From: Jed Rothwell
> In any case, the potential chemical energy in this system is negligible, so > we don't need to worry about it. Not in this case. Apparently you did not read that Jack is using aluminum powder in the fuel as a safer way to release hydrogen. This is a replacement for LAH which releases hydrogen thermally. Aluminum will be oxidized to give off significant energy even in a ceramic mix. In fact, in his earlier runs, aluminum was used with iron oxide – which is better known as “thermite”. This reaction is definitely contributory as chemical energy - which must be accounted for to get an accurate COP. You simply cannot ignore it. A good way to account for, and include the chemical contribution of net heat output is to base everything on a control, or dummy run. This involves building and testing an identical reactor which contains everything except one necessary variable, like the catalyst. The dummy (control) run is calibrated over the expected range of energy input and therefore already includes the chemical energy which comes from aluminum oxidation etc. Then … with the test run, the same chemical energy appears both places, and can be ignored. That is, except for the catalyst. Since less than a gram of nickel catalyst is used, its chemical energy can be deducted to the extent that it oxidizes and contributes, but in this case, as with Rossi and Parkhomov, that is negligible. BTW - usually it is helpful for even the “experts” amongst us - to read the background information before making uninformed comments. Since you did not know about the aluminum, and may not have appreciated the calibration run, it looks like you hastily assumed that since Rossi ignored chemistry, then Clark can ignore it also. Perhaps he can ignore it when his run increase from days to weeks, but for now, chemical energy simply cannot be ignored. Jones
