Posted on 05/21/2013 7:44:36 AM PDT by Kevmo
Finally! Independent Testing Of Rossi's E-Cat Cold Fusion Device: Maybe The World Will Change After All
Back in October 2011 I first wrote about Italian engineer, Andrea Rossi, and his E-Cat project, a device that produces heat through a process called a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR).
Very briefly, LENR, otherwise called cold fusion, is a technique that generates energy through low temperature (far lower than hot fusion temperatures which are in the range of tens off thousands of degrees) reactions that are not chemical. Most importantly, LENR is, theoretically, much safer, much simpler, and many orders of magnitude cheaper than hot fusion. Rather than explaining LENR in detail here please see my original posting for a more complete explanation.
My next post on this topic was here on Forbes a few days later and, as the labyrinthine and occasionally ridiculous saga developed, I tried to sort fact from fiction in a series of posts (see the list at the end of this posting) which covered everything from unconvincing demos, through an Australian businessman offering Rossi $1 million to show independently tested proof, to other players in the LENR market showing interesting results.
I haven’t posted about Rossi and his E-Cat since last August simply because there wasn’t much to report other than more of Rossi’s unsupported and infuriating claims that included building large-scale automated factories to churn out millions of E-Cats (the factories still have no sign of actually existing) through to unsubstantiated performance claims that sounded far too good to be true.
What everyone wanted was something that Rossi has been promising was about to happen for months: An independent test by third parties who were credible. This report was delayed several times to the point where many were wondering whether it was all nothing more than what we have come to see as Rossi’s usual “jam tomorrow” promises. But much to my, and I suspect many other people’s surprise, a report by credible, independent third parties is exactly what we got.
Published on May 16, the paper titled “Indication of anomalous heat energy production in a reactor device” would appear to deliver what we wanted.
The paper was authored by Giuseppe Levi of Bologna University, Bologna, Italy; Evelyn Foschi, Bologna, Italy; Torbjörn Hartman, Bo Höistad, Roland Pettersson and Lars Tegnér of Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; and Hanno Essén, of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. While some of these people have previously been public in their support of Rossi and the E-Cat they are all serious academics with reputations to loose and the paper is detailed and thorough.
The actual test reactor, called the E-Cat HT, was described by the testers as:
“ … a high temperature development of the original apparatus which has also undergone many construction changes in the last two years – is the latest product manufactured by Leonardo Corporation: it is a device allegedly capable of producing heat from some type of reaction the origin of which is unknown.
They described the E-Cat HT as:
“ … a cylinder having a silicon nitride ceramic outer shell, 33 cm in length, and 10 cm in diameter. A second cylinder made of a different ceramic material (corundum) was located within the shell, and housed three delta-connected spiral-wire resistor coils. Resistors were laid out horizontally, parallel to and equidistant from the cylinder axis, and were as long as the cylinder itself. They were fed by a TRIAC power regulator device which interrupted each phase periodically, in order to modulate power input with an industrial trade secret waveform. This procedure, needed to properly activate the E-Cat HT charge, had no bearing whatsoever on the power consumption of the device, which remained constant throughout the test. The most important element of the E-Cat HT was lodged inside the structure. It consisted of an AISI 310 steel cylinder, 3 mm thick and 33 mm in diameter, housing the powder charges. Two AISI 316 steel cone-shaped caps were hot-hammered in the cylinder, sealing it hermetically.
Here’s a picture of the E-Cat HT during one of the tests:
There were two test runs of the E-Cat HT (the emphasis is mine):
“ The present report describes the results obtained from evaluations of the operation of the E-Cat HT in two test runs. The first test experiment, lasting 96 hours (from Dec. 13th 2012, to Dec. 17th 2012), was carried out by the two first authors of this paper, Levi and Foschi, while the second experiment, lasting for 116 hours (from March 18th 2013, to March 23rd 2013), was carried out by all authors.
The authors also note various assumptions they made about the test and that they weren’t in control of all of the aspects of the process but they apparently didn’t consider any of these to be egregious enough to be showstoppers.
And now, the big reveal … the authors’ conclusions are (again, the emphasis is mine):
“ … if we consider the whole volume of the reactor core and the most conservative figures on energy production, we still get a value of (7.93 ± 0.8) 102 MJ/Liter that is one order of magnitude higher than any conventional source.
To put that in perspective, the following graph plots the peak power of various energy sources against their specific energy (energy per unit mass). As you can see, gasoline is way out in front in terms of how much energy is available and how much power can be delivered but if this paper is correct, you can make that “gasoline was way out in front” because, as can be seen, the E-Cat has roughly four orders of magnitude more specific energy and three orders of magnitude greater peak power than gasoline!
Graph courtesy of Alan Fletcher
While a few commentators have raised criticisms concerning how the measurements were made and sources of error others have argued that the energy produced is so significant even knocking off an order of magnitude on either axis still portrays a process with insanely valuable output.
This is not, of course, the last word or even one anywhere near the end of this story but unless this is one of the most elaborate hoaxes in scientific history it looks like the world may well be about to change. How quick will depend solely on Rossi.
Where do you want me to send my money? [NOT]
Jed Rothwell points out how conservative the assumptions are in this paper.
http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-
Jed Rothwell Mon, 20 May 2013 19:10:00 -0700
I just read this paper for the third time. This is a gem. These people
think and write like engineers rather than scientists. That is a complement
coming from me. They dot every i and cross every t. I can’t think of a
single thing I wish they had checked but did not.
In ever instance, their assumptions are conservative. Where there is any
chance of mismeasuring something, they assume the lowest possible value for
output, and the highest value for input. They assume emissivity is 1 even
though it is obviously lower (and therefore output is higher). The add in
every possible source of input, whereas any factor that might increase
output but which cannot be measured exactly is ignored. For example, they
know that emissivity from the sides of the cylinder close to 90 degrees
away from the camera is undermeasured (because it is at an angle), but
rather than try to take that into account, they do the calculation as if
all surfaces are at 0 degrees, flat in front of the camera. In the first
set of tests they know that the support frame blocks the IR camera partly,
casting a shadow and reducing output, but they do not try to take than into
account.
Furthermore, this is a pure black box test, exactly what the skeptics and
others have been crying out for. They make no assumptions about the nature
of the reaction or the content of the cylinder. They make no adjustments
for it; the heat is measured the same way you would measure an electrically
heated cylinder or a cylinder with a gas flame inside it. It is hands-off
in the literal sense, with only the thermocouples touching the cell, and
the rest at a distance, including the clamp on ammeter which placed below
the power supply. You do not have to know anything about the reaction to be
sure these measurements are right. There is nothing Rossi could possibly do
to fool these instruments, which the authors brought with them. They left a
video camera on the instruments at all times to ensure there was no
hanky-panky. They wrote:
“The clamp ammeters were connected upstream from the control box to ensure
the trustworthiness of the measurements performed, and to produce a
nonfalsifiable document (the video recording) of the measurements
themselves.”
They estimate the extent to which the heat exceeds the limits of chemistry
by both the mass of the cell and the volume of the cell. In the first test,
they use the entire weight of the inside cell as the starting point, rather
than just the powder, as if stainless steel might be the reactant. In the
second test they determine that the powder weighs ~0.3 g but they round
that up to 1 g.
They use Martin Fleischmann’s favorite method of looking at the heat decay
curves when the power cycles off. Plot 5 clearly shows that the heat does
not decay according to Newton’s law of cooling. There must be a heat
producing reaction in addition to the electric heater.
I believe there is something significant occurring in the process termed “cold fusion.” I also believe Rossi has not got it. It is too long since he presented his device and supposedly sold one to a producer of something or other. It is plenty of time for progress reports and/or profitable results. Nothing.
http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-
[Vo]:News about Rossi from PESN
Jed Rothwell Fri, 10 May 2013 06:37:23 -0700
For what it’s worth:
http://pesn.com/2013/05/09/9602311_LENR-to-Market_Weekly_May9/
http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Whats-Happened-to-Andrea-Rossi-and-his-E-Cat.html
QUOTE from latter:
“What Rossi and the enthusiasts have learned is it’s a very long path from
the lab demonstration unit to production. Mr. Rossi’s credibility has
taken quite hit from observers without familiarity in making such a jump.
Every little glitch in the scaling that fails has to be worked back,
discovered, redesigned or engineered and then the process starts in again.
To build the 1-megawatt unit takes 106 reactors, so getting each one built
is quite an undertaking for a startup. Meanwhile the company is well,
starting up, getting located, equipped, supplied, staffed and all the
myriad details to build something. Days means weeks and weeks could be
months adding up to years.”
I could have told them that.
- Jed
Oh geez, you’re still here and back at this again? Did you see the young-Earth proof thread earlier?
More guys on bikes behind the curtain....?
More car batteries under the floorboards....?
I’d love to see it happen but am not terribly optimistic.
I concur and believe there is something there. However, when people make statements such as: “They were fed by a TRIAC power regulator device which interrupted each phase periodically, in order to modulate power input with an industrial trade secret waveform. This procedure, needed to properly activate the E-Cat HT charge, had no bearing whatsoever on the power consumption of the device, which remained constant throughout the test”, in their independent tests it makes it difficult to believe everything else they are stating.
E=hf. Where E (energy), h (planck’s constant), and f (frequency). As f is the inverse of wavelength then the waveform does have a direct impact on the power consumption. That said if the power consumption is constant then it either 1) isn’t being measured to the precision or speed needed to see the fluctuation caused by the waveform and is being assumed constant, 2) they are wrong, or 3) averaged out it really has no impact (which if true is what they should have said - Pavg? or Prms?)
The remainder I thought was a good explanation of the setup though I didn’t spend a lot of time on it - this just screamed out at me.
If Rossi really wants to do this - he needs to patent the design in as many countries as he can to protect his investment and then release all the details for scientists to recreate from scratch without interference or the use of only his units.
Einstein’s theories weren’t supported by many until multiple scientists independently confirmed them. He can’t expect anything different. If he won’t release the details then either he’s a sham or killing his chance for real fame and fortune with his paranoia.
So is it just proton absorption?
I know neutron absorption is something that easily happens due to neutron having a neutra charge, a bit harder to do with a proton, but not impossible...
E-Cat is not to be “given” to the world but “sold” to the world. It is hard to show something that is a secret and not give away the secret and I believe that is all that is going on. I have read too many reports from experimenters who suddenly had a great burst of energy that even exploded their apparatus. A new world order is about to take place because of Rossie and others like him.
That’s what I think and Rossi looks more like a huckster the longer he doesn’t act this way.
It could be. When Steven Krivit was interviewing Rossi, he asked about some particular detail which would have meant that the Widom-Larson theory was on the right track. Rossi let it slip that it was more like proton capture going on. From that point on, Krivit was very antagonistic towards Rossi. It’s even on video somewhere.
In terms of theory, I’ll just wait & see, but I doubt Widom/Larson have it right. My bet would be on Y.E.Kim’s Bose-Einstein Condensate theory or K.P.Sinha’s theory.
If Rossi really wants to do this - he needs to patent the design in as many countries
***Hard to do when the patent offices won’t grant a patent for it, like — ummm — here, in America.
“They were fed by a TRIAC power regulator device which interrupted each phase periodically, in order to modulate power input with an industrial trade secret waveform. This procedure, needed to properly activate the E-Cat HT charge, had NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on the power consumption of the device, which remained constant throughout the test.”
- Barack Obama
E-Cat is not to be “given” to the world but “sold” to the world. It is hard to show something that is a secret and not give away the secret and I believe that is all that is going on.
***It will be stolen, no doubt. The Wright brothers went up against this same dark aspect of human nature, and their friendship with Octave Chanute suffered because of it. Langley took out the long knives & teamed up with Glen Curtiss to attempt to besmirch them; it was the darkest episode in the history of the Smithsonian.
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