Joshua- this will need some discussions but I think eventually we can establish a Perfect Experience Protocol for Indiviual E-Cats- that is satisfactory both from the points of view of engineering and of the sane bureaucracy of standardization. i am opting for fully quantitative and not for "common sense" experiments.
For your information ( I don't know if you read my Ego Out blog- anyway here the following points were proposed: 1- in case of steam experiments NOT to measure the temperature or dryness/wetness but the enthalpy- i.e total heat of the steam, 2- the minimum duration of the experiment 72 hours, 3- water heating experiments prefered 4- as far it is possible, after startup to work with zero input *Now your ideas*:- - disconnecting hydrogen bottle I agree however the Bologna people have measured the hydrogen consumed. Plus I have a great experience with hydrogen as fuel - it is a lousy one- much heat on weight basis but it comes in volumes *i had to solve the problem* *of finding an use *for the millions of cu.ft excess hydrogen from the NaCl electrolysis plant OLTCHIM. Natural gas is 3 times better than hydrogen and how colud you burn hydrogen without forced air/oxygen in the E-cat? Lets' be reasonable. However the H2 bottle has to be disconnected and acrried away, OK! - input electricity disconnected after start-up- I agree. FYI- Prof. Francesco Piantelli the scientist of the NI-H field had a cell working without any input for months at the level of 70 W- in the year 2000. So this restriction should be possible for Rossi too -at much greater energy levels. - Stirling Engine- I think not a practical idea- which commercial type would yoiu buy/recommend?- - to make visible water coming out- or steam betore mixing it with say ten fold more cold water- a good idea but it cannot help- is not quantitative but it say water is not hidden somewhere Some Pyrex needed -Your Point 3. is common sense experiment, rather qualitative and using ice water is an useless complication, the ice-water ratio cannot be established and maintained- please do not insist!. Experiment made by engineeers NOT by Hausfrauen I protest angrily- a f....g experimrent done without thermo-, flow-, volume- meters is not serious, sorry! -Chemical vs nuclear vs some ZPE- unanswerable without a complete chemicl isotopic analysis of the spent Ni fuel or exhausted Catalyst. We can speculate a lot but without data it si just am intellectual exercise (Rossi has used a more precise expression) I don't understand the use of the E-cat in a mode analoguous with a heater immersed in a hot tube/reservoir. OK let's continue defining the Protocol. I am ready to explain you the details- but please let's organize better the materil of discussion- we need a good taxonomy. Peter On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 12:18 PM, Joshua Cude <joshua.c...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 3:45 AM, Peter Gluck <peter.gl...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> Dear Joshua, >> >> in case your approach to the New Energy is constructive >> and not destructive would you contribute seriously to: >> http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2011/05/call-for-perfect-e-cat-experiment.html >> ? >> >> what experiment, what results will convince you that the device is >> producing useful energy? >> > > > I'm glad you asked. > > > *A. Demonstrating power:* > > > To demonstrate thermal power, the simplest method is to heat water, and > that is of course what Rossi does. But he doesn't do it in a transparent way > that allows anyone to conclude, just by watching it, that yup, his device is > producing power without an external supply of fuel. Here is an example of an > experiment that would be visual and not require experts to tell you what's > happening: > > As emphasized in my blog papers re the E-cat, Control still seems to be a > problem for the E-cat and we have no data (or discussion partners) to know > what we dob't know, and what Rossi doesn't know (more important) the > commercial product must be completely automatized as my home methane gas > burner for heating and warm water. (By the way, it cannot work without > electricity) > - > 1. First and foremost, the device must be completely and obviously > standalone. So, disconnect the hydrogen bottle, and the mains power input. > > - The hydrogen bottle should be easy because they claim so little hydrogen > is consumed, and in some experiments they claim the valve was closed, and in > at least one, it is disconnected. Given that, it is completely baffling that > in the only somewhat public display they have had, the bottle was left > connected, with the valve open. > > - The input electricity is probably more complicated. As it is explained, > heat is needed to initiate the reaction, and that is provided by resistive > heating. Fine. Use the mains for that, but then unplug it when the reaction > starts. And make it obvious: wheel the whole contraption away to show no > umbilical cords are attached. > > Rossi claims the thing has run without power, but that it's > dangerous, although he doesn't explain why. The speculation is that an input > control is needed to prevent some sort of runaway condition, but it seems > counter-intuitive to use additional heat input to prevent runaway. In > particular, it is implausible that cutting the power by 10% or less would > stop a runaway condition, when the variation in claimed output levels is far > greater than 10%. In one experiment the claimed input was 80 W, less than 1 > % of the output when it peaked briefly at 120 kW. Does he expect us to > believe that that subtracting 80 W from 120 kW will shut down the reaction, > even while they claim it operates perfectly well at 15 kW? It makes much > more sense to vary the flow rate of the coolant with a solenoid valve to > control the reaction. Then you can actually remove heat to try to stop the > reaction, rather than just stop adding heat. Of course a solenoid valve > needs power too, but only a few watts, and could be controlled for several > days with a suitable lithium battery. Rossi claimed to shut down the reactor > in the Dec demo (reported by Levi) using tap water at a high flow rate, so > one could set up an emergency passive cooling tank above the ecat to cool it > in a runaway condition. > > > > Alternatively, they could power a stirling engine between the inflowing and > outflowing water and use it to run a generator to produce the electricity > needed. Rossi's supposed to be an engineer, so this should be easy for him. > The efficiency would be low of course, but he's claiming 30x gain, and keep > in mind that the heat that's expelled by the engine could still be used to > heat the coolant in the first stage, so the ability to generate steam would > only be compromised by the energy that's actually converted to electricity. > > > The importance of being standalone goes beyond obviating the measurement of > input power. It has practical importance too. If you can't generate the > electricity for the input because the efficiency is too low given the small > temperature difference, then ideally, that means a heat pump can supply the > same heat. And we know heat pumps will not solve our energy problems. Now > practically, a heat pump will perform between 1/2 and 3/4 as well because of > losses, but still, this is nothing at all exceptional. In my opinion, any > energy device has to power itself to make a significant contribution above > what heat pumps can already do, let alone convince the world that it's real. > > > 2. With no inputs, if cold water goes in, and hot water comes out, then it > is clear that the device itself is transferring energy to the water. But > even that simple phenomena was not made obvious in Rossi's January > demonstration. It was pretty clear that water was going in, but what came > out? It was in a different room, and we had to take someone's word for it > that the temperature was at the boiling point. Even if it was necessary to > exhaust the output in another room, a very simple and visible method could > have been designed to show that it was at or near the boiling point. Simply > run the output fluid through a copper coil inside a clear container of > water. If the fluid in the conduit is at the boiling point, it should > maintain a gentle boil in the water in the container. > > > 3. To establish that the amount of power is in the ballpark of the claimed > 10 kW requires some mental arithmetic, but importantly requires no > information the observer can't get on his own. We all know, or can easily > learn, that a typical electric water kettle consumes about a kW, and can > bring a liter of ice-water to its boiling point in less than 10 minutes. So > 10 kW should be able to heat 1 liter of ice-water to boiling in under a > minute. So using a 20 L input reservoir of ice water, running it through the > system maintaining an output temperature at the boiling point, verified by a > boiling pot of water, should take less than 20 minutes. > > > That represents one example of how 10 kW of thermal power could be > established in a completely visual demonstration without the need for > thermometers, flow meters, or expert observation. It's no flying airplane, > but it would be hard to find flaws. There are certainly other ways to do it, > but Rossi has done nothing that comes anywhere close to achieving this. > > > *B. Chemical or Nuclear* > > > Producing 10 kW with a device the size of Rossi's ecat is of course nothing > special. The important claim is that the origin of the heat is nuclear, > which means the *energy* density is orders of magnitude higher than for > chemical fuel. To demonstrate this requires patience and vigilance to run > the instrument much longer than it could be run on chemical fuel. > > > It could be done by running the system described above for a long enough > period, but that would require a much larger input reservoir, or monitoring > the flow rate, which would rob it of any sort of dramatic visual impact. And > the time required to reach the energy contained in an equivalent volume (22 > L) of gasoline (e.g.) would require about 18 hours. Of course, considerably > less than that would already be pretty impressive, because a controlled burn > of chemical fuel requires substantial infrastructure, so only a fraction of > the device's apparent volume could actually store fuel. > > > Still, he's claiming a nuclear reaction, and a factor of a million, so why > settle for "pretty impressive", when you can exceed it easily by a factor of > 10 or 100, by letting the thing run for a week or more? Mainly because > independent observers can't devote 18 hours to watching water boil, let > alone a week or more. And Rossi is evidently not prepared to release the > device to the custody of independent observers. > > > I don't think there's any obvious solution to this without increasing the > power output of the device, or reducing its size with the same power output, > but I can suggest one demonstration that is at least a big improvement: > > > Hot tubs with 1000L capacity typically have 10 kW heaters in them, and > anyone who has one will know (and anyone else can find out) that it takes > about 2 hours to heat it from ambient temperature (20C) to operating > temperature at about 40C. So that can be used as benchmark for the ecat. > Instead of just expelling the energy into an abyss, if you store it in a > huge tub of water, then the need to continuously monitor the flow rate and > temperatures disappears, and the opportunities to cry foul are drastically > reduced. The idea is to circulate the water in the hot tub through the ecat, > in a method illustrated nicely in the second figure of the hot tub entry on > wikipedia: > > > You'd need a bigger tub for 1000L, but the idea is the same. This method > doesn't even need power for a pump. You can even avoid the use of > thermometers by starting with ice-water, and floating paraffin wax in it, > which would melt at about 50C. That would extend the temperature change to > about 50C (from 20C) and make the demonstration completely visual, and > independent of expert consultation, albeit still very slow at about 5 or 6 > hours. > > > To compare the ecat with a chemical fuel, one could set up two identical > tubs, and heat one with a suitable propane or kerosene heater, and the other > with a *standalone* ecat, as described in section II. > > > > Heating 1000 L of water from 0 to 50C requires about 200 MJ plus losses. > That would take about 7 L of kerosene, which could be verified by the second > tub. Seven liters or more of chemical fuel would be pretty difficult to hide > in an ecat, and I would be surprised if such a demonstration wouldn't > attract much more attention from the media and scientists. > > > To take it to the next level would only require a tub that can withstand > boiling water, and a lot more time. Then you could heat the water to boiling > in both tubs. In one tub you could measure how much chemical fuel is needed > to boil away say half the water. This would require about 1500 MJ plus > losses, or at least 50 L of fuel. (A well insulated, (mostly) covered hot > tub loses about 10 W per degree temperature difference, so at boiling, it > would lose about 800 W, which is still less than 10% of the input power.) > > > The key here would be that only vapor, and not liquid, would be escape the > tub. (This is not the case when the liquid is forced through a heated > conduit, in which case it will escape regardless of its state.) > > > If a standalone ecat could boil away half the water in a 1000 L hot tub in > a transparent, publicly open and supervised demonstration, the royal wedding > would look like a small media event by comparison. Rossi would have Bob > Park, Steve Koonin, Oprah, and Tom Brokaw all breathing down his neck. But > as long as he keeps them in a windowless trailer and gives them Levi's or > Kalluder's notes, they will remain underwhelmed. > > All of this is of course a much more complicated setup, but come on, for a > billion dollar idea, it's peanuts, and even compared to making 30 ecats > strung together, this seems easier. > > -- Dr. Peter Gluck Cluj, Romania http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com
