Jed,
It's going to take me a while to process all the stuff from ICCF and
ACS...so don't expect anything too quick.
Why didn't Celani's abstract fit in the ICCF-14 book of abstracts?
"Jonathan" is Vince Golubic.
Steve
At 10:12 AM 8/21/2008, you wrote:
Celani's abstract did not fit in the ICCF-14 book, so I had to cut it
back. If this result can be replicated, it will be very important, so
attached is the full, original abstract.
- Jed
At 11:26 AM 8/21/2008, you wrote:
I thought the overall quality of papers at ICCF-14 was better than
previous conferences. The field seems to be getting more professional. As
David Nagel said to me, "if someone wandered in off the street, they would
think this is a normal scientific conference.
Most of the presentations were about research that has been reported
before, and that is progressing. There was a lot of impressive work from
Italy along conventional lines, such as Violante (paper #12), Castagna
(52) and Sarto (53). I think there were fewer "rehashes" of previous
results with no new data.
The replications of Iwamura's method such as Hioki (29) are not
impressive. They have the sample installed upside-down for some
unfathomable reason. Why do people do things like that?
Here are some papers that caught my attention because they are unexpected
or novel, to me, anyway:
Cravens & Letts (4, 63) and Letts & Hagelstein (81). They finally got
laser stimulation to work again, based on advice from Peter Hagelstein. It
stopped working after they ran out of a particular type of palladium, and
they could not get the result again in 50+ attempts over 3 years (I think
they said). They finally tried the wavelengths Peter suggested (8, 15, 20
THz) and the effect now turns on reproducibly. Not only does the heat
appear when the laser is applied, but when the laser is turned off the
reaction stops. They turned on a particular cathode a second time after
putting it aside for months.
The paper from Letts & Hagelstein (81) just came into my computer 2
minutes ago. I hope I can upload it soon.
Celani (17). This is the abstract I uploaded just now. They claim they are
getting 5 watts consistently with only milligrams of palladium, and they
have improved the output ratio by a factor of 80 over the past 6 months.
Some people doubt the calorimetry, but it seems unlikely to me that it is
a 5-watt mistake. I hope this is independently replicated soon. Celani
said he is making rapid progress partly because he is being funded by a
corporation and they pushed him to produce "practical results" quickly. He
told me he is glad they insisted. So am I.
Celani hopes that he can soon increase the ratio of output power to input
by a factor of 5. This would be a smaller improvement than he has made in
the last 6 months. If he can do this, and produce 10 or 20 W absolute, he
thinks he can use thermoelectric devices to make a self-sustaining cell
that runs for weeks or months on its own, unplugged, without any external
energy input. That would be the Holy Grail of cold fusion. An exciting
possibility, but let's believe it when we see it.
David & Giles (77). A confusing title and a rather blurry abstract. What
these people have (or think they have, anyway) is a cold fusion battery.
It outputs microwatts of electricity. Fairly high voltage, I recall it was
1 or 2 V, but very low amperage. It is 0.5 V per junction and I think they
have 2 or 3 lined up.
There is some slight concern that what they have is a conventional
chemical battery. They acknowledge that and are taking steps to rule it
out. If they can boost the power and run it for a long time, beyond the
limits of chemistry, I would feel a lot more confidence.
A cold fusion battery is another Holy Grail of cold fusion. (Not sure how
many Holy Grails are permitted.) Electricity is by far the most useful
form of energy.
Mizuno (59). We have discussed this here. The paper will be available as
soon as I get off my butt and finish editing it.
Mizuno was upset with the conference organizers for shoving his and other
interesting experimental results into the last day. I agree that
experimental results should be the focus of cold fusion. It was a shame
that Cravens, Letts and Hagelstein's laser stimulation was pushed into a
poster session.
I was in Pennsylvania until yesterday, doing absolutely nothing, far from
telephone or Internet. I have to get back to work. I should probably
upload a News item about the ACS meeting now underway in Philadelphia. The
News section at LENR-CANR.org is not our outstanding feature, mainly
because I often do not hear the News until it is stale. I was only vaguely
aware of the ACS conference. I do not pay attention to important
developments and I tend to have tunnel vision, focusing on whatever paper
I am editing or trying to understand at the moment. Go to Krivit's website
for up-to-the minute reports, or the Atomic Motor Blog for news that isn't
news at all, such as:
Bill Gates Surprises Energy Debate (Spoof )
That's getting kind of old, Jonathan.
- Jed
