Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Rich Murray]

As a pragmatic skeptic, I'm looking for a cold fusion anomaly of any kind
that has been described in exhaustive detail and which Believer's and
Agnostics have discussed throughly and have been unable to discount -- I
submit that the paper that Jed Rothwell cites in this thread is very sparse
on details -- are there any other reports that describe these 7 runs, of
which 2 seemed to give excess heat?

The claims about Toyota's successes are indeed extraordinary evidence:

" They achieved high reproducibility, routinely triggering boil offs in 64
cells at a time. The work culminated with cells that ran for weeks at
boiling temperature, at 40 to 100 W. See:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RouletteTresultsofi.pdf  [ 9 pages ]

This project was terminated because of politics and disputes over money
between Toyota and other companies, not because the research itself
failed."  -- Jed Rothwell

"Roulette, T., J. Roulette, and S. Pons. Results of ICARUS 9 Experiments
Run at IMRA Europe.

in Sixth International Conference on Cold Fusion, Progress in New Hydrogen
Energy. 1996. Lake Toya, Hokkaido, Japan: New Energy
and Industrial Technology Development Organization, Tokyo Institute of
Technology, Tokyo, Japan.

RESULTS OF ICARUS 9 EXPERIMENTS RUN AT IMRA EUROPE
T. Roulette, J, Roulette, and S. Pons
IMRA Europe, S.A., Centre Scientifique
Sophia Antipolis, 06560 Valbonne , FRANCE

INTRODUCTION

We describe herein the construction, testing, calibration and use of a high
power dissipation calorimeter
suitable for the measurements of excess enthalpy generation in Pd / Pd
alloy cathodes during the electrolysis of heavy water electrolytes at
temperatures up to and including the boiling point of the electrolyte.

With the present design, power dissipation up to about 400W is possible.

Excess power levels of up to ~250% of the input power have been observed
with these calorimeters in some experiments. Extensions of the design to
include recombination catalysts on open and pressurized cells will be the
subject of a future report."

2 of 7 runs, months long, gave excess heat.
no details about how the Pd cathodes were prepared and changed.
no references are given.
how qualified are T. and J. Roulette?"

Did Joshua Cude ever comment on this report?

within the fellowship of service,  Rich Murray



On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 9:11 PM, James Bowery  wrote:

> There are a lot of opinions that can dramatically lower one's evolutionary
> fitness if expressed.  For example, when Moses came down with his tablets
> and was, shall we say, depressed by the reception -- he asked for the
> "opinion" of those around him and those who agreed with him were then
> ordered to kill everyone else.
>
> Civilization HO!!!
>
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 11:00 PM, William Beaty  wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 11 May 2013, Joshua Cude wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not interested in an inaccessible (non-archived) list like vortex-b,
>>> so
>>> I'll just slink away. I may post a few responses to Rothwell's latest
>>> replies over on wavewatching.net/fringe if they tolerate it.
>>>
>>
>> Or, just stick with the greater world of weird-but-nonCF subjects, where
>> you see that the evidence is not yet decisive, and there's low chance of
>> triggering a Believer vs. Debunker debate.  This isn't a CF-only forum,
>> though it tends to function as one!  :)
>>
>> I push the crackpot-friendly aspect as a long-time experiment in
>> "Provisional Acceptance" of crazy hypotheses.  Currently in science, at
>> least where weird topics are concerned, we instead operate with a
>> philosophy of Provisional Disbelief, where we allow the evidence convince
>> us to change our minds.  But since disbelief is itself a strong bias, what
>> happens if we test the opposite technique, and provisionally accept weird
>> topics in order to study them?Just try it, and everyone attacks you:
>> "You actually BELIEVE in that crap?!!  ANYONE WHO TAKES THAT STUFF
>> SERIOUSLY IS A CRACKPOT."  And of course the uncritical Believers want to
>> welcome you into the fold.
>>
>> This above situation strongly suggests that certain topics have never
>> been given a chance in the past.  If each time someone tries to give them a
>> chance, and is stopped by colleages, then we may actually have no idea
>> whether those topics are truely Woo or not, since nobody is allowed to take
>> them seriously enough to properly "do the homework" before making an
>> informed decision.  If we have to take on the (perceived) crackpot mantle
>> in order to do proper homework, then that's exactly what's needed: declare
>> oneself to be a True Believer Raving Loonie, then have at it.  (Perhaps use
>> a fake name here in order to protect one's professional rep.)
>>
>>   http://amasci.com/weird/vmore.**html
>>   "Even so, I believe that many scientists have a habit of rejecting new
>>   ideas because they unknowingly maintain an illusory worldview which is
>>   based on concensus of colleagues, rather than upon

[Vo]:Testing pyramid power!

[William Beaty]

Raving loonie True Believer stuff!  Daiso, the Japanese dollar-store, has 
"replacement blades for hair cutter."  They're double-edged razor blades! 
Ten for a buck.  Finally I can build an ultra-black beam-dump.  Thick 
stacks of double-edge razor blades are used as high-power beam dumps in 
research.  The optical wattage goes in, but it don't come back out.


Why Pyramid power?  RAZOR BLADES duh.  In theory we can easily test 
edge-sharpness by measuring optical return from the hyper-blackness effect 
created by a screw-clamped stack of razor blades.  No need to actually 
shave, since any contact with a hard object tends to ruin the blackness of 
the http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/blade.htm beam dump.


Then, can any anomalous process restore the damage?  Exposure to moonlight 
while aligning them to magnetic north?  Placing inside a cardboard cube 
while thinking Geller-spoonbending thoughts?  Slowly rotate your cardboard 
Cheops, and plot the sharpening effect vs magnetic north alignment.  If 
this works as a receiver, we can try sending (perhaps very slow) Morse 
Code in the form of Spoonbending Radiation to trigger the metal-memory 
healing of the damaged-bladestack receiver.  Maybe even detect cosmic 
signals from remote alien civilizations which have no need of cartridges 
for Schick Disposable with octo-blade shaving system. (yes, disposables 
are up to seven blades currently.)



(( ( (  (   ((O))   )  ) ) )))
William J. BeatySCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb at amasci com http://amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits   amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair
Seattle, WA  206-762-3818unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[James Bowery]

There are a lot of opinions that can dramatically lower one's evolutionary
fitness if expressed.  For example, when Moses came down with his tablets
and was, shall we say, depressed by the reception -- he asked for the
"opinion" of those around him and those who agreed with him were then
ordered to kill everyone else.

Civilization HO!!!


On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 11:00 PM, William Beaty  wrote:

> On Sat, 11 May 2013, Joshua Cude wrote:
>
>> I'm not interested in an inaccessible (non-archived) list like vortex-b,
>> so
>> I'll just slink away. I may post a few responses to Rothwell's latest
>> replies over on wavewatching.net/fringe if they tolerate it.
>>
>
> Or, just stick with the greater world of weird-but-nonCF subjects, where
> you see that the evidence is not yet decisive, and there's low chance of
> triggering a Believer vs. Debunker debate.  This isn't a CF-only forum,
> though it tends to function as one!  :)
>
> I push the crackpot-friendly aspect as a long-time experiment in
> "Provisional Acceptance" of crazy hypotheses.  Currently in science, at
> least where weird topics are concerned, we instead operate with a
> philosophy of Provisional Disbelief, where we allow the evidence convince
> us to change our minds.  But since disbelief is itself a strong bias, what
> happens if we test the opposite technique, and provisionally accept weird
> topics in order to study them?Just try it, and everyone attacks you:
> "You actually BELIEVE in that crap?!!  ANYONE WHO TAKES THAT STUFF
> SERIOUSLY IS A CRACKPOT."  And of course the uncritical Believers want to
> welcome you into the fold.
>
> This above situation strongly suggests that certain topics have never been
> given a chance in the past.  If each time someone tries to give them a
> chance, and is stopped by colleages, then we may actually have no idea
> whether those topics are truely Woo or not, since nobody is allowed to take
> them seriously enough to properly "do the homework" before making an
> informed decision.  If we have to take on the (perceived) crackpot mantle
> in order to do proper homework, then that's exactly what's needed: declare
> oneself to be a True Believer Raving Loonie, then have at it.  (Perhaps use
> a fake name here in order to protect one's professional rep.)
>
>   http://amasci.com/weird/vmore.**html
>   "Even so, I believe that many scientists have a habit of rejecting new
>   ideas because they unknowingly maintain an illusory worldview which is
>   based on concensus of colleagues, rather than upon evidence, and as a
>   result they become irrational. They become very intolerant of all ideas
>   which violate that consensus, and will instantly and thoughtlessly
>   reject the evidence supporting such ideas.   This forum is for
>   scientist-types (including amateurs!) with a low tolerance for anything
>   resembling mob-rule, and a high tolerance for those crazy hypotheses.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> (( ( (  (   ((O))   )  ) ) )))
> William J. BeatySCIENCE HOBBYIST website
> billb at amasci com http://amasci.com
>
> EE/programmer/sci-exhibits   amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair
> Seattle, WA  206-762-3818unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci
>
>

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[William Beaty]

On Sat, 11 May 2013, Joshua Cude wrote:

I'm not interested in an inaccessible (non-archived) list like vortex-b, so
I'll just slink away. I may post a few responses to Rothwell's latest
replies over on wavewatching.net/fringe if they tolerate it.


Or, just stick with the greater world of weird-but-nonCF subjects, 
where you see that the evidence is not yet decisive, and there's low 
chance of triggering a Believer vs. Debunker debate.  This isn't a CF-only 
forum, though it tends to function as one!  :)


I push the crackpot-friendly aspect as a long-time experiment in 
"Provisional Acceptance" of crazy hypotheses.  Currently in science, at 
least where weird topics are concerned, we instead operate with a 
philosophy of Provisional Disbelief, where we allow the evidence convince 
us to change our minds.  But since disbelief is itself a strong bias, what 
happens if we test the opposite technique, and provisionally accept weird 
topics in order to study them?Just try it, and everyone attacks you: 
"You actually BELIEVE in that crap?!!  ANYONE WHO TAKES THAT STUFF 
SERIOUSLY IS A CRACKPOT."  And of course the uncritical Believers want to 
welcome you into the fold.


This above situation strongly suggests that certain topics have never been 
given a chance in the past.  If each time someone tries to give them a 
chance, and is stopped by colleages, then we may actually have no idea 
whether those topics are truely Woo or not, since nobody is allowed to 
take them seriously enough to properly "do the homework" before making an 
informed decision.  If we have to take on the (perceived) crackpot mantle 
in order to do proper homework, then that's exactly what's needed: declare 
oneself to be a True Believer Raving Loonie, then have at it.  (Perhaps 
use a fake name here in order to protect one's professional rep.)


  http://amasci.com/weird/vmore.html
  "Even so, I believe that many scientists have a habit of rejecting new
  ideas because they unknowingly maintain an illusory worldview which is
  based on concensus of colleagues, rather than upon evidence, and as a
  result they become irrational. They become very intolerant of all ideas
  which violate that consensus, and will instantly and thoughtlessly
  reject the evidence supporting such ideas.   This forum is for
  scientist-types (including amateurs!) with a low tolerance for anything
  resembling mob-rule, and a high tolerance for those crazy hypotheses.





(( ( (  (   ((O))   )  ) ) )))
William J. BeatySCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb at amasci com http://amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits   amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair
Seattle, WA  206-762-3818unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci

RE: [Vo]:Palladium vs Ni-62

[Jones Beene]

Robin,

If that was his strategy, he may have made a costly error in the wording.

The way the application and main claim is drafted now, in the context of
prior art - essentially seems to protect only the use of Ni-62. 

A logical scenario, based on Focardi's contacts with the Italian nuclear
establishment would be that he and Rossi have tried various combinations of
enriched isotopes - and are now convinced that only this one is active. 

It does not make sense to draft the patent application the way it reads now,
otherwise.



In reply to  Jones Beene's message:
Hi,

I suspect that Rossi put 62Ni in the patent application to play it safe. He
knows that some other isotopes could give rise to radioactive isotopes, and
wants to avoid that, so that his reactors can be placed in homes. However
that
doesn't necessarily mean that other isotopes won't work. It could however
mean
that use of other isotopes might result in power production remaining (at
least
somewhat) centralized for the time being.

BTW I already suggested to him that he consider adding 60Ni. His reply was
to
the effect that that information is proprietary.

>If the commercialization of LENR were to resolve on the single issue of
cost
>of the active metal host, the winner would likely be counterintuitive,
based
>on present assumptions.
>
>Palladium these days sells for $ 708/oz or about $25 gram.
>Nickel-62 - "request a quote" the price is highly dependent on the quantity
>to be ordered. 
>
>The range of quotes for 10 gram orders is from $100,000 to $200,000. The
>purity is 95-97%.
>
>The info above, favoring palladium, seems to be unequivocal but in fact -
>that conclusion is superficial. 
>
>First, palladium is rare and the price is extremely sensitive to demand. It
>could double overnight and has done so, historically. There is no chance of
>it going down. Then there is deuterium, which is also costly.
>
>Second, nickel as a bulk metal is pretty cheap - and will go up but there
>are limits.  As of May 09, 2013: $6.95 per pound is the quote for nickel.
In
>terms of increased demand, it could go over $10/lb but probably not over
$20
>- since it is a high tonnage metal already.
>
>The natural content of Ni-62 is between 3-4%. If half of this can be
removed
>from a gaseous feedstock, the remaining nickel is still worth the same as
>bulk nickel. That is a major advantage over other isotopes used for
>enrichment. The purity or conversely - the enrichment level can probably be
>low. That is of highest importance for lower cost. It nickel sometimes
works
>in an un-enriched state, then the level needed for reliable operation could
>be relatively low in the 15-20 percent range - and easier to manufacture.
>
>There is only one gaseous form of nickel, but when gasified, nickel could
be
>enriched in the same kind of ultra-centrifuge cascade used for U. The cost
>of enrichment from this process is well-known and probably applicable to
>nickel. 
>
>Therefore we are faced with this scenario: what is the fair price of
>Nickel-62 in the event that LENR is proved and the demand skyrockets? 
>
>This price -  in the end will be a matter of politics but highly influenced
>by supply/demand economics and the desire of the military to have this kind
>of power available, especially in aviation. There will be subsidies to
>promote LENR - perhaps more than what was given to fission, solar energy
and
>oil - due to its presumed ecological advantages but they will be hard
>fought.
>
>There are many independent companies providing isotopes of all kinds now,
>but in the end none of them own gas centrifuge plants for high volume. The
>price charged by an mothballed plant could be relatively low - given the
>sunk cost and need for jobs in states like Kentucky and Ohio where these
>plants exist and which can be switched over to nickel.
>
>Everything gets down to politics in the end, but that equation does not
>favor LENR in the USA, due to big oil ... but it does favor LENR in Asia.
>China is a wild-card in the rapid commercialization of LENR.
>
>Jones
>
>
>
Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

RE: [Vo]:Palladium vs Ni-62

[Jones Beene]

Well "cost effective" would be in the context of the value of the output
over time, no? 

If Rossi could buy nickel powder enriched in the active isotope by a factor
of 8-10 times over natural enrichment  - and get it for $100 per gram (in
quantity) and he needs only 10 grams for a 10 kW reactor then it is cost
effective.

If DGT is correct, in that they do not need enrichment - then they are in
doubly good shape, given the wording of Rossi's patent application, but who
can be believed ? We have seen even less real results from DGT than from
Rossi.

Mills has shown that nickel and hydrogen alone can work, but apparently
reliability is the issue no one wants to talk about. 

If this isotope has made reliability a non-issue for Rossi, we should know
in the next few months. He seems more confident than ever, but it could be
part of a charade.

_
From: Arnaud Kodeck 

It's a very interesting analysis. I just to want to add 2 comments:

Rossi always claims to have very cost effective powder and catalyst.
If enriched nickel is needed, stop me if I'm wrong, but there is no
intrinsic reason to have a very high purity of Ni62. The last percents are
always the most expensive to have.

That contradicts also the claims from Defkalion. Defkalion says that
all the even isotope are suitable.


<>

Re: [Vo]:Why you should believe the Toyota Roulette data

[Jed Rothwell]

Mark Gibbs  wrote:

Are the fine details of the Toyota experimental set up known?
>

Not known to me. But some details are straightforward. You can see from the
paper it was bulk Pd-D at high temperatures. When the Pd loads and the
effect turns on, high temperature increases the reaction rate, so it is no
surprise they got so much heat for so long.

The most important factor in a cold fusion experiment is the choice of host
metal; the Pd cathode in this case. As Miles showed in Table 10, if the
person doing the experiment is skilled, the success rate varies from zero
to 100% depending on the material. (This is one of the things I will talk
about at ICCF18.)

The Pd at Toyota was supplied by Johnson Matthey (JM). As shown in Miles
Table 10, JM material in the 1990s was FAR better than anyone else's. It
worked 100% of the time and it produced 10 to 100 times more power.
Nowadays the ENEA might have caught up. I wouldn't know about that. Anyway,
back then JM knew how to make this material and everyone else was guessing
and shooting in the dark. Tanaka Precious Metals was trying to figure it
out. If they had listened to Storms they might have done better. JM learned
how to make this material in 1930s, for their palladium filters. It happens
the two applications have similar requirements.

Martin Fleischmann understood that. He knew that before he began the
experiments in the 1980s, because -- as he told me -- "I told JM what I was
looking for, and they gave me this Pd." He was a complicated person but
sometimes he used the direct approach.

Anyway, JM supplied all of the materials used in the Toyota lab. They did
all of the post-experiment analysis and other materials work. The materials
got better. The electrochemistry got better. When it began to work like
gangbusters, Toyota and JM began arguing about who owned what, and they
both ended packing up their marbles and going home. I have my own opinions
about who was more at fault, but I'll keep that opinion to myself. The
point is, when it began to smell like a trillion dollar market, both sides
decided they wanted all the marbles. That often happens in business.

That's the story I heard anyway. A typical cold fusion tragic fiasco. You
don't know whether to laugh or cry.

So, JM knows. Or knew. The people there who knew are retired or dead.



> Has anyone tried to replicate that configuration?
>

ENEA, as I said. They are doing pretty well.



> and regarding the NEDO project "we never replicated" (which was an
>> outright lie).
>>
>
> Who were the "others"? And who delivered the outright lie?
>

I refer to the work done by Fleischmann there, and also Miles, which he
described here:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesMnedofinalr.pdf

The agency is NEDO, the project was called NHE (New Hydrogen Energy).

When Miles started getting excess heat, he invited the Japanese managers to
come down the hall and look. They did not rouse themselves to do that.
After he left, they published a report that did not mention the work of
Fleischmann or Miles. As I recall, they published an absurd version of his
graph, physically impossible, with negative heat (impossible endothermic
reactions). He reproduced it in one of his papers.

As I recall, the official report ignored Fleischmann and Miles. They
published a confidential report, in Japanese. Someone at NEDO leaked it I
guess. Fleischmann and Miles sent me a copy. I translated it. It distorted
their results and denigrated them. They were pretty upset! That's where the
story ends.

Clearly, the fix was in. They did not want any excess heat. My gut feeling
is that they wanted it when the project began but by the time Miles was
there, they had given up hope and they wanted to close the program down.
The project was pretty much as waste of money, as McKubre and others
agreed. It was basically a bunch of highly skilled corporate engineers
learning electrochemistry by trial and error on the government's dime. They
did not have any professional electrochemists involved. Mizuno was 40
minutes away, right there in Sapporo, but they did not invite him. When the
staff started talking to him, they ordered them not to. They did not want
to be associated with any cold fusion researchers I guess. I got a sense
the the NHE people considered cold fusion researchers to be freaks and
losers. They were going to take over the research and show how to do it
right.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Jed Rothwell]

Kevin O'Malley  wrote:

We need to know where to draw the line. Which facts do we consider so
> obvious that when someone denies them, they're a debunker rather than small
> 's' skeptic.
>

It is a judgement call.

Science is objective, yet at the finest level of detail, it is a judgement
call. It has a strange duality. The key question has always been:

How many replications does it take to ensure an effect is real?

Everyone will have a different answer. A knowledgeable person will want to
look at the papers, and evaluate the skills of the researchers, the choice
of instruments, the signal to noise ratios and so on. For an experimental
finding as surprising as cold fusion, I think most people will demand 5 or
10 "quality" replications from professional labs. What constitutes
"quality" is partly matter of opinion.

Somewhere between 10 replications and 180, it becomes irrational to deny
the effect is real. Is that number 15? 20? 50? Only you can decide, but I
would say that by 1990 there were so many replications of heat and tritium
that any continued doubts were irrational.

A Bayesian analysis sheds some light on this. (See Johnson and Melich).
Still, deciding exactly where you draw the line becomes a little like
Mandelbrot's question: "how long is the coast of England?" The closer you
look, the fuzzier it becomes.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[William Beaty]

On Sun, 12 May 2013, Eugen Leitl wrote:


Which would be in violation of Rule 2, as well.


How about this part:

  "Note that "small-s skepticism" of the openminded sort is perfectly
  acceptable on Vortex-L.  We crackpots don't want to be *completely*
  self-deluding.  :)  The ban here is aimed at Debunkers; at "certain
  disbelief" and its self-superior and archly hostile results, and at the
  sort of "Skeptic" who angrily disbelieves all that is not solidly proved
  true, while carefully rejecting all new data and observations which
  conflict with the widely accepted theories of the time. "

But if you wish to adopt a prior stance of disbelief before investigation, 
and then become selective of evidence, and then permanently maintain your 
viewpoint against any changes whatsoever, and label this "being skeptical" 
...that belongs on some other forum.   Try JREF and others listed on my 
page at http://amasci.com/weird/wskept.html


This old essay on the scientific attitude hits it exactly:

  Keep your bead on the wire
  http://amasci.com/freenrg/bead.html

Science is above all tentative.  People with "sliding beads" regarding CF 
(etc.) are not debunkers.  And debunkers are not scientists, debunkers are 
the police who know the law and who chase the bad guys.  Who then decides 
whether a "crime" has been committed: who the bad guys are?   That's the 
"judiciary."  But the Skeptic community has none who can, for example, 
globally "write a law" after *extensive openminded investigation,* a law 
which declares that CF is True Bunk, and now sends the entire skeptic 
community down upon us.  Or a "law" saying CF is still not settled and 
open to question, and all debunkers are "legally" required to leave those 
guys alone and go concentrate as usual on the ripoffs and the 
self-promotors of truely dangerous ignorance.



It seems that anything (to put it politely) is on-topic here but
a critical view on LENR.


Nope.

I respond to complaints, and especially to large amounts of traffic coming 
from someone using a fake name.  If you want to be devil's advocate, just 
don't be an avowed debunker, and please include a "sig" to let us see your 
CV etc.  (Heh, I still haven't added a forum rule about the continuing 
problem of people who use fake names to avoid any need to "man up" and 
take personal responsibility.  Too many need to use fake names for legit 
reasons.)





(( ( (  (   ((O))   )  ) ) )))
William J. BeatySCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb at amasci com http://amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits   amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair
Seattle, WA  206-762-3818unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci

Re: [Vo]:Palladium vs Ni-62

[mixent]

In reply to  Jones Beene's message of Sun, 12 May 2013 12:41:36 -0700:
Hi,

I suspect that Rossi put 62Ni in the patent application to play it safe. He
knows that some other isotopes could give rise to radioactive isotopes, and
wants to avoid that, so that his reactors can be placed in homes. However that
doesn't necessarily mean that other isotopes won't work. It could however mean
that use of other isotopes might result in power production remaining (at least
somewhat) centralized for the time being.

BTW I already suggested to him that he consider adding 60Ni. His reply was to
the effect that that information is proprietary.

>If the commercialization of LENR were to resolve on the single issue of cost
>of the active metal host, the winner would likely be counterintuitive, based
>on present assumptions.
>
>Palladium these days sells for $ 708/oz or about $25 gram.
>Nickel-62 - "request a quote" the price is highly dependent on the quantity
>to be ordered. 
>
>The range of quotes for 10 gram orders is from $100,000 to $200,000. The
>purity is 95-97%.
>
>The info above, favoring palladium, seems to be unequivocal but in fact -
>that conclusion is superficial. 
>
>First, palladium is rare and the price is extremely sensitive to demand. It
>could double overnight and has done so, historically. There is no chance of
>it going down. Then there is deuterium, which is also costly.
>
>Second, nickel as a bulk metal is pretty cheap - and will go up but there
>are limits.  As of May 09, 2013: $6.95 per pound is the quote for nickel. In
>terms of increased demand, it could go over $10/lb but probably not over $20
>- since it is a high tonnage metal already.
>
>The natural content of Ni-62 is between 3-4%. If half of this can be removed
>from a gaseous feedstock, the remaining nickel is still worth the same as
>bulk nickel. That is a major advantage over other isotopes used for
>enrichment. The purity or conversely - the enrichment level can probably be
>low. That is of highest importance for lower cost. It nickel sometimes works
>in an un-enriched state, then the level needed for reliable operation could
>be relatively low in the 15-20 percent range - and easier to manufacture.
>
>There is only one gaseous form of nickel, but when gasified, nickel could be
>enriched in the same kind of ultra-centrifuge cascade used for U. The cost
>of enrichment from this process is well-known and probably applicable to
>nickel. 
>
>Therefore we are faced with this scenario: what is the fair price of
>Nickel-62 in the event that LENR is proved and the demand skyrockets? 
>
>This price -  in the end will be a matter of politics but highly influenced
>by supply/demand economics and the desire of the military to have this kind
>of power available, especially in aviation. There will be subsidies to
>promote LENR - perhaps more than what was given to fission, solar energy and
>oil - due to its presumed ecological advantages but they will be hard
>fought.
>
>There are many independent companies providing isotopes of all kinds now,
>but in the end none of them own gas centrifuge plants for high volume. The
>price charged by an mothballed plant could be relatively low - given the
>sunk cost and need for jobs in states like Kentucky and Ohio where these
>plants exist and which can be switched over to nickel.
>
>Everything gets down to politics in the end, but that equation does not
>favor LENR in the USA, due to big oil ... but it does favor LENR in Asia.
>China is a wild-card in the rapid commercialization of LENR.
>
>Jones
>
>
>
Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk

http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html

RE: [Vo]:Palladium vs Ni-62

[Arnaud Kodeck]

Jones,

It's a very interesting analysis. I just to want to add 2 comments:

Rossi always claims to have very cost effective powder and catalyst. If
enriched nickel is needed, stop me if I'm wrong, but there is no intrinsic
reason to have a very high purity of Ni62. The last percents are always the
most expensive to have.

That contradicts also the claims from Defkalion. Defkalion says that all the
even isotope are suitable.

Arnaud
_
From: Jones Beene [mailto:jone...@pacbell.net] 
Sent: dimanche 12 mai 2013 21:42
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: [Vo]:Palladium vs Ni-62

If the commercialization of LENR were to resolve on the single issue of cost
of the active metal host, the winner would likely be counterintuitive, based
on present assumptions.

Palladium these days sells for $ 708/oz or about $25 gram.
Nickel-62 - "request a quote" the price is highly dependent on the quantity
to be ordered. 

The range of quotes for 10 gram orders is from $100,000 to $200,000. The
purity is 95-97%.

The info above, favoring palladium, seems to be unequivocal but in fact -
that conclusion is superficial. 

First, palladium is rare and the price is extremely sensitive to demand. It
could double overnight and has done so, historically. There is no chance of
it going down. Then there is deuterium, which is also costly.

Second, nickel as a bulk metal is pretty cheap - and will go up but there
are limits.  As of May 09, 2013: $6.95 per pound is the quote for nickel. In
terms of increased demand, it could go over $10/lb but probably not over $20
- since it is a high tonnage metal already.

The natural content of Ni-62 is between 3-4%. If half of this can be removed
from a gaseous feedstock, the remaining nickel is still worth the same as
bulk nickel. That is a major advantage over other isotopes used for
enrichment. The purity or conversely - the enrichment level can probably be
low. That is of highest importance for lower cost. It nickel sometimes works
in an un-enriched state, then the level needed for reliable operation could
be relatively low in the 15-20 percent range - and easier to manufacture.

There is only one gaseous form of nickel, but when gasified, nickel could be
enriched in the same kind of ultra-centrifuge cascade used for U. The cost
of enrichment from this process is well-known and probably applicable to
nickel. 

Therefore we are faced with this scenario: what is the fair price of
Nickel-62 in the event that LENR is proved and the demand skyrockets? 

This price -  in the end will be a matter of politics but highly influenced
by supply/demand economics and the desire of the military to have this kind
of power available, especially in aviation. There will be subsidies to
promote LENR - perhaps more than what was given to fission, solar energy and
oil - due to its presumed ecological advantages but they will be hard
fought.

There are many independent companies providing isotopes of all kinds now,
but in the end none of them own gas centrifuge plants for high volume. The
price charged by an mothballed plant could be relatively low - given the
sunk cost and need for jobs in states like Kentucky and Ohio where these
plants exist and which can be switched over to nickel.

Everything gets down to politics in the end, but that equation does not
favor LENR in the USA, due to big oil ... but it does favor LENR in Asia.
China is a wild-card in the rapid commercialization of LENR.

Jones




<>

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Kevin O'Malley]

So, here's two cases where Joshua Cude and Jed Rothwell concur about
evidence.
***It is this kind of common ground and base set of facts that we should
try to establish as a group.  If anyone comes along hoping to debunk it,
they can read the base set of facts and either move on or engage with us.

If I were to try to log onto a unicorn discussion group, and they were all
obviously unicorn 'believers', what is the point of trying to separate them
from their unicornian beliefs?  But if they cite genuine historical
evidence that they rely on to pursue their belief system, and we're invited
to investigate that evidence rationally, then there is some common ground
between us.  For a non-unicornian to try to impose his viewpoint that if
unicorns are real, they must be amphibians, is beyond the pale for
unicornians.   But for a rule to exist that all participants should adhere
to the belief that unicorns can fly is also beyond the pale.  The common
ground is what we need to establish.


On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 12:23 PM, Rich Murray  wrote:

> "I think many people have expressed highly skeptical view of BLP, Rossi
> and others here. I think most of this skepticism is justified!"  -- Jed
> Rothwell
>
> So, here's two cases where Joshua Cude and Jed Rothwell concur about
> evidence.
>
> The claims about Toyota's successes are indeed extraordinary evidence:
>
> " They achieved high reproducibility, routinely triggering boil offs in
> 64 cells at a time. The work culminated with cells that ran for weeks at
> boiling temperature, at 40 to 100 W. See:
>
> http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RouletteTresultsofi.pdf  [ 9 pages ]
>
> This project was terminated because of politics and disputes over money
> between Toyota and other companies, not because the research itself
> failed."  -- Jed Rothwell
>
> "Roulette, T., J. Roulette, and S. Pons. Results of ICARUS 9 Experiments
> Run at IMRA Europe.
>
> in Sixth International Conference on Cold Fusion, Progress in New Hydrogen
> Energy. 1996. Lake Toya, Hokkaido, Japan: New Energy
> and Industrial Technology Development Organization, Tokyo Institute of
> Technology, Tokyo, Japan.
>
> RESULTS OF ICARUS 9 EXPERIMENTS RUN AT IMRA EUROPE
> T. Roulette, J, Roulette, and S. Pons
> IMRA Europe, S.A., Centre Scientifique
> Sophia Antipolis, 06560 Valbonne , FRANCE
>
> INTRODUCTION
>
> We describe herein the construction, testing, calibration and use of a
> high power dissipation calorimeter
> suitable for the measurements of excess enthalpy generation in Pd / Pd
> alloy cathodes during the electrolysis of heavy water electrolytes at
> temperatures up to and including the boiling point of the electrolyte.
>
> With the present design, power dissipation up to about 400W is possible.
>
> Excess power levels of up to ~250% of the input power have been observed
> with these calorimeters in some experiments. Extensions of the design to
> include recombination catalysts on open and pressurized cells will be the
> subject of a future report."
>
> 2 of 7 runs, months long, gave excess heat.
> no details about how the Pd cathodes were prepared and changed.
> no references are given.
> how qualified are T. and J. Roulette?
>
> Joshua Cude, would you comment on this on newvortex?
>
> within the fellowship of service,  Rich Murray
>
>
> On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 8:47 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
>
>> Jones Beene  wrote:
>>
>> There is plenty of room to be skeptical that LENR will ever get to market.
>>> Cude was correct on that point. I think that airing alternative
>>> viewpoints
>>> on the subject of what it takes for commercialization can be quite
>>> productive for the future of the field.
>>
>>
>> Exactly right. Plus there are many technical claims that are questionable
>> or not repeated yet. Host metal transmutation is not as well established
>> as, say, tritium. Iwamura has done good work and Toyota replicated him, but
>> it is still long way from the tritium results.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Many of us really resent the efforts of those who want to impugn many
>>> years
>>> of quality research at Universities, SRI, National Labs and so on - by
>>> top
>>> researchers. Sure, there is some research which is substandard, but that
>>> is
>>> not the point. The existing level of good research almost certainly
>>> proves
>>> than nuclear reactions can occur at low temperature.
>>
>>
>> Yup, I resent that!
>>
>>
>> To be in denial of that
>>> evidence by skeptics is no more than intellectual dishonesty.
>>>
>>
>> Maybe it is with some people. But I think the debate is reasonably fair.
>> Most supporters and skeptics who are wrong (wrong in my opinion) are making
>> honest mistakes, or they are ignorant, or they interpret the data wrong.
>> Cude strikes me as honest in his opinions. I think he sincerely believes
>> that McKubre Fig. 1 has no significance, because most cells do not achieve
>> the high loading shown there. That is a mistake, not dishonest. He does not
>> understand the point of this graph.
>>
>> Perhaps h

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Kevin O'Malley]

We need to know where to draw the line. Which facts do we consider so
obvious that when someone denies them, they're a debunker rather than small
's' skeptic.


On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 9:25 PM, Kevin O'Malley  wrote:

> By 'we' I mean Vortex minus debunkers. Small 's' skeptics are welcome, but
> debunkers are not. We need to know where to draw the line. Which facts do
> we consider so obvious that when someone denies them, they're a debunker
> rather than small 's' skeptic.
> Vortex rules:
> http://amasci.com/weird/vmore.html
> Note that "small-s skepticism" of the openminded sort is perfectly
> acceptable on Vortex-L. We crackpots don't want to be *completely*
> self-deluding. :) The ban here is aimed at Debunkers; at "certain
> disbeleif" and its self-superior and archly hostile results, and at the
> sort of "Skeptic" who angrily disbelieves all that is not solidly proved
> true, while carefully rejecting all new data and observations which
> conflict with the widely accepted theories of the time.
>
>
> On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 8:02 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
>
>> Kevin O'Malley  wrote:
>>
>> To the Japanese in 1941, Americans seemed outlandish. To the skeptics who
>>> agree with Cude or Close, we are the ones disconnected from reality. We are
>>> illogical and even mentally ill thinking that we can "fuse hydrogen in a
>>> mason jar." I do not think it does any good getting angry at such people.
>>> It is important that you understand their mindset.
>>>
>> ***Okay, Jed. What we need as a group is a minimum set of facts that we
>>> agree are incontrovertible.
>>>
>>
>> Sure, but we cannot expect people like Cude to agree with any of them. A
>> person can always find a reason to dismiss something. Cude says that the
>> tritium results may all be mistakes or fraud. Jones Beene accused him of
>> being intellectually dishonest, but I assume Cude is sincere. Bockris
>> tallied up tritium reports and said that over 100 labs detected it. If I
>> were Cude, this would give me pause. I find it impossible to imagine there
>> are so so many incompetent scientists, I cannot think of why scientists
>> would publish fake data that triggers attacks on their reputation by the
>> Washington Post. What would be the motive? But I am sure that Cude, and
>> Park, and the others sincerely believe that scientists are deliberately
>> trashing their own reputations by publishing fake data.
>>
>>  I would think it is that Pons & Fleischmann were careful
>>> electrochemists, the preeminent of their day.
>>>
>>
>> Of course they were, but no skeptic will agree. Fleischmann was the
>> president of the Electrochemical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society,
>> but Cude and the others are convinced he was a sloppy, mentally ill
>> criminal. That's what they say, and I do not think they would say it if
>> they did not believe it.
>>
>>  That the physicists who chose to debunk their findings were far from
>>> careful due to inexperience in electrochemistry and this led to their
>>> negative findings.
>>>
>>
>> There were many reasons experiments failed in 1989. Some of the failed
>> experiments were carefully done, but they used the wrong diagnostics. Most
>> of them looked for neutrons instead of heat.
>>
>>  That there have been 14,700 replications of the P-F anomolous heat
>>> effect. If not, then how many? 180, as per Storms and National Instruments?
>>>
>>
>> Those are two different tallies. The 14,700 is the number of individual
>> positive runs reported in the literature for all techniques, including glow
>> discharge. 180 is the number of laboratories reporting success. Some of
>> those labs saw excess heat many times. If 180 labs measure excess heat 10
>> times each, that would be 1,800 positive runs in the Chinese tally.
>>
>> I do not know where the Chinese got their data. Presumably from published
>> papers. I have not gone through papers counting up positive and negative
>> runs.
>>
>> What are the base minimum set of facts that we all agree on?
>>>
>>
>> If "we" include the skeptics there is not a single fact we all agree on.
>> Not one. Cude looks at Fig. 1 in the McKubre paper and says the peak at 94%
>> loading means nothing. I think he says it is the result of random effects
>> or cherry-picked data. I look at it and say it proves there is a
>> controlling parameter (loading) that cannot possibly cause artifactual
>> excess heat, so this proves the effect is real. I say that even if only 20%
>> achieve high loading, the other 80% are not relevant. Even if only one in a
>> million achieved high loading this would still prove the effect is real.
>> Cude looks at the preponderance of cells that do not achieve high loading
>> and he concludes that they prove this graph is meaningless noise. There is
>> absolutely no reconciling our points of view.
>>
>> From my point of view, his assertion is scientifically illiterate. He
>> does not seem to understand how graphs work, and what it means to say that
>> data is significant rat

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Jed Rothwell]

ken deboer  wrote:

>
> Admittedly, I have not read anywhere near all the papers available (and
> don't understand most of  them very well anyway) but It seems like it could
> be fruitful to initiate a new 'Symposium'  that the experts could
> occasionally contribute a piece to
> .
>

That is what ICCF conferences are for. Read the proceedings. Researchers do
not have time to write more than that.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Jed Rothwell]

Eric Walker  wrote:


> We assume here that in general LENR researchers are competent overall.
>  One should just accept this as a ground rule. . . .
>

Yes. They are professionals, after all. Before they did cold fusion no one
thought they were not experts. That is not to say that every single
professional is competent, but statistically most of them are, and when you
get a group this large it is certain that several will be.



> It's simply that one can't get away with a facile statement to the effect
> that "there is no reliable evidence that the tritium findings are not
> contamination, etc." and expect it to advance anyone's understanding.  It's
> just a dogmatic assertion, since there are specific reasons to think it's
> wrong.
>

Exactly.



> It's fine if the burden of evidence elsewhere would not permit one to
> refer to the LENR tritium findings.  The point is that the burden of
> evidence *here* allows one to do so . . .
>

Actually, in a valid forum for science, this should always be the rule. It
is outlandish to claim that there might a problem with standard instruments
and methods when used by a large group of experts. That is true whether you
are talking about measuring tritium, or heat, rainfall, blood pressure or
any other physical property. A person who says that such widespread, long
established techniques are not reliable has a heavy burden of proof. To
start with, you have to point out specific errors made by specific people.
No skeptic has done this. Morrison and a few others tried, but they failed.

A brand new type of measurement, or one made with an experimental new type
of instrument, may be open to question. Measurements by amateurs with
homemade instruments are always open to question!

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[ken deboer]

I'd venture to make a suggestion, or request.   Not to disparage or
discourage all that goes on here, but to encourage also maybe a slight veer
to the left (right?).  Admittedly, I have not read anywhere near all the
papers available (and don't understand most of  them very well anyway) but
It seems like it could be fruitful to initiate a new 'Symposium'  that the
experts could occasionally contribute a piece to
.  I'd like to hear more about the nature of the NAE and also what kinds of
new (and old) methods and knowledge from  a plethora of aspects could
profitably be conjectured about.  e.g. what do we really know about
Celani's 'prepared' wire,  or Parchamanazad's Pd lattices, Piantelli;s
etc.  Especially interesting, I think, would be to bring in a raft of
findings from the recent literature on Material Science, especially nano,
and metallurgy, nanophotonics, 'manufactured' atom structures, and the
like.
(Hopefully soon we might also be able to even tear into one of Rossi's cats
and reverse engineer the nano and/or microparticles),



On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 1:30 PM, Eric Walker  wrote:

> On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 11:39 AM, leaking pen  wrote:
>
> The standard skepticism that any scientist should have, wishing to
>> explore, to look at the evidence, to experiment and refine, is , from what
>> I've seen, welcome here. What is not is blindly saying, THis cannot be
>> true, and then, THEN, after deciding something is false, going about poking
>> every hole in it possible.  Should the same arguements be made from a point
>> of, Did you consider this, did you take that into account, how can we
>> refine this and make it a BETTER model, then there wouldnt be an issue, I
>> believe.
>>
>
> Right.
>
> To be concrete, I think the issue is primarily one about attention to
> detail and to questions of burden of evidence.  It's fine to be skeptical
> of the tritium evidence, for example.  But if one is going to argue against
> it, one is going to have a lot of work to do.  One will have to show how
> each tritium result in each experiment was wrong or questionable, in
> specific detail; i.e., the burden of evidence (on this list, at any rate)
> will be on the person arguing against tritium having been found in some
> LENR experiments.  We assume here that in general LENR researchers are
> competent overall.  One should just accept this as a ground rule.  This is
> not at all to say that all of the tritium findings have been reliable or
> that all or even perhaps many of the experiments were done well.  It's
> simply that one can't get away with a facile statement to the effect that
> "there is no reliable evidence that the tritium findings are not
> contamination, etc." and expect it to advance anyone's understanding.  It's
> just a dogmatic assertion, since there are specific reasons to think it's
> wrong.
>
> It's fine if the burden of evidence elsewhere would not permit one to
> refer to the LENR tritium findings.  The point is that the burden of
> evidence *here* allows one to do so, and in order to modify or unseat the
> general conclusion that tritium has been found in some LENR experiments,
> one is going to have to do quite a bit of work in connection with the
> specific details of specific experiments. The burden of evidence is
> reversed here, and there is no free lunch for someone who wishes to argue
> against tritium.
>
> Eric
>
>

[Vo]:Palladium vs Ni-62

[Jones Beene]

If the commercialization of LENR were to resolve on the single issue of cost
of the active metal host, the winner would likely be counterintuitive, based
on present assumptions.

Palladium these days sells for $ 708/oz or about $25 gram.
Nickel-62 - "request a quote" the price is highly dependent on the quantity
to be ordered. 

The range of quotes for 10 gram orders is from $100,000 to $200,000. The
purity is 95-97%.

The info above, favoring palladium, seems to be unequivocal but in fact -
that conclusion is superficial. 

First, palladium is rare and the price is extremely sensitive to demand. It
could double overnight and has done so, historically. There is no chance of
it going down. Then there is deuterium, which is also costly.

Second, nickel as a bulk metal is pretty cheap - and will go up but there
are limits.  As of May 09, 2013: $6.95 per pound is the quote for nickel. In
terms of increased demand, it could go over $10/lb but probably not over $20
- since it is a high tonnage metal already.

The natural content of Ni-62 is between 3-4%. If half of this can be removed
from a gaseous feedstock, the remaining nickel is still worth the same as
bulk nickel. That is a major advantage over other isotopes used for
enrichment. The purity or conversely - the enrichment level can probably be
low. That is of highest importance for lower cost. It nickel sometimes works
in an un-enriched state, then the level needed for reliable operation could
be relatively low in the 15-20 percent range - and easier to manufacture.

There is only one gaseous form of nickel, but when gasified, nickel could be
enriched in the same kind of ultra-centrifuge cascade used for U. The cost
of enrichment from this process is well-known and probably applicable to
nickel. 

Therefore we are faced with this scenario: what is the fair price of
Nickel-62 in the event that LENR is proved and the demand skyrockets? 

This price -  in the end will be a matter of politics but highly influenced
by supply/demand economics and the desire of the military to have this kind
of power available, especially in aviation. There will be subsidies to
promote LENR - perhaps more than what was given to fission, solar energy and
oil - due to its presumed ecological advantages but they will be hard
fought.

There are many independent companies providing isotopes of all kinds now,
but in the end none of them own gas centrifuge plants for high volume. The
price charged by an mothballed plant could be relatively low - given the
sunk cost and need for jobs in states like Kentucky and Ohio where these
plants exist and which can be switched over to nickel.

Everything gets down to politics in the end, but that equation does not
favor LENR in the USA, due to big oil ... but it does favor LENR in Asia.
China is a wild-card in the rapid commercialization of LENR.

Jones




<>

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Eric Walker]

On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 11:39 AM, leaking pen  wrote:

The standard skepticism that any scientist should have, wishing to explore,
> to look at the evidence, to experiment and refine, is , from what I've
> seen, welcome here. What is not is blindly saying, THis cannot be true, and
> then, THEN, after deciding something is false, going about poking every
> hole in it possible.  Should the same arguements be made from a point of,
> Did you consider this, did you take that into account, how can we refine
> this and make it a BETTER model, then there wouldnt be an issue, I believe.
>

Right.

To be concrete, I think the issue is primarily one about attention to
detail and to questions of burden of evidence.  It's fine to be skeptical
of the tritium evidence, for example.  But if one is going to argue against
it, one is going to have a lot of work to do.  One will have to show how
each tritium result in each experiment was wrong or questionable, in
specific detail; i.e., the burden of evidence (on this list, at any rate)
will be on the person arguing against tritium having been found in some
LENR experiments.  We assume here that in general LENR researchers are
competent overall.  One should just accept this as a ground rule.  This is
not at all to say that all of the tritium findings have been reliable or
that all or even perhaps many of the experiments were done well.  It's
simply that one can't get away with a facile statement to the effect that
"there is no reliable evidence that the tritium findings are not
contamination, etc." and expect it to advance anyone's understanding.  It's
just a dogmatic assertion, since there are specific reasons to think it's
wrong.

It's fine if the burden of evidence elsewhere would not permit one to refer
to the LENR tritium findings.  The point is that the burden of evidence
*here* allows one to do so, and in order to modify or unseat the general
conclusion that tritium has been found in some LENR experiments, one is
going to have to do quite a bit of work in connection with the specific
details of specific experiments. The burden of evidence is reversed here,
and there is no free lunch for someone who wishes to argue against tritium.

Eric

Re: [Vo]:Why you should believe the Toyota Roulette data

[Mark Gibbs]

Are the fine details of the Toyota experimental set up known? Has anyone
tried to replicate that configuration?

On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 10:47 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote:


> Others said that the Toyota research and the NEDO program were stopped
> because "progress was too slow" (I agree), and "we determined this did not
> align with our corporate goals" (which I think is nonsense), and regarding
> the NEDO project "we never replicated" (which was an outright lie).
>

Who were the "others"? And who delivered the outright lie?

[m]

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Rich Murray]

"I think many people have expressed highly skeptical view of BLP, Rossi and
others here. I think most of this skepticism is justified!"  -- Jed Rothwell

So, here's two cases where Joshua Cude and Jed Rothwell concur about
evidence.

The claims about Toyota's successes are indeed extraordinary evidence:

" They achieved high reproducibility, routinely triggering boil offs in 64
cells at a time. The work culminated with cells that ran for weeks at
boiling temperature, at 40 to 100 W. See:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RouletteTresultsofi.pdf  [ 9 pages ]

This project was terminated because of politics and disputes over money
between Toyota and other companies, not because the research itself
failed."  -- Jed Rothwell

"Roulette, T., J. Roulette, and S. Pons. Results of ICARUS 9 Experiments
Run at IMRA Europe.

in Sixth International Conference on Cold Fusion, Progress in New Hydrogen
Energy. 1996. Lake Toya, Hokkaido, Japan: New Energy
and Industrial Technology Development Organization, Tokyo Institute of
Technology, Tokyo, Japan.

RESULTS OF ICARUS 9 EXPERIMENTS RUN AT IMRA EUROPE
T. Roulette, J, Roulette, and S. Pons
IMRA Europe, S.A., Centre Scientifique
Sophia Antipolis, 06560 Valbonne , FRANCE

INTRODUCTION

We describe herein the construction, testing, calibration and use of a high
power dissipation calorimeter
suitable for the measurements of excess enthalpy generation in Pd / Pd
alloy cathodes during the electrolysis of heavy water electrolytes at
temperatures up to and including the boiling point of the electrolyte.

With the present design, power dissipation up to about 400W is possible.

Excess power levels of up to ~250% of the input power have been observed
with these calorimeters in some experiments. Extensions of the design to
include recombination catalysts on open and pressurized cells will be the
subject of a future report."

2 of 7 runs, months long, gave excess heat.
no details about how the Pd cathodes were prepared and changed.
no references are given.
how qualified are T. and J. Roulette?

Joshua Cude, would you comment on this on newvortex?

within the fellowship of service,  Rich Murray


On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 8:47 AM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> Jones Beene  wrote:
>
> There is plenty of room to be skeptical that LENR will ever get to market.
>> Cude was correct on that point. I think that airing alternative viewpoints
>> on the subject of what it takes for commercialization can be quite
>> productive for the future of the field.
>
>
> Exactly right. Plus there are many technical claims that are questionable
> or not repeated yet. Host metal transmutation is not as well established
> as, say, tritium. Iwamura has done good work and Toyota replicated him, but
> it is still long way from the tritium results.
>
>
>
>> Many of us really resent the efforts of those who want to impugn many
>> years
>> of quality research at Universities, SRI, National Labs and so on - by top
>> researchers. Sure, there is some research which is substandard, but that
>> is
>> not the point. The existing level of good research almost certainly proves
>> than nuclear reactions can occur at low temperature.
>
>
> Yup, I resent that!
>
>
> To be in denial of that
>> evidence by skeptics is no more than intellectual dishonesty.
>>
>
> Maybe it is with some people. But I think the debate is reasonably fair.
> Most supporters and skeptics who are wrong (wrong in my opinion) are making
> honest mistakes, or they are ignorant, or they interpret the data wrong.
> Cude strikes me as honest in his opinions. I think he sincerely believes
> that McKubre Fig. 1 has no significance, because most cells do not achieve
> the high loading shown there. That is a mistake, not dishonest. He does not
> understand the point of this graph.
>
> Perhaps he should make more of an effort to understand, but we can't fault
> people for misunderstanding.
>
>
>
>> This still does not prove that the World will ever benefit from this
>> technology, but that is a completely separate subject for showing that it
>> is
>> real on a laboratory scale.
>>
>
> Yes, separate. Except that some results, such as that the final results
> from Toyota, do prove that commercial level power density, i/o ratios, and
> temperatures on a small scale are possible. Whether they can be sustained
> or scaled up is an open question.
>
> You would never get those temperatures or ratios from muon catalyzed
> fusion. Plasma fusion has never achieved "fully ignited" heat after death.
>
>
>
>> That LENR is a physical reality at some scale is a given - but even so,
>> that
>> situation is far removed from the ability to take the underlying principle
>> to market.
>
>
> It sure is.
>
>
>
>> Look at Blacklight Power after running through maybe $80 million.
>> Are they close to market?
>
>
> No idea, and I would love to know.
>
>
>  A PoC device from BLP was due out in February and
>> it is not here.
>
>
> Who knows what to make of that. Sigh. . . .
>
> I think many people h

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[leaking pen]

The standard skepticism that any scientist should have, wishing to explore,
to look at the evidence, to experiment and refine, is , from what I've
seen, welcome here. What is not is blindly saying, THis cannot be true, and
then, THEN, after deciding something is false, going about poking every
hole in it possible.  Should the same arguements be made from a point of,
Did you consider this, did you take that into account, how can we refine
this and make it a BETTER model, then there wouldnt be an issue, I believe.


On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 7:29 AM, Edmund Storms wrote:

> I think we need to consider two types of skeptics. If a person does not
> even believe the validity of the subject being discussed, what can that
> skeptic contribute. If CF is not real, what is the point of discussing why
> or how it works? The second kind of skeptics works by considering  the
> basic idea being true, but have questions about the details. Cude is not
> interested in the details of CF because none of the details are correct.  I
> suggest this kind of skeptic is a waste of time once the basic idea is
> accepted.
>
> Ed Storms
>
> On May 12, 2013, at 6:07 AM, Vorl Bek wrote:
>
>  On Sat, 11 May 2013 17:53:29 -0500
>> Joshua Cude  wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I'm not interested in an inaccessible (non-archived) list like vortex-b,
>>> so
>>> I'll just slink away. I may post a few responses to Rothwell's latest
>>> replies over on wavewatching.net/fringe if they tolerate it.
>>>
>>> Otherwise, adios. It's been a slice.
>>>
>>
>> It is a pity that J Cude is leaving. While I enjoy a True Believer
>> site as much as anyone, after a while it is like eating nothing
>> but dessert - you need some meat and potatoes in the form of
>> articulate skeptics.
>>
>>
>

[Vo]:Why you should believe the Toyota Roulette data

[Jed Rothwell]

I have often cited this paper, which describes the final results from
Toyota's lab in France:

Roulette, T., J. Roulette, and S. Pons. *Results of ICARUS 9 Experiments
Run at IMRA Europe. in Sixth International Conference on Cold Fusion,
Progress in New Hydrogen Energy*. 1996. Lake Toya, Hokkaido, Japan: New
Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, Tokyo Institute
of Technology, Tokyo, Japan.

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RouletteTresultsofi.pdf

Some people have expressed doubts about this because it is no
peer-reviewed. I think this data is credible. It is probably not fake, and
not a mistake.

FAKE. This was published by Toyota researchers at conference sponsored by a
Japanese government agency (NEDO). It would be out of character for Toyota
or NEDO to countenance fake data. They would surely know it is fake.

MISTAKE. As you see in the paper, the temperatures were high and easy to
measure, and the input to output ratio was high. I do not think there is
any chance this was a mistake.

I wrote: "This project was terminated because of politics and disputes over
money between Toyota and other companies, not because the research itself
failed." That is what I heard from Martin Fleischmann and others connected
with the project. I expect this is true because it was against their
interests to tell me this.

As a long-time employee of a large company once told me: when you hear bad
news about a big corporation, you should always believe it.

Others said that the Toyota research and the NEDO program were stopped
because "progress was too slow" (I agree), and "we determined this did not
align with our corporate goals" (which I think is nonsense), and regarding
the NEDO project "we never replicated" (which was an outright lie). The
latter upset Mel Miles even though he is phlegmatic. He almost cursed about
it. He came as close to cursing as a devout Mormon chemist can come.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Eric Walker]

On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 7:31 AM, Eugen Leitl  wrote:

> If you think there is merit to a skeptical point of view, why don't you
> > write about it?
>
> Which would be in violation of Rule 2, as well.
>
> It seems that anything (to put it politely) is on-topic here but
> a critical view on LENR. That pushes the list into non-worthwhile
> territory for me as well.
>

I can't speak for Bill, and it's his forum.  But I do not think the
intention is to gather a bunch of people who already agree with one
another.  It seems to me that the goal is to have a learning process, where
people listen to one another and try to achieve mutual understanding, at
least to some degree, on the basic facts being debated.

Polemical skeptics disrupt such a learning process.  Their method is
assertion rather than trying to advance mutual understanding of the basic
facts to be understood: there are no convincing experiments, there is zero
credible evidence, every experimental result lies beneath the threshold of
detection, and, by implication, there are no cold fusion researchers who
can carry out a credible experiment.  Here there has been little to no
attempt to understand the history or the details of actual experiments.
 It's all over-broad generalization.  To agree or disagree with it, you
have to set aside a great deal of what you've already gone over and start
from the very beginning.  (Eg.: you're mistaken, as there are clearly
competent people among the cold fusion scientists, and so-and-so seems to
be seeing something above the threshold of background.  The debater is
urged to go read a single paper by the author on the topic.)  Such
over-broad generalizations are the stuff for other forums such as moletrap.
 You can't build anything upon it other than a kind of canonical skeptical
pseudo-religious discourse.  Learning about the actual interesting details
to discussed and disputed is disrupted.  The only statements that are
examined in detail are too basic to be interesting.

I think a critical view on LENR is fine, but what is to be avoided is a
"debunking" mode which employs such generalizations.  A LENR skeptic (with
the small "s") is very welcome by me (this is obviously not my list).  But
address specific details; do not rely on ad hominem or over-broad
generalizations.  Joshua Cude has been doing exactly those things.  It's a
pity, too, because he's obviously smart.  I hope smart skeptics here do not
draw the wrong lessons from the current exchange, because it's easy to miss
the point at issue -- that what is wanted is a commitment to mutual
understanding of the basic facts rather than polemical assertion of
statements that only a coterie of hardcore skeptics can get on board with.
 It's not all that complex, in the final analysis.  People just need to
respect one another's intelligence.

Eric

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Jed Rothwell]

Jones Beene  wrote:

There is plenty of room to be skeptical that LENR will ever get to market.
> Cude was correct on that point. I think that airing alternative viewpoints
> on the subject of what it takes for commercialization can be quite
> productive for the future of the field.


Exactly right. Plus there are many technical claims that are questionable
or not repeated yet. Host metal transmutation is not as well established
as, say, tritium. Iwamura has done good work and Toyota replicated him, but
it is still long way from the tritium results.



> Many of us really resent the efforts of those who want to impugn many years
> of quality research at Universities, SRI, National Labs and so on - by top
> researchers. Sure, there is some research which is substandard, but that is
> not the point. The existing level of good research almost certainly proves
> than nuclear reactions can occur at low temperature.


Yup, I resent that!


To be in denial of that
> evidence by skeptics is no more than intellectual dishonesty.
>

Maybe it is with some people. But I think the debate is reasonably fair.
Most supporters and skeptics who are wrong (wrong in my opinion) are making
honest mistakes, or they are ignorant, or they interpret the data wrong.
Cude strikes me as honest in his opinions. I think he sincerely believes
that McKubre Fig. 1 has no significance, because most cells do not achieve
the high loading shown there. That is a mistake, not dishonest. He does not
understand the point of this graph.

Perhaps he should make more of an effort to understand, but we can't fault
people for misunderstanding.



> This still does not prove that the World will ever benefit from this
> technology, but that is a completely separate subject for showing that it
> is
> real on a laboratory scale.
>

Yes, separate. Except that some results, such as that the final results
from Toyota, do prove that commercial level power density, i/o ratios, and
temperatures on a small scale are possible. Whether they can be sustained
or scaled up is an open question.

You would never get those temperatures or ratios from muon catalyzed
fusion. Plasma fusion has never achieved "fully ignited" heat after death.



> That LENR is a physical reality at some scale is a given - but even so,
> that
> situation is far removed from the ability to take the underlying principle
> to market.


It sure is.



> Look at Blacklight Power after running through maybe $80 million.
> Are they close to market?


No idea, and I would love to know.


 A PoC device from BLP was due out in February and
> it is not here.


Who knows what to make of that. Sigh. . . .

I think many people have expressed highly skeptical view of BLP, Rossi and
others here. I think most of this skepticism is justified!

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Jed Rothwell]

Vorl Bek  wrote:


> Cude's demeanor was consistently polite . . .


I disagree. I think it is rude for him not to address substantive points
raised by others, such as McKubre Fig. 1. Also, for example, he asked a
legitimate question:

"In any case, my question was really why don't *all* intelligent people
accept it."

I made a serious effort to answer that question with an important example
from history, of intelligent people who rejected what should have an
irrefutable fact: that the U.S. would win an all-out war.


"This fact should have been self-evident to every intelligent, educated
person in Japan. Why didn't *all* intelligent Japanese people believe
this?!?"

". . . there is no doubt that in 1941 intelligent people at all levels of
society enthusiastically supported the war. Why? Because they were sure
they would win. It never crossed their minds they might lose."


Cude was the one who raised this point. When I addressed it, he was rude,
dismissive and obtuse:



"I would like to explore this dreadful history a little more, because I
> know a lot about it.
>

Certainly not because it has any relevance.

What you're saying is that two countries are at war, one claims they will
crush the other, and the other doesn't believe it, and therefore cold
fusion is real. . . ."




This is not how you win a debate or make friends.

I do not care whether he was polite or not. Rudeness does not bother me.
But I know rude when I see it, and he is rude.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Edmund Storms]

Vorl, it is impossible to decide if CF is real based on the kind of  
reasoning you give below or by listening to a discussion between Cude  
and anyone else. The level of the discussion is so superficial to be  
useless. I wrote an entire book in order to place the evidence in one  
place and to show how it relates to the claims. I have over 2000  
papers in my collection that relate directly to the subject. If you do  
not know enough science to read and understand this collection, than  
you have to accept somebody's word about what it says. You are then in  
the position of believing either Cude or me or Jed,  based on which of  
us sounds more plausible.  Cude will win that argument because he says  
what you already believe and he says it very well.


If I had the time, I could refute everything Cude says using cited  
work. But if you do not have the ability to read and understand this  
work, such an effort would be useless. Cude will simply say the work  
describes error and I will say it does not. How will you judge which  
of us to believe?  Until you can buy a CF device from Wall Mart, I  
suspect you will not know what to believe. I would rather spend my  
time trying to make CF work better, and perhaps get a product to Wall  
Mart sooner, than spend my time in this kind of discussion. I hope you  
can understand my problem.


Ed Storms
On May 12, 2013, at 8:42 AM, Vorl Bek wrote:


On Sun, 12 May 2013 09:12:56 -0400
Jed Rothwell  wrote:

If you think there is merit to a skeptical point of view, why don't  
you

write about it?


I don't know very much about this business and I can not debate it,
but I consider myself to be like a juror listening to the
testimony of experts: I may not understand all of what they say,
but I can get a pretty good idea of which one's testimony makes
the most sense.

Cude's demeanor was consistently polite; the several people he
was up against were rather less polite in many instances, and one
of them was downright churlish.

None of them seemed to me to be as convincing as Cude was.

From reading the exchanges here and on other forums, I have the
impression (my 'verdict') that the evidence for lenr is
either:

anecdotal ('all the water boiled out of the bucket!';'there
was a terrific explosion!' - that sort of report), but that the
events can not be repeated;

or

laboratory curiosities: 3.001 watts out for 3 watts in; or larger
ratios, but can't be achieved regularly, and can not be scaled up;
in fact, according to Cude, claims have been scaled down over
the years.


Despite the cries here that nobody (I assume that means taxpayers)
will give money to allow lenr enthusiasts to do the job they could
do if they had more money, I find it hard to believe that if there
was anything to the lenr effect, that some way of exploiting it
would not have been found since P&F in 1989.

In fact, the Japanese gave P&F a lab and x million dollars and a
couple of years to repeat their original supposed lenr effect, and
they could not do it.

RE: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Jones Beene]

There is plenty of room to be skeptical that LENR will ever get to market.
Cude was correct on that point. I think that airing alternative viewpoints
on the subject of what it takes for commercialization can be quite
productive for the future of the field. But of course, even discussing that
is not the mission of the pathological skeptics.

Many of us really resent the efforts of those who want to impugn many years
of quality research at Universities, SRI, National Labs and so on - by top
researchers. Sure, there is some research which is substandard, but that is
not the point. The existing level of good research almost certainly proves
than nuclear reactions can occur at low temperature. To be in denial of that
evidence by skeptics is no more than intellectual dishonesty.

This still does not prove that the World will ever benefit from this
technology, but that is a completely separate subject for showing that it is
real on a laboratory scale.

That LENR is a physical reality at some scale is a given - but even so, that
situation is far removed from the ability to take the underlying principle
to market. Look at Blacklight Power after running through maybe $80 million.
Are they close to market?  A PoC device from BLP was due out in February and
it is not here. If Rossi's process requires enrichment in Ni-62, as it
almost certainly now seems to be the case - then it may never make it to a
mass market. That explains why he is pursuing the military or NASA angle -
where cost is not the prime concern.

BTW the need for enriched isotopes explains why many visitors - notably
Krivit, were not shown a working device. The Rossi reactor may sometimes
work with the natural ratio of nickel-62, which is under 4% - but it is
hit-or-miss. It was a miss with Krivit and a few others. Rossi gambled and
lost on a few instances.

When Rossi uses an enriched fuel - say, it is enriched by a factor of 10
times (above natural Ni) then robust gain may be assured, but does he want
to spend a large sum for every demonstration? 

Probably not, so he risked it in a few cases - and had notable flops. 

He probably pays a lot less than the going rate for the enriched isotope,
but even so it is probably too steep for easy commercialization. As for
Rossi having his own process to enrich - that is possible, but doubtful -
and made even more doubtful by not being included in his patent application.


The need for isotopic enrichment explains many things in the Rossi saga. 


From: Jed Rothwell 

I wrote:

but dessert - you need some meat and potatoes in the form of
articulate skeptics.

If you think there is merit to a skeptical point of view,
why don't you write about it?

I would not call Cude "articulate." As McKubre often says, I
could do a better job as a cold fusion skeptic than any of the skeptics. I
know of actual weaknesses in the experiments, whereas Cude makes up stuff,
reiterates assertions that was proved wrong in 1990, and refuses to address
substantive technical issues such as McKubre's Fig. 1. Where are the meat
and potatoes?

I do not think Cude is a credit to the hardcore skeptics.
But then, I do not know anyone else who is. This is like expecting someone
to be a credible spokesperson for the Flat Earth Society. Vorl Bek should
take a crack at justifying this point of view if he thinks it has any merit.

- Jed

<>

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Jed Rothwell]

Vorl Bek  wrote:


> From reading the exchanges here and on other forums, I have the
> impression (my 'verdict') that the evidence for lenr is
> either:
>
> anecdotal ('all the water boiled out of the bucket!';'there
> was a terrific explosion!' - that sort of report), but that the
> events can not be repeated;
>

As McKubre shows, the events have been repeated. See:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/McKubreMCHcoldfusionb.pdf

The explosions are extremely rare. I have photos of them at LENR-CANR.org
mainly to warn off amateurs, and to keep people from doing these
experiments in poorly equipped, unsafe labs, not because I think the
explosions prove anything about the effect that the published data does not
prove.




> laboratory curiosities: 3.001 watts out for 3 watts in; or larger
> ratios, but can't be achieved regularly, and can not be scaled up;
>

They cannot be scaled up safely because they cannot be controlled.




> in fact, according to Cude, claims have been scaled down over
> the years.
>

That is correct. The cathodes are much smaller, for various reasons. The
ratio of heat to the mass of the cathode is much higher, however.



> Despite the cries here that nobody (I assume that means taxpayers)
> will give money to allow lenr enthusiasts . . .


We are hoping that funding will be made available to professional
scientists, not "enthusiasts." We would like to see a situation in which a
professional scientist with tenure can apply for a grant and not have
authorities call him up and threaten to shut down his lab or deport him. In
other words, we favor traditional academic freedom, and the freedom to do
research the other scientists and the public thinks has no merit.



> to do the job they could
> do if they had more money, I find it hard to believe that if there
> was anything to the lenr effect, that some way of exploiting it
> would not have been found since P&F in 1989.
>

Why do you find it hard to believe this is difficult? Many other subject
are difficult, after all. Billions have been spent on plasma fusion with
not significant progress towards commercialization. There has not been much
progress in HTSC which was discovered at about the same time as cold
fusion, even though HTSC got a lot more funding. Hundreds of billions have
been spent on cancer research since the 1960s but unfortunately the death
rate has hardly changed at all for many types of cancer.


>
> In fact, the Japanese gave P&F a lab and x million dollars and a
> couple of years to repeat their original supposed lenr effect, and
> they could not do it.
>

That is incorrect. The achieved high reproducibility, routinely triggering
boil offs in 64 cells at at time. The work culminated with cells that ran
for weeks at boiling temperature, at 40 to 100 W. See:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RouletteTresultsofi.pdf

This project was terminated because of politics and disputes over money
between Toyota and other companies, not because the research itself failed.

The NHE project was terminated because it made little progress. Although as
Miles reported, he did achieve significant excess heat at their lab. The
lab director and others refused to look, and they reported that he did not
produce heat. This was also politically motivated, obviously.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Rich Murray]

 I second the summary observations by Vorl Bek:

"Cude's demeanor was consistently polite; the several people he
was up against were rather less polite in many instances, and one
of them was downright churlish.

None of them seemed to me to be as convincing as Cude was.

>From reading the exchanges here and on other forums, I have the
impression (my 'verdict') that the evidence for lenr is
either:

anecdotal ('all the water boiled out of the bucket!';'there
was a terrific explosion!' - that sort of report), but that the
events can not be repeated;

or

laboratory curiosities: 3.001 watts out for 3 watts in; or larger
ratios, but can't be achieved regularly, and can not be scaled up;
in fact, according to Cude, claims have been scaled down over
the years."

within the fellowship of service,  Rich


On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 7:42 AM, Vorl Bek  wrote:

> On Sun, 12 May 2013 09:12:56 -0400
> Jed Rothwell  wrote:
>
> > If you think there is merit to a skeptical point of view, why don't you
> > write about it?
>
> I don't know very much about this business and I can not debate it,
> but I consider myself to be like a juror listening to the
> testimony of experts: I may not understand all of what they say,
> but I can get a pretty good idea of which one's testimony makes
> the most sense.
>
> Cude's demeanor was consistently polite; the several people he
> was up against were rather less polite in many instances, and one
> of them was downright churlish.
>
> None of them seemed to me to be as convincing as Cude was.
>
> From reading the exchanges here and on other forums, I have the
> impression (my 'verdict') that the evidence for lenr is
> either:
>
> anecdotal ('all the water boiled out of the bucket!';'there
> was a terrific explosion!' - that sort of report), but that the
> events can not be repeated;
>
> or
>
> laboratory curiosities: 3.001 watts out for 3 watts in; or larger
> ratios, but can't be achieved regularly, and can not be scaled up;
> in fact, according to Cude, claims have been scaled down over
> the years.
>
>
> Despite the cries here that nobody (I assume that means taxpayers)
> will give money to allow lenr enthusiasts to do the job they could
> do if they had more money, I find it hard to believe that if there
> was anything to the lenr effect, that some way of exploiting it
> would not have been found since P&F in 1989.
>
> In fact, the Japanese gave P&F a lab and x million dollars and a
> couple of years to repeat their original supposed lenr effect, and
> they could not do it.
>
>

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Jed Rothwell]

Eugen Leitl  wrote:


> > If you think there is merit to a skeptical point of view, why don't you
> > write about it?
>
> Which would be in violation of Rule 2, as well.
>

Not at all. You can see many harsh critiques of cold fusion theory and
experiments here in recent weeks, such as the debates between Beene and
Storms.

Rule 2 (http://www.amasci.com/weird/wvort.html#rules) states: "Ridicule,
derision, scoffing, and ad-hominem is banned. Debunking or "Pathological
Skepticism" is banned . . . The tone here should be one of legitimate
disagreement and respectful debate." This is the standard in an academic
debate at a university, a conference, or in most mainstream journals. This
is how adults are supposed to discuss an academic subject.



> It seems that anything (to put it politely) is on-topic here but
> a critical view on LENR.


I think you exaggerate, and I think you are overlooking the many vigorous
debates here and harsh criticism of people such as Rossi.


That pushes the list into non-worthwhile
> territory for me as well.
>

That is a shame. Perhaps you should test this. Try offering what you a
consider a valid critique, couched in a proper academic style. You will see
if other people think you are breaking the rules.  You will see if you can
master academese. It calls for a degree of hypocritical, or false,
politeness.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Vorl Bek]

On Sun, 12 May 2013 09:12:56 -0400
Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> If you think there is merit to a skeptical point of view, why don't you
> write about it?

I don't know very much about this business and I can not debate it,
but I consider myself to be like a juror listening to the
testimony of experts: I may not understand all of what they say,
but I can get a pretty good idea of which one's testimony makes
the most sense.

Cude's demeanor was consistently polite; the several people he
was up against were rather less polite in many instances, and one
of them was downright churlish.

None of them seemed to me to be as convincing as Cude was.

>From reading the exchanges here and on other forums, I have the
impression (my 'verdict') that the evidence for lenr is
either: 

anecdotal ('all the water boiled out of the bucket!';'there
was a terrific explosion!' - that sort of report), but that the
events can not be repeated;

or

laboratory curiosities: 3.001 watts out for 3 watts in; or larger
ratios, but can't be achieved regularly, and can not be scaled up;
in fact, according to Cude, claims have been scaled down over
the years.


Despite the cries here that nobody (I assume that means taxpayers)
will give money to allow lenr enthusiasts to do the job they could
do if they had more money, I find it hard to believe that if there
was anything to the lenr effect, that some way of exploiting it
would not have been found since P&F in 1989.

In fact, the Japanese gave P&F a lab and x million dollars and a
couple of years to repeat their original supposed lenr effect, and
they could not do it.

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 09:12:56AM -0400, Jed Rothwell wrote:
> Vorl Bek  wrote:
> 
> 
> > While I enjoy a True Believer
> > site as much as anyone, after a while it is like eating nothing
> > but dessert - you need some meat and potatoes in the form of
> > articulate skeptics.
> >
> 
> If you think there is merit to a skeptical point of view, why don't you
> write about it?

Which would be in violation of Rule 2, as well.

It seems that anything (to put it politely) is on-topic here but 
a critical view on LENR. That pushes the list into non-worthwhile 
territory for me as well.

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Rich Murray]

Believers without Skeptics are blandly blind.

Skeptics without Believers are blindly sterile.

The forever fecund spontaneous creativity of the "present" moment is not
bound in the least by any binding limits of spaces, times, causalities,
"separate" identities, perceptions, concepts, emotions, logics,
mathematics...

the son of science has no bed where he can lay his head...

the eternal jam session best includes all volunteer voices...

how boring to exclude the incisive imperfect Joshua Cude from our
children's playground...

let the idiot who has never drooled throw the first stone...

within the fellowship of service, Rich


On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 6:42 AM, Jed Rothwell  wrote:

> I wrote:
>
> but dessert - you need some meat and potatoes in the form of
>>> articulate skeptics.
>>>
>>
>> If you think there is merit to a skeptical point of view, why don't you
>> write about it?
>>
>
> I would not call Cude "articulate." As McKubre often says, I could do a
> better job as a cold fusion skeptic than any of the skeptics. I know of
> actual weaknesses in the experiments, whereas Cude makes up stuff,
> reiterates assertions that was proved wrong in 1990, and refuses to address
> substantive technical issues such as McKubre's Fig. 1. Where are the meat
> and potatoes?
>
> I do not think Cude is a credit to the hardcore skeptics. But then, I do
> not know anyone else who is. This is like expecting someone to be a
> credible spokesperson for the Flat Earth Society. Vorl Bek should take a
> crack at justifying this point of view if he thinks it has any merit.
>
> - Jed
>
>

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Edmund Storms]

I think we need to consider two types of skeptics. If a person does  
not even believe the validity of the subject being discussed, what can  
that skeptic contribute. If CF is not real, what is the point of  
discussing why or how it works? The second kind of skeptics works by  
considering  the basic idea being true, but have questions about the  
details. Cude is not interested in the details of CF because none of  
the details are correct.  I suggest this kind of skeptic is a waste of  
time once the basic idea is accepted.


Ed Storms
On May 12, 2013, at 6:07 AM, Vorl Bek wrote:


On Sat, 11 May 2013 17:53:29 -0500
Joshua Cude  wrote:



I'm not interested in an inaccessible (non-archived) list like  
vortex-b, so

I'll just slink away. I may post a few responses to Rothwell's latest
replies over on wavewatching.net/fringe if they tolerate it.

Otherwise, adios. It's been a slice.


It is a pity that J Cude is leaving. While I enjoy a True Believer
site as much as anyone, after a while it is like eating nothing
but dessert - you need some meat and potatoes in the form of
articulate skeptics.

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Jed Rothwell]

I wrote:

but dessert - you need some meat and potatoes in the form of
>> articulate skeptics.
>>
>
> If you think there is merit to a skeptical point of view, why don't you
> write about it?
>

I would not call Cude "articulate." As McKubre often says, I could do a
better job as a cold fusion skeptic than any of the skeptics. I know of
actual weaknesses in the experiments, whereas Cude makes up stuff,
reiterates assertions that was proved wrong in 1990, and refuses to address
substantive technical issues such as McKubre's Fig. 1. Where are the meat
and potatoes?

I do not think Cude is a credit to the hardcore skeptics. But then, I do
not know anyone else who is. This is like expecting someone to be a
credible spokesperson for the Flat Earth Society. Vorl Bek should take a
crack at justifying this point of view if he thinks it has any merit.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Jed Rothwell]

Vorl Bek  wrote:


> While I enjoy a True Believer
> site as much as anyone, after a while it is like eating nothing
> but dessert - you need some meat and potatoes in the form of
> articulate skeptics.
>

If you think there is merit to a skeptical point of view, why don't you
write about it?

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:MODERATOR: J. Cude, extensive Rule 2 violations

[Vorl Bek]

On Sat, 11 May 2013 17:53:29 -0500
Joshua Cude  wrote:

> 
> I'm not interested in an inaccessible (non-archived) list like vortex-b, so
> I'll just slink away. I may post a few responses to Rothwell's latest
> replies over on wavewatching.net/fringe if they tolerate it.
> 
> Otherwise, adios. It's been a slice.

It is a pity that J Cude is leaving. While I enjoy a True Believer
site as much as anyone, after a while it is like eating nothing
but dessert - you need some meat and potatoes in the form of
articulate skeptics.