On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 10:55 PM, Bob Cook <frobertc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I believe the authors know what they are about. > The authors approach the energy balance problem in two steps, and the first step is extremely endothermic. It's pretty difficult to separate a neutron from 7Li or d and requires on the order of ~ MeV. Only after this first step is the energy debt paid back in a second step involving the exothermic neutron capture reaction (which would be accompanied by deexcitation gammas). I think the Bank of Heisenberg would send their repossession men before the second step could occur in quantity. The authors say this about the energy balance: Nickel embodies the internal power/heat source via neutron capture, while spallation is a cooling factor for lithium and deuterium. Nickel is therefore the main attractor of matter within the reactor confinement. In other words, losing that neutron is understood to be "cooling." Also, to expand upon Jones's point, consider that to produce 1 W of heat at ~ 10 MeV per neutron capture, you will need ~ 6.242e+11 captures per second. If your apparatus was able to stop all but 0.00001 percent of the deexcitation gammas, you'd still get 62420 gammas per second leaking through the containment. Now scale that 1 W up to 1 kW or 10 kW for useful power, and that 62420 gammas becomes 62.4 million gammas per second escaping through the containment. You will now need walls that can stop 0.00000000001 percent or more gammas to hide the signal in the background. Even if you could accomplish this, after running your reactor for a while, the apparatus would be extremely radioactive. The authors do not appear to be aware that these implications of their explanation are difficulties that need to be addressed, either in general or in the context of what is known about LENR. Eric
