Jed said:
This must be what everyone is talking about. The description of the power
plant is rather nebulous. The section gets off on the wrong foot with this
statement:
"Atomic hydrogen ordinarily has a stable electronic state that is much
higher in energy than allowed by thermodynamic laws."
Even if you believe that you can violate the laws of thermodynamics, you
shouldn't say so in the first sentence.
Robin wrote:
Actually, it says that the laws of thermodynamics allow one to go below the
"ground state".
Jed wrote:
In that case it is badly phrased. "[M]uch higher than allowed by . .
." sounds like the author thinks the laws of thermodynamics will not
allow this to happen.
The fundamental problem here is that Jed disapproves of Mills' business
strategy and has not adequately studied Mills' and BLP's work. Thus Jed
misunderstands available evidence. Jed goes on to write:
This part gives me a headache:
"BlackLight intends to incrementally pursue commercial development of
power plants of all useful scales. This will be done through a combination
of internal engineering and development, external consultants and
outsourcing, licensed joint ventures and acquisition of engineering and
design companies. BlackLight intends to own an interest in power
production businesses at the distributed and central power station scale
(see Licensing Strategy). BlackLight anticipates contracting for turnkey
plants to be built and operated by architect and engineering firms and
original equipment manufacturers."
Some of BLP's original investors were electric utilities who hoped that BLP
would provide a heat source that could replace fossil fuel in boilers in
conventional steam-based power plants. Such has been a theme in BLP's
position which only now appears within grasp. The thermal and microwave-gas
research reactors have shown power densities in the range of thermal boilers
and fission reactors, but the net energy yield -- after subtracting the
energy needed for electrolysis to get H and sustain the vacuum conditions --
with no direct means of extracting electricity from the UV energy of the
reactions -- except a lossy thermal cycle -- meant that water could not yet
be used as the ultimate fuel.
Jed, and other casual observers who have not done their homework on BLP,
miss critical statements in the new release. Quoting about the solid fuel
=============
"that uses conventional chemical reactions to generate the catalyst and
atomic hydrogen at high reactant densities that in turn controllably
achieves very high power densities. The energy gain is well above that
required to regenerate the solid fuel, and experimental evidence confirms
the theoretical energy balance per weight of the hydrogen consumed of 1000
times that of the most energetic fuel known."
=============
In the animation of the process, in the fourth stage KH(1/4) is mentioned as
a product. H(1/4) designates hydrinos shrunk by a factor of 4, releasing 435
eV in the process. That is enough energy to overcome heat-engine thermal
losses and electrolyze water and regenerate the solid fuel. No vacuum pump
is shown in the process overview. This, and the above phrases "at hight
reactant densities" and "reactions to generate the catalyst and atomic
hydrogen" imply that H and [catalyst] are generated *in proximity* and do
not rely on radom encounters in a soft vacuum as in the research reactors.
This lends credence to the claim of "...experimental evidence...energy
balance...per weight of hyrdrogen...1000 times the most energetic fuel
known".
The website is of course skimpy on some details until patents are granted.
Jed contunes:
I have said it before, and I'll say it again: this notion of "incremental
commercial development" masterminded by Mills makes about as much sense as
letting the Wright brothers mastermind the development of airplanes, or
putting Martin Fleischmann in charge of cold fusion.
"Incremental* implies blending with the existing infrastructure in a
non-disruptive way. Energy packages are scalable from the shopping center to
regional utility level. I don't know if it will be optimum for households
and when it will be appropriate for automobiles. For each, vendors will have
to establish reliability, which may take years of prototype development and
testing. I am well familiar with the difference between R&D and production
and marketing -- few entrepreneurs have mastered both.
Jed is fond of using the Wright Brothers as examples of what to do and not
to do. They did not make a real impact until a critical demonstration before
goverment officials. Even after that, and after patents were issued, there
were still eperimenters "doing their own thing" and failing. BLP has not yet
made the cooresponding demostration before *officials*.
The Wrights wanted delay, delay and delay, and Martin
told me that in 1989 he wanted another five years of secrecy -- peace and
quiet, in other words -- before revealing the process.
It might have saved everybody a lot of trouble if Martin had that quiet
time. The decade of sound and fury has not yet produced a LENR device ready
for industrial production. And Jed's years of scolding researcher's with his
"Inventor's Disease" has not persuaded Mother Nature to yield her secrets.
Mills is not repeating those mistakes. Jed again:
Blacklight
power has taken 20 years so far, and at the pace they are moving it will
take another 20 years. If the airplane had been developed at this rate of
progress, the first public demonstration of flight would have been after
1933, and the first practical airplane would have been scheduled for 1953.
Jed, how long did it take for Babbage & Ada's ideas get the place where you
could build a tidy business on them?
This is lunacy. If their claims have any merit, and they can demonstrate
the effect on any scale large enough to be measured with confidence, they
could have every qualified laboratory on earth working frantically on this
discovery in 6 months. That's what happened after the Wrights were finally
forced to go public in 1908.
Very bad analogy. The airplane could be built with bicycle-shop technology
if one *knew what to do*. Nobody yet knows how build multiple reliable and
robust-performing LENR devices, or there would be no arguments and your book
would becoming history instead of anticipatory. With LENR and BLP, the
intellectual foundations of a century of physical science are challenged,
along with a priesthood of high energy physics.
Mike Carrell
