What to make of Andrea Rossi's apparent cold fusion success..?

celtic_oz

Taken from Wired

The apparent success of Andrea Rossi's E-Cat cold fusion demonstration on 28 October is starting to send ripples into the mainstream press. So what new clues do we have to settle whether it's the breakthrough of the century or the scam of the decade?

In the demonstration, overseen by engineers and technicians from Rossi's mysterious US customer, the device appeared to produce over 470 kilowatts of heat for several hours

....

On 3 November MSNBC ran a cautiously optimistic piece under the headline "Italian cold fusion machine passes another test", noting that although there is widespread scepticism about cold fusion, "proof is adding up" that the technology works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz9bukWbCCU

More here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXMW2yHAdYE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebCUhVv__sE

FarmerGreen

No.

krd

FarmerGreen wrote: »

No.

Okay, I believe it's a fraud.

The reaction is supposedly, hydrogen with nickel, to produce copper.

Fundamentally it would seem impossible for this to work, as the Coulomb barrier for the reaction would be very high. So much temperature and pressure, that the copper we have, is formed from material ejected at the poles of a spinning black hole.

But what about the Gamow Factor. Could there be a possibility that fusion could take place at much lower energy?

Say if the Coulomb barrier isn't constant, could there be a fluke that would allow the proton to fuse? A reaction where the proton has a 1 in 10 million chance of fusing. Could there be a hole in the Coulomb barrier?

I don't really know enough about this to make calculations. Could it be possible a proton tunnels it's way into the nucleuse, and the arrangement of and state of the nucleus's protons allows fusion?

I still think it's a fraud. But wouldn't it be a kick in the teeth, if it turned out not to be.

Turtwig

Cold fusion is in principle possible, but the old adage extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The way Rossi is doing these demos doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence though. Science isn't based on uninformed public opinion, Rossi needs to publish (outside his own Journal) why this actually is a cold fusion device.

krd

Malty_T wrote: »

Cold fusion is in principle possible, but the old adage extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Cold fusion is probably not possible. We can see hot fusion all around us in the stars. But as far as I am aware, no one has ever detected cold fusion occurring anywhere in nature.

We see cold fission, why wouldn't we see cold fusion - it could be because it's impossible.

The way Rossi is doing these demos doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence though. Science isn't based on uninformed public opinion, Rossi needs to publish (outside his own Journal) why this actually is a cold fusion device.

Looking at the guys set up, it's unlikely to be for real. It it was the guy would probably have been cooked by x-rays and neutrons long before now.

If his rig actually works it will be more than a miracle. Unless of course everyone has been wrong and cold fusion happens and just no one has noticed

M.Hat

If you’re interested in getting up to speed on Rossi’s Ecat, read on... If you reject the idea outright, that’s fine, but I think you’ll be brought back to reconsider it in a few months, if not sooner.

Rossi has been developing his Ecat device for several years, all the time being helped and/or monitored by some notable Italian nuclear physicists (who themselves had been working for years with low temperature hydrogen-nickel fusion). After his breakthrough, Rossi demonstrated his Ecat device several times to gatherings of notable scientists and reporters, including Sven Kullander, head of the energy branch of the Swedish Academy of Sciences and a member of the committee that awards the Nobel prize in physics. (He could not commit to it without scientific proof, but neither did he have any negative comment about what he witnessed during the Rossi demonstration.) Although I’m not going to put words into his mouth, if you read between the lines of Kullander’s last speech, where he talks about cold fusion and the difference such a cheap energy producing device would make to the world, you may come to the same conclusion I came to—that he thinks it’s real, even though he can’t say so at the moment.

Yes, it’s true that Rossi has refused to reveal the details of his catalyst, which is at the heart of the whole enterprise, but that's because his device was labelled as a "cold fusion" device and refused a patent, except in Italy. But that doesn't matter at the moment. The device exists and is on the market.

Here is a true test... On Oct. 28, he sold a 1 Megawatt device which produced heat energy in the region of 600 KW (about half the advertised amount because of a technical glitch) for over 4 hours in the presence of several nuclear scientists and other observers. It was done under conditions examined and accepted by the buyer's representatives. (You can watch the video on youtube). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFiJb2UhzqY

Asking Rossi to stop now, when he’s at the height of activity, and to submit the device (with his secret, unpatented catalyst) for testing by scientists might in some ways be likened to asking Edison to sent a copy of his new light bulb to Cambridge for authentication when it's being offered for sale to the public.

Edison published no papers on this work while he was doing it. He just did it, ignoring the naysayers. However, any university really interested can buy a one megawatt Ecat from Mr. Rossi and the money will be held in escrow until machine is producing and the client is satisfied.

I was sceptical until I read the history and watched the Rossi Ecat Videos. I'm not any more. Here's a good summary of where things stand at the moment.

http://ecatnews.com/?p=174

Considering the catastrophic state the environment is in and the world’s current geopolitical situation as well, I think Mr. Rossi did it just in the nick of time, if this is the substantial cheap energy producer it seems to be. This would make it an even more critically important triumph than Edison’s light bulb. By the way there were many highly-placed sceptics who claimed Edison had not done it and that producing light from a few whiskers under a glass exposed to an electric current was impossible. Eventually they saw the light.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhvD4KuAEmo

The whole business is complicated by a strong establishment prejudice against anything related to cold fusion, in spite of the fact that this closed-mind attitude is entirely contrary to the scientific ethos.

krd

M.Hat wrote: »

If you’re interested in getting up to speed on Rossi’s Ecat, read on... If you reject the idea outright, that’s fine, but I think you’ll be brought back to reconsider it in a few months, if not sooner.

Andrea, is that you?

Here is a true test... On Oct. 28, he sold a 1 Megawatt device which produced heat energy in the region of 600 KW (about half the advertised amount because of a technical glitch) for over 4 hours in the presence of several nuclear scientists and other observers.

None of those nuclear scientists had their own test equipment with them. Nuclear scientists do not have X-ray vision - so they would be unable to see the x-rays produced in the reaction with their naked eyes.

I'm not sure those nuclear scientists were all that convinced Rossi had a working nuclear reactor. (Are you sure they weren't The philosophy of nuclear science social scientists). The lack of shielding on Rossi's device (one picture I've seen it looks like tin foil), might have them worried they might get cooked or exposed to an unhealthy dose of X-rays and neutrons.

The reasons that this is most likely a fraud just go on and on. So many little bits and pieces he's done have the strong whiff of charlatanism, before you anywhere near the possibility he has a working reactor.


I love paranormal stuff - because it's entertaining. Rossi is definitely entertaining.

krd

M.Hat wrote: »

This would make it an even more critically important triumph than Edison’s light bulb. By the way there were many highly-placed sceptics who claimed Edison had not done it and that producing light from a few whiskers under a glass exposed to an electric current was impossible. Eventually they saw the light.

I don't know where you got that idea. It had been an established fact long before Edison, that passing a current through a wire could cause it to glow. Unfortunately, exposed to air it would eventually burn. Edison put the wire in a vacuum - in a glass bulb. And successfully commercialised the device. But he wasn't the first to do that either.

Crediting Edison with the light bulb is like crediting Steve Jobs with inventing the computer - a "fact" that will probably find its way into every school i-book 50 years from now.

krd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QdVwY98E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=m-8QdVwY98E&feature=endscreen

One of Rossi's demonstrations from June.

He gives all the readings. His device takes 3.4A from the mains (220V) - 748 W ....748 Joules per second, 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 3600 seconds in an hour, so by my calculation that's 2,692,800 Joules per hour.

He takes water, at 26 C and turns it into steam at 100 C

In one hour he says he produces 7 litres of water from the steam (it's not superheated steam - though he does say a few weird things as if it was - and also as if it wasn't ).

So, I'll calculate the energy used to do that with:

Q= ( m ) * ( c ) * ( T )
Heat (Q): is measured in Joules (note that the units below multiply to give you Joules) Joules is a metric unit of measurement.
Mass (m): measured in grams
Specific Heat Capacity (c): measured in J/ g * oC
Temperature change (T): measured in oC

mass of water = 7000 grams
temperature change in water = 64 oC
specific heat capacity = 4.19 J/ g * oC

= 7000 * 4.19 * 64 = 1,877,120 Joules

So, by my calculations, unless I've got something madly wrong, Rossi's device takes 2,692,800 Joules to produce 1,877,120 Joules.

With that kind of efficiency, Rossi's device for every 1 Watt input, gives 0.697 Watts output.

Unless my calculations are wrong. Rossi's E-cat really sucks at generating power.

521W out for 748 W in.

Can anyone see a mistake in my calculations? He's not seriously trying to pass off an inefficient kettle as a nuclear reactor. Is he?

============================================================
I've checked my calculations - and there may have been an error in the way I did it.

Am I going mad. Rossi claims a 4,906.1 Watt output for a 770 Watt input.

Most of his calculations are the same as mine, but he adds the Vaporisation heat - 615.6 Wh/Kg =

Claiming for the 7 kilos he's getting 4309.2 Wh

He's counting the engergy need for the phase change at 100c as 2,216,160 Joules/Kg..........

This is giving me a headache - because I could be wrong.

When 1 kg of water reaches 100c, it needs the energy level of the water to be raised by 2,216,160 Joules/Kg to vaporise. This is a once off blast of energy needed to change and entire kilo of water at 100C into steam.

For seven kilos - 15,513,120 Joules

4309.2 Watts is what I get. Which is what Rossi gets.

I get 4830 Watts out put for 748 W, Rossi gets 4,906.1 Watt output for a 770 Watt input.

By those figures - the reactor would seem to be generating power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrTz5Bq6dsA

===========================

Then again - the reactor may be acting as some kind of heat reservoir. But even with that, for it's size, it would need to be very hot to boil off 7 litres in an hour.

In the past, when there have been scams based around free energy devices, they tend to use very iffy ways of calculating the energy. Unless I'm wrong - Rossi is playing tricks, his method for calculating the out put looks sound.

But I gave myself a headache thinking about it - as well as doing my calculations wrong.

M.Hat

Yes, I was rather flip with the Edison analogy. Not a very good analogy anyway. Let's toss it.

FarmerGreen

>>
From a 99 % believer. >
Truth doesnt need belief. It is or is isnt

M.Hat

I can see that I shouldn't have left you alone to wrestle with the implied meaning of my statement. I should have spelled out the rest of the sentence, so you'd be able to grasp my intention without having to think too deeply about it. Well, better late than never. I'll spell it out now for you... "I'm a 99 percent believer in the truth of Rossi's claim that his Ecat device produces substantially more energy than is put into it."

FarmerGreen

I'll be 100 percent sure (and amazed) when it happens.

celtic_oz

somebody told the Fuhrer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk27t12Vnag

:pac::pac::pac:

krd

FarmerGreen wrote: »

I'll be 100 percent sure (and amazed) when it happens.

I don't believe it will work.

But wouldn't it be a kick if it did.

Is there any theoretical possibility, that a catalyst, could change the activation energy required for a nuclear reaction. I'm kind of interested to know, does the arrangement of the protons change in response to the position of the electrons - they probably do, but whether it makes and difference.

I know many people have tried to use a catalyst for a nuclear reaction - all tried without a result.

I assume in a typical atom the positive force is the same in all directions. If the protons are shifted - their arrangement warped into another shape. Could it create an interference pattern - with maxima and minima - effectively create points where the columb barrier is weak.


Okay, I don't believe he's getting a fusion reaction. But if he is - the rate of the reaction is, obviously, very slow.....Otherwise he'd have a mushroom cloud, instead of a little steam.

celtic_oz

from MSNBC, and the Boston Globe



"Italian scientist Andrea Rossi, who claims to have invented the world's first cold fusion machine, visited Massachusetts last week, meeting with a state senator and several scientists to explore the possibility of manufacturing cold fusion reactors in the state.
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Rossi said he has sold 13 E-Cat units since a demo in October.
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Knowing the reputation of cold fusion, I went in with a very healthy level of skepticism," said Robert Tamarin, dean of sciences at University of Massachusetts, Lowell. That said, he added, "If it’s successful, no wants to have to say later that we walked away from it."
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.“I’m already planning to come back soon,’’ he said. “We are all hoping to get something started in a matter of weeks, not months.’’

Turtwig

celtic_oz wrote: »

.
Knowing the reputation of cold fusion, I went in with a very healthy level of skepticism," said Robert Tamarin, a professor of biology and dean of sciences at University of Massachusetts, Lowell. That said, he added, "If it’s successful, no wants to have to say later that we walked away from it."
.

Just provided some fair editing to this article for information that any reader should really know.:)

celtic_oz

Might not be related .. but a recent NASA video on LENR:

http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media/CC/lenr/lenr.html

and a LENR Workshop at NASA GRC, September 2011

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/sensors/PhySen/docs/LENR_at_GRC_2011.pdf

M.Hat

Yesterday's LENR announcement from NASA and Celani's spectacular presentation on LENR at the UN Renewable Energy Conference in Geneva (Jan 10 to 12) bring the Rossi claims fully into the realm of the possible, so you should not let your dislike of him or his old history cloud your judgement. In any case, with or without Rossi, it would seem an energy revolution is in the wind--and soon.

Here's the Nobel prize winner Brian Josephson, a nuclear physicist from Cambridge on Rossi's ecat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8eIhth8Iw8

NASA announces the reality of LENR (last week).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxeKeuh_2Bw

Latest Rossi Interview 15/01/2012 at:

http://ecatnews.com/?p=1854

rgunning

M.Hat wrote: »

Yesterday's LENR announcement from NASA and Celani's spectacular presentation on LENR at the UN Renewable Energy Conference in Geneva (Jan 10 to 12) bring the Rossi claims fully into the realm of the possible, so you should not let your dislike of him or his old history cloud your judgement. In any case, with or without Rossi, it would seem an energy revolution is in the wind--and soon.

Here's the Nobel prize winner Brian Josephson, a nuclear physicist from Cambridge on Rossi's ecat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8eIhth8Iw8

NASA announces the reality of LENR (last week).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxeKeuh_2Bw

Latest Rossi Interview 15/01/2012 at:

http://ecatnews.com/?p=1854

Brian Josephson is not a nuclear physicist. Yes, he is a tenured professor in Cambridge and a Nobel prize winner, but you'd want to look in to his story a little more carefully before considering his input in to any scientific debate.

The guy talking in the LENR video, Joe Zawodny, has been pretty vocal on youtube videos such as this:

“There have been many attempts to twist the release of this video into NASA’s support for LENR or as proof that Rossi’s e-cat really works. Many extraordinary claims have been made in 2010. In my scientific opinion, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I find a distinct absence of the latter. So let me be very clear here. While I personally find sufficient demonstration that LENR effects warrant further investigation, I remain skeptical. Furthermore, I am unaware of any clear and convincing demonstrations of any viable commercial device producing useful amounts of net energy." http://joe.zawodny.com/

People don't "like or dislike" Rossi - they just want to see a device working that can be inspected to be proven to generate an excess of energy.

celtic_oz

3rd Party tests :



Cold fusion reactor verified by third-party researchers, seems to have 1 million times the energy density of gasoline

story here

Moderation:
There are two possibilities -
1) this is new and interesting (I hope) and is hence deserving of a thread all of its own (make it happen!) or
2) this is dragging up an old post that is not really relevant anymore (and so should not be done)