, of Defkalion Green Technologies, is scheduled to talk about “Commercialization of LENR.” Thus far, Defkalion has presented no scientifically credible evidence or demonstration despite its extensive media events.
“National Instruments asked me to come and talk about commercial aspects of the technology because people realize that I am onto something,” he said. “I’ve got control of the heat effect, which is the key to making this phenomenon a technology.”
Note that NI ASKED Godes to present. Kind of hard to say that NI (as a corporate entity) doesn't support LENR as being real.
Kevmo. FYI and to list, if you would be so kind.
Ping!
Wasn’t NI supposedly in talks with Rossi for a control system for the E-cat?
Interesting development.
Yes. What information there is indicates that Rossi switched from NI to (I think it was) Siemens at request of customer.
It’s always time for a good conspiracy theory.
What if NI saw enough of Rossi’s device to clone it?
Where is Rossi anyways? New Energy Times hasn’t had anything on Rossi since March 29th.
Well, there's no indication that NI plans to actually WORK IN the field of LENR (other than providing sensors, software, and measurement expertise). And doing so would be "highly" unethical (though that seems to matter less and less these days). Note also that they have invited quite a large crew of LENR researchers to contribute to NIWEEK, so their focus is a lot wider than just Rossi.
"Where is Rossi anyways? New Energy Times hasn’t had anything on Rossi since March 29th."
Krivit has sworn off Rossi (he made a direct statement to that effect). E-CatWorld seems to be one of the better sites that includes coverage of ALL the LENR workers.
They never do, but they always have a load of excuses.
Honey, our new cold fusion reactor won't be able to power your night light for another three days. Be patient. LOL!
So, he's sworn off Rossi? Is he taking his football and going home? He can't stop in the middle of this after all the things he's written.
I glanced through E-cat world. Interesting, Rossi is working on another version of the E-cat called, the Hot Cat. While I would like to see this work so he can drive a turbine, it would be nice if he shipped the one he said was ready for production six months ago. This is where he needs someone to help him get things going that knows it's important to freeze the design and ship it, otherwise, even if Rossi does have something, he's going to tweak on this forever if someone doesn't ground him.
I still think Rossi and Defkalion have nothing although I would love to be wrong.
It's nice to see others working on this and documenting their progress. Maybe, if I get some time this weekend, I can catch up on what's going on. I kind of hoped that Defkalion would produce something other than press releases and kind of lost interest after I thought nothing was going on since Krivit hadn't posted anything since March; I didn't know he wasn't going to cover Rossi anymore.
It will be interesting to see if anything comes out of NI week.
Sad to see Martin Fleischmann passed away. It would have been nice for him to be vindicated after all the heaps of abuse him and Pons received.
I think he lived long enough to see that he HAD been vindicated. He was scientist enough to know that the momentum has shifted, even if said recognition was not yet "official".
Here’s a link to a more complete description of the system Celani is demonstrating at NIWEEK:
http://www.22passi.it/downloads/PresICCF17_NewA3A.pdf
Defkalion is listed as one of the participants at NIWEEK. Not sure which session, but they will have a representative there.
I normally don’t post links to videos, but this one is, I think, of sufficient impact that I need to do so. This is Dr. James Truchard, cofounder, President, and CEO of National Instruments, kicking off NIWeek 2012, the annual global conference on graphical system design. Of particular interest is the segment from minute 15 and onward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxjxFdFEBsw
I don't know. Considering the reaming him and Pons received, it would be nice to see all the institutions that attacked them (MIT for one) have to come clean. Rusi Taleyarkhan was reamed as well. With the benefit if hindsight, it's clear that they deliberately tanked their experiments so they would match the conclusions they had already written which seems pretty sleazy considering they were destroying careers.
So NI has been providing free Labview to cold fusioners since 1989, yet the best they can do after all that time is a claimed 10 watts of heat after three hours of loading, which can’t be independently confirmed.
Bookmarked the articles tab. Thanks. Maybe can form an opinion later.
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