Posted on 08/03/2021 12:13:51 PM PDT by Kevmo
Frontiers of Space Power and Energy
Document ID: 20210016143
Document Type: Technical Memorandum (TM)
Dennis M Bushnell (Langley Research Center Hampton, Virginia, United States)
Robert W Moses (Langley Research Center Hampton, Virginia, United States)
Sang H Choi
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20210016143
The part about cold fusion is on pages 15, 16 and 17.
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Advanced Thermo-Electrics
Most of the power systems considered herein produce a large amount of heat as waste, some 60% of their energy output. Recovery and conversion of the waste heat into electrical power as noted in the previous energy conversion section provides additional useful power to the system and reduces the size and weight of thermal radiation panels.
Thermoelectric (TE) devices are commonly used to recover and convert thermal energy into electrical power. However, current semiconductor TEs have intrinsic Brillouin limits on mobile electrons within phase space which is dictated by mainly n-type and p-type dopant densities.
Therefore, the maximum achievable efficiency of such TEs is approximately 6~7 %. Limits on electron mobility also constricts heat flow carried by energetic electrons. In semiconductor TEs, the TE developers alter the lattice oscillatory (phonon) transmission in TE materials to increase the figure of merit performance.
This practice itself also constricts the overall heat flow into a TE domain, which lowers the energy to be converted. A new TE concept based on metallic junction TE (MJ-TE) was developed at NASA LaRC [refs. 26, 27]. A simulation analysis of MJ-TE shows very promising performance with 20% efficiency.
Farther Term
LENR - Revived (after experiments earlier in the 1900s) in the late 1980s [ref. 28] and dubbed “Cold Fusion,” what is now usually termed LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions) was an experimental discovery with replication issues at the time and lacked an acceptable theory. Now, three decades of extant worldwide experiments [ref. 29] indicate “something nuclear” is real.
However, there does not yet exist a cogent, verified theory and therefore LENR has been looked at with askance by the physics community. There are now extant recent weak force and other weak neutron-based theories (not “hot” fusion) involving surface plasmons, electroweak interactions explicable via QED on surfaces, collective effects, heavy electrons, ultraweak neutrons, and utilizing neutron generation to obviate coulomb barrier issues.
There are now many patents and LENR is beginning to evolve into the marketplace. Given a validated theory to engineer, scale, and make safe, LENR would obviously be a major world energy revolution, especially with observed energy density levels surpassing those of chemical energy. In fact, LENR has been observed in the tens to hundreds and theoretical possibilities into the many thousands times chemical energy density levels.
In the Widom-Larsen Theory [ref. 30], H2 is adsorbed or “loaded” onto a metal surface and the resulting surface plasmon initiates collective effects. Some energy is added and several types of energy appear to work. From the LENR experiments and a sizable body of applicable related research, nano cracks/asperities in the surface morphology concentrate energy over an area and produce high localized voltage gradients.
Such voltage gradients excite collective electrons to combine with protons in the surface plasmon to form ultraweak neutrons. These neutrons readily interact, producing neutron rich isotopes which undergo beta decay and transmutations. The heavy electron cloud converts the beta decay to heat, sans worrisome radiation and coulomb barrier issues, in agreement with experiment(s).
From experiments thus far, surface materials are required that adsorb large amounts of hydrogen (H2 or D2) such as Ni, Palladium, etc. Once operating, internal IR appears to be capable of replacing the input energy. The LENR process occurs at surfaces or at nano morphology sites.
Generic LENR “products” from experiments include heat, transmutations, and possibly some radiation, especially during startup or shutdown where there may be incomplete coverage of heavy electrons to accomplish conversion to heat (an engineering issue). Also, transmutation products can include helium four and tritium.
The three decades of experiments, lacking theoretical guidance, produced mostly low levels of heat. A few studies produced up to KWs. Several experienced runaway when they evidently got it more right, which may be a greater morphological population of nano scale sites. When such occurred, sometimes windows were melted, fires occurred, even an explosion or two.
The experiments are now reproducible.
From three decades of many hundreds of, in many cases very detailed and careful experiments with redundant measurement approaches, positive results occurred over a relatively wide range of conditions/materials and energy input approaches.
LENR is apparently a non-obvious multistage process involving the weak force. Initial claims of “cold fusion” poisoned the well and became the energetics third rail. There was also lack of validated physics understanding and usually only low heat levels produced.
There was also a dearth of experiments focused on validating theory (or not), mostly variations on previous experiments vice the basic physics and efforts to identify such. It was often considered simply too good to be true…incredulity.
There were observations, beginning in the 1600s, and still ongoing, of transmutations including silicon, carbon, magnesium, potassium into calcium, and many others in biological systems. Experiments, many carefully done, were conducted before the late 1980s primarily in France, Germany, and Russia.
These cited transmutations observed occurring in plants, seeds, bacteria, microorganisms, and mammals. An oft cited instantiation is the calcium shell on chicken eggs.
If calcium is withheld in the diet, apparently mica and potassium are transmutated. If these are absent, there are no shells. This occurs with no observed heat or radiation.
From refs 31 and 32, the LENR effect has been replicated hundreds of times while using different materials and five different methods of energy addition. Each method is found to produce energy well in excess of any plausible chemical source and that is correlated with identified nuclear products.
LENR patent holders include: Airbus, Google, Leonardo, Brillouin, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Widom-Larsen, Boeing, MIT, and the U.S. Navy. LENR produces heat, which can be utilized directly or converted to electricity via such as Sterling Cycles, Thermoelectrics, Pyroelectrics, T-PV, Etc.
Recent research in Japan via long and careful experimentation, has proven that a major “missing controlled parameter” in the decades now of previous LENR research is the requirement for nano sized discrete surface morphology. As already noted, that enables localized energy concentration by orders of magnitude.
Major organizations (including Google) are now conducting research aimed at understanding and sorting out sensitivities and optimization. The major issues going forward include development of a viable, proven theory to allow engineering, scaling, and safety.
Given that, which at this point appears to be a work in progress, much with regard to power and energy could change, for climate/transportation/HVAC, energy costs overall, and in-space for propulsion, habs, ISRU, on body transportation.
Most of the pre-1947 UFO sightings are stuff like ball lightning, swamp gas, meteors. There are about 1/1000 of the quantity of reports as well [other than the ufo flap of 1890s which was obviously a privately built dirigible].
Adroit management of boundary layer airflow is a key concern of modern aeronautics. Yet experiments with round and lenticular airfoils showed them to be inferior to conventional designs for a host of compelling reasons. And, whatever the attractions of such shapes for UFOs, so far as is known, we are unable to develop the associated power densities, means of propulsion, and performance.
You are referring to the reports and analysis in Project Bluebook and other official UFO programs. Yet it is well-established that for the US and Britain and likely everyone else, the best and most provocative UFO reports are reported via a separate channel that remains secret. For example, the head of Project Bluebook, J. Alan Hynek, is said to have been quite annoyed at this, while Nick Pope, the UK’s former UFO reports analyst in their Ministry of Defense, has described credible reports, photos, and radar traces kept from him through high levels of classification that he was denied access to.
You are referring to the reports and analysis in Project Bluebook and other official UFO programs. Yet it is well-established that for the US and Britain and likely everyone else, the best and most provocative UFO reports are reported via a separate channel that remains secret. For example, the head of Project Bluebook, J. Alan Hynek, is said to have been quite annoyed at this, while Nick Pope, the UK’s former UFO reports analyst in their Ministry of Defense, has described credible reports, photos, and radar traces kept from him through high levels of classification that he was denied access to.
I don’t dismiss such reports. They are boundary layer control secret weapons.
It’s not just about airfoils. It’s about dynamic removal of the boundary layet through suction.
Give me $10 million and I can create aircraft with the observed speeds with 1946 technology.
And to give you a sense of just how remarkable even some historic reports are, run an internet search and read the Cowgill letter to Scientific American in the late 19th century.
Cowgill, an American consul in Venezuela, describes a UFO incident in Maracaibo in which lights hovered at night over an Indian village. Several Indians closest to the lights received radiation burns from what seems to be induced radiation on the side of their bodies nearest the ground they were sleeping on.
At the time, the phenomena of induced secondary radiation was unknown and no humans had the ability to generate such an episode of a hovering radiation source. Indeed, even with $10 million in hand you could not duplicate the incident today.
And can you demonstrate similar maneuvering
***Yes, but it’ll cost another $10M. Because it means that the flying saucers were using vectored thrust engines like the Harrier had only 20 years later. Right angle turns. Hovering. Yes, the allies did pick up such technical spoils at the end of the war according to the Combined Operations Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee reports from the time.
and the ability to hover and transition between water and air?
***Hover, yes. Transitions from water and air only started happening in the late 1950s. Add another $10-$20M, like those sub-launched missiles.
And with no propellers or jet engine intakes and exhausts?
***That’s the beauty of suction for boundary layer control, the intakes are much smaller. There were plenty of exhausts seen in the late 1940s flying saucers.
And to give you a sense of just how remarkable even some historic reports are, run an internet search and read the Cowgill letter to Scientific American in the late 19th century.
***Read the book “History of the UFO controversy in America” where it covers the late 19th century ufo flap.
https://www.amazon.com/Ufo-Controversy-America-David-Jacobs/dp/0253190061
Cowgill, an American consul in Venezuela, describes a UFO incident in Maracaibo in which lights hovered at night over an Indian village. Several Indians closest to the lights received radiation burns from what seems to be induced radiation on the side of their bodies nearest the ground they were sleeping on.
***Sounds entriguing.
At the time, the phenomena of induced secondary radiation was unknown and no humans had the ability to generate such an episode of a hovering radiation source. Indeed, even with $10 million in hand you could not duplicate the incident today.
***I would seek to replicate the speeds and capabilities of 1940s aircraft with 1940s technology. I wouldn’t be chasing down every UFO sighting unless there were hundreds of $Millions in my pocket, pretty doubtful.
I just don’t credit any of it, and if I had the large sums that you require, I would invest them in debauchery instead of UFOs.
Sounds like your mind is made up before you examine the evidence.
Supposing someone would give me $10M to generate this technology on a civilian level, I would soon have $100M in my pocket and could ‘invest in debauchery’ all I want.
I think that you are underestimating the appeal of debauchery versus that of giving you a large pile of cash. If you object to the term debauchery, we can follow Washington practice and call it investment.
I study technology. I would love to bring out this technology as well as LENR.
The suction approach to boundary layer management was researched by NASA and others but never came into practical use because of the energy required for suction and the frequent blocking of the pinholes used by insects and miscellaneous debris.
As for the development of LENR, there are similarities with electricity, personal computers, and the Internet.
. Due to the work of Faraday and Maxwell, the basic physics of electromagnetism was understood fairly well by the mid 19th century, but the technology and devices for practical application took another two or three generations. The ensuing technological revolution continues today and defines much of modern life.
As for PCs, even as they were first developed and came to market, it took two decades before the essential ancillary concepts and technologies of the graphic user interface and computer mice were developed and marketed. The Xerox Corporation famously invented them at their PARC facility but then dropped the effort as a diversion from their core business of copy machines.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates though got tours of PARC and saw the means to take personal computers from a hobbyist niche to mass application. And Gates and his crew recognized that good software was needed and could be protected and paid for via copyright.
The Internet was first developed by DARPA as a way for the US government to link and get better use from the supercomputer centers that they had set up at various universities around the country. Yet Dale Lickliter, the key figure in DARPA's funding and management of the first routers and the resulting DARPA net, recognized the revolutionary potential of the technology and insisted on the open communication protocols that define the Internet.
I see LENR as handicapped by the lack of both any practical devices and the absence of a proven and widely accepted physics theory to guide research and development. I expect though that both will be remedied within the next few years, which will then trigger a massive investment of time and money into the field.
There is a theory that for us to understand and apply the technology of UFOs requires just a handful of innovations in physics and technology over the next hundred years or so. Perhaps LENR will open the way to doing so.
The problem of insects and rain clogging the suction holes was solved by applying sinterization, creating a metallic ‘aerosponge’ which also had the net result of vastly increasing tensile strength. You would learn this if you read Renato Vesco’s book.
As far as LENR theory, there are dozens of theories just like there are dozens of theories of gravity. But gravity is very well described mathematically, we just don’t know why. There is also no widely accepted theory for high temperature superconductors.
What LENR needs is not just a theory or a host of competing theories, but a single, generally accepted theory to guide research and investment by offering benchmarks and goals. Otherwise, the time and investment cash pub into the field is all too likely to be a loss.
High temperature superconductors at least have proven experimental results and a handful of commercial products. LENR is not even at that stage yet. That can change quickly, with modern physics having the great virtue of honoring experimental proof as validating theory.
The problems of suction were solved according to the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee. That’s why I say it was a secret weapon kept secret.
What products have high temp superconductors generated? We were supposed to have roomtemp maglev trains by now.
People were flying for decades before the equation of flight was generated.
Even today we regularly use gas stoves to cook while 99.99% of the population couldnt explain the plasma physics behind it.
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