Merged Cold Fusion Claims

[Farsight]

Sorry. I missed that.

No probs.

But we disagree absolutely about grounds for dismissing things. The importance or value of something if it happened to be true is no reason for being inclined to believe it. The sensible course to take in assessing its probability is completely the opposite.

I agree with that. The sensible course is to assess the evidence. You should never dismiss something. Or accept something either. You should make a qualified judgement based on the available evidence and be prepared to modify your view should new evidence emerge. Or not emerge.

Liars and swindlers are more likely to invent attractive or important things than they are to invent ugly or trivial things. So the former must be examined more closely before being accepted. Not attractiveness, not importance: evidence, evidence, evidence!

I agree with your sentiment, though I would say that importance really does count. There's something going on with those CR39 tracks, and since this could be of save-the-planet importance I vote that we should look into it properly, and not leave LENR in fringe territory with the chemical society.

 

[beelzebub]

nathan - I know, but often people think that having everything they want cannot be anything but good. I just wanted to point out some problems of actually having all ones dreams come true!

phunk - remember when the Internet ran at 36kbps? Now we have multi-megabit always-on Internet and we still want more!
Remember the road-building projects to relieve congestion? Are the roads now free and empty? No?

If you create extra capacity, our use will increase to fill that capacity, be it Internet speed, more roads or more (cheap) energy.

 

[beelzebub]

Farsight - I'm curious as to why you think "...since this could be of save-the-planet importance"?
How would having virtually unlimited energy for all actually save, rather than destroy, the planet?
As I noted above, the unconstrained release of heat that the cheap availability of unlimited energy could result, could well have very serious implications for the global environment.

 

[Cuddles]

LENR/cold fusion is potentially of save-the-planet importance, I think it's wrong to sneer and dismiss.

Rainbow coloured unicorns that eat toxic waste and crap out sunshine and butterflies are potentially of save-the-planet importance as well. They still don't exist. Just because something would be important if it were real does not in any way suggest it actually is real.

I think it's wrong to be dishonest too.

You have a very strange way of showing it.

 

[RobDegraves]

Given my link to Annalen der Physik and "In these times, peer-review was not yet standard. Einstein just sent his manuscripts to Planck who gave them into print", this really takes the biscuit:

I just found your passage in the link you gave. Problem was that you linked the page but the info you are basing yourself on is one line in the editors chapter, which is not where I expected to find it. I based my statement on attaboy's statement, which indicated the opposite.

My bad.

 

[phunk]

phunk - remember when the Internet ran at 36kbps? Now we have multi-megabit always-on Internet and we still want more!

Yes, I do, it sucked, and at the time I had no problem imagining how it could improve.

But the highest power application I can think of at home is fast charging electric cars. Those chargers use less than 100kw IIRC. I suppose if someone invented a battery with the capacity to drive cross country on a charge, and it could be charged in 5 minutes, you might need 10MW.

 

[RobDegraves]

How would having virtually unlimited energy for all actually save, rather than destroy, the planet?
As I noted above, the unconstrained release of heat that the cheap availability of unlimited energy could result, could well have very serious implications for the global environment.

I don't think this is a valid concern.

1. We already use a lot of energy, it's just not cheap, unlimited or environmentally sound. If you could come up with cheap, clean energy it would lower pollution by a lot and contribute to higher standards of living for everyone.

2. As far as heat is concerned... you can simply enough use energy to cool the planet down... assuming that the energy is plentiful enough to make that a financially sustainable process.

 

[beelzebub]

phunk - I get your point, but if energy had little, if any, cost then why have home insulation/double-glazing? Why turn off your lights/oven/air-con/heating etc when there is no penalty? energy efficiency would disappear overnight and no-one would care if an appliance was wasting energy - just turn up the air-con if the waste heat gets too much!

Regarding electric cars, the current problem is with battery capacity. I'm sure this will be resolved in the next few years, and then we could be faced with the old 'Gas Guzzler' problem - large, heavy, ineffecient electric cars running around with no regard to energy costs, as there wouldn't be any.

This also leaves out the economic/political disruption that would occur even with fair and equal distribution and access - can you imagine the chaos if (say) the West tried to restrict access to certain peoples or regions?

I just think that the prospect (however unrealistic) of free (or effectively free) energy needs a little more analysis than saying "This is totally good, and will save the planet!"

 

[beelzebub]

I don't think this is a valid concern.

1. We already use a lot of energy, it's just not cheap, unlimited or environmentally sound. If you could come up with cheap, clean energy it would lower pollution by a lot and contribute to higher standards of living for everyone.

2. As far as heat is concerned... you can simply enough use energy to cool the planet down... assuming that the energy is plentiful enough to make that a financially sustainable process.

Arrgggghhh.....
Yeah, like I totally cool down my house by opening the freezer door!
(Hint - where are you going to dump all the heat, and how?)

 

[RobDegraves]

Yeah, like I totally cool down my house by opening the freezer door!
(Hint - where are you going to dump all the heat, and how?)

I don't mind answering your question but first I have a question on the assumptions. Do I have access to unlimited free energy?


BTW... this is completely beside the point of Rossi's ecat, which I regard as a fraud at this time.

 

[Yevgen Barsukov]

I just think that the prospect (however unrealistic) of free (or effectively free) energy needs a little more analysis than saying "This is totally good, and will save the planet!"

Energy we are using has always been free - it is sun energy. It was stored
in dead trees which we are burning now in various forms (coal,oil,gas).
But we don't even have to do that - we can take it directly like plants do. One square meter of surface is receiving 1kW of sunlight (on the surface of the atmosphere) and about 100 W on the ground (-clouds dispersion etc).
Is it not amazing?
Why invent perpetum mobile, when you are walking on a free and widely
available source of heat (which you can literally feel burning you soles when you walk on asphalt in the summer)? There are demonstrations of 12kW solar
powered steam engine which nobody doubts and there is no controversy - since you can connect a chain-saw to available 110W socket which it powers and cut a few pieces of wood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTvAL7ty53M

Bottom line - Energy is not the issue, it is turning it into work that is
the issue.
And for that there is plenty of real technologies to focus on.
Because of rapid succsession of new technologies --> Cd teluride, CIGS, CTZSS (http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ibms-new-solar-cell-its-a-ctzss/ )
...price of solar panel's have dropped twice last year alone, it is so low now that the installation cost on the roof is now higher that the prices of the solar panel itself!
How much more free can it get?

Regards,
Yevgen

 

[phunk]

phunk - I get your point, but if energy had little, if any, cost then why have home insulation/double-glazing? Why turn off your lights/oven/air-con/heating etc when there is no penalty? energy efficiency would disappear overnight and no-one would care if an appliance was wasting energy - just turn up the air-con if the waste heat gets too much!

For the same reason we don't just dump CO₂ into the atmosphere when that's the easiest and cheapest thing to do. We have laws against it. Waste heat is a much simpler thing to calculate than CO₂ based warming, we will know when it will be a problem long before it is.

 

[beelzebub]

For the same reason we don't just dump CO₂ into the atmosphere when that's the easiest and cheapest thing to do. We have laws against it. Waste heat is a much simpler thing to calculate than CO₂ based warming, we will know when it will be a problem long before it is.

Quite! Although dispite all the evidence on AGW, we are still pouring out CO₂ like there's no tomorrow - it is not against the law to discharge CO₂ into the environment, I do it every day!
Restricting energy use (Assuming the scenario of some cheap, limitless, available to all energy source) would probably require rigid state control and taxation (much like the proposed Carbon Tax that everyone seems to find ways around ). If this technology is taxed, to control it, then it ceases to be free, and becomes just another expensive energy source like coal, oil, nuclear etc.
The utopian dream of free energy for all will therefore never really come to pass - we will still have to pay through the nose.

 

[phunk]

Quite! Although dispite all the evidence on AGW, we are still pouring out CO₂ like there's no tomorrow - it is not against the law to discharge CO₂ into the environment, I do it every day!
Restricting energy use (Assuming the scenario of some cheap, limitless, available to all energy source) would probably require rigid state control and taxation (much like the proposed Carbon Tax that everyone seems to find ways around ). If this technology is taxed, to control it, then it ceases to be free, and becomes just another expensive energy source like coal, oil, nuclear etc.
The utopian dream of free energy for all will therefore never really come to pass - we will still have to pay through the nose.

Sure, CO₂ is just regulated, not illegal, but that's only because we have no alternative yet. I guarantee that if we come up with a source of cheap clean energy it would quickly be followed by planning to phase out all of the dirty sources.

You don't have to tax usage, you only have to tax excess usage. Like your hypothetical 10MW home (enough for an entire town). Do they have holodecks and replicators? I still can't imagine any need for that kind of obscene power.

Waste heat is a much smaller problem than greenhouse gasses (less than 1% currently, if I remember right), since it mostly radiates away to space as IR, except what is trapped by the greenhouse effect. If we can eliminate most emissions, then as the atmosphere reverts to lower levels of greenhouse gasses we will have more capacity for excess heat to escape.

 

[Dancing David]

I agree with your sentiment, though I would say that importance really does count. There's something going on with those CR39 tracks, and since this could be of save-the-planet importance I vote that we should look into it properly, and not leave LENR in fringe territory with the chemical society.

I agree but it looks as though no one has been able to replicate it. I would assume that is why they lost DoD funding, it has been 4 years, surely there could be replication by now.

 

[Farsight]

Farsight - I'm curious as to why you think "...since this could be of save-the-planet importance"? How would having virtually unlimited energy for all actually save, rather than destroy, the planet? As I noted above, the unconstrained release of heat that the cheap availability of unlimited energy could result, could well have very serious implications for the global environment.

It won't be cheap, Beelzebub. It will cost whatever people can screw you for. But it will be clean and "green". It will save the planet because the waste heat will be radiated out into space, rather than being trapped by the greenhouse effect resulting from the alternative, which is burning fossil fuel like billyo. Note that I'm not some fan of AGW, I'm sceptical about windmills and Carbon trading. Whenever I see the word "eco" I automatically add a little ripoff suffix. But you can't expect to burn megatons of polluting brown coal and have no consequences. Or deprive people of heat and light, because that's a recipe for a breakdown of social order followed by pandemic. Three meals away from anarchy and all that, bye bye civilization hello Stone Age.

By the way, sunshine is free. It comes down from the sky. Coal is free. It's just lying there in the ground. Ditto for oil, wood, etc. So energy is free. Only some guy says "it's mine", and if you want it, you have to give him money. Then it isn't free any more.

 

[phunk]

By the way, sunshine is free. It comes down from the sky. Coal is free. It's just lying there in the ground. Ditto for oil, wood, etc. So energy is free. Only some guy says "it's mine", and if you want it, you have to give him money. Then it isn't free any more.

Coal and oil are certainly not free, and not just because someone went and claimed them. They are not free and never will be because it takes a huge effort to recover them from the ground (unless you're Jed Clampett).

 

[catsmate]

I'm not sure that it matters. Planck's endorsement wouldn't have meant a thing if the math hadn't made accurate predictions.

And this is the huge point that pseudo-scientists don't/won't/can't understand or accept. In science reputation is far less important than data, supporting evidence and repeatability.

 

[nathan]

The thing about Einstein's photo-electric paper (for instance), is that the photo electric effect was already a well-known repeatable phenomenon. Yet no (classical) theory could explain it. It wasn't like he was hypothesizing about an as-yet unconfirmed observation.

Similarly for his SR paper. The M-M experiment had falsified the classical aether hypothesis, and there was no other explanation around.[*]

Both his papers (a) explained existing repeatable observations better than existing theories and (b) made falsifiable predictions about other observations that could be made. (and of course, the maths worked out)

LENR proponents haven't even got to the precondition of (a).


[*]Well, the alternative was that aether compressed matter in just the right way to nullify the effect M-M were looking for. SR is simpler. I'm guessing the compressing-matter hypothesis doesn't predict the same things SR predicts.

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

What would you do with 10MW at home?

I can think of plenty of things to do with ten megawatts of free energy generation. I'd have a lightning moat around my mad scientist's lair, for one.