Can we discuss the content of this report? Let me start with thanking our Italian and Swedish colleagues for this detailed and comprehensive report, its a great report that deserves detailed analysis and critical review. My perspective on the issue of cold fusion, LENR or "unknown energy source" is that no-body can proof it's in-existence; not by failed experiments nor by theory. Failed experiments are never performed correctly and all theory is, by definition, based on known experiments. On the other hand, practically, it is not so useful to believe in the existence of anything that has not been proven. I think the current report by Levi et. al. justifies more investigation.
The test report by Levi et. al. describes two tests of a Rossi device, called E-Cat, one test performed in December with a limited number of observers and one performed in March with a larger number of observers. Each test lasted for about 4 days and comprised of measuring the electric power going in and the thermal power going out. An excess in power-out is than claimed to be anomalous. To be truly anomalous its generally assumed that one needs to prove all of the following: -1- There is excess energy -2- This excess is more than could be stored within the reactor by conventional fuels such as chemical or nuclear fission components -3- The ratio of energy input over output, the COP, is more than a factor 2.5 Only 0.3 grams (or 1 gram including an error marge) of reactor material is "unknown" and secret while the rest of the reactor was inspected by all observers and deemed to be not a fuel. With the long operation time of the tests this potential amount of conventional fuel is insignificant, 0.003 kWh on a total of about 150 kWh. This means we don't need to test for point 2, provided excess energy was established well within the error bars of the measurement method. Since the test setup is evaluating thermal output as the measure for energy one needs to ensure this heat is not extracted from the environment. It is often assumed that this can best be proven with an excess energy of more than what is achievable with a Carnot cycle. While a COP of more than 2.5 to 3 would proof that an ordinary heat-pump scheme is not at play, it is not a necessary proof. Any implementation of a Carnot cycle heat pump needs, by definition, a "cold side" to extract heat from the environment. With the setup described in this report there is no reason to suspect a hidden form of heat extraction as a cold side would be obvious to any observer. Therefore we don't need to check for point 3 of the above, provided, again, that excess energy was established. Another reason to require a COP of more than 2.5 is an economical end technological reason. Because the E-Cat has a high-entropy input (electricity) and a low-entropy output (heat), efficiency losses need to be offset to make the E-Cat a truly economical and technological advance. This is a purely technological and economical argument and irrelevant in the determination of whether we have a truly anomalous energy source. Moreover, while at this stage of scientific discovery it is impossible to predict technological impact it is safe to say that an anomalous energy source of the claimed proportions will be an epic disruption. Remains to proof the excess energy, output energy more than the input energy and more than all potential measurement errors combined. I see no potential problems with the measurement method of the input energy. A simple and straightforward commercial apparatus is used, the application is simple and well within the capabilities of the instrument. Measurement of output energy is where problems arise. An IR camera is used to measure the intensity of IR radiation emitted from the reactor geometry. The IR intensity is than related to temperature through Planck's equation and than again related to power through Black-body radiation. This is a highly inaccurate method, black body radiation depends on temperature to the fourth power - A tiny error in the determined temperature will cause a huge error in the obtained power. Another error comes from the emissivity, no object is a truly "Black" body and estimations need to be made. The report quotes to be "conservative" with choosing a high emissivity of 1, which indeed relates to the lowest possible temperature, but fails to explain how such emissivity choice impacts the calculated radiation power. It is further unclear how the IR camera works, whether it measures IR intensity a a narrow bandwidth, at a wide bandwidth or whether it measures the center wavelength. Fortunately a blanco or "dummy" test was performed validating the method in exactly the power regime of interest. Indeed a measured temperature of 300 C equaled a power input and output of 800 Watt and indeed related, using the same assumptions, to a calculated power of 750 Watt. Since the performed test with "loaded" E-Cat's resulted in about the same temperature with only 1/3 of the input power a power amplification, or COP, of roughly 3 was achieved, as would be enough to claim an anomalous energy source. Unfortunately, the section about the blanco, while most important to the prove of anomalous energy, is not the most clearly written. For example, the authors explicitly note that only a limited number of observers were present during the December test and all of them were present during the March test. No definite word on who was present during the blanco test. Secondly, as noted before, the authors chose an emissivity of 1 and claim that is the most conservative choice, but then go on with the blanco test using an emissivity of 0.80 and 0.88. It is unclear whether the same emissivity was used in the blanco and the real test and thus whether the blanco was analysed in exactly the same way. The report also extensively analyses heat dissipation through convection. While it is a valid analysis I believe it is unnecessary. Convection calculation requires even more assumptions and a more careful experimental setup while the contribution of heat dissipation through convection is insignificant compared to the dissipation through radiation at the present temperatures. Excess energy was proofed without accounting the convection energy. Another potential and obvious problem could be fraud. While no experiment can be judged to be 'fraud free' by a report alone, changes fraud plays a role reduce drastically when the number of independent authors increases. None of the authors is truly independent. They all have a vested interest in at least rehabilitating their reputation as they have all come out in support of Andrea Rossi's claim of an anomalous energy source at some point in the past. At the same time it seems unlikely that they would all be interested in taking the center stage again if they had felt they had been at error the first time. Finally there is the fraud of the second kind, where the readers as well as the authors are victim of a fraud. It could be that someone, for example Andrea Rossi, plays a clever trick causing all observers of the test experiment to believe his claims. Possible schemes for such a fraud are: i) Line power is tampered with and extra power is feed to the E-Cat as e.g. DC. ii) Measurement equipment is tampered with to display wrong numbers iii) Power duty cycles are adjusted down when observers watch and up when they don't, while at the same time well-thought schemes are used to distract the observers. I would like to see a chapter on these three items in a report but don't believe they would actually play a role in this case. Although any reader reaching to this point would like to see a conclusion, I deliberately leave it open. As you know, it may or may not be true. -Bastiaan. On Monday, 20 May 2013 04:47:44 UTC+1, Daniel de França MTd2 wrote: http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.3913 -- Daniel Rocha - RJ danie...@gmail.com
