mars rovers

2005-07-29 Thread Wesley Bruce
I'm attending an Australian Mars Society conference AMEC 2005 on Mars 
rovers and exploration.

http://www.marssociety.org.au/
I'm going to mention LENR to those at the conference. There is still an 
opening for papers so it may be semiformal presentation. Is there 
anything I specifically should or should not say?

The main line I will take is that:

   * Cold fusion work is not dead.
   * Its nuclear reactions in a solid Hydride where quantum tunneling
 and/or electron screening effects combine to reduce the charge
 barrier of the nuclei to low enough levels to allow Deuteron/
 Palladium and Deuteron/ Deuteron reactions. A few grams of fuel
 would power a vehicle for a year or so.
   * Reviewers are now acknowledging that it's a real effect, still not
 fully reliable or understood, but some who were sceptical are now
 less inclined to call it fraud or a mistake.
   * The Second DOE report, December 2004, gave limited [ambiguus]
 support for the data but argue that they still could not
 understand it. A majority of the reviewers were much more
 receptive and positive than the person that wrote the conclusion.
 They did say more work should be done but recommended against
 government funding.
   * Doors are opening a little. Some of its opponents are slowly
 coming around, conferences have been held at MIT, American
 Physical Society, etc.
   * We have up to 40 watts thermal per cc of palladium in some
 configurations.
   * We need people who can work on reducing the energy inputs to the
 devices; computer controlled chemical and thermo-chemical systems.
   * We need better heat flow control so we don’t allow the cell to
 chill down below the starting temperature. It never was room
 temperature fusion.
   * We need people who can design and build efficient heat/steam
 engines to convert the heat of the cells in to electricity.
   * There are several dozen companies working on it worldwide.
   * The technology could pop out of oblivion as a usable energy
 technology at any time. It might be available to power Mars
 operations.
   * Any help would be appreciated.

Note the meeting I'll be attending is three weeks away and the dead line 
for anything formal could change at any time. Quick comments would be 
appreciated.





Re: mars rovers

2005-07-29 Thread John Harris
I'd add direct thermal/electric to your range of output options, even the
old dissimilar junction devices would be an option for low power work as
the weight and reliability may be more important than output. and there are
of course solid state devices - whether these fall into the category of
heat engine  is debatable.
Regards
JohnH
- Original Message -
From: Wesley Bruce [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 4:48 PM
Subject: mars rovers


 I'm attending an Australian Mars Society conference AMEC 2005 on Mars
 rovers and exploration.
 http://www.marssociety.org.au/
 I'm going to mention LENR to those at the conference. There is still an
 opening for papers so it may be semiformal presentation. Is there
 anything I specifically should or should not say?
 The main line I will take is that:

 * Cold fusion work is not dead.
 * Its nuclear reactions in a solid Hydride where quantum tunneling
   and/or electron screening effects combine to reduce the charge
   barrier of the nuclei to low enough levels to allow Deuteron/
   Palladium and Deuteron/ Deuteron reactions. A few grams of fuel
   would power a vehicle for a year or so.
 * Reviewers are now acknowledging that it's a real effect, still not
   fully reliable or understood, but some who were sceptical are now
   less inclined to call it fraud or a mistake.
 * The Second DOE report, December 2004, gave limited [ambiguus]
   support for the data but argue that they still could not
   understand it. A majority of the reviewers were much more
   receptive and positive than the person that wrote the conclusion.
   They did say more work should be done but recommended against
   government funding.
 * Doors are opening a little. Some of its opponents are slowly
   coming around, conferences have been held at MIT, American
   Physical Society, etc.
 * We have up to 40 watts thermal per cc of palladium in some
   configurations.
 * We need people who can work on reducing the energy inputs to the
   devices; computer controlled chemical and thermo-chemical systems.
 * We need better heat flow control so we don’t allow the cell to
   chill down below the starting temperature. It never was room
   temperature fusion.
 * We need people who can design and build efficient heat/steam
   engines to convert the heat of the cells in to electricity.
 * There are several dozen companies working on it worldwide.
 * The technology could pop out of oblivion as a usable energy
   technology at any time. It might be available to power Mars
   operations.
 * Any help would be appreciated.

 Note the meeting I'll be attending is three weeks away and the dead line
 for anything formal could change at any time. Quick comments would be
 appreciated.







Re: mars rovers

2005-07-29 Thread Wesley Bruce
I know a lot about thermo-electric technology is an option but it has an 
efficiency limit of about 18%. The cause is greatly debated but attempts 
to push over that efficiency limit result in problems that have yet to 
be completely understood. I know the Brits have pushed over the limit by 
cycling the things from engine to pump and back rapidly but I have not 
seen proper data on the pump mode power consumption and thus full 
efficiency.  It is however not subject to Carnot effiency limits the 
same way as other heat engines.

John Harris wrote:


I'd add direct thermal/electric to your range of output options, even the
old dissimilar junction devices would be an option for low power work as
the weight and reliability may be more important than output. and there are
of course solid state devices - whether these fall into the category of
heat engine  is debatable.
Regards
JohnH
- Original Message -
From: Wesley Bruce [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 4:48 PM
Subject: mars rovers