I have a BS in mechanical engineering and an associate in internal combustion engine design. The latter featured more thermodynamics, chemistry (fuels & lubricants), heat transfer than what was required for the BSME. That is I got to do calorimetry studies to measure the heating value of various fuels.
It is quite awhile since I actually did one of those studies but it still sticks in mind all of the factors that need to be recognized and accounted for when measuring heating values. The procedure required a closed "bomb" which contained the carefully weighed fuel sample along with an enough oxidizer to permit full combustion. Before closing the bomb, a small piece of nicrome wire was connected between two terminals in the wall of the bomb container to allow ignition of the sample. The assembled bomb was then placed in a large cylindrical tank of of water which had been weighed as the cylinder was filled. Temperature probes were then placed to measure both water and ambient air temperature. A stirring apparatus was used to induce a slow circulation of the water bath. Temperatures were observed until the water bath with the bomb achieved observed room temperature for a specified period (10 minutes typical). After achieving equilibrium, the circuit to the nicrome igniter was closed and periodic observations (every 15 sec. typical) of both water and air temperature commenced. These observations continued until the water temperature returned to room temperature.
Knowing the weight of the water in the bath and the sample weight you then were required to calculate the heating value of the sample fuel. The actual calculation required you to make allowances for the heat input from the igniter wire and from the mechanical work performed by the stirring apparatus. To arrive at the correction factors required a separate calorimeter runs w/o a fuel sample to measure the input from the igniter and another run to observe any correction needed for stirring.
Oops, I almost forgot! After the actual calorimeter run w/ fuel sample achieved equilibrium w/ room temp the bomb was removed from the water bath and carefully opened. The residual ash was removed and carefully weighed. The ash sample was then placed in a desiccator and thoroughly dried and then weighed again. Knowing the weight of the sample (fuel & oxidizer) before combustion and the wet ash weight after allows you to calculate the weight of the CO2 produced. Knowing the dry weight allows you to calculate the amount of water vapor produced by combustion. The last correction factor is to calculate the heat released by the condensation of the water vapor into liquid water, knowing that the heat of vaporization of water is 540 Calories/gram.
That is how small quantities of heat are measured. Careful attention to experimental design, actively looking for procedures which could introduce error, performing calibration runs to observe any such errors and either reduce them to zero or identify them so that corrections may be applied to the experimental values. I would venture that the CERN people are familiar with all of this, my doubts are that the people peddling these devices are not so scrupulous.
Regards,
GtG
PS Last time I did one of these experiments JFK was shot during the equilibrium phase of the experiment (no kidding).
That could explain why all of cold fusion's excess heat anomalies remain unexplained and inconsistent after all these years. They are measurement errors.
MOST of the people doing research in LENR are scientists of impeccable credentials. Perhaps you should actually READ some of the published papers on their calorimetry and results. Lots of links to papers in the Library Section at LENR-CANR.org, including many with full explanations of the calorimetries used.
“Excess powers in the range of 5-8 W with 170% efficiency were reported for the glow discharge experiments.”
1) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/NagelDJscientific.pdf
“The registered meanings of Excess Heat power obtained in the experiments amounted to 120 – 170 W with Heat Efficiency (the ratio between output heat power and the input electrical power) 200 – 340 % in HVEC experiments.”
“The most unusual feature for the Pd-B electrode was the observation of excess power and positive feedback at a very early stage of the experiment (Day 3) at a low current density (48 mA/cm2) and at a low cell temperature (29 °C).[1] This Pd-B experiment ran 68 days with excess power production often exceeding 400 mW. The cell was driven to boiling on Day 68 with the excess power exceeding 9 watts.”
2) http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Srinivasaniccfthinte.pdf
Most recent survey of the field is probably McKubre’s talk in 3) on page xv.
3) http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ViolanteVproceeding.pdf
4) http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ViolanteVproceedinga.pdf