David, The paper mentioned by Lou is excellent for further consideration on this forum, despite its title. It represents the best way to achieve OU without an energy sink, or without nuclear energy. This is on the horizon actually but on a small scale (watt level).
Perhaps 'Information technology' is the least objectionable way to introduce this concept to a mass audience, since CoE is not a consideration for that industry (usually) and can be overlooked: "Information erasure without an energy cost" http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.5330 But is this kind of energy robust enough - and how do you convert it back to real emf? Another way to express the "angular momentum" possibility for energy transfer without heat is "spin current" and there are other studies that reinforce the spin aspect being possible to separate from emf. In the lore of free-energy, this is often called "cold current" because it does not heat an inductor in the same way as emf. Here is a 2 year old video on "spin current" applications in information processing which has implications for energy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJk3x0XJFDU When the phenomenon is worded this way - there will be disagreement among experts about what is really going on. Is it a new kind of electricity? Anyone who remembers the Joe Newman saga may realize that his view was that indeed there was another "kind" of electricity. However, that type of electricity (spin current without voltage drop) must be what is happening in a few better documented prior devices, like that of Floyd Sweet. More on Sweet later. BTW - his device did work. Back to heat engines. The big caveat to realize in looking at Carnot efficiency is to realize that it is an ideal which is seldom reached - and its use is often part of many free energy scams. All that it tells you really is what should be called the Carnot "spread" - the difference between high and low in Kelvin. Real thermal efficiency is often only a small fraction of Carnot. For instance, average thermal efficiency of a very efficient automobile like the Prius is in the range of 35%, but the Carnot efficiency of its gasoline engine is around 65%. It real thermal efficiency is about half of Carnot, but that is excellent for any automobile. Twenty years ago, a big GM V-8 would be 20% thermal. Yet its Carnot was still 65%. The Carnot efficiency is the maximum ideal for any heat engines, but is seldom reached in practice. For this reason, you will almost never hear an Auto-maker use Carnot as a relevant factor - it is a meaningless ideal in itself - as almost every ICE has the same Carnot efficiency. -----Original Message----- David, Well, some recent papers on quantum thermodynamics make an already difficult subject even more challenging, and counterintuitive. Since LENR violates conventional understanding of physics, it may be worthwhile to consider whether only conventional thermodynamics are involved. -- Lou Pagnucco David Roberson wrote: > Thanks Lou. I did hesitate at suggesting the requirement to have a sink > because I realized that it might be possible for other types of places for > the left over energy to be deposited. You have located some of these and > that is very informative. Also, the IR or other radiations have certain > implications about the need for a well defined sink, so I limited the > discussion to heat engines to escape most of those dilemmas. > > > I was hoping to explain the behavior of Carnot and other cycles in a > manner that made common sense instead of having to rely on the esoteric > higher level formulas that always tend to lead to confusion. I wanted > others in vortex to use COE as a guide when evaluating some of the LENR > systems. When we speak of COP it causes difficulties in communication so > any effort to put the issue back into the relm of COE might improve that. > > > I recall when students studied thermo in college they would dread the > courses. I suspect that a large part of the reason is that the way it was > taught did not relate to everyday life for the poor hapless students. > There should be a way to clarify the subject and make it more interesting. > Perhaps you could assist me in my attempt? > > > If you want to really have fun, consider the ultimate fate of energy in > the universe. You can begin with a cloud of gravitationally bound > hydrogen, where most of the normal non nuclear energy is in the form of > gravitational potential energy. Think of how that ultimately reaches > temperature and energy stability. That should generate some good mental > juices. > > > Dave > > David, > > This is a very interesting, complex and perplexing subject. > > Your statement - "The fact that a heat source and sink is required > for the engine to operate ..." - may not hold for all heat engines. > > It may be possible to extract energy from a single thermal reservoir if > there is another reservoir of particles (most of) which possess a common > conserved quantity, like spin, independent of its temperature. See - > > "Information erasure without an energy cost" > http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.5330 > > There is a video of a presentation of this paper at the 'Workshop on > Quantum Information and Foundations in Thermodynamics 2011' in the > session 'Erasure of information under conservation laws' at URLs > > http://qutube.ethz.ch/item/4 > - or - > http://www.multimedia.ethz.ch/episode_play/?doi=10.3930/ETHZ/AV-00806356-e03 4-44f4-9580-e6404b8269c1 > > The complete set of videos for this workshop is at: > http://qutube.ethz.ch/authors/ > > The problem also becomes quite subtle when the reservoir consists of > entangled quantum particles, instead of classical particles. See - > 'Heat-to-work conversion by exploiting full or partial correlations of > quantum particles' > http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.1325 > > Also extremely interesting is - http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.1772 > - I am currently trying to read it. > > -- Lou Pagnucco > > David Roberson wrote: >> Recently I have been exploring issues associated with thermodynamics >> since >> it has been many years since I studied the subject. I wanted to >> understand why certain rules apply and exactly what that suggests is >> happening at the basic levels. This particular subject comes up often >> as >> we analyze LENR devices and so it is useful to pursue. >> >> >> I was considering the Carnot cycle and other heat engines when it became >> apparent to me that this is nothing more than a statement that the COE >> (conservation of energy) applies to these devices and that there is >> nothing mysterious happening. The fact that a heat source and sink is >> required for the engine to operate is easy to understand in the context >> of >> COE. >> >> >> The way I approached the topic was to consider an ideal gas that exists >> in >> a given state. The average kinetic energy of the gas atoms is directly >> proportional to the absolute temperature (K). If you double the >> temperature then you double the kinetic energy of the particles. If you >> halve the temperature, then you will find that the kinetic energy is >> reduced to one half of the original value. >> >> >> So, if I take a given volume of this ideal gas at any given temperature >> and extract mechanical energy from it then only a portion of the >> original >> energy remains. For this thought experiment I do not allow any other >> paths for energy to escape. In a simple example lets extract 1/2 of the >> kinetic energy from the experimental gas source. This would not be a >> bad >> engine if it could convert one half of the available energy into >> mechanical energy. The exhaust gas would thus have exactly 1/2 of the >> original energy it had before it was put to work so its temperature must >> be 1/2 the original value. >> >> >> The Carnot efficiency is defined as 1-Tc/Th. In the example that I >> reviewed the efficiency is 1-.5 or .5 which is 50%. This makes a great >> deal of sense since my machine extracted exactly one half of the energy >> that it could have taken if it operated on a perfect cycle exhausting 0 >> degree gas. Someone with a different engine than mine would obtain >> better >> results if the exhaust gas is ejected at lower temperatures and hence >> less >> kinetic energy. It is important to notice that no energy is lost in >> this >> operation. The remaining energy is resident in the form of kinetic >> energy >> of the ideal gas molecules and might be extracted at some later time by >> another process. >> >> >> I hope that this post is useful to others and will help to burrow >> through >> the complexity of thermodynamics in a way that makes the behavior >> understandable to everyone. It will be interesting to consider the >> emission of radiant energy using similar thought processes. Answers for >> some of the difficult questions that have been recently discussed might >> materialize as a consequence. >> >> >> Dave >> > > > > >
