A lot of people get hung up on this, but it's not complicated. There are three factors involved...1)heat production by the cartridge heater, 2)heat production by the "anomalous reaction", and 3) heat removal by flowing/boiling water. The sum of these things results in a system "in balance" (constant temperature).
"If" the temperature sensors in the reaction chamber show an anomalous increase, it is very easy and fast (and uses cheap and easily available automatic controls) to reduce the electric current to compensate. Remember, the flow of water is constant, so the heat removal capacity stays the same. The larger the percentage of heat input by the cartridge heater, the more "responsive" your control will be, because the rate of heat removal from the "anomalous reaction" once electric current is reduced is much higher.
Alternatively, you can accomplish the same thing by varying the coolant flow, but the equipment to do this is more expensive and more complex. I suspect that Rossi's (purportedly) more rapid progress after National Instruments got involved was largely due to the ability to automatically monitor and more importantly control, both input current AND coolant flow.
"Who is our "Bell Labs" in the 21st century?"
Good question. At this point, I'm not sure there "is" one.
"I took a look at ICCF15 on LENR.org at it is not casual reading. I'm tempted to print it out because I still like books, especially in large print.
Have Kindle?? You can download the PDF and read it there. (Note...I have NOT tried this, so don't know if it is actually a workable solution).
"Reading 32 pages on a computer is brutal and since it's no where near my area I need to read it in one sitting or I'll forget what I've read."
Yeah. I'm about 2/3'ds of the way into the first half. I do it "paper by paper", which breaks it into doable chunks.
Am I reading this correctly? I thought he added heat to slow the reaction. That's what didn't make sense but I see things that are counter intuitive all the time like adding water to a fission reactor can actually speed up the reaction since it's a neutron moderator like we saw in Japan.
I assume he can also control the flow of hydrogen but from what I've read. He purges the container of all gasses and then he introduces the H2 under pressure and then stops the flow and I thought he wasn't topping off the H2. It's possible that enough H2 is in the system to run twelve hours but for six months, I would assume that he has to replenish the H2 in the reaction chamber so he would need to control that as well. I wonder how having an H2 tank affects certification? People will bring up the Hindenburg and forget the 250 gallon propane tank in their backyard.
It sounds like using something with a higher boiling temperature than water would allow him more control by varying the flow.
"Who is our "Bell Labs" in the 21st century?"
Good question. At this point, I'm not sure there "is" one.
So are we ceding our scientific advances to other countries, that doesn't sound good in the long run.