From: Bob Higgins
These experiments are generally run with a small fixed charge of H2, which puts strict limits on the available energy from H2 burning or chemical energy in general. Hi Bob, Actually no. The fixed charge of H2 puts a limit only on available nuclear energy, but not on a contribution from positronium (vacuum energy which is essentially vast, according to Dirac). You can complain that “semantics” should not allow this type of gain to be called chemical energy – but clearly it is not nuclear energy, therefore “chemical” is closer than nuclear - if those are the only two choices, since the kinetics are chemical and nowhere close to nuclear. Conclusion: a long term test with COP = 2.5 produced by chemical means would require a chemical output that is hundreds or thousands of times greater than what could produced according to today's chemical enthalpy of H. Not exactly true. A sequential “chemical” gain (from Ps) would require only slight net gain (3.4 eV) which does not result in a permanent change of the hydrogen, to insure reuse… IOW a gain which keeps protons in play for the next iteration. So, arguing that the COP of 2.4 could be explained with a mistake in H enthalpy of a factor of 2.4 is off the mark by a huge factor (100's to 10's of thousands) and the statement is wholly specious. Not at all. In fact you have clarified your error in the underlying assumption- to one which assumes that anything not chemical is nuclear, which is wrong – since in fact this excess energy is in the range of chemical (>10 eV) but it is sequential, iterative and continuing over time. There is no mistake in H enthalpy, only a mistake in the assumption that there is but a single iteration per active atom. Jones Beene wrote: Just to be clear, one can state with certainty that burning hydrogen only returns ~one third more energy than is expended to split the gases - so if the gases are made monatomic, then the net gain for the reaction is in the range of COP >2.4 over combustion - and that is chemical gain. This can be illustrated schematically but if the image does not appear, the URL is: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/molecule/imgmol/beng2.gif
