A tweet bot left me this:
Naturally, I clicked over and read the numerous pages explaining the idea. In most ways “cap and share” is a variation on a common idea. This particular one seems to be:
- Set up a world association with world wide taxing power.
- Tax fossil fuel at the extraction point
- Distribute all the collected money “fairly” which in this case evidently means equally to everyone in the whole world.
Easy peasy. Those girls kidnapped by Boko Haram? They certainly deserve the money, and I’m all for getting it to them.
Can I get behind it? You betcha!
But let me explain the condition which I think fits perfectly under the “Cap and Share” vision. I’ll also tell you where you come in.
‘Cap and Share’ group proposes ways their program might be overseen. Here’s a snip
A ‘World Climate Organisation’ could from part of the UN process; or a group of countries might begin by forming a ‘coalition of the willing’, set up a Trust to act on their behalf, and seek to recruit further countries to join. Or equally the Trust could be set up by a small group of people of high standing: globally respected men and women who could take the lead on behalf of humanity.
The way I see it the readership here is a “small group of people” some might even claim to having “high standing”. If we yap enough, we could aspire to “global respect”. Certainly, we are all as able to “take the lead on behalf of humanity” as anyone else I can think of. Presumably that means we could set up this “Trust”. ( Our titles will, btw be “Elder”; we can decide whether one need actually be old to be appointed.)
Next up:
[…] a citizen’s group might hand over to a Trust of eminent ‘elders’ which then gets UN backing. Cap & Share is a tool ready to be used by whatever group emerges.
That sounds simple. A “citizen’s group” can hand over to a Trust. People who read other climate blogs are citizens of the earth. Maybe Watts Up With That can form a “citizens group” and then “hand over” all nitty-gritty details to our Trust. The Trust “Elders” would then draw on their vast brain power and wisdom to carry out the Trust mission.
After that, all we need is UN backing. Whooo hooo!!! But as this idea is so good, why shouldn’t the ‘citizen group’ backed Trust get it?
Now you might ask: Where is the money to run this “Trust” going to come from? How will we the Trust obtain money to send Elders to negotiate with the UN? Who will pay the Elder’s per-diam when she is they are in NY City or other locations where talks are on going? This is, of course, very simple. As the Trust would be collecting the fossil extraction tax, these costs, and the (presumably modest) salaries of “Elders” and any clerical staff would come from that pool. Of course these costs would surely be modest relative to the tax collected leaving the bulk of the collected tax to be redistributed ‘fairly’ and equally to ‘everyone’.
The extra special thing about my this program is that the entire world will feel great love and trust for the “Elders”. Who, in our their beneficence, might think of other suitable programs which could be funded to benefit humanity even more equally. We know, for example, that some people lack access to widely available iformation, and so might fail to collect their moneys. But this can be solved. Surely my nephew some talented cinematographer could be given a $20K per video job creating youtube videos to publicize the availability of the fund so that people in all corners of the earth know to report to the Trust office and collect their share. Those kidnapped girls will then learn of the funds that await them and report to the office. (And you thought perhaps the money might not get distributed equally? Oh. Ye. Of. Little. Faith. We Elders can think of solutions to all these problems!)
Now that I’ve explained the brilliance of this plan, I’m sure you are all enthused.
So now, how many of y’all want to form the Trust? Who wants to nominate me as “Chief Elder”? Because my condition for working to create this is I get to be chief Elder. Otherwise, forget it.
If you’re all for it (which I’m every so sure you are), perhaps you can join my the “small group of people” involved in collecting the taxes and overseeing the process of sharing shitwads of money the proceeds “fairly”. Of course it will be easy to distribute ‘fairly’ because our motto will be “All distributions are equal. But some distributions are more equal than others”.
What could go wrong?
Wow. That’s really. uhm. Remarkable.
It appears that the author is familiar with Judith Curry’s work, from the site:
I’m not quite prepared to comment on some of the other… ahem.. ideas, yet, I suppose I can call them that. Reading the stuff is sort of like what I’d have to imagine being dropped into a cold tank of sewage must feel like; it sort of knocks the breath out of you and leaves your head spinning.
Quite the find Lucia, thanks.
Even crazier than your average leftist-green nutcake idea.
.
I have a more constructive suggestion: let’s tax stoopid leftist ideas, and assign the tax amount based on the recommendations of a group of elders of high standing…. Oh say, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rush Limbaugh, and Mark Steyn. The best part is that while fossil fuels are ultimately a finite resource, stoopid leftist ideas are infinite in scale and number.
SteveF,
I think you’re right. These people are literally insane.
I’ve read this a dozen times now, and I think I’m starting to get the premise. These people actually believe the entire world is going to adopt this scheme, as is, without ‘international bargaining’!
The naivete and arrogance involved here are truly mind boggling in scope.
Well, I’ll go on pondering this fantasy as I tuck in for the evening. Thanks for the good night story, Chief Elder Lucia! I enjoyed it. 🙂
Last time I looked the largest oil and gas companies on Earth, measured by reserves or production volumes, were all state-owned companies. Overall, they account for something like 80% of all non-coal, fossil fuel production. This number rises to well over 90% if tax takes are considered as production shares in those countries which permit private industry a direct ownership share of hydrocarbon reserves.
So overall, this proposal sets up a small elite supernational power which directs and controls the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, China, Venezuela, Russia, Brazil, Malaysia, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi etc. Should be no problem to implement this scheme, and I volunteer to be chairman of the benevolent board of directors providing the new world government also gives me an armoured car, a squad of bodyguards and a decent aircraft carrier or three.
Paul_K,
Yes. That’s why I want to be the supreme Elder. I want to direct and control all these governments. Especially Putin. He seems like such a cupcake.
Small cost. I think every Elder will need these.
Paul_K,
Those are only small details that can be figured out later. The most important thing is that we all practice singing Kumbaya… preferably while holding hands with strangers. (Warning, the strangers may object.) There is no other way to save ourselves from this fossil fuel crisis.
The typical Platonic nightmare of Philosopher Kings, dressed all wrapped up in a sciencey veneer.
Great leaders in modern history look to the select groups of wise men to solve the world’s problems:
“Karl Popper blamed Plato for the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century, seeing Plato’s philosopher kings, with their dreams of ‘social engineering’ and ‘idealism’, as leading directly to Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler (via Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx).[2] In addition, Ayatollah Khomeini is said to have been inspired by the Platonic vision of the philosopher king while in Qum in the 1920s when he became interested in Islamic mysticism and Plato’s Republic. As such, it has been speculated that he was inspired by Plato’s philosopher king, and subsequently based elements of his Islamic Republic on it, despite being a republic and deposing the former Pahlavi dynasty.[3]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher_king
Your Star Trek photo is a great reference!
hunter,
Yes. But this time it would work because I would be the supreme Elder. And I’d get advice from my follow but not-as-supreme Elders.
Stalin, Adolf, Ayatollah weren’t suitable. See?
Seriously, obviously, the idea that it’s somehow “simple” to cut through all this by creating a “Trust” is silly. The different nations are disagreeing but somehow a ‘Trust’ will magically be granted the power to tax all fossil fuel extraction everywhere? This is truly magical thinking.
Just taking the US as an example: if fossil fuel extraction is going to be taxed in the US, our government(s) is going to want to do the taxing and they’ll want to retain the right to decide how to distribute the money. They aren’t going to willingly hand over that power over to a ‘Trust’, not even one who ‘citizen groups’ ‘handed over’ to. Neither the US Feds, States nor various municipalities are going to grant power to a “Trust” to do all inspections, paper work, levy fines etc. to ensure the taxes are properly assessed and collected. It’s just ridiculous.
Roger Pielke, Jr. refers to this sort of stuff as ‘Magical Thinking.’ F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom describes the inevitable result: tyranny. Plato should have his own circle in Hell.
Plato: the original totalitarian theorist; that seems about right. The common thread is the misguided belief by some that there exist people (not coincidentally, people who just happen to agree with misguided believer’s goals) who are somehow uniquely capable of “justly” deciding things, and that ordinary people should not be allowed to decide these things. Many of the climate alarmed appear to fall in this group. The puffed up arrogance and simultaneous naïveté about normal human failings would be funny were it not so dangerous. Id!ots, dangerous id!ots, nothing more.
I have an off topic request.
I do not know R.
I know that R can do what I am looking to do.
I am looking to monte carol a series of variable to get an array of history matches. Out put would be a grid of R^2 values and other accuracy measures and a series of plots of the matches over some threshold of quality.
These “quality” match parameters would then be used to history match other samples to eventually work down to a sub set of 3 or 4 that are the best fit in all cases.
Anyone who has an R package close to this that could be adapted or has some guidance…..
DeWitt,
Of course it’s “magical thinking” and at multiple levels.
1) Thinking governments would go along with this is magical thinking.
2) Thinking the beneficent Elders would run things in a way that is truly “fair” is magical thinking. In the first place, people who aspire to these jobs tend to be at least a bit narcisistic; The will tend to think giving themselves more-than-modest salaries and perks is fair. In the second, one needs cronies to get appointed; then one owes the cronies. Third, the goal of fairness is impossible to nail down because what is “fair” is a value judgement. Fourth, even if we have broad agreement on what is “fair”, actually achieving the goal, or even being in the vicinity of “fair” is a difficult task. Achieving it on a world wide scale is almost certainly impossible.
Unless you find “Elders” who have magical powers and want to job, this is not possible. (Note in the Star Trek story, those Elders didn’t really want the job of running the galaxy.)
I don’t know, I feel bad for poor Plato. You have to put things in context. His idea that the rulers should be chosen among people of intelligence and good character is certainly an improvement over the alternative that they should be the most ruthless and cunning warriors.
Also, I believe that he was thinking on a much smaller scale–city-states, relatively small communities where everybody knows everybody. He could not have even remotely envisioned, say, something on the scale of the former Soviet Union. (I may be wrong here, though–since he must have been at least somewhat familiar with the Persian empire of his time.)
That said, though, it is true that throughout the ages people have been tempted to believe in the possibility of a perfectly fair, rational, “enlightened” government, which of course, being all those things, should have absolute powers, because, why not? Generally speaking, the Left still works under such a delusion. The rest of us are grateful for checks and balances, and the Bill of Rights.
lucia,
Anyone who wants the job of ruling the galaxy or whatever, probably shouldn’t have it.
I inevitably reach the point where I wonder, when confronted with nonsensical suggestions like this, whether the authors realize the magnitude and actual nature of the folly they suggest or if they do so innocently. Are they liars or fools?
There are so many logical holes in this shoddy structure it’s hard to pick one, most are unspectacular even in their stupidity. At random then, from here:
Is it conceivable that it has not occurred to the author that some national governments would cheat? What mechanism exists by which the Supreme Elder can enforce their prerogatives in such a case?
Reading more thoroughly, I think it’s clear in this case that these people are liars instead of fools; they bait and switch as follows:
They advertise this:
and talk repeatedly about sharing the money out in many locations in their text,
And they disclaim this:
mmhmm. Sharing it out, or using it adaptation projects, or infrastructure, or investment in new technologies. Or to line the pockets of the Elder’s shearing the sheep.
[Edit: Well, I have a concrete example for those who scoff at skeptics who worry that activists want to use fears about climate change to setup a world government now. That’s something.]
Mark Bofill
Yep. But I bet if you show this to a person who likes the idea they won’t recognize that this is a proposal for a world government. But it is one. It might be a federalist government. But that’s what our form of government: Federation of 50 states. It certainly a government.
Lucia, I think you left out a small detail. It was assumed, so they didn’t bother mention it. Elders must be believers…
In passing, Industrial Heat’s commercial 1MW LENR plant has now been operating for 212 days out of the 350 day trial period.
Aftenposten, Norway’s largest newspaper, say they have an independent expert’s report that it is running well.
“In passing, Industrial Heat’s commercial 1MW LENR plant has now been operating for 212 days out of the 350 day trial period.”
Adrian, if you believe that, you are the first member of “the elder”.
Adrian,
You are joking about low temperature fusion, right? If not, you are very lost.
The money raised by auctioning the permits is then shared out equally to the people of the world.
When you start with an authoritarian world view you will invariably arrive at the conclusion that some parts of the world are more equal than others.
Svend Ferdinandsen
Yes, I do believe in LENR. There is no longer room for reasonable doubt.
SteveF
See above.
See http://www.lenrproof.com for references to well known scientists and institutions that also now agree. There you also find a link http://www.lenr-canr.org that lists some 1000 peer reviewed papers.
See http://andrea-rossi.com/1mw-plant/ for photos of the plant under construction. The 1 MW output is from four 250 kW units shown at the center bottom. The other, smaller units are of the older design and just serve as stand-by. The COP is reported to be over 20.
It is increasingly similar to the Wright Brother’s flying machine where neither academia nor the press (notably Wiki) believed it was possible and so ignored the first flight for three years.
There is a real chance the LENR will replace most fossil fuel over the next few decades. The news of this even will probably surface in Feb/Mar 2015 and will cause consternation for countries that rely on oil exports.
ps.. Rossi has recently obtained a US patent that spells out details such as the fuel composition, but is wisely doesn’t mention cold fusion as the Patent Office refuses any patents on that. The lawyers will get very rich from the resulting mess.
Please excuse various typos.
is should be it
even should be event
2015 should be 2016
Adrian,
I overestimated you. Would you be willing to wager that a valid US patent for energy production from cold fusion will issue some time in the next decade? Say, if no valid patent issues, then you pay to a charity of my choice US$1000, while if a valid US patent on cold fusion does issue, then I will give US$1000 to the charity of your choice. Alternatively, the wager could be based on construction of an unsubsidized electric generation facility which produces net power from cold fusion any time in the next decade.
Cold fusion is 100% hype and propaganda, not science. The hype is designed to raise money from unwise investors. Cold fusion is rubbish.
Dream on. Even if LENR actually works as advertised, which I seriously doubt, it will take far longer than a few decades to replace fossil fuels. Technological changes of that magnitude take at least 50 to 100 years. Even if you completely replaced coal and natural gas as primary energy sources for electricity generation, you still have transportation to deal with. Electric vehicles will still have the same problem with storage they have now and most petroleum is used for transportation fuels.
I seriously doubt the Saudi’s, for example, are worried about this.
DeWitt,
“Even if LENR actually works as advertised, which I seriously doubt…”
Elegant understatement. It is rubbish.
“Would you be willing to wager that a valid US patent for energy production from cold fusion will issue some time in the next decade?”
I’d be careful of such bets. First, without even looking, I find it inconceivable that patent applications for cold fusion have not been filed. Second, there’s the argument about what is and isn’t cold fusion. Third, the analytical ability of patent examiners spans a wide range; examiners can issue patents whose claims encompass cold fusion without their even knowing it; many patents are untouched by human minds. Finally, the validity of any patent depends on which judge and jury you get. As an alleged infringer, your chances in Marshall, TX, for example, tend not to be very good.
I’m not a betting man. Forced to take one side or the other, though, I’d find it a no-brainer to take the pro-existence-of-cold-fusion-patent side.
Joe,
Are you suggesting that cold fusion is real?
“Are you suggesting that cold fusion is real.”
No, although there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy. What I’m suggesting is that you could do with a little more business experience if you think that an issued patent claiming it is proof of a concept’s validity.
Joe,
By the way, there have been multitudes of applications claiming cold fusion power, but as far as I can tell, no US patent has issued which claims cold fusion is real. I very much suspect these applications are considered by the same examiners who handle perpetual motion applications, and get the same blanket rejections.
Joe,
I have lots of business experience (40+years), and a number of US patents. You are correct that lots of invalid patents do issue, but the lack of validity is usually due to missed earlier public disclosure (eg an obscure publication from well before the application), the patent describes common knowledge of “those skilled in the field”, or the described process just doesn’t work. Back in the 1980’s my research group would pass around newly published patents which were obviously not valid just for laughs…. we’d even circle the really nutty stuff with red pens… research humor.
.
Claims of cold fusion are simply wrong on their face, and any patent application claiming cold fusion will not likely get very far…. much like perpetual motion.
“I very much suspect these applications are considered by the same examiners who handle perpetual motion applications, and get the same blanket rejections”
I hope for your sake that you base no serious business decisions on such suspicions.
Cold fusion is surely an oxymoron.
If it cannot produce heat what other energy source can it produce?
Electricity? With little nano generators?
Magnetism?
Already have that without CF.
Surely believers have to put up the putative energy source that they are going to tap.
You get my vote, Lucia [as per Rocky Horror Show].
Lucia,
Of course you should be head elder on the board of trustees. And with me as a fellow elder you can have the confidence of knowing I will always have your back…..
As to CF, I recall a 60 minutes episode about how Israelis were doing something with it. But 60 minutes also is the organization that trumped up false charges on Audi cars….
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cold-fusion-is-hot-again/
The website on CF offered above comes across as a con-artist website. At the end of the day CF promoters seem even less credible than extremist climate doom promoters.
To be fair to Wiki, it didn’t actually exist then.
Adrian, Rossi’s scam (for that’s clearly what it is) has the classic red-flags of pseudo-science. There is no independently reproducible work there (he has to be present at the tests and won’t provide access to the workings of the device, or allow standard measurements to be taken). (Please see here for a an example of this – it’s a critique of a relatively recent paper which supposedly provided independent verification).
This isn’t his first bogus “breakthrough” either. He pretended to have created a method for converting organic waste into oil in the 70’s, but didn’t create any. He moved to the US once that venture collapsed (having wasted the investors’ money).
Hunter,
“At the end of the day CF promoters seem even less credible than extremist climate doom promoters.”
.
Yes, because warming driven by rising GHGs in the atmosphere is trivially correct, even while much of the rest of ‘climate science’ is a mix of confirmation bias, wild eyed speculation, irrational fears, and blatant political advocacy for ‘social progress’ (AKA ever more government control of individuals and organizations). It is the grain of truth about GHGs causing some warming which leads to the potential for the nonsense, which is passed off as ‘science’, to cause serious economic and political damage.
Steve,
As you probably know, sometimes the nutty patents are the best ones. Phillips paid big money to color kinetics which had patents on color mixing of LED’s using PWM. Literally the most obvious thing in the world, and it made ’em millions.
Not sure why it is relevant but thought I would chime in anyway ;D
Jeff,
Of course, patents some judge to fail the “obviousness” test are upheld… what is obvious to some may not be so obvious to others. That is not the situation with cold fusion…. it is just completely wrong; it just doesn’t work. Not actually working makes any patent invalid…. hence, as far as I am aware there are no US patents which include claims of cold fusion, nor any on perpetual motion either.
There seems little point in answering those who simply state LENR doesn’t exist or is pseudo science, with nothing to back up their opinion.
Others with more open minds might look at http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BeaudetteCexcessheat.pdf to get some understanding of why the early attempted replications of Pons & Fleischmann failed.
See also the special section on LENR in Current Science, starting with McKubre’s paper. http://www.currentscience.ac.in/php/feat.php?feature=Special%20Section:%20Low%20Energy%20Nuclear%20Reactions&featid=10094
In 2013-2014 ELFORSK (Swedish equivalent of EPRI) tested the later high temperature E-Cat twice at Lugano. The second time for a month, when it produced 1.5 MW of excess heat. Late last year and again this year Dr. Parkhomov replicated the Lugano test in Russia. Reported at the ICCF-19 Conference. This was entirely independent.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/242284200/Observation-of-abundant-heat-production-from-a-reactor-device-and-of-isotopic-changes-in-the-fuel
See also David French’s analysis of Rossi’s new patent here.
http://coldfusionnow.org/analysis-of-rossi-us-patent-9115913-issued-25aug15-part-1/
On patents:
A patent for a “Hyper-light-speed antenna”.
On LENR:
I don’t understand why some commenters here consider this idea in the “perpetual motion” category. I can understand a spectrum of opinion on Rossi’s device. The secretiveness and indirect demonstrations certainly do not inspire confidence. But why do you think that the concept is intrinsically impossible? [For the record, I’ve moved from complete disbelief closer to the fence after seeing a report claiming a change in Li isotope composition. But the lack of observed gamma radiation…]
HaroldW,
In the paper linked above by Levi, Foschi and Essen, almost all of the lithium and the aluminum in the ‘fuel’ disappeared and the nickel was reduced to the metal (fuel composition Ni 55.2%, Li 1.17%, Al 4.38%, ash composition Ni 95.8%, Li 0.03%, Al <0.05%). Of course that assumes that the samples were real, which I also doubt.
Under the reaction conditions of up to 1400°C, in air, all nickel metal would be converted to nickel oxide, not the other way around. That’s simple chemistry which shouldn’t be affected by any change in the nickel isotope ratios. The small amount of lithium aluminum hydride in the fuel would not have been sufficient to reduce nickel oxide to the metal and keep it there for a month at high temperature exposed to air.
That means there was, in fact, chemistry going on in the tube. My guess would be a source of hydrogen to maintain reducing conditions, not to mention providing heat by reacting with oxygen. I also have very little faith in the thermal energy measurements as the ‘calibration’ was not performed at the same temperature as the reaction for reasons that I also consider bogus. And that’s not to mention that the proposed nuclear reactions makes no sense at all.
Where is James Randi when you need him.
“Not actually working makes any patent invalid…. hence, as far as I am aware there are no US patents which include claims of cold fusion, nor any on perpetual motion either.”
I’m not going to go searching, but I do know I’ve seen issued patents for perpetual motion, and it would not surprise me at all if some had issued for cold fusion (about which I’m agnostic).
The problem is not what the law is. The problem is what the patent examiner and later the judge understands. I don’t know but I can’t imagine that the examiners who issued those perpetual-motion patents knew that’s what they were.
Also, I’ve seen a U.S. circuit court of appeals (maybe the Federal Circuit, but this was a long time ago) uphold a patent on something that didn’t work. In that case the patent examiner couldn’t have known it wouldn’t work, but it was proved at trial not to work, and the trial court therefore held the patent invalid–but the court of appeals reversed.
What I’m telling you is that patent examination is like peer review. No one should expect too much of it.
Joe Born,
It used to be a lot easier to get a patent invalidated. But that changed when there was a change in the appeals system. It went from about 80% invalidated to 20%. Kodak discovered this when Polaroid sued them for patent infringement on instant photography and won big. Not that it mattered to either of them in the long run.
DeWitt,
“Where is James Randi when you need him.”
.
Indeed. 25 years since P&F, and the same old cranks are still ‘publishing’ the same old nonsense. ‘Technology’ companies, based on new ‘revolutionary’ energy supplies from cold fusion, are still fleecing unwise investors. Cargo Cult Science like cold fusion will never disappear so long as there exist deluded (or crazy) scientists and unprincipled hacks looking to make an easy (though dishonest) dollar. Once the delusional are invested in an idea, they can’t change their thinking… as the many ‘magical thinking’ nut-cakes in climate science so clearly demonstrate.
HarroldW,
” The secretiveness and indirect demonstrations certainly do not inspire confidence.”
.
No, and they are perfectly consistent with past episodes of rubbish pseudo-science (or if you prefer, cargo cult science). There is no credible reason to believe any of it; really, it is inconsistent with all understanding of chemistry and nuclear physics, the experiments are inevitably flawed (whenever someone actually gets to evaluate them!), the experimenters are secretive about methods and data, and they refuse independent testing or evaluation of their equipment and ‘systems’. I suggest you apply some healthy skepticism to this ‘field’.
Oh I wanna be Lucia’s flunky
I don wanna be a junky
Lemme take your CO2
An I wan yur money too
Look an see while we prepare
Our plans for alla rest of d’air
Tom,
You coulda been a rapper. Can you sing or play an instrument?
“It used to be a lot easier to get a patent invalidated.”
Yes. Too easy. There were some circuits where no one could remember a patent’s having been upheld.
Now all appeals go to the Federal Circuit. That would have been a good idea if that court had gotten consistently good judges, because patent issues are difficult.
It got some good ones, but not enough.
DeWitt and SteveF,
Read my post above #138820. This gives links to a scientific explanation of the problems with the early, failed replications of Pons & Fleischmann.
.
See also http://www.lenrproof.com for a list of prominent scientists and institutions that have come out in favor of LENR. What makes you think you know better?
.
You have failed to come up with a single scientific fact or report to support your regurgitation of factless troll favorites.
Adrian,
I followed your links, and I read some of the papers from the Indian journal. My considered opinion is that those papers are very short on data (most have none), full of speculation, and offer no data which points to a plausible mechanism for fusion of nuclei at low temperature. The suggestion that fusion of nuclei will somehow take place, in spite of enormous repulsion at the separation distances required, is absurd. The suggestion that such fusion does not release energetic neutrons (that is, there is some magical way that the nuclei know to not release energetic neutrons, but release fusion energy some other way) is absurd. The suggestion that the fusing nuclei are somehow influenced by a surrounding chemical environment is absurd.
.
You, like all those “researchers” who imagine cold fusion is real, are lost my friend. While it is clear you will go on believing this rubbish, no matter how disconnected from reason, I sincerely suggest you don’t invest any money in these ventures.
SteveF (Comment #138817),
You pegged it. One of the dangerous characteristics of social manias is how they will make a veneer of credibility to cover a whole substance of bigotry and prejudice. Sciencey veneers are more popular in recent history. Eugenics was veneered with the science of evolution, for example. Naomi Klein (among so many) uses a veneer of science to cover her non-rational anti-capitalist clap-trap today.
SteveF,
“I followed your links, and I read some of the papers from the Indian journal. My considered opinion is that those papers are very short on data (most have none), full of speculation, and offer no data which points to a plausible mechanism for fusion of nuclei at low temperature.”
.
Contrary to what you say, McKubre’s paper, the first in the special section of Current Science, has the facts and shows the results of many experiments with palladium/deuterium,and the relationship of loading the palladium with positive heat gain. From which it is perfectly clear why the early replications failed.
.
It is true that there is no widely accepted theory to explain it, although there are dozens of theories.
But consider that when Madame Curie discovered that radium melted its own weight of ice every hour, there was no theory to explain that either. Not having a theory does NOT negate the validity of the discovered effect.
–
It seems a tad biased that you will only accept the results from ancient, badly run replications from MIT and CalTech. By hot fusion scientists who celebrated their negative results before the experiment was even completed.
SteveF
“You, like all those “researchers†who imagine cold fusion is real, are lost my friend. While it is clear you will go on believing this rubbish, no matter how disconnected from reason, I sincerely suggest you don’t invest any money in these ventures.”
.
I wish I could invest in Industrial Heat. Unfortunately there is no way they will accept my money. Typical of a scam don’t you think?
BTW I’m not your friend.
Adrian,
Sometimes the object of a scam is not the general public.
In 1993, a fellow showed up in Miami who wanted to buy or lease an old boatyard on the Miami River. It was a large yard and had been used to build patrol boats during WW2. It belonged to a branch of the Rockefeller family.
The plan was to establish a manufacturing facility which would design and build several thousand fishing boats for the Mexican government. He had what he said was a contract from the Mexican government for the boats. The story was the Mexican government would upgrade its commercial fishing fleet over five years with some sort of subsidized lease-to-buy arrangement with the fisherman. For skeptics, a contact name in the Mexican government was available and you could call or write to verify this.
Arcadia Systems, our engineering computer system integration outfit was sent an RFP for the CAD and CAM systems which would be required to design the boats and the tooling (big plug to build the molds for the fiberglass hulls and superstructure, and operate various other CNC equipment. We proposed a system which with first year service came to $750k. To my utter astonishment the proposal was accepted without any dickering. It had never happened before.
Presently a check showed up for the deposit, $150K, but I was told not to cash it, because funding for the project was still not in place.
Funding was being sought in Mexico. A Manitowoc crane, a BIG one, was also purchased but this time, the first check was ok, and Manitowoc commenced work on the crane. When it was done they asked for a check for the second third of the price. It was not forthcoming.
a flap ensued which involved the States Attorney and our client disappeared, and to my knowledge has never been found.
It turned out that the object of the scam, wasn’t anyone at my level, nor was it the people he was trying to get to finance the thing (more on that if you’re interested). The idea was that the thing would be put together and gotten operational, which would have cost about $6 million, and then sold to a Saudi prince complete with the contract with the Mexican government.
If Rossi’s scheme is something like that, he wouldn’t be interested in your money. All he’d be looking for is a few big investors to make the thing as real as it can be, and then he’ll sell it to someone lock stock and barrel.
There is a lot more detail on how the Miami Boatyard scam worked and since I was somewhat ( but unwittingly) involved i can share it if anyone thinks that what I’ve already written isn’t more than long enough.
I should add that the contract with the Mexican government wasn’t real. I should also add that the investors he was looking for would have been brought into the scam as partners.
The Saudi prince would then have been sold the plant complete with contract for something like $50 million. Our client had fronted the project about $1 million of what appeared to be his own funds.
So if this isn’t entirely clear, just because you aren’t being scammed doesn’t meant that someone isn’t.
Adrian,
You seem to be ignoring the most obvious reasons why the whole of cold fusion is rubbish: (so again)
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It is the obvious conflict with everything which is known about the physical world (including fusion of light nuclei, which has been studied for a long time) which makes cold fusion utterly incredible. Your’s is magical thinking.
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BTW, McKubre’s paper is full of empty words, and has no verifiable data. It is rubbish as well.
Lets see: a Saudi prince building fishing boats in Florida for the Mexican government.
Yea – that makes perfect sense.
jferguson.
Pigs don’t fly too often.
Industrial Heat was started by Tom Darden, founder and CEO of the $2billion investment company Cherokee Investments.
He has a very long track record of ethical projects cleaning up industrial waste. He stated that his lifetime objective was to help clean up the environment
See his rare public speech here http://www.e-catworld.com/2015/04/14/tom-dardens-speech-on-lenr-at-iccf19/
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Through your ignorance of the facts you have wasted a page on something totally irrelevant and basically insulted an honorable man who is nearing retirement and certainly doesn’t need more money.
Adrian Ashfield
I’m not sure how jferguson telling a story about something that happened in the past which had nothing to do with Tom Darden is insulting Tom Darden.
But even if one can stretch one’s imagination to believe that:
I doubt Tom Darden whether honorable and nearing retirement or not is going to concern himself that someone on a blog criticized him.
Adrian,
my intent was certainly not to insult anyone, but more to suggest that it is possible that a scam can be directed at someone other than you. I somehow inferred from your statement that since you couldn’t participate in this, it couldn’t be a scam.
and Kan, what I wrote above is as factual as i can make it. Certainly someone who invests in Ford is not planning to build cars him/herself.
SteveF,
It should have been obvious that LENR is a different process than that involved in traditional nuclear fission or fusion. Just what it is is not yet understood.
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Try to understand that new things are periodically discovered and stop repeating what everybody already knows.
http://coldfusion3.com/blog/it%E2%80%99s-official-us-startup-admits-to-purchasing-rossi%E2%80%99s-e-cat-lenr-technology
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“A North Carolina based company called Industrial Heat LLC has come out and admitted that it now owns Andrea Rossi’s ecat low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) technology. Industrial Heat has put out a press release in which it confirmed rumors that it had spent $11 million to purchase Rossi’s device.”
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OK so Darden is lighter by $11 million, plus whatever else he has spent on setting up Industrial Heat; Rossi found his patsy and can retire in luxury. Darden is going to be unhappy when he realizes this; good thing he is rich enough that this mistake won’t ruin him. I wonder if he looked in to Rossi’s waste-to-oil scam in the 1970’s before investing in this scam. Probably not.
Adrian,
“Try to understand that new things are periodically discovered and stop repeating what everybody already knows.”
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Wow, you are quite beyond hope. Adeus.
Lucia,
The inference was that it still might be a scam.
As I don’t think Industrial Heat is a scam, I found what jferguson wrote was irrelevant to the topic.
jferguson,
Yes, my inference was that if the business will not accept outside money it was unlikely to be a scam, despite your example.
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Just what is happening is far from clear. Industrial Heat only have rights to use Rossi’s IP, it seems they have not bought it outright. For example, the new basic US patent is ascribed to Rossi’s company not Industrial Heat.
Rossi says that he is employed by Industrial Heat as their chief scientist. There seems little doubt that he works long hours seven days a week at the new 1 MW plant. Besides watching over that he is developing a third generation of E-Cat.. So he has not taken the money and ran as one of your fellow conspirator enthusiasts suggested.
Some background on Rossi (including some interesting links): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Rossi_%28entrepreneur%29
Good grief, he studied philosophy, and then enter the field of scamology.
Adrian,
I’m sure Bernie Madoff worked long hours at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. He didn’t disappear either. Early investors in the scheme probably made a lot of money too. But you appear to be a True Believer and you will ignore any evidence that doesn’t fit your belief system and accept without question anything that does. I suggest you go and play somewhere where the audience is more gullible.
Maybe Darden is a Saudi Prince.
jferguson –
I appreciate the story of the boat-building scam. People can be more subtle in their trickery than I could guess at. Glad it didn’t work out for the scammer.
SteveF,
” I wonder if he looked in to Rossi’s waste-to-oil scam in the 1970’s before investing in this scam. Probably not.”
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Typical troll regurgitation. Rossi was charged under a retroactive law that reclassified the waste he had collected as hazardous. It took a while but he was eventually cleared of the charges.
It was rumored that the law was pushed by the Mafia who were pissed at the competition to their waste business. The prosecutor involved later ended up in jail for taking bribes.
SteveF,
“Some background on Rossi (including some interesting links): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Rossi_%28entrepreneur%29
Good grief, he studied philosophy, and then enter the field of scamology.”
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He got an engineering PhD with a thesis on relativity.
That was why I mentioned wiki as a badly biased source earlier.
Do you ever get anything right?
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Glass houses and stones.
Mote. Beam. Eye.
I could go on, but you should get the point. It’s not SteveF who is the tr011 here. You’re the one hijacking the thread.
DeWitt,
I wrote this earlier:
“In passing, Industrial Heat’s commercial 1MW LENR plant has now been operating for 212 days out of the 350 day trial period.”
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Thereafter I have been answering comments.
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Is that really the best response you can come up with after I have shown you to be wrong?
HaroldW,
I was unnerved by the unchallenged proposal. I wouldn’t say it was over the top, but it did include in front a lot of software that they were unlikely to need before they’d got into production.
The principal was an interesting guy. Basque by birth and spoke more than 6 languages. His English was excellent but non-native detectable. My daughter told me his Thai was also very good. He was entertaining and seemed to be highly intelligent.
He had hired two engineers from one of the Miami boat-builders. I knew their former employer. They were real, one having designed a motor-yacht which was quite popular at the time. They were both convinced the thing was real, even after i started to wonder about the un-resisted proposal.
I could see that whatever was going on wasn’t likely to hurt me, other than time consumed in technical hand-holding mostly addressed to bringing his engineers up to speed on what I took to be state of the art in design, engineering, and CAM systems. they were going to buy a gantry mill to cut the plugs, which I thought was nuts if there weren’t going to be a lot of different designs. but …
A lot was done to show real commitment. There was also a lot of talk about getting partners in the scheme. Principal knew guys all over the world who could have been interested in this as a scam. Only he called them investors. I didn’t come to understand that they would be knowing partners in a scam until much later.
I’d left Miami for other reasons by the time the crane purchase hit the fan. I found out all the things I related above from one of the engineers who had been briefed so to speak by the Feds. Principal turned out to be a well known (at least in international police circles) scammer who did these sort of deals. Basicly invent a business that looks like a sure thing, and invest enough money in it to give it credibility, then sell it to someone who is unlikely to do the due diligence and won’t be devastated if it doesn’t work out. You also need to understand how money is distributed among the minor royalty in Saudi to understand why principal had targeted a prince.
Feds thought that he really had invested more than a $million of his own money in the project.
It could be that our hero is alive and well and has funded Rossi. The pattern is identical.
Adrien,
Actually, it is you how have it wrong. Rossi’s PhD thesis was on the relationship of Einstein’s theory of relativity to Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology. (http://www.iep.utm.edu/husserl/) Maybe Rossi had a minor in scamology.
I feel a great disturbance in the force… almost like a new Doug Cot#on has been created… though it could just be the anguished screams of investors who suddenly realized they have been scammed. Still impossible to tell which.
jferguson,
“It could be that our hero is alive and well and has funded Rossi. The pattern is identical.”
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The pattern is not identical and the players are different. Tom Darden is not a con man nor Saudi royalty and you continue to insult him.
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It will be easy enough to show whether the 1MW plant is real or not when the data are published in Feb/Mar, remembering there is a customer who is paying for the output and an independent referee.
Would it be fair to ask why IP rights for such a revolutionary process could be worth as little as $11M?
Jferguson,
“Would it be fair to ask why the IP rights for such a revolutionary process could be worth as little as $11M?”
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Yes. I wondered about that too. But it seems that Industrial Heat have just bought limited rights and we don’t know how much Rossi stands to make from the sale of product. I expect the latter will make the bulk of his profit.
Adrian —
As I understand it, Rossi’s method involves providing electrical energy to heat a device which then produces more energy than the input heat. Presumably a commercial enterprise would be bootstrapped — that is, provided energy only initially and thereafter operated (until fuel exhaustion) only on its own generated energy. Do you know if the pilot plant is being run under those circumstances? Or is it still connected to power lines?
HaroldW,
The original E-Cats were hard to control and although one at least produced over 100kW in a runaway situation according to Levi, it was generally thought they produced about 10kW with a COP of at least 6. They had to be powered periodically for control purposes.
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The 1 MW plant uses a later generation of the low temperature E-Cat, the output coming from four 250kW units. Rossi won’t give details until after the trial is over but I have heard from normally reliable independent sources that the COP is in the range of 20 – 80. They possibly have the plate layout shown in the patent (which was applied for 3.5 years ago.)
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This means that Rossi has discovered how to run the E-Cat in a higher percentage of self sustain mode. There is talk also of using the output of one to power several others.
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There is a full set of 53? original sized E-Cats shown in the center of the photo, that are just standby in case the base units fail. See http://andrea-rossi.com/1mw-plant/
There is a new version of the E-Cat that Rossi is very excited about, but nothing is known about it apart from him saying it has a higher COP and runs at a higher temperature.
The force waves have alined; the disturbance in the force is definitely caused by the creation of another Doug Cot#on!
Ahh, yes free energy suppression lives on.
Lucia,
I really, really want to be an Elder. I know I’ve only posted here a couple of times, and those posts were pretty irrelevant, but what I lack in substance I can make up for in loyalty ( ass kissing) and my fierce advocacy of the cause ( I’ll say anything ). Also I think Chuck the Elder doesn’t really have the gravitas like Lucia the Elder has so I am willing to change my name. Prometheus..Chucketheus..whatever… will figure it out later. I know most of these denizens are more knowledgeable than me. And they are certainly smarter than me. But lets face it those qualities are not only unimportant for this position , they may actually be a burden. So please, please consider me for one of your Vice Elders. You won’t be sorry.
Don’t listen to him Lucia! Remember Lenin and Stalin! Plato and Aristotle! Batman and Robin! All the famous betrayals got started in this exact same way!
:O
Mark,
I think your history of the Beatles is a little foggy. And Robin always had the Dark Knights back…like I would for Lucia. As to those other guys, whoever they are, I’m sure they’re pretty much a non factor. Are they a boy band? Anyway Mark, I’m not sure your Elder material. But we ( Lucia and me) are not going to give up on you …at least not now.
Adrian,
If it is producing a MW, there is no need to wait until next year. That is a significant amount of power.
In a way the climate apocalypse is the same sort of scam as CF. Both take trivially true physics and blow them completely out of proportion at great cost to the believers.
Both rely on future reports/results as well as for the believer to ignore the history of failed predictions/results.
The website for the Italian con-artist reads like a pile of bs, by the way.
Or do you have a vested interest in CF?
I recall how excited I was when the PF report came out so long ago. People were ready to jump all over it, pour in money, commit anything needed to make it work.
It did not die from a conspiracy. It died because of physics.
It reminds me in a way of that Faces on Mars guy. Hoagland (Hoaxland).
Sciencey veneer over crap and deceptions.
RB,
That Wiki page is a scream! I was unaware of that particular island of lunacy. Alien technology…. yup, that’s the ticket to the future. I also like the vacuum energy part. Always a little shocking to find new nutty things people can convince themselves of.
hunter,
“If it is producing a MW, there is no need to wait until next year. That is a significant amount of power.”
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It would be silly to sell a commercial unit without doing a thorough test on it first. At this point, Industrial Heat don’t even know how often the charge has to be changed.
It looks like the one year trial was something imposed on Rossi as part of the deal to fund the 1MW plant.
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Although I think the evidence is now plain, the group-think of academia is still firmly opposed. (Not to mention the trolls.) Rossi forecast that it would not be believed until there were commercial units out in the field and it looks like he was right about that too.
Re the Elder bit, I only brought up LENR because it is one of the few things significant enough to kill the entrenched AGW nonsense.
Adrian,
You are misusing the term “troll”. It doesn’t mean “people who post to contradict Adrian Ashfields beliefs in a firm way”. It is “people who arrive in a post to post things with the intention of annoying and irritating the blog owner and regulars with the hope they will derail comments in some way.”
Those who are criticizing you are certainly not the latter.
SteveF,
One difference between Doug Cotton and Adrian is Doug is pushing his own theory. Unless Adrian is a sock puppet, Adrian is promoting someone else’s.
Lucia,
I welcome people who want to debate the facts and have a different point of view to mine. I am not “promoting” anything. I have no financial or other interest in LENR other than that I would like to see it happen.
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Troll comments are those factless ad hominems like “The force waves have alined; the disturbance in the force is definitely caused by the creation of another Doug Cot#on!” (It was repeated in two comments)
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Hunter, further to my comment about the need for a thorough trial, here is Rossi’s response to someone asking how the plant is now operating.
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“Andrea Rossi
September 12th, 2015 at 11:02 PM
Brigitte Dubois:
Right now it is 11.59 p.m. inside the computers container: we have just finished an important reparation to a reactor. The 1 MW is working at 3/4 of its power in this moment, but we are confident it will recover soon.
The E-Cat X continues to be very promising and extremely interesting. Now it seems much more robust and we’ll see what will happen next…
Warm Regards,
A.R.
chuckrr,
I’ve made an avatar for the supreme elder:
I was making sketches for physics problems. You’ll see the cape says “super ninja”. I figure I need these characters to replace the kids who can push sleds at 15 m/s.
I added a star to indicate Supreme Elder. But It’s probably a good touch for the super ninja too. The other elders can have similar uniforms. But no star. That’s just for the supreme Elder. Possibly some levels would have some sort of smaller cape? (Depends on what can be done with Omni graffle. I’m not getting more sophisticated drafting tools for this.)
Beam me up, Scotty.
Adrian,
That comment still doesn’t make him a troll. Read the definition, apply the rules and you will see that merely ‘using an ad hom’ doesn’t make one a troll.
If you object to ad hominems, use the word and state so precisely. But bear in mind that while it is criticism as you as a person, that doesn’t make it a “logical fallicy” because it was not advanced as an argument.
For what it’s worth: It is certainly true that you are promoting a highly unlikely theory that pretty much no-one believes is correct. I think the chance that you are correct is less than 0.000001%.
There is scant evidence for its correctness; none convincing. For the most part your “evidence” that the people who you are promoting it are neither scammers nor scammees is that you happen to believe they are not scammers. Or that you think Darden is ‘upstanding’. The latter, if true, would suggest he is more likely the scammee than the scammer, but it is hardly evidence that Rossi’s enterprise is not a scam.
If people discussing the possibility this is a scam is insulting to someone do be it. That the discussion might be insulting to someone is not counter evidence for the theory that this is a scam.
Beyond that, your complaints appear to be:
1) That it is someone “insulting” to Darden for people to point out that sophisticated scams have occurred in the past. (It’s not.)
2) That someone pointing out that sophisticated scams have occurred in the past somehow implies this is a scam.
3) That Wikipedia’s page pointing out that Rossi has been convicted (which he has) is somehow biased.
WRT to 2: Pointing out that scams has happened doesn’t actually imply this is one. But it does prove such scams are possible. If it possible, it is possible. Your grousing that someone making statements of fact is somehow “insulting” is silly.
WRT to 3: You’ve certainly provided no evidence Wikipedia’s biography of Rossi is biased. The page suggests multiple convictions followed by gross engineering failures. These are accompanied by the ability to somehow obtain large monetary investments. That page of information is consistent with ‘scammer’ and is so even if the convictions were for illegally dumping hazardous waste and not ‘financial scamming”.
You seem to have a complaint about Wikipedia’s discussion of his degree. In their discussion, the degree discussed does not match anything one would expect to be conducted in engineering– it looks like a philosophy title. Anyone with a degree in engineering (or philosophy) could easily recognize that title does not suggest “engineering degree”. The wikipedia page says it’s a philosophy degree.
If you want to support your contention his degree was in Engineering, find his actual ph.d. and present that to us. That the title contains “Einstein” doesn’t mean the topic was engineering. It could be history, philosophy, sociology or any number of things. In this case, it looks like philosophy. You have presented no evidence to suggest his degree is in Engineering. Perhaps it is (though I doubt it). But if you have evidence for your claim, present it.
It’s all well and good to try to support your argument by flinging around counter arguments like “You are insulting Darden” or “You are a troll”. But none of those things support your claim that this technology is remotely promising.
Perhaps we will all have egg on our face when the company does suddenly create power out of almost nowhere. If so: great! But I doubt that will occur. And you’ve presented nothing more than cheer-leading for Darden and Rossi to support your view that outcome is remotely likely.
http://www.smosh.com/smosh-pit/articles/18-types-of-internet-trolls#
See #4
Lucia,
I lean towards the dictionary definition of a troll. “One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument”
You are of course entitled to your own definition.
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I generally ignore troll remarks unless they happen to state a fact that is wrong. Sometimes I will attempt to correct it, but coming from a troll it is unlikely to sink in, so is a waste of time.
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You think there is scant evidence for LENR. I wonder how you can dismiss several thousand papers (see http://www.lenr-canr.org) as scant.
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You wrote “If people discussing the possibility this is a scam is insulting to someone do be it. That the discussion might be insulting to someone is not counter evidence for the theory that this is a scam.”
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To write that the 1MW plant is not real and Industrial Heat is probably a scam, IS insulting to Tom Darden. As you point out, I’m sure he won’t care and will probably never see the comment. But the inference is insulting.
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Beyond that, your complaints appear to be:
1) That it is someone “insulting†to Darden for people to point out that sophisticated scams have occurred in the past. (It’s not.)
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It was not that. It was saying that Industrial Heat probably was the same. Of course there have been scams in the past. There is not the slightest EVIDENCE to suggest that this is though. It should have been worded differently, but is not worth haggling over.
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3) That Wikipedia’s page pointing out that Rossi has been convicted (which he has) is somehow biased.
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Wikipedia’s page on the E-Cat is as biased as Connolly was (before he was unfrocked) on climate warming. The editor AndyTheGrump searches for negative comments and will not allow anything positive to be posted.
Rossi was NOT CONVICTED of fraud with Petrodragon, he was charged and acquitted. You are repeating false information. He was found guilty of tax evasion with something to do with smuggling gold I believe.
There is every reason to think Petrodragon was sound technically as a similar plant has since been started in the US.
‘
“You seem to have a complaint about Wikipedia’s discussion of his degree. In their discussion, the degree discussed does not match anything one would expect to be conducted in engineering– it looks like a philosophy title. Anyone with a degree in engineering (or philosophy) could easily recognize that title does not suggest “engineering degreeâ€. The wikipedia page says it’s a philosophy degree. ”
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They just talked about him getting an on-line degree from a disreputable university. He took the course to learn about chemical engineering. I haven’t looked at the page recently so they may have updated it.
His basic degrees were:
University degli Studi di Milano
Doctorate in Philosophy, 1970 -1975
Liceo Scientifico Alessandro Volta (Milano ITALY)
Bachelor of Science (BS), 1964 -1969
Milano is an ancient university and their PhD is somewhat different than common US practice.
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“Perhaps we will all have egg on our face when the company does suddenly create power out of almost nowhere. If so: great! But I doubt that will occur. And you’ve presented nothing more than cheer-leading for Darden and Rossi to support your view that outcome is remotely likely.”
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As I said, I welcome debate on facts but you have presented very few.
I forecast that news of the 1 MW plant in Feb/Mar will be favorable and become accepted. We will see who is right. Not long to wait.
Good God.
Adrian, the topic of the thread wasn’t LENR or Rossi. You introduced it. In doing so you’ve created disruption and argument. Lucia has, in a very polite and understated way, pointed out already that you are off topic. You seem oblivious to this.
The irony of accusing Lucia of presenting few facts in this matter is apparently lost on you. I do keep track of reports on Rossi, and there are few facts to be had. The fact is, he talks alot and does not offer anything like sufficient information to explore his claims by attempting replication and verification. Nobody can discuss the ‘facts’ because nobody has them.
Quit being rude and cut it out, please. We got it. We got that you believe. Alleluia, you believe. Some of us do not. What else is there to talk about in this regard?
Adrian
You have proven my point by finding a definition that matches mine. SteveF, who you called a troll did not “post[.] a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument”. Moreover, he has caused no disruption or argument– unless we count your disagreement with him or complaint a “disruption” or “argument”. I doubt anyone other than you considers your grips a “disruption” or “argument”.
And yes, I can dismiss the papers at ” http://www.lenr-canr.org” as “scant”.
Lucia, Your avatar is brilliant. A nod to the ancients ( and I mean really ancient like cave paintings) with a modern minimalistic twist. Our subjects…I mean the people…will totally buy into it.
FWIW Adrian
I didn’t say he was convicted of fraud. You admit he was convicted of some charges. That’s precisely what Wikipedia reports. I’m not entirely sure how being convicted of tax evasion, possibly for smuggling gold if we are to believe your information, would be make people think he couldn’t possibly be a scammer. Some would tend to suspect him of being not entirely above board. If they hold that opinion, and share their opinion with others, that would hardly be “repeating false information”
More on the data from the Levi, et.al. paper. 58Ni, 60Ni and 61Ni are apparently converted to nearly pure 62Ni metal. The other problem with this, besides the fact that Ni metal wouldn’t exist under the reaction conditions, is the curve of binding energy. 56Fe is the most stable isotope. For any isotope with higher mass and atomic number, it requires energy to create them from a lower mass isotope. Also, 99.3% 62Ni just happens to be in the range of enriched 62Ni metal sold by ISOFLEX. I suspect that’s not a coincidence.
Lucia,
“You have proven my point by finding a definition that matches mine. SteveF, who you called a troll”
‘
I did not call SteveF a troll, I said he regurgitated a well known troll comment, which he did.
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“I didn’t say he was convicted of fraud. You admit he was convicted of some charges. That’s precisely what Wikipedia reports. I’m not entirely sure how being convicted of tax evasion, possibly for smuggling gold if we are to believe your information, would be make people think he couldn’t possibly be a scammer. Some would tend to suspect him of being not entirely above board. If they hold that opinion, and share their opinion with others, that would hardly be “repeating false information—
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The common story, repeated by Wikipedia, is that he was convicted of fraud for the Petrodragon project. He was charged (60 counts) with storing hazardous waste improperly, after the waste he had collected was retroactively classified as hazardous. Not too difficult to understand that is it?
I don’t know and am not particularly interested in the legal proceedings but I recall reading he was charged with duty evasion and hence tax evasion. The most popular sport in Italy by all accounts, that doesn’t interest me.
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The basic and more important point is that you don’t believe LENR is possible. May I suggest you take LENR 101 at MIT, where you can see an actual demonstration of it working?
http://coldfusionnow.org/cold-fusion-101-at-mit-for-2015/ You can see videos of the lectures if you follow the link.
I expect new courses will be run.
Jferguson – I was not questioning your facts or story. Just commenting on the sensibility of the project from a business point of view, and thus the likelihood of questionable motives.
Adrian,
I think accusing someone of regurgitating a troll comment amounts to accusing them of being a troll. I fail to see any “troll comments” in SteveF’s comments.
Perhaps. But I did not repeat that.
I have no idea what you think I don’t understand. But in anycase: arguing by rhetorical questions is prohibitted here. If you wish to use one, the rule is you must supply your own answer to your own rhetorical question inside the same comment in which you post your rhetorical question. Please follow this rule in future.
That this conviction and the underlying behavior do not interest you doesn’t prohibit others from observing fact of the conviction and using this to form their opinion of Rossi’s character. Nor does it make their forming a low opinion of him and suspecting him of possibly perpetrating scams unwarranted.
I think it happening at a level that is commercial highly implausible.
I have no idea why you think that course at MIT is evidence that the phenomena is real.
Lucia,
“I have no idea why you think that course at MIT is evidence that the phenomena is real.”
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Because they have a live demonstration of LENR running the whole time, that you can see with your own eyes..
‘
I have no idea why you think tax evasion 25 years ago is evidence that Rossi/Industrial Heat/ 1 MW plant is fraudulent.
Before starting with LENR Rossi developed a successful biofuel generator company that he sold for $1 million, which money he used to fund his initial work in LENR. He could have just retired somewhere.
Adrian
I have no idea why you are telling me you have no idea why I think that. I didn’t say I think the tax evasion is evidence the plant is fraudulent.
Worth noting: The MIT class was recorded. At minute 2:00 the presenter points out the “course” is not for credit and MIT would never approve a for credit course on this. It is just a discussion session.
http://coldfusionnow.org/interviews/2014-cold-fusion-101/
If there is a demonstration of LENR running during “the whole time” in this course, I’m afraid you’ll have to point to the specific minute in some video or resource that shows it is running at any time.
Lucia,
“After presenting background on nanomaterials in general, Dr. Swartz led the class back to Prof. Peter Hagelstein’s lab, where a “Series 6 NANOR™†experimental run was already underway. Like its 2003 (ICCF10) predecessor demonstration at MIT, this NANOR-inspired device also showed excess heat, which was monitored three ways by class members. Swartz reported, “The group watched as the cold fusion demonstration performed like the Energizer Bunny, producing excess energy which appeared on the meters and computer graph in front of them, from the production of de novo helium-4 from deuterons.†These results were analyzed by the class the next day. One of the confirmatory measurements from the first day of the open demonstration of CF/LANR at MIT during the course is in Figure 1”
http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue102/mitdemo.html\
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAA2ssOV5z4 (2012)
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http://energycatalyzer3.com/news/lenr-success-at-mit
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http://coldfusion3.com/blog/major-lenr-demonstrations-held
At least one NANOR operated for 12 months an entire year. Four of those months were in a public demonstration in Hagelstein’s lab at MIT.
Adrian,
At a minimum, leading people back to a lab is hardly having the experiment running “the whole time” during the course.
Beyond that, students being trotted into a room, watching others do things and then analyze data they were handed would constitute “scant evidence” with ‘scant’ being a kind assessment.
We don’t know what was going on in that experiment. Perhaps it is as claimed; it appears you believe that. I don’t see why anyone else must believe a successful demonstration was underway.
Lucia,
There is precious little to see with the MIT NANOR experiment. It was just in a Tupperware box and you couldn’t take the lid off when the temperature was being measured. What did you expect?
You could read the instruments though and follow the detailed explanations.
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You can BUY a NANOR wire as others have done and measure the results yourself. I maintain that enough credible people have been involved that I tend to believe it. You, it seems, will believe only the rushed, badly performed replications done by hot fusion scientists at MIT and CalTech 25 years ago, that have been shown had no hope of working.
You write, and I will print it out to send it to you in six months.
” I think the chance that you are correct is less than 0.000001%. ”
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In view of that degree of certainty I believe Rossi is correct, that no one thinking like you will ever be persuaded by any experiment. That you think the several hundred experimenters are all con artists lying about magical illusions.
Adrian,
I don’t know anything about tests run at Caltech and MIT by “hot fusion scientists”. I reject the Rossi claims (and lots of other claims about cold fusion) because:
1) they are contrary to everything we know about chemistry and physics
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2) Rossi has a long history of misrepresenting, or at the very least, grossly exaggerating his “inventions”
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3) the secretive nature of the research (refusal to publish key details, refusal to allow others to inspect/operate the equipment on their own) fairly well screams fraud
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4) there is no credible theoretical understanding of a plausible mechanism (which would, incidentally, invalidate much of the fields of chemistry and physics), in spite of many years of claims of low temperature fusion
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Compare low temperature fusion to high temperature superconductivity by copper oxide compounds. High temperature superconductivity was very surprising, yet it was immediately replicated by many groups, and theoreticians began making progress on understanding the processes involved pretty quickly. More importantly, people were able to actually use high temperature superconductors to do useful things. Nothing useful has come about since the first claims of low temperature fusion were made 25 years ago.
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The whole field makes no technical sense, and seems almost certainly just nuts. That Darden wasted his $11 million doesn’t make the field any less nuts, it just makes Darden less than prudent with his investments.
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For certain Rossi has PhD in philosophy, not physics; if you can’t admit even that, then it seems to me you are not worth trying to convince of factual reality about anything, which is a characteristic you share with Doug Cot#on.
Adrian Ashfield, I watched all 15 hours of the 5 day MIT course by Peter Hagelstein and Mitchell Swartz on Youtube, and I was impressed. I’ve watched some of it more than twice, and will do again.
But I don’t think this is an appropriate time or place to promote it aggressively.
steveF,
“I don’t know anything about tests run at Caltech and MIT by “hot fusion scientistsâ€. I reject the Rossi claims (and lots of other claims about cold fusion) because:”
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See McKubre’s paper. They didn’t load the palladium sufficiently and they tried to load it too fast because they needed the result by a certain date. At the very least those experiments should have been rerun in light of further knowledge, rather than being used to debunk the whole field. Even the Patent Office still uses those to refuse patents on cold fusion.
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“1) they are contrary to everything we know about chemistry and physics”
Yes, it is different from conventional nuclear reactions. So was radium’s production of heat at the time.
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2) Rossi has a long history of misrepresenting, or at the very least, grossly exaggerating his “inventionsâ€
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I disagree. By and large he has done that he promised to do. Getting as far as he has in this time is better than par.
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“3) the secretive nature of the research (refusal to publish key details, refusal to allow others to inspect/operate the equipment on their own) fairly well screams fraud”
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He had to be secretive for his commercial venture because he couldn’t get patent protection and for commercial reasons. He is not obligated to tell you anything and tells us more than most other companies do.
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4) there is no credible theoretical understanding of a plausible mechanism (which would, incidentally, invalidate much of the fields of chemistry and physics), in spite of many years of claims of low temperature fusion
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There wasn’t for radium either. Experimental results trump theory. You don’t have to have a theory to recognize an experimental result. Would you like to give me an experimentally PROVEN theory for gravity? I don’t think you can.
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Super conductivity is a lousy example for your argument. It was discovered in 1911, yet despite being kosher well funded science it is still evolving a century later and there are only a few applications using it.
Adrian,
Great! Good for Rossi. That’s his business, not mine.
Still, here you are, expressing annoyance that we don’t believe. He is not obligated to tell us anything and as a result nobody in particular believes him. If he is content with this I don’t really see why you are not.
michael hart,
I am heartened that someone has paid attention to what I wrote. Thank you.
You might enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMx1mpcokBk for some history although it is now a bit dated. Also, there is considerable doubt that the reaction is fusion: it is starting to look like something else. It looks like lithium is the fuel and nickel just a catalyst – at least in the later Rossi experiments.
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I have been following the field closely since 2011 and believe the lithium/nickel/hydrogen route is way ahead for commercial use. But it is still very early days. The current models are the equivalent of the Wright Flyer.
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I don’t think I have been aggressive about it, but basically responded to a series of hostile questions. The subject needs to reach mainstream as quickly as possible because of the huge amount of money being wasted in “alternative energy” and various measures to overcome the non existent problem of CO2
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The real scandal is that hundreds of thousands of poor people are dying in Africa because the world bank, IMF etc. won’t allow loans for power plants that produce CO2.
Mark Bofill,
“Still, here you are, expressing annoyance that we don’t believe. He is not obligated to tell us anything and as a result nobody in particular believes him. If he is content with this I don’t really see why you are not.”
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I’m not annoyed with people who disagree, but may be sharper with those that are rude.
The problem, as I just stated in my previous post, is that so much money is being wasted to abate “Climate Change,” that even the believers will see as wasted if LENR can be seen to be commercial.
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I think Industrial Heat are in the best position to commercialize the E-Cat and “We are here from the government to help” would only slow it down.
…(deep breath)…
Okay. Look. Here’s Jack Cole’s blog. I don’t know the fella, but I check in every once in a while to see what he’s got. He seems to me to be an honest guy who’s trying methodically to replicate E-CAT. He does not appear to have accomplished this yet.
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Once guys like Jack Cole can replicate, and once they disclose exactly what and how they’ve done, and once it can be replicated consistently, then LENR will IMO deserve our undivided attention. Until then, as far as I am concerned, it’s little more than reports of anomalous heat that may or may not be due to experimental setup error, or some unknown factor that could have nothing whatsoever to do with cold fusion. Even if every once in a blue moon somebody reproduces a result that is pure and genuine cold fusion and nothing else, it is of little apparent use until somebody figures out how to make it repeatable. As an engineer all I can do with sporadic occasional reports of anomalous heat in hydrogen loaded metals is try to avoid depending on hydrogen loaded metals for anything thermally sensitive since anomalies are occasionally reported.
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I’d love nothing more than for LENR to be real and within reach. If it turns out Rossi is right, then I’ve got to say I think the guy is a bit of a bastard, sitting on this because he’s worried about keeping control of it. If he really has cold fusion cracked and he can’t figure out how to make a fortune and reveal the secret sauce at the same time, I don’t know what to say. I’m pretty sure I could make a pile of money in his shoes and let the world in on the secret at the same time.
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He’s not going to set the world on LENR fire all by his lonesome. It’d be particularly sad if he’s not a hoaxer in my view.
Mark Bofill,
Rossi believes the fastest way to commercialize the E-Cat is through private companies. They will not invest the money needed if they can’t get a return on their investment. I think you will be surprised how fast it happens. Remember Darden has already set up an operation in China to work on LENR.
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You underestimate the stubbornness of believers in the unchanging science they were taught at school. Pretty clearly no experiment is going to persuade them. Rossi is correct forecasting that only having commercial units out in the field will persuade them.
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I have been in contact with DOE for several months now, trying to get a short letter delivered to Secretary Moniz, so that he is at least aware of it. So far without success.
They have several multi-billion dollar budgets on ITER and alternative energy to protect.
Adrian,
If it works it would likely progress fairly rapidly. Some permitting would be required.. but still… it would likely happen somewhere in the world. Of course commercial units out in the field would convince people. So far, there are no such things.
Lucia,
Agreed, though Rossi already has a safety certificate for industrial use. As far as I know he has been trying for years already to get a safety certificate for domestic use, but hasn’t got one yet.
It should be easier in China given their pollution problem.
Lucia,
There are no such things because, well, CF is not real.
steveF,
That’s the explanation I find most likely. Evidently Adrian subscribes to some other explanation.
SteveF,
A footnote: muon catalyzed fusion could be considered a form of cold fusion. It’s real enough. It doesn’t help, because muons are so dang hard to come by. But. shrug. I’m told it has a well understood and well accepted theoretical basis as well.
Mark,
Yes, long known and well understood. I am reminded of the claim a while back of something traveling faster than the speed of light. That one didn’t last long, and came down to measurement error. CF claims which are not outright frauds will be much the same.
steveF
Joe Blow a carpenter near here, cut a beam too short because he didn’t measure twice and cut once.
Obviously this disproves LENR and we can all go home now.
SteveF,
Yes. That’s my expectation as well. Contrary to what Adrian might believe, I would honestly be delighted to be wrong and I’ll always accept solid, reproduceable empirical evidence over theory. At the end of the day I don’t care as much about why things work as I do that they work, although I certainly like to know why things work as well. But show me the money before you ask me to believe.
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It’d be like discovering unicorns are real; who wouldn’t love that? I’m not holding my breath, but let me know when and if the day comes I can see one on safari. I’ll be there.
Adrian,
Can you tell me what Jack Cole is doing wrong? Why doesn’t his stuff work? My impression is that you can not.
If you can’t tell me how to make this stuff work, and you can’t direct me to anybody who is both willing and able to explain how to make this stuff work, not kinda sorta once in a while I saw something I didn’t expect and couldn’t explain, but with a high rate of repeatability; if you can’t do that, then I wish you’d understand that it’s nothing personal, but you’ve got nothing persuasive.
Instead of wasting our time cheerleading Rossi the closemouthed, do research like Jack. Show me how this stuff is done. I will thank you handsomely and apologize profusely and be most sincerely in your debt, should you accomplish this. But I don’t understand what you hope to achieve here with your comments.
Mark,
I think you’ve pretty well summarized most people/s attitude toward cold fusion. When there is empirical evidence that is made public and consistently reproduceable by others, I’ll believe.
Notwithstanding Adrian’s attempt to liken Rossi’s claims to Marie Curies, Curies evidence was accessible to the public. And even if one were to accept Adrian’s explanation for Rossi’s secretiveness it nevertheless means whatever evidence Rossi has is not available for others to inspect/ view. Whether Adrian likes it or not, that means that for all practical purposes there is no evidence.
It’s all well and good for Adrian to somehow believe in the splendiferousness of Rossi’s character. But I’m rather dubious, given past criminal convictions.
Perhaps Rossi will succeed. Perhaps unicorns are real. Perhaps pigs will fly. Then Adrian will be able to tell us we were all wrong. I can live with that.
Thanks Lucia.
The thing that frustrates me about the discussion is that the splendiferousness of Rossi’s character isn’t a sufficient condition regardless. In a sense it’s a mute point. I think Pope Francis has remarkable moral character. It doesn’t make his claims right when they’re wrong. Obviously his character’s got nothing to do with it. Except that in the case of people of questionable character it makes it easier to find a more credible alternative explanation for the extraordinary claims; e.g., it’s a scam.
Mark Bofill,
Precisely.
We have:
1) Scant, generally flawed evidence.
2) Repeated lack of replicability of that evidence that does get presented to public.
3) Inconsistency with physics as currently understood.
4) And claims that things are really working — but the evidence that it works is concealed from independent inspectors.
5) Claims are made by a guy who is a known convict.
Obviously, if the thing suddenly started churning out power and the power was made available to a small city with the plant open to inspectors and so on, people would change their minds. In science and engineering, the proof is in the pudding. But so far, no one has shown any pudding to the public.
Another free energy source with perennial worldwide appeal is the gasoline pill .
Sometimes purported demos turned out like this:
One way to invalidate a patent is to show that the examples in the patent don’t work. A patent that does not, in fact, disclose the invention, i.e. the examples don’t work, is generally not worth the paper it’s printed on. I say generally because when you take something to court, you are never certain of the verdict. The patent examiner is not required to test the validity of the examples.
Arthur C. Clarke, the noted science fiction author, received a patent on communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit. It was likely valid, but by the time the technology was available to launch those satellites, the patent had expired. Timing is everything.
RB,
There’s also the 100mpg carburetor or equivalent which is being suppressed by Big Oil.
ITER would be dropped in a heartbeat if a valid alternative were available. It’s a huge money sink that still may not work. Claims that an invention is being suppressed are yet more evidence of questionable validity of said invention.
Mark Bofill,
“Can you tell me what Jack Cole is doing wrong? Why doesn’t his stuff work? My impression is that you can not.”
I don’t know.
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“If you can’t tell me how to make this stuff work, and you can’t direct me to anybody who is both willing and able to explain how to make this stuff work, ”
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There are a number of published experiments that describe exactly what was done and the results. Many were listed on the link I gave. http://www.lenrproof.com and the papers listed at http://www.lenr-canr.org. I find it pointless to repeat them because skeptics will only believe what they want to believe.
One clear example is Dr. Parkhomov in Russia who duplicated the Hot Cat Lugano test a couple of times.
http://kb.e-catworld.com/index.php?title=Alexander_Parkhomov%27s_E-Cat_replication_experiments
http://coldfusion3.com/blog/more-details-of-russian-e-cat-replication-available
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“Instead of wasting our time cheerleading Rossi the closemouthed, do research like Jack. Show me how this stuff is done. I will thank you handsomely and apologize profusely and be most sincerely in your debt, should you accomplish this. But I don’t understand what you hope to achieve here with your comments.”
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I’m waiting.
Lucia,
“Notwithstanding Adrian’s attempt to liken Rossi’s claims to Marie Curies, Curies evidence was accessible to the public.
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Try reading what I wrote. I gave Curie as an example where there was a new effect that was contrary to the understanding of the current science, as an example that you don’t have to have a theory for an effect to be accepted.
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“And even if one were to accept Adrian’s explanation for Rossi’s secretiveness it nevertheless means whatever evidence Rossi has is not available for others to inspect/ view. Whether Adrian likes it or not, that means that for all practical purposes there is no evidence.”
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Rossi has given all the details necessary to duplicate the effect in his recent patent. There are a number of researchers known to be attempting to follow that guide. Try not to dismiss it until this has been tried. There is a better than .000001% chance it will work.
Adrian:
Ok– fair enough. If you say that was your aim in bringing Curie forward, ok. As it happens no one disputes that the theory of the effect need not be advanced for people to accept an effect is real. So it’s a bit superfluous to provide that little lecture and I’m a bit surprise to learn your aim was to provide an example that merely confirms ideas all of us agree on.
Also, I know Curie found something new. But how were her findings ‘contrary to science’? That is: whose theory stated the existence of polonium or radium made something previously believed was wrong? Whatever it was, were those things firm beliefs widely held? (Real questions.)
Of course things previously believed can be wrong. I just want to know what specific thing previously believed was found to be wrong. But I want to know precisely what you think was previously believed that was found false based on Curie discovering Polonium or Radium– or something else if you mean something else.
How do you know this to be true? Once again: real question. It’s one thing to advise people not to dismiss his claim about what is contained in his own patent. But it’s another for you to confidently claim that the details in the patent actually provide a method that permits people to duplicate the work. Until someone has duplicated it, we can’t know those details describe anything that works.
This is a bald claim on your part.
Lucia,
“As it happens no one disputes that the theory of the effect need not be advanced for people to accept an effect is real.”
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Yes they did. That was why I gave the example.
You also claimed Curie’s experiment was open to public. Oh Yes? Tell me how. How many do you think saw it, or even knew about the claim in the first year?
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How do you know this to be true? Once again: real question. It’s one thing to advise people not to dismiss his claim about what is contained in his own patent. But it’s another for you to confidently claim that the details in the patent actually provide a method that permits people to duplicate the work. Until someone has duplicated it, we can’t know those details describe anything that works.
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I don’t KNOW it to be true, but if it isn’t and device cannot be made to work by others skilled in the art, the patent is invalid.
I do know that others are trying. I do know this is the first time the composition of the fuel has been known outside of Rossi’s circle. I do know that Industrial Heat has claimed to have made working E-Cats from scratch without Rossi’s help.
I don’t assume, like many here, that Industrial Heat is a fraudulent company. I object to those that claim it is without any evidence.
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” There is a better than .0000001% chance it will work.
This is a bald claim on your part.”
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No less hairless than yours.
Adrian,
I don’t think this is going anywhere, but for the sake of courtesy I will respond and let you know I’m winding down my end of this discussion.
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An occasional claim of a replication isn’t useful to me. Parkhomov claims to have replicated twice. People trying to replicate Parkhomov have failed. It seems not only reasonable but prudent to question if Parkhomov isn’t systematically (but very possibly unintentionally) making some error that is producing invalid results, since others are unable to replicate.
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You write that skeptics will only believe what we want to believe. Sir, it seems to me that skeptics ideally only believe what they can prove and demonstrate. What they want doesn’t enter into the question. I would like for you to understand this. As an engineer, I am not free to believe whatever I want about engineering. When I say ‘this works’, I need to have a darn good reason for it. I need to be able to demonstrate it. If I can’t, I need to have a darn good reason to believe that I could eventually acquire the expertise necessary to demonstrate that something I claim works actually does work. That I heard that somebody saw the result in an experiment that others have been unable to replicate doesn’t cut it. People don’t pay me to say ‘this works’ when the answer is a highly dubious maybe.
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Finally, I don’t understand your response, that you are waiting. I wait for things without finding it necessary to comment and heckle others for disagreeing with me about what constitutes persuasive evidence. I fail to see how the claim that you are waiting explains what you hope to achieve with your comments here.
Lucia,
“Of course things previously believed can be wrong.”
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Sure. But over the last couple of centuries, most of what has been found to be wrong was superseded by a more accurate understanding, and the “wrong” understanding (eg Newtonian gravity) was shown to be only a pretty good approximation of the improved understanding (relativistic gravity). We have 60+ years where fusion processes have been clearly understood (including muon mediated cold fusion), working devices (bombs) based on that understanding, and a strong theoretical basis to say that cold fusion (absent muons) is energetically impossible.
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CF “researchers” flail about for a theoretical underpinning to explain measurements of excess energy production…. energy production which can’t be routinely reproduced and is almost certainly in error. Other “evidence” (like transmutation of metals, tritium production, etc) is routinely shown to be either wrong, fraudulent, or impossible, as with DeWitt’s comment on isotopic ratios.
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Too bad Feynman died before the cold fusion fiasco started… he would have had a field day.
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I do not doubt that many in the field are honest and sincere, even if utterly mistaken, but others are more likely outright frauds. It is an odd mix, much like ‘climate science’. The difference is that the foundation of climate science (GHG warming) is obviously correct, while CF is just plain nonsense.
Adrian
Who? Where?
Thank you for admitting you don’t know whether what you appeared to claim as known fact is true. (Why you tagged on the bit about the patent, I can’t guess. All I wanted to know is why you made such a bold claim about the thing working working.)
I haven’t “assumed it”. But I have observed it has many hallmarks of a scam. It does. That is not the same as saying it is a scam.
It’s worth pointing out to you that people are responding to you in the way that they are because you are making what appear to be bold claims of fact. That is, you aren’t saying that the technology might work, you are making claims that it does.
Yes. It was. She had a shed at her university. People, coworkers, visitors could visit and so on.
I have no idea why you want to know “how many” nor specifically “first year”. I don’t see how that is relevant to anything. The issue is whether independent people saw her or replicated her result before people decided to believe them. Curie is not an example of a case where people believed her evidence while the evidence remained secret and un-inspectable by independent parties. Or if she is, such an example you have failed to provide one iota of evidence that others believed she had actually discovery of radium or polonium before she provided the evidence that they existed.
That’s what I mean by “open” and “public”. I did not mean to suggest she had a tent like Barnum and Bailey with all and sundry passing through.
The current state with Rossi’s evidence is that those inspections that have been permitted did not permit “independent” inspectors to adjust things to permit true inspection. (Example: refusal to unplug external power sources. Rossi himself loading stuff into machines w/o others inspecting those things. And so on.)
This is nothing like the situation with Madam Curie.
Also, I think you missed this question
You made a claim about her results being actually contrary to science. Could you tell me in what way they were contrary rather than merely being a new discovery?
“I find it pointless to repeat them because skeptics will only believe what they want to believe.”
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Actually, that is a characteristic of a ‘true believer’… or a lunatic… not a skeptic. Skeptics critically weigh the quality of evidence, they don’t “believe” on any other basis.
Mark Bofill
I also don’t see what he is trying to achieve.
Will our current belief or disbelief affect whether Rossi continues? Nope.
Will our current belief or disbelief change actual physics? Nope. If he’s correct, he’s correct. If not, not.
Will our current belief or disbelief affect whether this is a scam? Nope. Either it’s a scam or it’s not.
Will our current belief or disbelief affect whether he is charged or arrested with being a scammer? Nope. Either some government will decide he is a suspect and charge or not.
If Adrian wants to believe, he can (and will ) jolly well believe. Nothing to me. But there’s scant evidence, and at some point, whatever Adrian is trying to achieve, he might be better advised to do something that could possibly advance his goal. If his goal is to try to evangelize and convert us…. uhmm… at some point, this topic will simply be closed the way Doug Cotton’s topics are off limits.
Evangelists have a right to evangelize somewhere, but not to try to bombard people who aren’t interested in the message.
Lucia,
” I think you missed this question
Also, I know Curie found something new. But how were her findings ‘contrary to science’? That is: whose theory stated the existence of polonium or radium made something previously believed was wrong? Whatever it was, were those things firm beliefs widely held? (Real questions.)
You made a claim about her results being actually contrary to science. Could you tell me in what way they were contrary rather than merely being a new discovery?”
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I wasn’t around at the time but from memory atoms were commonly thought of as little solid spheres then. “Contrary” was probably the wrong word to use. Inexplicable by current science (like LENR) would have been better. It was contrary to any chemical theory for producing heat, but of course it was not chemical. Likewise, LENR is not the same as commonly understood nuclear reactions.
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I don’t think it is useful to continue. I have made the points I wanted to make and explained why I think it important to get the news out (to stop wasting money on reducing CO2 by current methods, not to mention benefiting mankind)
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You think it is pseudo science and I have no reason to think I can change your mind. It looks like we will have to wait until next Feb/Mar to see who is proved right.
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Thank you hosting the discussion
Lucia,
“I also don’t see what he is trying to achieve.”
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I can’t read minds, but this type of behavior appears to be seeking affirmation of beliefs which are not commonly held and subject to criticism. You see the same behavior lots of places; at WUWT few (if any) people who argue for really nutty stuff (radiational physics violates the second law, the adiabatic lapse rate is due only to the force of gravity, etc.) ever change their minds, no matter overwhelming contrary evidence, and no matter the clarity/rationality of a correct explanation. Michael Hart wrote above: ” watched all 15 hours of the 5 day MIT course by Peter Hagelstein and Mitchell Swartz on Youtube, and I was impressed. I’ve watched some of it more than twice, and will do again.” To which Adrian replied: “I am heartened that someone has paid attention to what I wrote. Thank you.” Seems to me looking for affirmation of some very dubious beliefs.
Adrian
If you meant to suggest Curie’s finding overturned Rutherfords “plum pudding” model of the atom or were contrary to it, you were mistaken. So, “contrary” was the wrong word. The correct word was “not inconsistent with” the plum pudding model.
Sure. But do you have any reason to believe the chemical theory was firmly held? There is a difference between a theory that has been advanced as possible and the actual holding of science which scientists firmly believe based on observations.
After all, no one is doubting Rossi’s claims on the basis of it violating something speculative like “string theory”.
I am content to wait. Beyond that: I don’t think I will have been wrong to doubt. There is nothing “wrong” about doubting when there is no evidence.
Lucia,
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Wrong? Far from it. In my view it’s a professional responsibility to doubt in the face of insufficient evidence. It’s wrong not to.
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Adrian,
My final remarks:
I thought of another way to explain my reluctance to join you in promoting LENR as the solution to the climate crisis, one that I suspect you might be more sympathetic towards.
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On a strictly hypothetical basis (by which I mean the position I take in this illustrative example is not in fact the one I hold), suppose we could agree that some researchers are able to produce LENR in the lab and that others are not. Perhaps we could then agree that since we can only occasionally get this working under carefully controlled lab conditions, it would be folly to attempt to move into large scale production. Imagine, we build 20 plants. Of the 20 plants, when we try to fire them up 19 produce no excess energy whatsoever. One of them operates intermittently and unpredictably. I don’t think this leaves us anywhere we want to be.
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When something works 100% of the time in the lab, and any schmoe who follows the procedure can reproduce it, even then all we’ve got is a necessary but not sufficient condition for production. It happens that stuff works great in the lab but lousy in the field; it’s happened to me. There is good reason for being extremely conservative in cases like this, it’s not just people being stuffy or lacking vision. We can only rely on things we can make work reliably.
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Thanks for the discussion.
I have to chuckle:
The dates make any claim that Curies work 1898 work “contradicted” the “plum pudding” model of the atom rather dubious.
Seeing the later posts, I add a postscript.
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Of course it is not wrong to doubt. My feeling was that some of the commentators were fixed in their beliefs that LENR was impossible and couldn’t be moved by evidence contrary to their beliefs.
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Even Pons & Fleischmann claimed they could show LENR with just a throw of a switch in their later demos. I don’t know the success rate of Rossi with the E-Cats but the inference is that he knows how to build them such as they work. The NANORs work: how many are scrapped I don’t know. Now it is better understood why only a percentage of the palladium/deuterium cells worked. Largely a matter of loading the palladium and not doing that too fast.
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Having one work in the lab is different from having a commercial product. Hence the one year trial of the 1MW plant makes good sense.
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Much has been made of my motives for posting here. It started with my casual throwaway remark and thereafter I have simply been answering others comments. With better questions I could have made better answers. This is not a venue that I would have picked to have this discussion, but once it started I took the opportunity to provide information about LENR as the facts are not generally known. There is no question the original failed replications were done badly and should be repeated. Their negative results have caused infanticide of the whole field.
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I don’t expect converts. At best it is planting a seed. My effort to actually do something is made where it counts – talking to members of Congress and DOE and writing published articles for example.
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Thanks for the discussion.
Adrian,
If presented with convincing evidence all would believe. That said: I think it’s safe to say most here think the chances that said evidence will be forthcoming is pretty much nil. Exactly how small ‘nil’ is…. people differ. Some might think it’s nil1000.
The difficulty is you provided something between ‘no’ and “scant/obviously flawed/deficient” evidence. You’ve been making bold claims about the ‘truth’ of LENR while doing so.
Whose inference? Not mine. Presumably, for some reason you think someone should infer something based on some claim by Rossi, despite his providing no evidence for that claim.
Who understands it “better”? (Real question.)
There is no question that those replications that have been attempted have failed. Whether anyone “should” spend their time retrying is a value judgement. I tend to think spending too much time on it is likely a waste. But if someone else wants to spend their own time and money, I’m not going to stop them.
Infantacide is an odd term. It seems to assume there actually was a baby in the bathwater that got toss. More likely: there was no baby in that bath.
I home Congress and DOE don’t throw money at Rossi. Though I suspect that’s precisely the scam he’s running: Get the DOE to send endless checks.
Everything P&F did can be explained by flawed measurement apparatus. Their calorimeter was not validated using chemical reactions with well established heats of reaction, for example. D-D fusion without neutron emission would produce 4He. Where is it? Real question. Norman Hackerman’s lab at the University of Texas claimed to have detected 4He, but it was never replicated.
Replication is the heart of science. That’s why science and engineering journals exist.
I believe that Rossi is running a scam. I might be wrong, but all the earmarks are there.
Lucia,
Good grief. I have already answered most of your questions already but to avoid nitpicking…
.
” the inference is that he knows how to build them such as they work
Whose inference? Not mine. Presumably, for some reason you think someone should infer something based on some claim by Rossi, despite his providing no evidence for that claim.”
.
Tom Darden funded Industrial Heat. As CEO of a $2 billion company, that he founded, he is no dummy. He has an organization that will certainly monitor how his money is being spent. See him give his speech at the ICCF19 conference here to get a feel for the man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYIZxb96LXg
See the text here as the sound is lousy. http://www.e-catworld.com/2015/04/14/tom-dardens-speech-on-lenr-at-iccf19/
Then ask yourself what is more likely? That Rossi is fooling around or that he has produced something that works.
.
“Now it is better understood why only a percentage of the palladium/deuterium cells worked.
Who understands it “betterâ€? (Real question.)”
.
See McKubre’s paper in Current Science, previously linked.
http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/108/04/0495.pdf
.
” There is no question the original failed replications were done badly and should be repeated. Their negative results have caused infanticide of the whole field.
There is no question that those replications that have been attempted have failed. Whether anyone “should†spend their time retrying is a value judgement. I tend to think spending too much time on it is likely a waste. But if someone else wants to spend their own time and money, I’m not going to stop them.”
.
Read the first few pages of Beaudettes’ book (scroll down)
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BeaudetteCexcessheat.pdf
Lucia,
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. We’re past the point of diminishing returns.
Adrian,
No one says you didn’t provided respond previously.
The obvious answer is: on reviewing all that it’s more likely Rossi is a scammer or mistaken.
I don’t know how you think that McKurber paper answers any question. At best it claims that LENR is neither proven nor disproven. Uhmmm so how is that supposed to make us believe it works? (I don’t think it should.)
Rather than sending me on a goose chase, perhaps you can tell us in your own words which claims in the first few pages of Baudette’s book would support anything you have claimed.
Lucia,
If after reading what I wrote and seeing/reading Tom Darden’s speech, you conclude he is stupid enough not to look after his money, I’m unimpressed with your judgement.
.
McKubre showed a graphical representation of a number of experiments (including the referenced failed early attempts at replication) showing the relationship of Palladium loading and anomalous heat. ie. exactly what you asked for.
.
Beaudette’s book analyses just how the early critics of Pons & Fleischmann were wrong, that indeed their experiment showed excess heat, but they concentrated on the nuclear side that was secondary. Together with some history of the early work.
Beats me why you would believe what I tell you (you asked me to) when you don’t believe anyone else remotely connected with LENR.
.
As I wrote earlier, I don’t believe ANY evidence I show you will get you to change your mind, so we wait for Feb/Mar 2016.
.
I now find SteveF is a troll.
.
Adrian
Yes.
I didn’t think it necessary to say previously, but I should think it rather obvious that I am negatively impressed with yours.
Could you point to where I asked for a relationship between Palladium loading and anomalous heat? Because I’m pretty sure I never asked for this.
Where? I scanned the first few pages. Perhaps you can actually mention a page instead of a vague suggestion like “scroll down”.
No one else connected with LENR has arrived here in the blog.
We already knew that was your view. But he doesn’t meet the normal definition. I’m sure he will manage to live on knowing your opinion of him!
It takes one to know one. Except in this case you’re wrong about SteveF, as you’re wrong about pretty much everything else you’ve posted here.
Out of curiosity, do you actually have any technical background? You’re BS meter is clearly broken if you think any of your citations are actually convincing to someone with a strong technical background.
Humm…. I’m being called a troll by someone who, IMO, has plainly demonstrated he is disconnected from factual reality. Somehow I will manage to get out of bed tomorrow morning and go on with my life. Heck, I’ll even try to answer emails and write some software changes. Being called a troll is actually not a bad thing if the accuser is hopelessly unhinged, as in this case.
Adrian,
Do you really think only stupid people can be scammed? Or, to put it another way, that brilliant people cannot be scammed?
SteveF,
Of course, I couldn’t help “scrolling down” the first few pages of Beaudette’s book. It’s pretty funny to read. Sort of like a split personality thing.
On the one had, we get admissions that Pons and Flieshman pretty much shows nothing…
But later
Ehrmm… why would anyone spend time trying to divine the ‘possible origin of the heat power’, given that immediately above, we are told the measurements that supposedly demonstrated the “heat power” were “properly dismissed [.] as a mistake.” If the measurements were a mistake, we don’t need to ponder the origin. There is no “heat power” to be explained. Sure… some things that are actually observed may take a long time to explain. But it’s rather a waste of time to try to explain the existance of something that has not been observed!
But evidently, my view must somehow be wrong because Beaudette goes on
Seriously? Does the guy really claim: “The process of validating a thermal measurement is properly held completely separate from its consequent questions.”
Does he really think science wastes time pondering the consequences of things no one has observed?
I mean, sure, we do want to report what is true without regard to what consequences that truth would have. But here the text would seem to be suggesting that we ignore the lack of evidence for the existance ‘X’ but continue to find some sort of explanation for why “X” exists.
And of course it goes on with platitudes– all unhinged from reality:
Of course “conventional protocol” calls for that. But there are no “well-measured observation as a stand-alone dat[a] ” to suggest the ‘cold fusion’ phenomena (a la Pons and Fleishman”) is true.
It all just goes on. . .
What, precisely, Adrian thinks is good in that I don’t know. Because he merely told me to read it and scroll down. I’ve read a few pages. Plenty of drivel so far.
Adrian,
Smart supported eugenics.
Smart people fell for the Tulip Bulb mania in The Netherlands.
Smart people designed the algorithms used in the financial investing that played such a big role in the 2008 blow out.
Smart people invested with Madoff and Stanford.
Smart people ran Enron.
CF is crap, even if someone who believes in it is smart. Even if they are smart and rich.
Mark Twain is considered pretty smart, but he made a dumb investment in a new sort of printing press that was a failure in concept and execution and went bankrupt.
You seem to be making a fallacy of argument from net worth.
By the way, Off Topic, but Tom Fuller has written a new book, appropriately named
“The Lukewarmer’s Way”
“Climate Change for the Rest of Us”
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015913P38/ref=cm_sw_su_dp
I am just starting it, and it is late, so I probably won’t finish it until tomorrow. But from what I have read so far I think he is on to something good.
Lucia,
I took the time to read some of Adrian’s links. As you found, they were mostly arm waves and illogical rubbish. Charlie Munger gave a speech at Harvard back in 1995 on the causes of human misjudgment. Number 2 on his list was simple denial: when something is too painful to accept, people will simply refuse to accept factual evidence, and continue to believe things which are factually incorrect. When someone becomes too invested in an idea/concept/belief, then it is too difficult for them to throw away all they have invested, regardless of the weight of evidence. Seems to me that is what has happened in the field of CF. It doesn’t matter how clear the contrary evidence, some are NEVER going to accept that CF is nonsense. Throw in a few scam artists, and you have CF as we know it.
Lucia,
“Could you point to where I asked for a relationship between Palladium loading and anomalous heat? Because I’m pretty sure I never asked for this.”
.
.
” Now it is better understood why only a percentage of the palladium/deuterium cells worked. (AA)
Who understands it “better� (Real question.) (Lucia)
.
See McKubre’s paper in Current Science, previously linked.
http://www.currentscience.ac.i…..4/0495.pdf (AA)”
Yep. Looks like I quoted that and asked it! 🙂
And the paper you linked speculates that the cases didn’t work because for a number of reasons. However it is worth noting: It didn’t fix the reasons and then demonstrate the process would work if the problem were fixed. So the claim that we understand “better” is a bit rich.
In fact: The process has not been observed to work. It is perfectly reasonable to believe the reason it doesn’t work is that it can’t, never has and never will. This is the “same” understanding we’ve had for a long time.
DeWitt,
“Out of curiosity, do you actually have any technical background? You’re BS meter is clearly broken if you think any of your citations are actually convincing to someone with a strong technical background.”
.
I headed engineering for several major corporations in Canada and the US before starting my consulting company. Customers included EPRI, GRI and the IFC (World Bank.) I recognize BS better than most.
Adrian,
Then how can you say that something that is so poorly replicated is valid? Do you have balls the size of cantaloupes or what? I’m not insulting you, please don’t misunderstand. I just can’t fathom how you dare.
Pretend it’s your own money and your own professional reputation. People ask you for your recommendations to build a power plant. You say, ‘LENR and E-CAT!’ You hire guys to build a prototype, I’d guess. Your guys very probably don’t replicate, and you can’t tell them exactly how to do it. What then?
[Edit: little of that was rhetorical, except for the cantaloupes. Rephrasing as a real, non-rhetorical question, ‘from where comes this boundless confidence?”]
Lucia,
“In fact: The process has not been observed to work.”
.
There are many qualified people that disagree with you.
http://www.lenrproof.com/slide_05.html
http://www.lenrproof.com/slide_06.html
.
To be so certain in the face of such evidence shows a closed mind.
Adrian,
So you print out the distinguished list you’ve got of scientists who believe this ought to work and you read it to the prototype that doesn’t work. In the annoying manner of inanimate objects, it doesn’t change its behavior.
Meanwhile, your company is in financial trouble. Your clients are abandoning you for other work. The clients you promised the power plant to demand to know why you thought this would work in the first place. You read your list to them, and they ask why you didn’t do some experiments first to verify that you could reproduce the effect. I have no idea what you tell them. Your mortgage goes into foreclosure, the wife leaves you and moves to another city, and you start looking for opportunities in fast food.
Adrian,
How does that list address my claim “The process has not been observed to work”? It doesn’t. None of those people have observed a the process working.
Mark,
I went with the crowd on Pons & Fleischmann in1989 without looking. After Rossi’s first demo in 2011 I have followed the subject closely and know a lot more about it than you do.
.
I conclude it is now beyond reasonable doubt that LENR is real and as you can see from the links above, I am far from alone. I think anyone who really studies it would come to the same conclusion unless they were one of those who can’t accept science changes from what they were taught at school.
Adrian,
It doesn’t make any difference to me that you are not alone. It’s fine to not be alone when you’re talking on a blog, talk is cheap. I am doing you the courtesy of assuming that you have the courage of your convictions, and that you actually believe this to the extent that you’d practice what you advocate, and I’m asking how you think it would work out, and what you’d do.
[Edit: let me add, when I undertake a project for a client, I am alone. I get paid, not the others who believe, I get sued, not the others who believe. It’s my butt, and I’ve got to make the thing work. There is no consolation there, that other people believe.]
Adrian,
When Rossi actually does pump out energy, we’ll all know about it. It will be in the news. In the meantime…
Lucia,
“When Rossi actually does pump out energy, we’ll all know about it. It will be in the news. In the meantime…”
In the meantime it resembles a dead parrot. And will continue to after March of 2016. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218)
Lucia,
“How does that list address my claim “The process has not been observed to workâ€? It doesn’t. None of those people have observed a the process working.”
.
You are getting sloppy. The people listed believe that it works and contrary to your statement several of those listed did observe it working. Possibly you didn’t read the list or didn’t recognize the scientists directly involved.
,
It is not necessary to have observed something oneself unless you say YOU never believe what anyone has written in a paper or report or what an observer reports.
Otherwise it is selective bias. Apparently you only believe negative reports and will not accept any positive evidence. For you, it’s always fraud or slight of hand.
.
This has been going on too long and too many people have witnessed it for it not to be real. As far as I know, Krivit is the only WITNESS that has claimed it to be a fraud. All the others, including the president of the skeptics society, think it is real. Even Krivit believes in LENR just not Rossi.
Lucia,
“When Rossi actually does pump out energy, we’ll all know about it. It will be in the news. In the meantime…”
.
That we haven’t already is very similar to the lack of reporting of the Wright’s early flights for three years.
There is some reporting in the media eg Aftenposten and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-h-bailey/post_10010_b_8052326.html
.
What you are talking about is general acceptance by academia that will only take place after a commercial unit has been demonstrated in public. ie. Feb/Mar 2016
Adrian
In other words: the answer to my question was “No. Your list does not address my claim. But I, Adrian, am going to ignore that.”
No. But in science, it is necessary for someone to observe it and for the observations to be replicable. That some people believe something despite this is true. But their belief is not based on science. Certainly others need not believe in something that is not observed.
Huh? I am saying that there are no replicable observations. You aren’t providing any evidence of replicable observations. Rather you are explaining why a list of people who believe despite no replicable observations ought somehow to be convincing.
While it may turn out that they are correct, there is no reason anyone ought to believe until such time that replicable observations are brought forward.
When you can name the replicable observations, people will agree with you that too many people have witnessed it. Meanwhile, the crux of the disagreement is that you have failed to convince me (and a number of others here) that there is evidence available to independent observers that anyone has witnessed a replicable observation.
Assuming he does… so?
Adrian,
Nonesense. The news of the flight was leaked by a reporter and published by a Virginia newspaper 1 day after the flight. The Dayton Journal turned down the article the Wright brother submitted deeming it ‘unimportant’– that’s an entirely different thing from not believing it happened.
But even odder than the claim that somehow people thought motored flight was not possible: The US government was funding Langley to develop flying machines. He just didn’t happen to be the one who succeeded.
So prior to the Wright Brothers first flight:
1) Everyone knew gliders were possible: so flight was possible.
2) The standard view was that powered flying was possible.
3) It was recognized that we did not yet have technology to make powered flright a practical possibility.
4) Lots of people were working on creating a functional flying machine.
5) Reporters visited the day before the first flight– but got bored and left.
6) Some (evidently inaccurate) reports of the first powered flight appeared the day after the flight.
I don’t know who is making up the story that no one reported the story. It is true some people thought the Wright brothers reports of successful powered flight were exaggerated. But that’s not the same as scientists and engineers believing flight violated established physics.
This situation is nothing like LENR.
Lucia,
I think (and hope) that maybe you’ve touched on something important that could help clarify; the difference between observations and replicable observations. I’d have thought scientists and engineers would understand this implicitly, that when we talk about observations we are talking about replicable observations. I suspect this distinction is lost on those who, for example, can’t understand why people don’t accept the existence of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster, despite the fact that ‘observations’ have been reported.
Lucia,
“In other words: the answer to my question was “No. Your list does not address my claim. But I, Adrian, am going to ignore that.â€
.
That’s big of you. You wrote “None of those people have observed a the process working.â€
I pointed out that several had observed it.
.
“When you can name the replicable observations, people will agree with you that too many people have witnessed it.”
.
I have already linked a number of such replicable observations and don’t need to do it again. It is just that you won’t accept any of them.
.
“Nonesense. The news of the flight was leaked by a reporter and published by a Virginia newspaper 1 day after the flight. The Dayton Journal turned down the article the Wright brother submitted deeming it ‘unimportant’– that’s an entirely different thing from not believing it happened. ”
.
You are wrong. History shows that the major newspapers asked “experts” and so believed it was not possible but was a hoax and so did not publish it. Powered flight would be an extraordinary achievement and make the headlines.
Hence the famous headline in the International Herald tribune in 1906. Wright Brothers: FLYERS OR LIARS. This was three years after their first flight.
Nobody has accused reporters of being technical and figuring out something like this.
.
This just like the “experts” who tell the press LENR is not possible and hence it is not reported by the major media.
Wikipedia is a good example.
Adrian.
If these observations are replicable, you should be able to either give me a procedure to replicate or point me to somebody who can give me a procedure to replicate.
I don’t think you get this. The burden is on the person making the extraordinary claim. I can point to at least one person who is doing his level best to replicate in a methodical manner. Somehow, despite your claim that these observations are replicable, not only has he failed to replicate but nobody has come forward to say, ‘oh, I did that. Here’s what you’re doing wrong.’ It would appear that nobody knows what he is doing wrong. If they know they aren’t saying, like you believe Rossi knows.
This isn’t what ‘replicable observation’ means.
Why don’t you go conduct an experiment, since you believe this is is clearly replicable, and let us know how it turns out? I’m serious, not a rhetorical question. Go do it. Show us the evidence. It doesn’t cost the earth and sky to experiment with this stuff, as far as I can tell.
[Edit: Kindly do not propose an experiment to which you do not know the outcome in answer to my question. Give me a replication procedure.]
Mark,
“If these observations are replicable, you should be able to either give me a procedure to replicate or point me to somebody who can give me a procedure to replicate.”.
.
There exists no such procedure… that is why nobody can give it to you. Because there exists no such thing as CF. Pure rubbish.
Mark,
I’m under no obligation to give you anything.
If you simply have to see it with your own eyes the easiest way is to buy a NANOR and test it yourself.
.
Replications by others of Rossi’s method are in their early days. The fuel composition has only been known a month as his process is proprietary although the basics are described in his recent patent. We are told that Industrial Heat does it without Rossi’s help.
.
Dr. Parkhomov has replicated the Hot Cat several times and his procedures have been published. But being Russian presumably doesn’t count.
.
Even Blacklight Power’s early efforts with hydrogen and Raney nickel have been replicated in a university and published, but as Mills ascribes the effect to forming hydrinos I’m sure that disqualifies that too.
.
I could list a number of others but what’s the point? You and Lucia are so certain (.000001%) it is not possible you will find some way of dismissing them.
Lucia’s reference to the Wright Bros’ flight being published at the time didn’t mention it was in a local journal on beekeeping.
SteveF,
Yeah, I know. I’m not sure why I’m going through this exercise in futility talking about this. It just seems to me that reasonable people ought to be able to understand what my problem is with the claim. I don’t understand what’s so hard to get about the issue that:
1. I don’t know how to make it work,
2. I know of people who are trying to make it work and who are failing,
3. I don’t know of anyone who can tell me how to make it work.
4. Therefore I conclude that I can’t make it work.
It’s exasperating. There’s nothing unique about the situation despite the use of first person in the list above, right, show me the people who can consistently make it work, and the people who can consistently replicate it.
You know, back in college I took ‘Chemistry 10whatever, identification of an unknown compound’. I screwed up the procedure and misidentified a deadly cyclo-something compound as salicylic acid. I’m sure I wasn’t the first or last. It’s reasonable to expect that sometimes people will report results that are invalid. We expect it. It’s why we verify by repeating experiments to check the results.
It seems Adrian would have me swallow the ‘salicylic acid’ to cure my headache. I can’t comprehend why I can’t make it clear that it would have killed me to have tried that.
You are under no obligation to tell me anything, you bet. I am under no obligation to take you seriously then.
A-duece.
Two locals are standing out in the middle of a 1947 cargo cult airfield, complete with straw control tower, straw radio shack, and straw airplanes.
One says to the other, “No wonder it isn’t working. What would make you think JohnFrum would return? You’ve made Japanese planes.”
Only in the instant case no-one seems to know how they are screwing up.
And there is another difference. JohnFrum had previously showed up. CF true believers are wailing away on something that to date has never worked..
Adrian is giving a nice demonstration of the true believer’s mind in a context other than climate catastrophe. The parallels and similarities are fascinating.
Circular logic, fallacious arguments, cherry picking, magical thinking, historical illiteracy, etc. It’s all there.
The climate obsession is a symptom of an underlying human weakness. It is not unique.
We owe Adrian thanks for pointing this out by his clear example.
hunter, +
The NANOR works. It has been demonstrated working for months at MIT.
You can buy one and test it yourself. But still you say LENR is impossible.
.
I have been a lukewarmer for a decade, thinking Prof. Akasofu got it about right. You are the ones, like the AGW crowd, that will not accept any evidence that goes against your beliefs.
Adrian,
I am beginning to question if there is something wrong with your head. You literally just got done telling me that you’ve got no obligation to give me anything, when I asked you for a replication procedure. In the very next breath you complain that I will not accept your evidence.
Do you see that there is something contradictory about these two ideas? Not rhetorical.
Mark,
You wrote:
“I don’t think you get this. The burden is on the person making the extraordinary claim. I can point to at least one person who is doing his level best to replicate in a methodical manner.”
.
“I am beginning to question if there is something wrong with your head.”
.
Nobody here, with exception of michael hart (Comment #138910) took the trouble to follow the earlier link. If you had, you would know that the NANOR works and LENR was real.
.
I think it unlikely you have either an adequate workshop, instrumentation or the ability to set up a replication of any of the major experiments, so your question was a pointless rhetorical one. If you had really been interested and had the equipment you would have tried already.
Adrian,
“Nobody here, with exception of michael hart (Comment #138910) took the trouble to follow the earlier link. If you had, you would know that the NANOR works and LENR was real.
.
Nonsense. I took the trouble and read some of the papers. They show nothing which a skeptical person would consider proof of anything. They are rubbish. That is why people don’t believe them.
Adrian,
We do not appear to be communicating very well. Let’s try again, maybe start at a more basic level.
‘A link’ isn’t how scientists know things are real. Scientists use something called the Scientific Method to advance their knowledge. Most people have heard of this.
This is extremely elementary stuff.
Do you agree with these ideas, that we should adhere to the scientific method to advance our scientific knowledge? This question is not rhetorical. If your answer is ‘no’, I can accept that, but we don’t have anything to talk about in that case. If the answer is ‘yes’, then we can proceed, but I’m not proceeding until you answer ‘yes’.
Where and how much? A quick search did not show any such thing for sale anywhere.
DeWitt, I actually emailed Jet Energy (or whatever the name was, I forget) to inquire. Haven’t heard back yet.
Mark,
“‘A link’ isn’t how scientists know things are real. ”
.
A link it what allows you to look at the science, if you bother to follow it, without taking up pages on the blog.
.
Stop trying to teach granny to suck eggs. I have been around longer than you.
Adrian, your standards of evidence seem unreasonably low. What do you have to lose by raising them?
If anyone is interested, I thought the article “Whatever Happened to Cold Fusion?” by David Goldstein, written it seems not long after the original cold fusion excitement had passed, was an interesting account. :
Professor Francesco Scaramuzzi (who came across fairly sympathetically in the article) and colleagues’ recent 2008 report Cold Fusion : The History of Research in Italy. (I haven’t read it, but planning to check it after dinner.)
Adrian,
BTW I apologize, if you are in fact female, for having referred to you using male pronouns.
I am asking you, respectfully and politely, to acknowledge that we should adhere to the scientific method in order to advance our scientific knowledge. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will do.
DeWitt,
“Where and how much? A quick search did not show any such thing for sale anywhere.”
.
Try JET Energy, Inc
http://world.std.com/~mica/nanortechnology.htm
I’ll add to what Steve said here:
I followed some of the links and looked at some of the material available. The pattern is certainly very disturbing. The “thousands of papers” are nothing of the sort. Most is “gray literature” (a phenomenon we are all too familiar with), or worse. Sometimes somebody (perhaps somebody at NASA or some intelligence agency) will conduct a survey of the field and conclude that there were, at the time of the study, a number of people working in LENR. Afterwards, the study will be quoted as evidence that NASA or some intelligence agency is actively conducting research on LENR, which, of course, is not the case.
The pattern of misinformation and disingenuousness clearly points to a large-scale deception effort–my guess is, primarily, willing self-deception, but after a while it really becomes just plain deception.
Alchemists spent hundreds of years trying to bring about transmutation by chemical means. It really just cannot be done. Chemical energies are at least 10,000 times (more typically 100,000 times) smaller than nuclear energies, and no clever tricks can overcome that sort of barrier.
You may argue that alchemists did not have electricity, and then you’d be getting closer to something. With enough juice you could build a compact 100,000 volt linear accelerator that would do the trick (and then dispense with the chemistry altogether!). The drills used for exploration in the oil industry carry such “tabletop” fusion cells: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_generator
(Of course you do not get any energy worth mentioning out of those little fusion cells. They do it for the neutrons only.)
julio,
Thanks for adding that comment.
.
The several orders of magnitude difference in energy level between chemical and nuclear interactions appears to be simply lost on some. I suspect anyone who believes CF is plausible (absent muons) has done not even minimal reading on the nuclear strong force and how it compares to electromagnetic forces (AKA chemical interactions) both in strength and range. There is a huge body of work, extending over half+ a century, that you simply have to be unaware of,or choose to ignore, in order to think CF is a reality. I find it just weird.
Adrian,
For what it’s worth, Julio is the head of the physics department at a university, and teaches physics. I suppose you will claim he too refuses to consider the possibility that science has advanced since he was in school…. Which is very odd, since Julio is in school all the time. 🙂
Adrian,
I went to the sales site, eager to find out how to buy a LENR or NANOR.
There is nothing listed for sale that I can find, and I love to buy things on line.
By the way, the descriptions of the technology are worthy of Star Trek dialog technobabble.
http://www.ds10.org/Database/babble.html
If you have put money into this, you have been had. If you are getting others to put money into this, you need both civil and criminal defense attorneys.
I was actually agnostic towards CF before you started posting. I had simply ignored it for the past 20 plus years, vaguely hoping *something* might be going on that would prove substantive. After reviewing your citations and links, CF is nothing more than an even less credible version of climate crisis promotion. The physical impossibility of a chemical reaction to directly engage nuclear energy is not going away anytime soon. No matter how many photos of tricky anodes with asymmetric bubbles you may link to.
http://cinemassacre.com/2008/09/23/top-ten-trek-technobabbles/
Adrian,
Do you even bother to read the links you post? Apparently not. There is nothing at the Jet Energy site that even suggests that I or Joe Blow could buy a Nanor™ device. It’s 100% hype.
Adrian,
To paraphrase Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, Show me the helium!
Any 4He created by 2H+2H (D+D) fusion should really diffuse out of the matrix. But even if it didn’t, one could take a sample, place it in an evacuated sealed tube and melt it. That will release any trapped gas for analysis. But, of course, nobody has been able to do this because there hasn’t been any fusion.
DeWitt,
If you could buy one, you could then show it doesn’t work. That would be bad for the credibility of the organization. Their site actually reminds me of a pretty well done email scam; I imagine the site administrator read about Cargo Cult Science and embraced the idea completely.
hunter,
I got through about two pages of the Star Trek technobabble before I had to stop. It is rubbish like all the rest.
DeWitt,
Helium? Helium!? They don’t need no stinkin’ helium! They transmute nickel to…. to….. to gold! Then they hide it on Sierra Madre. That’s where you’ll find the evidence; then maybe you will believe.
DeWitt.
“Do you even bother to read the links you post? Apparently not. There is nothing at the Jet Energy site that even suggests that I or Joe Blow could buy a Nanorâ„¢ device. It’s 100% hype.'”
.
You said you were unable to find anything about NANOR with your unique search skills, so I gave you contact information for the company that makes them.
.
It is clearly too difficult for you to call them and find out if they will sell you one so I suppose you would like someone to do it for you.
.
Unless the comments become less juvenile I’m out of here. I should have quit earlier.
Adrian,
You’re out of here huh.
The horror…
Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.
Re: julio
Some of the stories behind the principals are a bit tragic actually.
And he’s quite oblivious to the effect he has on the journalist.
RB,
Yes, self deception and delusion among otherwise smart people is more than a little sad; Hagelstein threw away a promising academic career to pursue fantasy, and that is a tragic waste. But the coin of the realm in science is concordance with reality, and those who choose to ignore reality in their scientific work, contorting their work to yield a ‘desired’ result instead of one which is an accurate representation of reality, are likely to become discredited. The lucky ones will retire or die before being discredited.
SteveF,
The whole point of technobabble is that it is babble. The random word generator is meant as a joke to put the CF site into perspective.
I posted the link to it because Star Trek technobabble is not really that different from the babble at the scam cold fusion site, albeit with very different intentions and purpose.
It is interesting that Adrian’s exit post shows him openly fibbing: He moved the goal posts from being able to purchase the alleged technology to being able to find information about the alleged technology. Actually the links he provided do neither.
Your point about self-delusion and deception is spot on.
Adrian seems to have even convinced himself about historical fairy tales. Newspapers reported the first flight. An image of the New York herald front page is here:
http://blog.rarenewspapers.com/?p=2453
The image from the virginia pilot is here
http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/308659/today-in-media-history-front-page-news-about-the-wright-brothers-1903-flight/
Scroll down to see a report from “The Clinton Morning Age Dec 17 1903 – Flying machine proves a success”
http://www.science20.com/chatter_box/henry_ford_quote_history_bunk-79505
It’s true many of the reports were on inside pages and newspapers didn’t give this the prominence some might expect today. But the first flight was reported widely when it happened.
Lucia,
Yes. I thought the Wright brother press conspiracy claim sounded pretty far-fetched. I didn’t bother to comment, but I googled and found an image of old newspaper coverage as well.
Also, regarding the ‘replications’ here’s the E-CAT fans admitting that nobody has replicated Parkhomov and wondering why (4 months ago):
why-havent-people-repeated-the-parkhomov-experiment-successfully-yet.
Regarding the purchase of NANORs, I sent this email yesterday and haven’t heard back at all from Jet Energy:
Adrian helped me with my perspective, that’s all I can say. Forced me to realize that while many warmists annoy the daylights out of me, few of them appear to be nearly so severely out of touch with reality.
P.s. I’m not sneering at them for wondering. I’m glad somebody has the sense to wonder. My point was just this: so much for the claims of ‘replicable observations’.
Mark Bofill,
Obviously, people should wonder why others are unable to replicate.
Mark,
Some of the most extreme alarmist types are pretty disconnected from reality… These people are like Adrian, unable to rationally deal with reality.
.
Lots of them are connected to reality just like you are, but see the world from a “naturist” POV, where any change in the “natural” (before humans) world is inherently evil, while most people see things from a “humanist” POV, where improving the lives of humans (eliminating poverty and disease, enriching lives, etc.) is at least as important as preserving nature in an undefiled state.
.
The reason compromise is so difficult is the stark difference in world view and priorities. It is why you so often read quotes from the alarmed which are so abhorrent (“I’d like to come back in my next life as a virus which would kill 90% of humanity”). They really just do not value human life very highly.
Lucia,
Good to see some actual content again. I didn’t know about the wider coverage so I am grateful to be able to update my previous knowledge. Wonderful what the internet does for digging up history.
It would be good if some here updated their knowledge from the failed cold fusion replications 25 years ago.
.
Your first link gives:
“The New York Herald†in its December 19 edition had one of the better reports I have seen. Not only is it at the top of the front page with a three column heading: “Wright Brothers Experimenting with Flying Machineâ€
I couldn’t see any write up in the photos of the half page, only the photos themselves. But is is very difficult to read.
.
From Wiki:
“They invited reporters to their first flight attempt of the year on May 23, on the condition that no photographs be taken. Engine troubles and slack winds prevented any flying, and they could manage only a very short hop a few days later with fewer reporters present. Library of Congress historian Fred Howard noted some speculation that the brothers may have intentionally failed to fly in order to cause reporters to lose interest in their experiments. Whether that is true is not known, but after their poor showing local newspapers virtually ignored them for the next year and a half.”
.
Your second link is for the piece below. Hardly main stream.
“The writer of the 1903 Virginian-Pilot article was not at the historic flight.(Some of the details he was given were incorrect.) ”
.
Your third link says: “In December 1903 the Wright brothers made history – but not much of a stir in the newspapers – when their ‘untethered box kite’ flew at Kitty Hawk. Most reports of this success did not make the front pages.”
.
So why did the International Herald Tribune print “Liars or Flyers” three years later? There must have been quite a bit of lingering skepticism.
.
Rossi’s E-Cats have also been reported in the press, I gave the recent link http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54964-2004Nov16.html
Likewise, there is lingering skepticism and general lack of interest as well as both being very important inventions. So I think my original point that the two have similarities remains true.
.
ps. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wright/reporter.html
Stevef,
Can’t comment well on my cell but find your observation thought provoking. Ty.
Adrian
So what? You’ve repeatedly claimed newspapers did not publish including stuff like this
You were wrong. Lots of newspapers reported the flight.
Your complaints that you can’t read the type, or you think some papers were minor or that the reports weren’t first hand: Also so what? Of course there were no first hand reports in papers after the first flight because journalists weren’t present and so got reports from witnesses.
This does not constitute “not reporting”. It is SOP at lots of papers including current ones. If newspapers reported only things their own reporters witnessed, they would have no content. But no one considers newspapers publishing accounts described by witnesses “not reporting”.
Of course some small papers reported– in addition to the large papers. That happens today– the local who-sy-whats it paper covering something doesn’t ‘unmake’ other reports. When the 9-11 bombings happened, small papers reported too. Finding those examples doesn’t mean the event was “hardly” reported.
As for why some people were dubious later: Sure some people were dubious. But that is an entirely different thing for newspapers not reporting. My guess one reason some Europeans were dubious is that Wrights succeeded while government funded Langley was taking nosedives into the Potomac. Also, some Frenchmen were attempting things and showing off in public doing little more than taking pathetic short hops. So some people thought possible that’s all the Wright’s had done also and so thought the Wrights were exaggerating.
But the fact was: The Wrights were arriving in France because someone believed them. They were there to negotiate a contract with a French manufacturing firm. The newspapers were reporting. That’s what newspapers do.
That some people were dubious about the merits of Wrights claims does not mean scientists and engineers thought flight was impossible. They didn’t. Lots of people thought flight was possible– just not yet achieved. The government was funding Langley. That’s not the action of a government who doesn’t believe flying is possible.
This is nothing like claims of cold fusion.
Has anyone who reads here ever replicated someone else’s experiment? Have you, Adrian?
If so, was everything you needed to know contained in the write-up of the original experiment? If not, did the first guys help you with the missing information – emphasis on ‘help’?
I ask, mostly because I wonder what the current standard is for experiment descriptions and is it usually possible to do the replication or seldom possible, and how would you know without really getting into it.
I recently built a device from drawings and description which worked when it was completed but the adjustments to get the desired result were incredibly twitchy. i emailed the inventor who agreed that he only got good results part of the time and had never really mastered the adjustments. problem was using ordinary hard-ware store needle valves to control air and liquid flow into the mixer. Only the fluid flow was actually twitchy and solution was to buy a proper Parker metering valve.
I’m not sure that this would have been obvious from the original write-up.
My guess is that the write up which shows what you need, how to assemble it, what measuring instruments, and how to run the experiment, what’s twitchy, etc. cannot be found for a CF experiment. If it did and the first sentence said something like, “If you do this just as we describe and fuss with it a little, you will get this result”, I’d suspect that this whole thing might not be nonsense.
Is it fair to ask you, Adrian, where something like what I’ve described can be found? Or if this is nuts on my part, why?
Lucia,
I said my information was out of date. Why do you make a big deal out of that? You were wrong earlier about something and I didn’t go on about that. I am delighted to get updated information.
.
“But the fact was: The Wrights were arriving in France because someone believed them. They were there to negotiate a contract with a French manufacturing firm. The newspapers were reporting. That’s what newspapers do.”
.
Some people believed Rossi back in 2011. Rossi negotiated and signed a deal with Industrial Heat too. Newspapers have reported that also.
.
“That some people were dubious about the merits of Wrights claims does not mean scientists and engineers thought flight was impossible. They didn’t. Lots of people thought flight was possible– just not yet achieved. The government was funding Langley. That’s not the action of a government who doesn’t believe flying is possible.”
‘
The general consensus of academia was that heavier than air flight was not practical, following Langley’s failed attempts. Actually as he had a much better engine than the Wrights a decent engineer would have seen it was possible then, but group-think is powerful.
.
“This is nothing like claims of cold fusion.”
–
You say it but haven’t made any points to prove it or disproved the points I made. It seems a trivial point anyway.
We will probably have to wait until Feb/Mar 2016 to see who is right. With luck something else will surface before then.
Lucia,
“Lots of people thought flight was possible– just not yet achieved.”
.
More than that, people had been watching birds fly as long as they were humans, and clearly understood that if a bird can fly, then maybe something that is designed to do what a bird does could also fly. Icarus of Greek mythology “anticipated” the Wright brothers efforts by a couple thousand years. Some public skepticism of the Wright brothers’ success in flying is an even worse argument than the silly Marie Curie discovering radium argument… both are completely different from broad overwhelming rejection of nutty CF claims.
jferguson,
I haven’t specifically replicated. But some of my measurements in my thesis reported velocity measurements that had been measured by a previous student. But I was using a different technique and focusing on other things. What happens is ‘on the way to’ doing what you need to do, you do repeat things and compare to what other people say they have found. Either (a) you find your stuff largely agrees which you take as some indication your set up is working ok or (b) you find you cannot get what other people get, in which case you look into it.
I think this is they way most “replication” is done. Unless something previously done is very unusual, people don’t “replicate to replicate”. But but do things in ways that overlaps and so some stuff ends up “replicated”.
The notion that writeups should be sufficient to let people repeat experiments exactly is widely disseminated. But I’d say it’s a bit quaint. You might get a close to full description in a government report or a thesis. In a journal article? not so much. Certainly, “the process is very sensitive to X which needs to be controlled well while Y.. not so much” is likely to be left out when word counts are tight.
Generally, write up are good enough to explain the general process. How exact that is likely depends on the field.
But really, here with fusion: No one is getting anything near ‘replication’.
Adrian
Unless “out of date” means “something that was never correct”, your choice of words is rather.. how shall I put this nicely… inapt.
I’m not making a big deal out of anything. I am commenting your your discussion about the newspaper articles.
Which puts us back were we began: I, and many others, think some scam is being pulled.
Even if your claim about the general consensus of academia is true (and I doubt it): impractical does not mean impossible. Impractical does not mean “violates physics as we know it”.
Langly’s crashes into the Potomoc were in October and December of 1903. It’s a bit much to suggest “academia” had somehow decided motorized flight was impossible based on these two crashes. It’s even more odd to sugggest academics wouldn’t believe the reports of Wrights flight in Dec 1903 — only weeks after Langley’s failure– because of Langley’s failure. There is, in fact, no reason to believe “academia” made up it’s mind about that issue. Certainly little to think they changed their mind– and bear in mind, the government had funded Langley. Langely’s models flew(badly). He just hadn’t mastered control sufficiently to actually make any manned flights.
As far as I am aware: Langley still retained funding after crashing. But of course, the Wrights actually succeeding would take away some potential for any thunder he might make.
Langely’s models flew.
To repeat: The Wright story in which they did something people thought possible– just sooner and better than the person who received generous funding and in which their successes were widely reported immediately– and in which they were negotiating industrial contract soon after is nothing like cold fusion.
“Has anyone who reads here ever replicated someone else’s experiment?”
.
Sure. I have tried to replicate a reported result from a paper on sedimentation of small particles in a fluid (didn’t work at all), and tried to replicate a reported result for “competitive growth” of particles of different sizes in an emulsion polymerization… worked perfectly. Those are just two that come to mind; I’m sure there have been other instances. Replication is usually motivated either by the “that can’t possibly be right” reaction, or by the “how wonderderous and interesting” reaction. I have been motivated by both reactions. The “that’s just nuts” reaction is where CF lives, especially since lots of people did try to replicate CF, with no success. Nobody replicates crazy stuff, at least not after they realize it’s crazy.
I built an instrument in graduate school based on a published paper. It didn’t work at first because there was an error in the published circuit diagram. But that error was relatively easy to find and fix. All of instrumental analytical chemistry is based on the replication of someone’s original experiment. Inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry went from the lab to being able to buy turn key instruments in less than ten years. EPA and ASTM analytical methods were published. Coupling the plasma source to a mass spectrometer came not long after that.
If replication were unimportant, the scientific literature wouldn’t exist.
Lucia,
“But really, here with fusion: No one is getting anything near ‘replication’.”
.
You keeps saying that but I have given several examples that show it has. But you think anyone who makes a positive report is incompetent, or lying or fraudulent. You won’t accept ANY evidence contrary to your belief.
.
NANOR. Public demo at MIT
.
Rossi’s E-Cat has been replicated dozens of times by him, by Industrial Heat. By ELFORSK at Lugano and Dr.Parkhomov in Russia. It has now been seen working by over a hundred people.
.
Hagelstein, McKubre at SRI. 50 experiments showing excess heat.
.
Energetics Technologies in Israel. I read that Prof Duncan was persuaded to take up LENR after visiting them.
.
Brillouin -replicated at SRI
.
BlacklightPower – replicated several times in a university
.
See dozens of people that have partaken in experiments or witnessed LENR at http://www.lenrproof.com
JFerguson,
Scientific experiments? No. I’ve replicated plenty of circuits, but the circuit diagram is really all anybody needed in those cases. I’ve built simple machines but seldom adhered perfectly to original designs.
~shrug~
Lucia,
You’re locked in a discussion loop. You and others have talked about replicable observations, but Adrian is having none of it. You might as well be talking to the wall.
.
I had hoped to find a way around the impasse earlier, but you can’t teach granny to suck eggs.
Wrong metaphor. Teaching granny… means trying to teach someone to do something they already know how to do. Perhaps more apt would be: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
DeWitt,
Yes, I know. I used the inappropriate metaphor because it was the one Adrian used earlier to ignore my attempt to find a common starting point by agreeing that we should use the general approaches highlighted in the scientific method. She already knows how to suck eggs, so I can lead her to water all I want to but she won’t listen to me.
[Edit: s/he, I’ve already indicated that I don’t know Adrian’s gender and have apologized if I’ve been using a gender inappropriate pronoun]
Adrian,
Replication implies independent and reproducible. None of what you list can be called independent. It doesn’t matter how many times Rossi claims to have replicated his results. It also implies statistical significance. Once in 1,000 tries is not considered to be significant enough to be considered reproducible.
Mark,
Since I mostly don’t read Adrian’s posts, I missed it.
DeWitt,
I can’t fault you for that. I seldom find I genuinely can’t communicate with people. I was frustrated earlier, but I’ve reached resignation.
Adrian
No. You haven’t.
Mark
Yep. Adrian seems to think Rossi reporting something and saying, he Rossi, has done it again is “replication”. Well… sort of in the sense that Rossi shouldn’t even report it if Rossi can’t do it again. But in science, “replication” means by an independent party.
It doesn’t seem to matter how many times people in comments tell Adrian that they want to see “replication” by independent parties. Adrian wants to reply with “replication” or Rossi by Rossi. I don’t know whether Adrian is missing a few brain cells, but he ought to grok that no one considers that replication to be a real replication>
Adrian also posts crap like this
This is also not replication. Now, if eventually Duncan replicates… ok. But his merely deciding to “take it up” is not “replication”.
Lucia,
Yes. The only other point I’d add is that replicable generally also indicates repeatable. RB’s comment here highlights this:
Adrian refuses to understand that seeing a setup unmistakably produce excess heat 50 times over 50,000 hours of experiments isn’t what anybody is talking about when they ask for replication. Those aren’t replications, they are Bigfoot sightings. [edited to make plural]
I wondered if this is where JFerguson was going, actually.
Anyways.
Lucia,
.
: You keeps saying that but I have given several examples that show it has.
No. You haven’t.”
.
That is truly pathetic. For example:
Rossi’s Hot Cat WAS replicated by Parkhomov at least twice.
That’s not counting Lugano because you would claim Levi knew Rossi, so it must be fixed or something. Parkhomov did it entirely independently.
If two students in a lab [independently] misidentify a poisonous compound as aspirin, well heck. They’ve replicated results. It must be aspirin, right? [sorry, rhetorical. My answer is no.]
Even though nobody else reproduces the result.
Yeah, pathetic.
Adrian
Oh? That would be the same Parhmov who people at ECat are discussing because they can’t replicate. I’m not convinced he replicated.
Trying to salvage some value from this fruitless rehash:
.
I’m thinking about what I claimed earlier about Bigfoot sightings.
To be fair, that a problem or phenomenon is highly intermittent does not indicate that that problem or phenomenon doesn’t exist. It happens in software, some defects are extremely complicated and subtle, usually when the code stinks to heaven and needs to be thrown out and rewritten. These problems can be crazy hard / virtually impossible to track down.
.
I don’t rule out the remote possibility that there is something there. It’s merely that it’s overwhelmingly difficult to rule out experimental error when you only see something 50 times every 50,000 hours you spend looking. Since the nature of the observation defies all of our theoretical understanding, it’s even harder to convince me that some error in measurement and/or experimental conditions aren’t responsible.
.
I don’t rule out the extremely remote possibility, but I certainly don’t see how anyone can claim this is solid science that anybody ought to accept as valid.
Lucia,
The other popular straw man is that it is not repeatable.
The 1 MW plant has been running continuously for six months. That sounds very repeatable to me.
You don’t believe it? Well you will have to wait until next year to be 100% certain, but several independent people have reported it including Norway’s largest newspaper.
Adrian
Please look up the definition of ‘straw man’ and use it correctly.
You don’t know this.
That’s because you don’t understand the concept of “repeatable”. It will be “repeatable” when someone else does it.
Wrong. I’ll believe it either when electric power is being supplied at cheap rates or someone other than Rossi/ Industrual heat is doing this with independent people verifying. Otherwise, this is the “Wizard” in “The Wizard of Oz”.
Did the newpaper run tests? You really don’t “get” independent replication.
Lots of people report they have seen aliens… and been on the alien spacecraft. When people claim CF is real, their claims fall in the same region as claims of seeing aliens. Maybe this subject could be returned to in April 2016, after Adrien’s promised energy miracles have happened…. or not.
I admire your patience Lucia. 🙂
Yes. I for one am satisfied that this at least: that Adrian will ignore this explanation no matter how many times it is supplied, is a replicable and repeatable result. The science is settled.
Night folks. Good luck, Lucia.
Lucia,
“Oh? That would be the same Parhmov who people at ECat are discussing because they can’t replicate. I’m not convinced he replicated.”
.
You said no one had replicated LENR. I gave you several examples. Parkhomov did replicate Rossi so you were wrong.
Why don’t you accuse him of lying or fraud or incompetence too while you are at it? You said Rossi was a fraud if I’m not mistaken.
.
I don’t care that another party failed to replicate Parkhomov. The don’t have years of experience, it was their first time. Obviously they got something wrong. But if you had been attending you will know that they are learning and are trying again.
Lucia,
“That’s because you don’t understand the concept of “repeatableâ€. It will be “repeatable†when someone else does it.”
.
I understand repeatability very well. You are getting that confused with independently repeatable. Better known as replication. So don’t tell me I don’t understand.
Do you think most of the results from CERN should be discounted because it is not possible to duplicate the results of that accelerator (ie there isn’t another one of that size)?
Likewise you don’t need to explode a second nuclear bomb if the first one works, because the evidence is overwhelming.
.
Ah. Rereading the post above, what you are looking for is replication of the replication. You should have specified that.
Adrian
I realize you believe he replicated. I don’t. I think you are wrong.
And yet we did, didn’t we? 🙂
Look: The nuclear fusion in the bomb was replicated and has been numerous times.
If you are trying to liken whatever it is Pons, Fleishman, Rossi or others claim to the dramatic obviousness of a nuclear bomb…w ell… no. Sorry.
But beyond that, nuclear fusion in bombs has been replicated independently many times.
Nope. Parkhomov didn’t replicate.
But besides that: Yes. If something is correct, on going, repeatable replications by independent people should be possible.
In (Comment #139078) , Adrian says that popular articles have addressed the Rossi e-cat, and links to an article. But that article from the Post does not discuss the e-cat, it is the article I posted earlier regarding the Hagelstein/McKubre story. Adrian does a skillful job of spinning the 50 ‘sightings’ out of 50,000 hours as ’50 experiments showing excess heat’ or some such.
There are media stories out there however dating back several years. A recent one is here and it appears that the ‘independent’ tests/demos were anything but, as also asserted in Wiki .
So, let’s see whether the promised announcement comes in Feb 2016, my bet is that the commercial product will again be forthcoming ‘within a year’.
And BTW, don’t fret if you don’t hear from the NANOR guy, he’s apparently got a day job as a radiation oncologist.
Adrian,
Read the site you linked to regarding the 1MW generator running for six months.
There is no evidence at the site that clearly states what you wish it stated.
As for repeat-ability of CF experiments:
Yes, workers making CF experiments have repeatedly had cr@p results.
Lucia,
” Parkhomov did replicate Rossi so you were wrong.
I realize you believe he replicated. I don’t. I think you are wrong.”
.
That doesn’t pass the smell test. If you don’t believe it provide some evidence that shows he didn’t or failed.
.
The point of the nuclear bomb was rather esoteric and was because of your insistence that something that hadn’t been replicated was not believable. Obviously the first test was believable enough that a “commercial” version was then used.
RB,
” But that article from the Post does not discuss the e-cat, ”
.
From the Huffington Post.
“Rossi has gone well beyond laboratory demonstration; he claims that he and the private firm Industrial Heat, LLC of Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, have actually installed a working system at an (undisclosed) commercial customer’s site.
.
According to Rossi and a handful of others who have observed the system in operation, it is producing 1 MWatt continuous net output power, in the form of heat, from a few grams of “fuel” in each of a set of modest-sized reactors in a network. The system has now been operating for approximately six months, as part of a one-year acceptance test. Rossi and IH LLC are in talks with Chinese firms for large-scale commercial manufacture.
.
Several “reliable sources” have visited Rossi’s commercial site, and have verified that the system is working as claimed, as evidenced, for example, by the customer’s significantly reduced electric bills.”
.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-h-bailey/post_10010_b_8052326.html
.
Note the performance is measured by both the customer and an independent referee.
Fission was discovered in December of 1938. A sustained fission chain reaction was achieved in December 1940. The first bomb test, yielding a little over 20,000 tons TNT equivalent energy, was in July 1945, less than 7 years after the initial discovery of fission. Any comparison with the “development” of CF power is silly. Fission is real, CF is nonsense.
Adrian,
If you drill down, the “source” of that quote is:
http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/?p=626
We don’t know who the ‘reliable’ source is. We don’t know if they are “reliable”. We don’t know who the “customer” is. We don’t know what this “customer” said. We don’t know if the ‘reliable source’ talked to the “customer” about his bills or just took Rossi’s word for the customers satisfaction. We don’t even know if there is a “customer”.
Perhaps the report is true. Perhaps “Sifferkoll” is mistaken in some important point. The latter is at least equally likely to the former.
Unlike first flight, the quality of this evidence is not “five identified witnesses, three independent of the Wrights, all of whom can be named who saw the flight plus a photograph.”
In the comments of the HuffPo article, somebody has this extract from the 2008 patent application
Customers can also be manufactured, especially when details are few.
Sure. That’s fair enough. You have to think about the statistics of replication to get this.
In physical science, when somebody does an experiment there’s a chance of making a mistake. Maybe instrumentation error, maybe in experimental setup, maybe in operator error, maybe something else. Hopefully the probability of making a mistake is low. For the purposes of illustration let’s say the probability of a mistake is low; assume careful, dedicated researchers. 5% chance.
What do we expect to see happen, if CF is real, and 15 researchers try to replicate? The odds are something like 96% that at least 13 of them will successfully replicate.
What do we expect to see happen, if CF is not real, and 15 researchers try to replicate? Better than even odds that at least 1 researcher will make a mistake and false accept. Most will see nothing.
Of the two, which scenario is occurring?
Sometimes, if you want to know more about the customer, you just Ask Rossi .
Adrian
Nuclear fission was repeatedly observed and replicated before any bomb was even created. It was observed in the reactors used to create materials. It was observed before the reactors were built. No “second bomb” was needed over another country because no bomb was needed to replicate the discovery of fission. That replication had happened long ago and in different configurations.
Adrian,
Ah. This is where theory becomes important. Read about Fermi, the Chicago Pile, and the Manhattan Project. When you’ve already got findings that support a theory and indeed you’ve already got a theory that’s stood up so far, then you’re in a far more advantageous position. You’ve got reason at that point to expect certain results. The theory predicts that thus-and-so arrangement should constitute a nuclear bomb. You try out the theory, and bingo! You see what the theory predicts. It’s much different from an empirical shot in the dark.
The word “cot#on” when spelled correctly traps a comment in moderation (unless this has changed recently). The appropriate description of this crazy thead would be a “cot#on thread”. May I suggest threads like this be called “baumwolle threads”, or “algodón threads”? That would convey the essence without provoking moderation. 😉
Lucia,
You ducked answering my request to provide evidence that Parkhomov did not, or failed, replication of Rossi’s E-Cat.
.
It is not clear what source was used for the Sifferkoll piece as there were several reports of it.
.
For example, from Aftenposten:
“Renowned physicists deny that it is possible. But the inventor Andrea Rossi claims he now produces one million watts using cold fusion for a commercial customer – in an ordinary shipping container. An independent source confirmed to Aftenposten that the power plant already is in operation in a secret US customer . . . This source has heavy scientific background in relevant subjects, has even been present and able to inspect the container. The reason that he does not want to be named, is that it is considered very dangerous for his career to embrace the highly controversial phenomenon of cold fusion.”
.
See also:
.
It’s from Bo Høistad (Uppsala University) that we get the most interesting piece of information regarding an upcoming report of another apparently successful E-Cat Replication. From the article:
Bo Høistad, who is co-author of the Swedish reports, saying that the articles have not yet been published in a scientific journal because they have verified the results of a new experiment that is independent of Rossi in Italy. An article with further information regarding this is now under preparation. According Høistad it made three independent, similar experiments after their first report, all of which have produced the wanted excess energy.
This means that the reports that we have been hearing of the Lugano team carrying out a replication seem to be accurate — and now it seems that the replication has been successful. If we can get a detailed report from this team on their reactor build and testing protocol, it could go a long way in helping other replicators — which should help with greater public visibility and acceptance of the reality of the Rossi Effect.
http://www.e-catworld.com/2015/06/22/norwegian-newspaper-aftenpost-reports-on-lenr-mentions-successful-e-cat-replication-by-lugano-team/
.
Do you think Høistad is a liar?
.
A major reason why you have not seen more work done on LENR is because it is not funded. To compare it with say hot fusion, who have $billions, is a sick joke.
Adrian
I didn’t duck anything. I don’t need to provide evidence for my claim which is “I don’t believe he did so.” I’m simply reporting my belief. I doubt you have any evidence to suggest I am misrepresenting my own belief.
Adrian,
“Reproducible” science (which is the only kind of real science, as far as I’m concerned) requires two things:
(1) You should be able to reproduce your own results, pretty consistently.
(2) You should be able to explain how you did it to any independent, competent scientist, so they can reproduce them too.
Hagelstein and McKubre do not even meet the condition (1). They clearly have no idea how to reproduce their results, or they would have seen many more than 50 cases out of 50,000 trials.
The other people you quote do not meet condition (2). Showing somebody a black box that performs a seemingly miraculous trick without letting them look inside to see how it works is not “reproducible science,” even if you do it again and again.
It is, however, what magicians do onstage.
Of course, professional magicians may exchange “trade secrets,” so you may actually see a magician “replicate” another magician’s trick onstage. But neither one will let an independent, outside observer thoroughly check their equipment.
Given this, I have to ask, do you regard this as evidence that stage magicians have true magical powers? Because the “evidence” you present for LENR is of the same nature.
The more people who try to replicate, the more likely it becomes that one of them will false accept. It doesn’t take all that many before it becomes more probable than not that somebody will false accept. That we have a Parkhomov is nothing more than the expected value of the random variable if CF if false.
.
How do we know that Parkhomov false accepted? The probability distribution of the results. To go back to the example I used earlier, given 15 researchers, assuming CF is real and taking a 5% chance of error, the odds of only 1 researcher replicating is something like 10^-18’th. Assuming that CF is not real and taking a 5% chance of error, the odds are 53% that at least 1 researcher would report successful replication. 53% chance a Parkhomov false accepted, insanely small chance that everybody else false rejected.
Oh, this is rich. Adrian, from the very article you linked to above (Comment #139133):
“(UPDATE: Bo Høistad Says Reports of his Team’s Confirming Lugano Report Not True)”
“IMPORTANT UPDATE: (June 21, 2015) Bo Høistad has issued via email a correction to the newspaper report above:
“If information is given in a Norwegian newspaper that we have confirmed the Lugano result it is unfortunately not true.â€
Lucia,
” You ducked answering my request to provide evidence that Parkhomov did not, or failed, replication of Rossi’s E-Cat.
I didn’t duck anything. I don’t need to provide evidence for my claim which is “I don’t believe he did so.†I’m simply reporting my belief. I doubt you have any evidence to suggest I am misrepresenting my own belief.”
.
It is true you don’t have to provide any evidence, but it makes your case just a religious one. So you believe. Some believe AGW will fry the world and won’t debate the evidence too.
It looks like you will go on believing that until you trip over an E-Cat in your house that is providing heat.
Adrian
No. I don’t think Bo is a liar.
Nonesense. I don’t believe Rossi’s claims. He happens to be a convict who is making bold claims and not permitting independent inspections of his plant.
I don’t believe Parkhomov claim of replication which others are unable to replicate. He himself cannot consistently repeat. This is evidence already discussed prior to your demand for more evidence. While this evidence may not be conclusive evidence, it is evidence. And few would call my belief that Parkhomov did not replicate “religious”. If you wish to… ok. Yawn.
Adrian (Comment #139139)
Mark gave you a very good answer above (Comment #139136)
Thanks Julio. I’m always reluctant to do even simple math here because virtually everybody here is a heck of a lot more advanced with it than I am, but this is a pretty simple matter.
I’m trying to find an example to put the insane improbability of everybody false rejecting into perspective. But it appears that even being struck by a meteorite isn’t near the same order of magnitude of unlikely.
Lucia,
It is pointless to debate if you rely on ad homs but won’t consider evidence.
The 1MW plant has now been running 233 days. It continues to look like we will have to wait for that trial to be completed, just as Rossi forecast.
Adrian
This is a claim. One of the questions we are debating is whether the claim is true. You can’t use the claim itself as evidence it is true. That’s circular.
Yes. We need to wait until Rossi provides evidence that his claims are true. The evidence for their truth must be something other than “Rossi claimed what he says is true.”
Mark,
“The more people who try to replicate, the more likely it becomes that one of them will false accept. It doesn’t take all that many before it becomes more probable than not that somebody will false accept. That we have a Parkhomov is nothing more than the expected value of the random variable if CF if false.”
.
Yeah that makes perfect sense. One replication is not enough. Two replications (Lugano & Parkhomov) is not enough. Any more and the chances of false positives rule them out. /sarc
This exchange today may answer some of the earlier questions about Rossi promising E-Cats.
.
Alexvs
September 17th, 2015 at 5:54 AM
Dear Mr. Rossi
Is it fair answering to people who booked for E-Cats years ago, as you have done?
Sorry for them.
.
.
Andrea Rossi
September 17th, 2015 at 7:22 AM
Alexvs:
You have not to be sorry for them, because we said clearly from the beginning that:
1- we did not know if and when the domestic E-Cat could be manufactured and delivered
2- we wanted not to receive any money for pre-payments for any reason
3- we made well clear that the pre-orders were not binding and that they would have been turned into real orders only after we could send a regular proposal
4- as a consequence of the points 1,2,3 we did not quote any price
Now: I am optimist about the possibility to hit the market also with the domestic E-Cats, but two disclaimers must be clear:
a- we did not yet achieve a safety certification for the domestic E-Cat, and without such a certification we will not sell them
b- the results of the R&D on course for them ( in particular the E-Cat X version) can be either positive or negative.
If we will achieve the safety certification for the domestic E-Cat and if the R&D on course will generate positive results, all the persons that have made a pre-order, of which we conserved a complete record, will be served with a proposal and, if they will confirm acceptation of the proposal, they will receive the E-Cat. Wherever they are.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
.
.
I put my name down for one and can confirm what Rossi says above. A useful marketing tool for him to set up production. I have a recent very efficient, condensing gas fired furnace, so will probably wait now until that conks out.
I think a fraudster would have requested a down payment- he didn’t.
No Adrian. You aren’t following how the distribution works.
If CF is real, most trials ought to indicate that. It is what the math says. If CF is real, the odds of at least 12 replications out of 15 competent attempts is quite high, over 99%. If CF is not real, the odds are not that there will be 0 replications in 15 attempts actually, the odds are that there will be 1. If you take 15 ‘long shots’ that only have a 5% chance of paying off, it turns out that you’ve got better than a 50% chance that at least one of those long shots will succeed.
If CF isn’t real, the odds of 12 replications out of 15 competent attempts is considerably less than the odds of a meteor destroying your house.
The math of replication and repeatability is why science enables us to figure out what’s true and false.
In case it wasn’t clear, the ‘long shot’ in my example above was the probability of making a mistake in any given experiment, the 5% chance.
Luucia,
“This is a claim. One of the questions we are debating is whether the claim is true. You can’t use the claim itself as evidence it is true. That’s circular.”
.
Half a dozen people have said it is real. Darden is clearly an honorable person. You have nothing except your unproven religious belief.
Adrian,
Maybe what you aren’t getting is this. It’s not the fact that ‘replications’ exist. It’s the number of replications and the number of attempts that matter.
Look, do you see that rolling a die and getting a 1 has a certain chance, but that rolling it twice and getting a 1 both times is less likely, and that rolling it three times and getting a 1 all three times is even less likely than that?
The number of trials matter in probability. ‘N’ replications might be great or might be cruddy, it depends on how many people have tried to replicate.
Mark,
You are confused between reproducible and a replication,
Many of the early Pd/D efforts failed because the requirements were not understood. Now they are better understood the success rate is much higher according to McKubre.
.
The visible success rate has been higher for Ni/Li/H systems although Rossi says he made thousands of experiments in the early days, nothing is known about them. The replications have been reasonably successful, the failures by amateurs is only to be expected. There is not enough funding for many to even try.
.
I listed a number of different systems earlier that have worked well. It is not just Rossi who have had their work replicated.
What is the success rate. Why do I have to take Mckubre’s word for it, where are these guys. How many attempts so you think there have been. Finally, what makes you think this stuff is cost or expertise prohibitive.
‘how many attempts do you think there have been’,
not
‘how many attempts so you think there have been.’
You might as well quit calling Lugano independent:
BZzzz! I’m sorry, thanks for playing. That’s not an independent test.
Mark,
I know of dozens, including those in Japan. Italy, DARPA, SPARWAR etc.
I have no idea how many in total. My guess is that many are now being undertaken by large companies and we don’t get to hear about them for commercial reasons. That the large oil companies have sold off many of their reserves is interesting too.
.
See http://www.lenrproof.com/slide_05.html
http://www.lenrproof.com/slide_06.html
for a list of people and institutions that believe the evidence is compelling enough that they believe it.
The European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation said “The existence of the (LENR) effect is no longer in doubt.”
First on the list, Brian Josephson. What I find on him is that he made this comment about Lugano on Nature.com.
Is this the claim, or is there any more substance than that?
Schwinger, deceased.
Bushnell. I find here,
I don’t see verification of the claim that Bushnell or Zawodny know of their own first hand knowledge that LENR works, sounds like they are still doing research on it to me.
Can you link me something that says Bushnell or Zawodny have such evidence today?
Nelson presented some slides summarizing Rossi and Piantelli’s research. He seems to be saying ‘don’t know if this is real, we ought to look into it.’
http://youtube-downloader-mp3.com/watch-michael-a-nelson-nasa-lenr-presentation-09-22-2011-id-djBIWTsnwjY.html?similar
Doesn’t sound like he’s got any first hand knowledge of whether or not LENR is real…
This is ridiculous. How much time do you expect people you talk to to take to wade through your claims looking for substance? So far, none of these people belong on a list titled ‘GROWING LIST OF CREDIBLE PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS WORLDWIDE AFFIRMING WITH FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE THAT LENR IS REAL AND PRODUCES A NET ENERGY GAIN’.
Mark,
I’m sorry but I’m not going to spend more time searching for pathological skeptics who in the end will only ask for more.
.
Just wait for Feb/Mar 2016.
Do you hear that, Joshua my friend, wherever you are? I’m not a ‘skeptic’ in quotes anymore. I’m a pathological skeptic.
Thank you Adrian. I would be honored to think that’s so, although I’ve been told I’m just a ‘skeptic’. If you’re shooting for a term with negative connotations around these parts, call me a skydragon. 😉
Re: Mark Bofill (Comment #139156)
Brian Josephson got a Nobel Prize in Physics in the 1970’s for work he did as a graduate student in the 1960’s, and has not made any contributions to conventional science since then. He is, however, a strong supporter of parapsychology, which seems only appropriate, since their claims (and their evidence) are very similar to LENR.
Julian Schwinger I met briefly in the late 1980’s, when he was about 70 but looked much older. It is fair to say that his best work was far behind him at that point. He died in 1994, so he wouldn’t know anything about Rossi’s reactor. By that time he had spent maybe two decades working on something he called “source theory” that never caught on among his peers, and his resentment towards the scientific establishment may have made him overly sympathetic to the claims of cold fusion. The papers he wrote, at the time, in an area with which I was intimately familiar, were, to put it mildly, unremarkable, so I do not expect his work on cold fusion to have been any better or more insightful.
Re: Adrian Ashfield (Comment #139155)
Reference, please?
I admit to a certain curiosity as to how this new claim will prove false, like just about all the previous ones.
Perhaps it’s just somebody who works for this agency who made this statement to a journalist one day over a glass of wine or two.
Perhaps the key is in the word “effect.” There is undoubtedly an “effect,” if not several–a disinformation one, a psychological one, a possibly fraudulent one. All these appear to be real enough.
In any case, a quick look around their website (http://ec.europa.eu/research/index.cfm?pg=dg) shows no mention of LENR, so I’m pretty sure the claim, as stated by Adrian, must be false. If the Directorate “knew” for a fact that LENR works, they would at least give it a passing mention on their “nuclear energy” pages (http://ec.europa.eu/research/energy/euratom/index_en.cfm). But, no.
Julio.
Wrong as usual. I don’t usually waste the time to correct you.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2902747/posts
.
A few more conferences for you to debunk without reading about them.
http://coldfusionnow.org/
Adrian,
That link doesn’t say they ‘know’ LENR works. At best it says
That’s not the same thing.
You seem to want to take the fact that some people look into LENR as evidence that demonstrates LENR has been proven. This doesn’t follow.
Julio,
Thanks for the additional information in 139163. It’s always both a pleasure and illuminating to read what you’ve got to say; I’d have never turned some of that up googling.
Julio,
The document that contains that recommendation appears to be here:
https://ec.europa.eu/research/industrial_technologies/pdf/emerging-materials-report_en.pdf
The front matter contains this interesting disclaimer
Will this be the longest algodón thread evah? I am beginning to think so. What a waste.
SteveF,
🙂 Something small comes of it. I hadn’t actually realized before the discussion just how severely improbable it is that LENR is real.
Pity. I’d have liked to see the unicorns.
Adrian,
Instead of talking about Rossi, instead of claiming people can buy NANOR’s, instead of Lugano, instead of all the trash, you ought to lead with this:
http://www.infinite-energy.com/images/pdfs/BossPreparataMedal.pdf
This is the first piece of anything I’ve encountered in the rubbish bin you’ve brought to the table that doesn’t crumble under casual examination. I’m not saying there’s anything there yet, but at least it looks like there might be actual claims and experiments in there that could conceivably have substance I can check up on.
Re: Comment #139168
Thanks, Lucia!
So, as I was saying above…
Mark,
I am sure lots of people would like it if unicorns were real. Many would like for CF to be real. I would like it if I was a scratch golfer. Unicorns aren’t real, my handicap is nine….. and CF is rubbish.
SteveF,
The stuff I’m looking at talks about ‘pits generated in CR-39 detectors during Pd/D co-deposition experiments’. Have a look if you like. I’m not a physical scientist so it’s going to take me awhile to understand what I’m looking at. Whatever it is, it’s apparently readily replicable.
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/SzpakSevidenceof.pdf
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2007/2007BossP-UseOfCR39.pdf
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2008/2008KowalskiSPAWAR-Repl.pdf
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2008/2008SPAWAR-Resp-KowalskiSPAWAR-Repl.pdf
Mark,
Not impressed. Unless the experiment was carried out under clean room conditions, the ‘new’ elements could be caused by particles of dust from the air. The concentrations look high, but the total mass could be quite low as it’s only on the surface.
Thanks DeWitt.
In fact I’d appreciate anyone’s comments in general so I don’t waste too much of my time if there’s something obviously wrong about this.
Re: Comment #139174
Mark,
OK, I tend to agree with you: for once, this seems to be respectable work. I have only taken a cursory look at these papers and some of the follow up, but it looks like sensible people are willing to allow for the possibility of some nuclear processes going on there.
It follows, too, that I may have been too dismissive of the possibility of “low energy nuclear reactions” in previous comments, because I was thinking all along about fusion reactions. There are certain processes, like electron capture, that could be affected by an atom’s chemical environment to a degree, and that lead, in fact, to transmutation (and the emission of neutrons). So I’m not going to say anymore that that’s impossible.
On the other hand, I still do not believe this would be fusion, and I also do not see anything in the published results to indicate that there may be a significant source of energy here…
Julio,
Thanks.
I blush to admit that it’s one of the ‘intuitive’ rather than ‘logical’ reasons I don’t dismiss this out of hand. It doesn’t immediately defy all reason that this could be so and yet nobody has been able to make anything of it. It’s not exactly a modest result (if correct) but it’s a helluva long way from E-CAT, too.
Mark,
WRT CR-39 radiation detectors:
.
I am very familiar with this material. My company uses good size sheets in the construction of our instruments. It is a very resistant polymer, virtually immune to attack by solvents, resistant to abrasion, and inert to most chemical environments. But not to warm/hot concentrated KOH or NaOH. It undergoes hydrolysis under these conditions, the rate of which depends on a number of factors, including surface roughness and damage from ionizing radiation. When exposed to ionizing radiation, the molecular structure is compromised, and the polymer becomes (locally) more susceptible to hydrolysis. This is the basis for using CR-39 polymer in radiation detectors. I note the following:
.
1) CR-39 polymer has been used as a radiation detector at relatively low doses, and in single particle track detection.
2) The polymer will accumulate radiation damage over time from background radiation (cosmic rays,etc)
3) Any active localized source of ionizing radiation (like a CF reaction) would be expected to quickly overwhelm the ability of CR-39 to measure radiation dose.
.
Unless there are careful controls, not subject to CF “radiation”, the potential for detecting cosmic rays is high. The conditions of electrical hydrolysis of water (or deuterium oxide) would appear to have the potential to provoke localized hydrolysis, independent of radiation effects.
julio,
What element used in the CF experiments is a candidate for electron capture? I had understood that only a very limited number of unstable isotopes (neutron-poor) can undergo electron capture.
Thanks SteveF.
Do I understand you right, to be thinking that at least part of what you’re saying is that electrical hydrolysis of deuterium oxide in and of itself could be causing the pits in your opinion?
I don’t know a darn thing about CR-39, never heard of it before today. I’m certainly not questioning the validity of your statement. I’m questioning my understanding of what you’re saying. 🙂
Mark,
Depends on the conditions of the electrical hydrolysis, which I do not know. If the pH is high due to addition of NaOH or KOH, then the possibility of localized hydrolysis of CR-39 due to high PH should at least be considered.
Thanks SteveF.
I’m calling it a night all, good evening. I’m sure I’ll look at this more tomorrow, although I get the sense this stuff really requires more expertise than I can bring to bear. I look forward to reading anything and everything else the people here make of this, I know the average level of scientific competence here is a lot higher than my own.
Steve,
That’s true, of course, for “spontaneous” electron capture, but you could (presumably) force the process to occur if you can get an electron of the right energy close enough to the nucleus. I got the idea from here
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16820-neutron-tracks-revive-hopes-for-cold-fusion/
But I admit that the link eventually leads to the Widom-Larsen theory
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1140%2Fepjc%2Fs2006-02479-8
which is, to say the least, controversial. Nonetheless, I am willing to keep a halfway-open mind for the time being, until I read more about it…
Julio,
“It follows, too, that I may have been too dismissive of the possibility of “low energy nuclear reactions†in previous comments, because I was thinking all along about fusion reactions. There are certain processes, like electron capture, that could be affected by an atom’s chemical environment to a degree, and that lead, in fact, to transmutation (and the emission of neutrons). So I’m not going to say anymore that that’s impossible.
On the other hand, I still do not believe this would be fusion, and I also do not see anything in the published results to indicate that there may be a significant source of energy here…”
.
I wrote earlier:
“It should have been obvious that LENR is a different process than that involved in traditional nuclear fission or fusion. Just what it is is not yet understood.” (Comment #138842)
julio,
That work was from 8 or 9 years ago. There seems to have been no follow-up. Electron capture by deuterium seems to me far fetched, but at least it is not in the “energetically impossible” range that cold fusion is. Is there any instance you know of where electron capture was changed by chemical environment? I can see a tiny (and I do mean tiny!) possibility of electron capture. But if it is real, then there ought to be a relatively non-controversial/plausible theoretical explanation, complete with predicted behaviors.
.
Seems to me much more likely to be experimental error than real.
Steve,
Wikipedia has this:
1%! right, definitely not impressive, but at least, as you say, we are not talking about 4 or five orders of magnitude.
Like I said, a half-open mind only, mostly because people seem to respect this particular experimentalist…
julio
but Be(7) is neutron deficient and unstable, with a half life of ~53 days (and naturally decays by electron capture!). OK, so a1% change in electron capture in an unstable atom. Hard for me to see how a stable isotope (deuterium) undergoes electron capture due to a change in chemical environment.
Julio,
Final thought: unless I have misunderstood what electron capture by deuterium would do, there would be a large energy consumption, not release. The capture would lead to two neutrons, which would undergo beta decay (10 min half life) to yield two protons, two electrons, and two neutrios. The total mass of the starting materials (electron plus deuterium) would be about 2.0148 AMU, while the total mas of the products (two electrons plus two protons) would be 2.0159 AMU, and the process would consume somewhere under 1 million electron volts per capture. So unless there were a secondary reaction of free neutrons with some other material, electron capture by deuterium could not yield energy. The electron capture by deuterium (forming a second neutron) appears, based on 2-neutron mass compared to deuterium plus an electron, to require a couple million electron volts. I don’t see where that energy could possibly come from.
Adrian,
Your comment, “It should have been obvious that LENR is a different process than that involved in traditional nuclear fission or fusion. Just what it is is not yet understood.†(Comment #138842)
What is going on is well understood. You simply don’t like the answer.
SteveF, DeWitt,
If I’m understanding this properly, this seems to speak to your objections.
It looks like the author finds that you’re correct Steve,
You have to worry about the electrolysis producing pits. Does the Mylar sound reasonable?
DeWitt,
I’m still thinking about this.
Adrian,
I congratulate you. You’ve succeeded in tentatively moving LENR claims from the category of utterly absurd to highly doubtful in my mind. You’ve planted your seed. Next time try not to pile on so much fertilizer. 😉
Further to my earlier comment that the requirements for the generation of anomalous heat (with Pl/D) is becoming better understood, see this paper from Storms.
http://lenrexplained.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/PROGRESS-REPORT-5-corrected.pdf.
.
It seems to me that several different processes are involved in LENR as reflected in the large number of theories.
Possibly it is time the standard model is revisited. Too many things are just named without being explained. Carver Mead, who is no dummy, raises interesting questions about electrons.
.
Mark, thank you. Planting a seed is the most I expected to be able to do. I think it is real of course, but then I have studied it a lot more than anyone else on this thread. Just getting over the thought that the Coulomb Barrier prevents it is the main thing.
Re: Comment #139191
Steve,
You are, of course, quite right. You still have to get to MeV energy ranges, starting with chemistry (tens of eV’s) and electricity (keV’s at most, I imagine). So this proposed mechanism is still at least 3 orders of magnitude short of getting anywhere, and in “and then, a miracle happens” territory.
Which is OK, since Widom is probably a bit of a nutcase anyway–the more I read about him yesterday, the more unsure I felt about the whole thing (see here, for a taste: http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2011/04/turn-on-tune-in-quack.html)
Mostly, the cracks in my resistance were due to:
(1) a respected, careful scientist claiming to have seen neutron tracks in one of these cell experiments (the source paper is here:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00114-008-0449-x)
(2) a theoretical idea (electron capture) that sounded at least plausible–until you did the math.
With regards to (1), this paper appears to have attracted only 14 citations, which is not exactly setting the world on fire. Following the paper trail, I do not see an independent replication anywhere (and it has been 6 years, already). Some people still aren’t sure the tracks are caused by neutrons; others propose various theoretical explanations. Clearly there was excitement at the beginning, and it has fizzled. Why? I do not know, but that is generally a bad sign.
Julio,
Yes.
I am under the impression that these may have been independent replications, but I have not established this yet:
Other indeed argue about what the traces / pits indicate.
And I can’t find anything recent either, and yep I do find that curious and unpromising.
It’s going to take me time to follow up on this stuff and make up my mind what I think it means, if anything.
Mark,
I wasn’t referring to radioactive particles, but to the detection of aluminum and other elements on the surface of the cathode after electrolysis. Using uranium ore is massive overkill. The more probable scenario for an alpha emitting particle would be an alpha emitting radon progeny isotope attached to a dust particle like 218Po or 214Po.
The cathode reaction is 2D2O +2e- → D2 + 2OD-
So yes, unless the electrolyte is strongly acidic, which, IIRC, was not the case, the pD in the vicinity of the cathode surface will be very high. The mylar film will protect the CR39 from the basic electrolyte, but energetic alpha particles will get through. The energies of the alpha particles emitted by the two Po isotopes above are high enough to penetrate the mylar, 6.00 and 7.69 Mev.
Thanks DeWitt.
The paper talked about control blanks for radon in the air, but this is all way above my pay grade and I don’t want to waste your time on this since I can’t talk intelligently about it.
Julio,
Much has been made of the lack of replication of the E-Cat. I don’t know if you aware that besides the Lugano and Pakhomov experiments, an earlier one was carried out at Ferraro.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1305/1305.3913.pdf
.
It seems to me that the measurements were taken conservatively and even if you quibble about the actual value, I don’t think there is any doubt there was excess heat generated.
.
At this time I don’t find any of the theories persuasive including Widom & Larson. So my interest is more about whether it can be shown to work than about why it does.
Rossi subscribes to this: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1504/1504.01261.pdf
.
The Hot Cat is a relatively recent development and most work was done on the original low temperature E-Cats that are used in the 1 MW plant. I understand the multiple demonstrations of those depended on Rossi so it is not unreasonable to think they could have been fraudulent. I do object to those that state it WAS fraudulent though, as there is no proof of this.
There were many competent witnesses over the years and the only one who was not convinced was Krivit. He fell out with Rossi earlier when Rossi accused him of attempting to steal a sample of the fuel.
Julio,
On the specific triple track paper, I read a secondhand account here that it couldn’t be replicated. By one of the guys who replicated the original CR-39 pits results, no less:
I don’t know what site is referred to by ‘On his site’… this? somewhere in there? No clue.
Whatever. I’ve got to quit screwing around and go get something useful done before I waste the day. 🙂
Mark Bofill:
Kowalski’s site.
Harold, ty
The Anthropocene Institute is the latest institution to climb on the band wagon and the first green one to do so.
http://www.anthropoceneinstitute.com/node/18
.
If Ludwik Kowalski thinks the LENR field is in danger of collapse he is woefully out of date. I guess that was written in 2010.
Julio,
“You are, of course, quite right. You still have to get to MeV energy ranges, starting with chemistry (tens of eV’s) and electricity (keV’s at most, I imagine). So this proposed mechanism is still at least 3 orders of magnitude short of getting anywhere, and in “and then, a miracle happens†territory.”
.
And you already know I don’t believe in miracles. Any reasonable analysis leads to the same conclusion: there is no plausible mechanism by which energy can be released from nuclear reactions; the field is nutty.
Mark,
Protecting the CR-39 from the potentially harsh conditions of electrolysis would seem an absolute requirement. Mylar might be OK, but you would have to look at the physical structure to be sure (spattering of electrolyte due to gas bubbles?). DeWitt’s comment about radon (or daughter products) as background is another important consideration.
.
The truth is: if there were any significant production of ionizing radiation, you wouldn’t need exposure of hours (or days, or weeks), only seconds or minutes. It just ‘taint happenin’. Count on the February 2016 announcement to be only an announced delay.
.
And that is my last comment for this long, crazy baumwolle thread.
In 2012, Kowalski expressed doubts about Rossi’s method:
Stevef,
Ya, some have asked ‘where are the dead grad students?’ 🙂
Thanks Steve.
Unless there is an entire class of energy and particles never before discovered or postulated LENR/CF as promoted by Adrian and the sites he links to cannot happen. SteveF, Julio and many others have noted that if conventional nuclear physics making the results claimed happen would result in dead workers in the immediate area from radiation exposure.
The vague hope that chemical pitting of anodes is somehow evidence of a nuclear reaction does not actually help. To get measurable pitting would require huge releases of radiation and energetic particles, again injuring those in the vicinity.
Go away Adrian, you are not even wrong.
hunter,
If it’s alpha particles, then even high energy particles from radioactive decay don’t travel very far through matter. CR39 is used to detect tracks from individual particles, i.e. very low production rates. By the same token, though, the few tracks observed are not enough to explain significant energy release. A speck of uraninite (pitchblende, UO2) produced multiple tracks. I doubt you could measure the energy release in terms of temperature change.
The energy in Joules of a 4.27Mev 238U → 234Th alpha particle is 6.8E-13J.
DeWitt,
Perhaps I confusing this instead of clearly describing it. I an trying to point out that if a MW were to actually be produced by LENR/CF there would be a dangerous amount of radiation emitted in particle end EM form. To paraphrase what SteveF asked, where are the dead grad students/techs/mad scientists?
I don’t scramble Mosier Boss and Rossi together, but I get what you and others are saying Hunter. [Edit, although mebbe I did in my last comment 🙂 ]
hunter,
If the energy were all in the form of alpha particles, it’s barely conceivable that they wouldn’t get past the walls of the apparatus. But again, there would be quite a bit of helium as a result which nobody has detected. But since we don’t believe that there is 1MW of excess power, or even 1W, that’s moot.
Gasoline pills make more sense.
DeWitt,
I’m not claiming your wrong, but I’m not sure if you’re aware that some of these experiments have apparently produced helium-4.
This for example. I’m not sure it’s been replicated. I’m not sure it’s right. Unlike Adrian, I’m not sure I care. But still, I’m not sure it’s correct to say nobody has detected helium.
[Edit: Unless all of these people are flat out lying, it appears this has been replicated.. Perhaps that is not to be ruled out, the idea that these researchers are deceiving us.]
Mark,
McKubre has found helium for the reaction many times at SRI too..
.
“After questioning from the audience Dr. McKubre said that in his lab they had gotten about 5% more energy out of the equipment then they put in. He pointed out their focus had been figuring out how the reaction worked, not producing energy. He felt that designing equipment that did produce energy is possible, although the radioactive byproduct of He3 could turn out to be a problem. (The major product of the reaction is He4, which is chemically harmless and might be valuable.) Dr. McKubre is presently helping to establish a company to do this, but the market is so risk adverse at the moment that funding is difficult to come by.”
http://tian.greens.org/TASC/TASCColdFusion.html
De Witt,
I get the alpha particle point. Energetic, massive, low penetration, etc. If I recall they don’t go through a piece of paper. So I guess if you had a massive emission of alpha particles you might get some heating, but I will go out on a limb and bet the gamma by-products would take us back to the dead grad student problem. This (long) conversation has reminded about a cool use of beta particles in tiny tritium gas ampules. They can be harnessed to so as to emit light for a long useful life of ~15 years.
These ampules can be small enough to go on watch dials.
Some of these watches are really nice:
http://www.ballwatchusa.com/
So that is a relatively LENR and is also available for sale at fine jewelers. But no MW’s of energy generation.
If LENR worked why would you have to put energy into the device?
It would produce enough energy to keep itself running and more,
5% according to Adrian.
If it cannot do this then it is not a cold fusion device in the first place.
Secondly “Dr. McKubre said that in his lab they had gotten about 5% more energy out of the equipment then they put in.” But Adrian did not specify how much energy is being put in and over what range they get results.
If they are putting a minute amount in then the results are hardly worth worrying about, If a mammoth amount in it would seem a total waste to bother for only 5% , Better to just burn the coal in the first place.
@angech (Comment #139227),
Extremely well said. +1
Mark Bofill,
Look at the date of that reference. That goes back to the original period of failed attempts.
I’m arguing Adrian’s case now? Sad. Angech, that argument doesn’t impress me. An internal combustion engine requires energy to get it going too.
FWIW, I don’t buy that Rossi has done anything. I have seldom seen anything with so many obvious signs of a con. I don’t buy that this is ‘fusion’. But I think our arguments should be informed, aware of pertinent experiments and claims and better thought out, that’s all.
Mark,
I mentioned a detection of 4He above.
So you did. My apologies.
angech,
“If LENR worked why would you have to put energy into the device?”
.
If you have read nothing about LENR and know nothing about it, you are just wasting everybody’s time with such an ignorant post.
angtech,
.
ps. You sound like me a few years ago.
Adrian —
“If LENR worked why would you have to put energy into the device?”
Applied to Rossi (not McKubre), this was at the root of my earlier comment #138661. If there is copious excess energy, it should be easy to use part of the excess to maintain the reaction, and still deliver energy to an external load. If this is not done, it is all too easy to suspect that the measurement of energy in is somehow not commensurate with that of energy out. A self-sustaining operation producing on the order of 1 MW would indeed be convincing. Not so much one which remains tethered to conventional power input.
HaroldW,
The way the E-Cat is controlled is by adding power for a short time. This starts the reaction and the temperature climbs and then starts to fall. Power is the applied again. And so on.
The heat output is dependent on the temperature. If you get it too hot the reaction runs away out of control. With the hot cat at least, the COP rises with temperature too, so it is a balance between getting a high COP and the whole thing melting.
There is another variable that is the time it runs after the heat is removed. (so called life after death) There is speculation of Rossi possibly using the output of one E-Cat to heat another, but no details are known about this. Something must be different to get the high COP reported for the 1MW plant as a typical result for a single E-Cat is COP~6
Does anyone have any guesses as to how long it would take to have a production fusion power station if 5 trillion dollars and risk of national security and economic collapse and/or massive global destruction were really imminent? But according to liberals it is.
.
I don’t get it, why am I more interested in fusion as a lukewarmer than warmist and alarmist who are banking mankind’s survival on alternative energy technology?
.
My favorite longshot fusion venture is LPP Fusion and their hydrogen-boron aneutronic focus fusion that does not require an expensive containment housing since no radiation during the reaction. The concept is basically a super electrolysis, complete with anode and cathode but where the electrons are pinched into a focused plasma. I give them a 1% chance of success on their current level of funding. But I think the concept has a 10% chance of being sound. I would repeat this generalization for a half dozen ventures. But I give Lockheed Martin a bit more credit since they have more money and are sinking company operating profits into it.
Ron,
While I think controlled fusion is a worthy energy goal, I wonder why you think the problem merely needs more money tossed at it.
Controlled fusion has been just a few more years around the corner for something over 50 years. Many many billions have been spent on it with nothing really to show for it.
Clearly the solution is not just more money.
As to the alarmists and their alleged desire for CO2 free energy- check your assumptions.
They want control of the energy (and the rest) of the economies. Holding political power is the solution they are after. Unorthodox people need to go. Apparently to jail.
No one who actually cares about the environment would ever consider large scale wind power as a solution. Yet here we are.
Adrian (#139246) —
I understand the cycling method. That doesn’t preclude setting a system up in a self-sustaining mode & “pulling the plug” once the first reaction has started. There are devices for storing electrical energy.
It might be interesting to listen to an interview with Mike McKubre of Stanford Research.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=666&v=rYrv-4Yl_v0
Adrian Ashfield (Comment #139246)
“The heat output is dependent on the temperature. If you get it too hot the reaction runs away out of control.”
This “line” sums up your problem. We are not talking about Nuclear power stations and meltdown here.
We are talking about a safe, user friendly method of perpetual power production.
I would love to see just one example of “cold fusion” producing a running out of control reaction. That might even produce some real energy. A molten slab might even convince me the process was genuine.
Helium is produced???
please.
If enough helium was produced to be detectable that would be evidence of a chemical reaction of sorts. Not a nuclear reaction producing energy by magic. If nuclear reactions were occurring the amount of helium produced to give power should be undetectable otherwise your piece of metal will quickly get used up so what would be the point of having it?
Angech,
Seriously.
This thread is in sooth baumwolle. SteveF and Lucia were the clever ones. Ciao folks.
hunter,
I think a Tokamak system could be made to work but would be hopelessly uneconomical for commercial production of power. It is simply too expensive to build. ITER looks like it will cost $25 billion and that is without the equipment to actually produce power..
.
HaroldW,
“I understand the cycling method. That doesn’t preclude setting a system up in a self-sustaining mode & “pulling the plug†once the first reaction has started.”
.
So far it has precluded that. If you know how to do it go right ahead.
Rossi is adamant that even when an E-Cat is set up to produce electricity in the future he thinks it is too dangerous to rely on its own power for operation. He knows more about it than we do.
angech,
“We are talking about a safe, user friendly method of perpetual power production.
I would love to see just one example of “cold fusion†producing a running out of control reaction. That might even produce some real energy. A molten slab might even convince me the process was genuine.
.
There have been many cases reported where the reactor has exploded or melted. You need to read up on the subject.
.
“Helium is produced???””
.
Yes. Many times.
Adrian (#139257): “Rossi is adamant that even when an E-Cat is set up to produce electricity in the future he thinks it is too dangerous to rely on its own power for operation.”
a) Do you have a source for this?
b) Such a statement from Rossi extinguishes the spark of hope provided by the report of isotopic change. It’s redolent of a statement from a stage magician, not a scientist.
Presumably next year, we’ll hear that x MWh of mains power, measured by one method, has produced y [ y>x ] MWh of heat, measured by an entirely different procedure. Such an experiment is unlikely to convince me, in the absence of a theoretical explanation with supporting evidence (such as gamma ray detection), that LENR is real. The report of superluminal neutrinos didn’t convince many people either, despite some marvelously precise measurements.
angech,
Helium cannot be produced by chemical reaction. It is an element.
The only thing of any possible interest offered in this entire detour, as far as I am concerned, is the Mike McKubre interview. It is not that long. I have the impression he is not a nutter, and I guess Stanford Research probably agrees he is not a nutter either. I am still disbelieving it, and as we all know scientists are subject to mistakes, foibles and hanging on to bad ideas….
Hunter: “Controlled fusion has been just a few more years around the corner for something over 50 years. Many many billions have been spent on it with nothing really to show for it.”
Government and university scientists have been trying to determine ECS for 37 years with zero progress. I am not saying to throw more money down the tokamak hole. If we made it a benchmark prized treasure hunt the ingenuity of energy of brilliant shoestring operations would have a path and plan in order to succeed attracting private funding. Charles Lindbergh only was able to get funding to build his self-designed plane for crossing the Atlantic by promising his backers he would pay them back with the Raymond Orteig Prize (and he would name his plane after them, The Spirit of St. Louis).
For those that have not read up about LENR and its background, part 2 of this three part series by Danner may be of interest.
http://chapelboro.com/columns/common-science/cold-fusion-part-ii-history-1869-to-2015/
Ron,
My take is that it is the hubris resulting from the fallacy of
“Money = Wisdom”
that is behind a lot of poor government (and other sector) failures.
Ron,
You could say the same about high energy physics in general. After all, who, other than physicists, really cares about whether the Higgs Boson exists and what is its mass? But, IMO, it was money well spent. I don’t think ITER is money down a rat hole either. The International Space Station, OTOH, is a different story entirely.
Good piece by Fortune on Tom Darden.
Initial results are promising….(1 MW plant has now been operating well for 7 months)
http://fortune.com/2015/09/27/ceo-cherokee-investment-partners-low-energy-nuclear-reaction/
The article quotes Darden:
The bumblebee story is BS.
Darden is well aware of the history: “Cold fusion has such a checkered past and is so filled with hypesters and people with a gold rush, get-rich-quick mentality.” He’s willing to gamble on a high-risk-high-reward project. I’m glad because if it pays off, we’ll all be winners. I’m not holding my breath though.
Harold, you captured my feeling exactly. Discoveries start as pipe dreams. With a potential real payoff effort can be sensibly invested to make sure there was nothing to it. People pay money for lottery tickets; investors buy penny stocks; school buddies invent the first Apple microcomputer in their garage. We are all much wealthier because many had time to dream. Imagine if they had no money to take the next steps.
.
If the Nobel Prize, Turing Award and Field Medal are incentivizing advancement why not specific benchmark prizes?
.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse D-RI introduced a senate bill for carbon taxes in which the proceeds would lower taxes and subsidize low income housing, mixing liberal cherries with conservative ones. I could almost get behind a small carbon tax if it was used exclusively to set up open prizes for fusion and other alternative energy advancement discoveries.
.
BTW, I am not holding my breath either for Tom Darden but am rooting for him. Here is another Tom Darden interview.
.
DeWitt, I don’t think the ITER was a complete waste but am very disappointed as one who wrote HS papers on tokamaks’s promise 35 years ago. A am a fan now of shotgun research.
Harold and Ron,
The only interview that gives me any possible semblance of interest in CF is the one with the worker from the Stanford Lab.
hunter (Comment #139252)
September 20th, 2015 at 6:03 am
It might be interesting to listen to an interview with Mike McKubre of Stanford Research.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=666&v=rYrv-4Yl_v0
It is actually interesting and McKubre is pretty credible from what I can tell at a cursory glance- he really exists and Stanford Lab is a real place that is apparently associated with Stanford.
There are all sorts of prizes out there. One could start with the Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Physics, but those don’t have specific goals. Then there are the XPrizes. Several of them have been won. There are also the Millenium Problems, which have $1,000,000 rewards for solutions.
The problem with things like fusion are that even 1M$ is small potatoes.
By the way, if anyone needed additional proof that irony always increases, here’s more: http://climateaudit.org/2015/09/28/shuklas-gold/ and http://climateaudit.org/2015/09/25/disinformation-from-barry-klinger-and-the-rico-20/
As I’ve said before, the Koch brothers are small potatoes, but provide the left with a useful distraction from the real money.
DeWitt,
I’ve been following the Shukla story. I’m certain that he sees himself as a great husband, father, philanthropist, humanitarian and top scientist. He sent at least a 100K of climate money to his India home village projects. I’m also sure the last thought on his mind that all that money was coming from payroll taxes and state taxes of cab drivers, steel workers janitors and fellow scientists. Because he sees himself as so noble and righteous I can bet he will see any investigation as payback by the “dark forces” (Koch).
.
He may get away with his non-profit foundation family salaries. Heck, look at the Clintons. But, if it turns out he did not count his grant income as part of his GMU salary he will be in hot water apparently.
Re Tom Darden’s interview, he obviously KNOWS whether the E-Cat works, If it didn’t, does anyone think he would have given that interview?
.
This is a rather fascinating look at another kind of LENR.
http://www.e-catworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/JCMNS-Biberian.pdf
Fortune has an interesting article discussing private forays into [hot] fusion. “There’s certainly no guarantee in this case that private industry will succeed where the government hasn’t. But after 50 years it certainly seems worth trying a different Âapproach.”
Brief mention of Darden there as well.
Woodford Equity have invested more than Tom Darden. They did 2.5 years careful due diligence. I find their conclusions more believable than the skeptics here who have done none.
“Thanks to pg for finding this from the Woodford Equity Income Fund website. This British investment fund (publicly traded) which has invested in Industrial Heat. Tom Darden said in his recent interview with Fortune magazine that Woodford Investment Management had made a “much larger investment†into Industrial Heat than Cherokee Investment Partners’ own $10 million investment.
Someone on the Woodford funds’ website posted that they were very unhappy to see the fund investing 1.72% of the fund invested into industrial heat because cold fusion appeared to violate the laws of known physics. Paul Farrow of Woodford responded:
PAUL FARROW says:
August 18, 2015 at 9:19 pm
Hi John,
Many thanks for your comment and we’d like to reassure you that we do follow a thorough due diligence process for all our investments, irrespective of their size or the fund they are invested in.
With regard to Industrial Heat, we were, and have been, very aware of the scepticism about this technology. We have undertaken a rigorous due diligence process that has taken two and half years. The company is currently working with numerous scientists and is acquiring both the technology and teams required to maximise the potential of this, and other, new energy technologies.
The company recently said that it is willing to invest time and resources to see if this technology might be an area of useful research in its quest to eliminate pollution. We share this quest for what we believe will be a significant development and exploitation of new energy sources.”
http://www.e-catworld.com/2015/10/01/woodford-equity-income-fund-invested-in-industrial-heat-after-2-5-years-of-due-diligence/
Adrian,
.
Yes. You’ve made that abundantly clear, that you believe. I ask you to accept that everybody here gets that you believe and that you’re not telling us anything we don’t know when you make statements like this. You don’t need to reiterate this any further, we got it.
Mark,
Are you still certain that the E-Cat can’t possibly/doesn’t work, despite all the evidence that it does?
Adrian,
My impression is that I’ve made no such claim. I am not persuaded that E-CAT works, this is not the same as being certain that it couldn’t possibly work, which is also not the same as being certain that it doesn’t work.
.
[Edit: What difference does it make what I’m certain of? Not rhetorical. I don’t understand why I ought to continue to discuss this. I’ve looked at the ‘evidence’ you brought forward. I found most of it to be trash, I found a few bits that might have validity. I congratulated you on these bits and encouraged you to focus on them in future discussions. The thing is, I’m not that interested in the topic. I only posted 139428 to indicate that I don’t think the discussion is covering any new ground and that maybe it’s time to give it a rest.]
Adrian
I hope you aren’t trying to going to go around on this issue again. Even you must recognize that part of the difference in people’s expectations about ECAT springs from whether they view the stuff you consider “evidence” to either not be “evidence” at all, or they view it as tainted or they view it as unconvincing for various reasons.
Of course you are free to feel convinced that something must work because a wealthy investor or well funded company invested in it. But others need not and do not. I’m not going to rehash why I don’t consider the fact that companies or individuals invested in a notion much in the way of “evidence” that it works. I and many here have already told you that. That information does not seem to be sinking into your brain, so I don’t see any reason why I should waste my time repeating it.
If some day, this works… well.. then it will. I’m not holding my breath.
Adrian,
Lots of wealthy investors gave money to Bernie Madoff too. That was a scam. You haven’t provided any hard evidence that would convince a reasonable person that this isn’t a scam too. In fact, at least some of the evidence you have provided, like the analysis results of the ‘ash’, are , in my opinion, evidence that things are not what you think they are. The energy output measurements in that same paper are less than convincing too.
I will be pleasantly surprised if I’m wrong about this, but to echo lucia, I’m not holding my breath.
Time to stop feeding you.
Lucia,
I think there is >95% chance the E-Cat works. You think it is .000001% We will see who is right in February.
I added Darden’s interview with Fortune and later the addendum on Woodford Equity, as I thought it was relevant information.
I get it, you don’t think it was.
Otherwise I was just responding to some of the comments. Most of which I ignore.
Adrian,
I don’t think its anything that amounts to evidence.
Obviously, to someone hyper-interested in this, like you, the information is ‘relevant’ to your on going desire to discuss this topic. I haven’t been commenting at this point because the topic just boring and repetitive now. Admittedly, if evidence it works is finally released in February, the topic will no longer be boring. But we have quite a few months to wait. I’m content to give the topic no thought at all until that time.
I know you find the topic fascinating– but I would suggest that you might want to go visit a venue where other people are similarly interested. Because I’m not interested. And I think the topic has been hashed enough to have become a “dead parrot” at this point.
Bishop Hill today highlights a new paper entitled “Heat generation above break-even from laser-induced fusion in ultra-dense deuterium”. Its abstract begins, “Previous results from laser-induced processes in ultra-dense deuterium D(0) give conclusive evidence for ejection of neutral massive particles with energy >10 MeV u−1. Such particles can only be formed from nuclear processes like nuclear fusion at the low laser intensity used. “
Lucia,
“I don’t think its anything that amounts to evidence… ”
Earlier you said: ” “The process has not been observed to workâ€? It doesn’t. None of those people have observed a the process working.”
.
I supposed you understood what “due diligence” meant. In this case by two large companies. That means that several technical people have indeed seen E-Cats working and must have examined the 1 MW plant.
.
Your negative bias is showing. But as you pointed out: “I don’t need to provide evidence for my claim which is “I don’t believe he did so.†I’m simply reporting my belief.”
HaroldW,
A quick skim brings ones eyes to “NOT NORMAL FUSION”. A bit more skimming leads to a very doubtful heat balance accounting, instead of the more obvious and expected measurement of high energy (MEV level) particles or gama-rays .
This seems to me to be 99% for certain bonkers…. it’s almost surely nonsensical rubbish. More cold fusion garbage.
Adrian
Yes. I understand what “due diligence” means. I also am aware that a company or person saying they did “due diligence” doesn’t mean their “diligence” achieved the level of “due”.
I have no idea why you think companies claiming they did “due diligence” must mean several people have seen E-Cats working or that they must have examined the 1MW plant. It could easily mean that these people don’t think that level of certainty is required to call what they did “due diligence”. In fact: if they are willingly undertaking a high risk and representing it as such, “due diligence” absolutely doesn’t mean they need to have seen these things working.
Lucia,
“Yes. I understand what “due diligence†means. I also am aware that a company or person saying they did “due diligence†doesn’t mean their “diligence†achieved the level of “dueâ€.”
.
I understand you regard any positive evidence about LENR working as rubbish because you think the chances are only .000001% of that being so.
.
As I posted earlier: “With regard to Industrial Heat, we were, and have been, very aware of the scepticism about this technology. We have undertaken a rigorous due diligence process that has taken two and half years.”
.
They clearly understood the risk and you have no reason to think they weren’t very diligent in the circumstances, before investing more than $10 million.
Lucia,
” In fact: if they are willingly undertaking a high risk and representing it as such, “due diligence†absolutely doesn’t mean they need to have seen these things working.”
.
That is absolute nonsense. The definition of due diligence is:
“a comprehensive appraisal of a business undertaken by a prospective buyer, especially to establish its assets and liabilities and evaluate its commercial potential.”
.
They could have legal problems from their investors if they hadn’t investigated the basic claims of the E-Cat and the 1MW working. What would be the value if they didn’t actually work? That is simply obvious.
Adrian,
This is boring.
(1) I don’t consider a company claiming it did due diligence to mean they observed work ECATS. That is: I don’t assume it means more than they said.
“Evaluating commercial potential” doesn’t mean that they established that there is a high or even medium level of commercial potential. “establishing assets and liabilities” doesn’t mean “establishing there are no liabilities”. The company could look into it, establish that the risks of never achieving commercial potential was huge and still invest and no one could claim that was not “due diligence”. The can say they went in knowing the risks were huge risk but the thought the payoff would be even greater if it worked. This is allowed in the US. I assume it’s allowed in the UK.
Maybe they’d have legal problems. Maybe not.
Also: companies have been known to do thing that result in legal claims with their investors. So this seems like a rather odd way to “prove” what the investment company has done.
Adrian,
Part of what makes this thread boring is when you fire back without reading what people say. You have Lucia’s attention, which is a valuable thing in my view. Read and address what she’s talking about instead of ignoring it, because when you ignore it you might as well be talking to Joe Blow.
What do you suppose makes it ‘high risk’? For my part, I imagine it may well be considered ‘high risk’ because they don’t know if it will work.
SteveF (#139438): ” More cold fusion garbage.”
This doesn’t look like cold fusion to me, as the author mentions plasma. However, a quick read makes it seem far from a practical solution to me. Table 1 talks of 2.7 W heat produced from 380 mJ pulses at 10 pulses/sec. That means the laser output power is 3.8 W, and obviously the laser input power will be larger. Lots of talk about what can be improved, but let’s face it, this seems to recapitulate fusion over the last 40 years: we can induce fusion, but not in sufficient quantity to extract useful energy greater than input energy. Next version will be better, it’s always said, we need to keep trying.
HaroldW and SteveF,
This isn’t cold fusion. It appears to be a well studied phenomenon. And it’s published in AIP Advances. Now if someone could show that this spin state transition could occur spontaneously in PdD, you might have something. But I suspect that the D-D distance in deuterium loaded Pd is too large to start with. Besides, you do get radiation and high energy particles from this process.
Lucia,
” I don’t consider a company claiming it did due diligence to mean they observed work ECATS. That is: I don’t assume it means more than they said.”
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You will believe what you want. I have done due diligence for companies including the World Bank (IFC) and beg to differ. It would NOT be due diligence if the main asset of Industrial Heat were not examined. You are wrong.
Adrina,
With all due respect, different companies can have different goals and can make different decisions relative to risk.
Clearly, you don’t read what I actually wrote. I didn’t say their main asset was not examined or that it would not have been.
Everybody believed the bond rating agencies that mortgage backed securities were AAA, until they weren’t.
Lucia,
“Clearly, you don’t read what I actually wrote.”
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It doesn’t do to alter the meaning of words, which is what you have done, unless you are the Red Queen. I quoted you verbatim.
Your only alternative is to claim that everybody who has worked with Rossi is lying. Something that you have already inferred.
Adrian,
Yes. You quoted me. What we learn from that is you clearly have reading comprehension problems because what I wrote
Neither does not mean or even imply
Please improve your reading comprehension because you are getting very boring.
Also
I have not “inferred” any such thing. If you mean implied: Please consult a dictionary and improve your vocabulary. A better understanding of what words mean might help you understand what people are writing.
But for what it’s worth, I also haven’t implied it.
Adrian,
Free tip. Many (most?) of the regulars here say what they mean and take pains to choose their words carefully to reflect what they mean. To go back to an earlier example purely for illustrative purposes, when I express skepticism about E-CAT, it doesn’t mean I’m saying I’m certain E-Cat couldn’t possibly work. Lucia also illustrates above.
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I find it more productive; more conducive to interesting conversation, to ask when I am unclear on what somebody is getting at rather than making assumptions about what they mean. Seriously. People seem to appreciate it. I think it shows the other person involved in the conversation that you care enough about what they are saying to try to understand it.
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Just my two cents.
Lucia,
You wrote “I don’t consider a company claiming it did due diligence to mean they observed work ECATS.”
Apart from the bad grammar or typo that obfuscates the meaning, “due diligence” has a well established legal meaning. When Woodford Equity reply to a shareholder “We have undertaken a rigorous due diligence process that has taken two and half years.”
that has a defined meaning.
That some other company decides to do something different has no relevance at all and doesn’t alter the meaning of what Woodford stated.
‘
If Woodford did not examine a working E-Cat, that is the ONLY valuable asset, they did NOT do due diligence. Ask a lawyer if you don’t believe me. Saying”That is: I don’t assume it means more than they said.†doesn’t alter the meaning either.
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“I have not “inferred†any such thing. If you mean implied: Please consult a dictionary and improve your vocabulary. A better understanding of what words mean might help you understand what people are writing.”
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I meant what I wrote, I know the difference between infer and imply, but I agree that it might help some understand me better if they had a better vocabulary.
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Adrian,
I find this argument frustrating because, as I understand it, it doesn’t go anywhere. Let’s say for the sake of argument that you are absolutely correct, and that in order for a company to have properly done due diligence they needed to see a working E-Cat.
It is not unheard of for companies to lie. Volkswagen emissions testing may serve as a recent example.
The fact appears (to me) to be that a representative claims due diligence has been performed [edit: observed? adhered to?]. This may be true. This may be untrue. This may have involved seeing a working E-Cat. This may have involved unknown people of unknown qualifications seeing something they believed was a working E-Cat. This may have involved something else completely, we have no way of knowing. This isn’t evidence that demonstrates anything except that a company investing in Rossi claims to have done due diligence, whatever that might mean.
So… So what?
Having been involved with due diligence on some projects and proposals in the real world I find Adrian’s position very puzzling.
Due diligence is a very flexible concept.
There is financial due diligence, legal due diligence, investment due diligence, etc. And in each area there are differing standards and thresholds chosen by the investigator or their agents.
Here is a typical definition: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/duediligence.asp
“1. An investigation or audit of a potential investment. Due diligence serves to confirm all material facts in regards to a sale.
2. Generally, due diligence refers to the care a reasonable person should take before entering into an agreement or a transaction with another party.
Due diligence does not guarantee that the investment is going to be successful or even likely to perform. It satisfies the investor or buyer.
Very clever successful companies perform lots of due diligence on purchases and investments that fail.
I once participated in a due diligence into biodiesel. We identified a way to remove a major impurity, glycerin, from the waste fat and oil derived diesel. It was technically feasible. No one actually saw the diesel refinery in operation. That was not a requirement. And besides it had not been built. We however determined that it would never actually be competitive with diesel in the market we were considering it for. Others chose differently based on the same data. They were wrong. They lost a lot of money. Asserting that the only way that Woodford Equity could have performed due diligence is by seeing the alleged device in operation is silly. That they have made a bad choice that is extremely unlikely to do anything other than waste money on a con-artist is not the point. The point is that due diligence is not an immaculate revelation. It is just another thing people do to try and make good decisions and is vulnerable to many, many failures. Ask Bernie Madoff’s former clients. Nearly all of them were wealthy successful and sophisticated and performed some sort of due diligence before entrusting their money to his famous investment firm.
Adrian
He ought to examine the only valuable asset. If that is the E-Cat, he would, presumably, examine that. But you seem to be under the illusion that that magically means he examined a working one. He could have examined whatever they have along with whatever other materials they gave him. That means he could examine an E-Cat that wasn’t working.
You go ahead and ask a lawyer if you don’t believe me.
Saying”That is: I don’t assume it means more than they said.†doesn’t alter the meaning either.
Once again: your whingng doesn’t alter the fact that you are reading in fact they didn’t claim.
If you meant I inferred, you are mistaken. This could be because you have insufficient mind reading skillzzzzz.
You seem to like to put words in people’s mouths. Your doing so doesn’t mean they said them.
Mark,
“that in order for a company to have properly done due diligence they needed to see a working E-Cat.”
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Woodford Equity is a very large reputable company. They would normally do due diligence before making any investment. In the case of Industrial Heat they had heard much skepticism so were particularly careful.
They had no reason to lie. They were independent of Rossi. If they were not satisfied with the E-Cat they simply would not have made the investment.
That they did due diligence and were satisfied is strong evidence that the E-Cat works as claimed.
Your alternative is to continue with your red herrings and develop a vast conspiracy theory where hundreds of people are lying.
Adrian,
You keep making claims and rebutting arguments no one advanced:
*.” so were particularly careful”. You don’t know whether they were “particularly careful”.
* They had no reason to lie. No one suggested they lied.
* If they were not satisfied with the E-Cat they simply would not have made the investment. No one suggested they weren’t “satisfied”. Clearly, whatever they saw satisfied them.
You them jump to unwarranted conclusions:
No. It is not strong evidence that E-Cat ‘works’ at the level you are suggesting.
I’m mystified which statement of Marks you view as a something intended to mislead or distract. I’m also mystified who you think has developed a ” vast conspiracy theory where hundreds of people are lying.”
I’ll let a few of you have a few more words then I’m going to close this thread and make E-Cat off topic for at least a few week. Unless something exciting develops, I’m finding this topic boring and repetitive.
Lucia,
Anyone can claim they have invented the next great game changer, but if it doesn’t work it is valueless. You and many others think Rossi is a liar and a fraud. The E-Cat would only have value if it worked. Looking at one sitting on the bench, doing nothing, would not determine if it worked.
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My “insufficient mind reading skillzzzzz” are no match for the Red Queen.
I’ve got nothing further to add, thanks Lucia.
Ok. Looks like you and Adrian have responded. I’ll close the thread now.
Update
I thought some of you might be interested in the email Adrian sent me after I closed the comments and my reply. I have edited his email address for privacy.
My reply:
As a general rule, I think people should be aware that my following through on announcements like
Does not mean, “Those who wish to continue this boring repetitive topic are invited to email me to continue the discussion in private.”