Merged Cold Fusion Claims

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The Man said:
How do they have the nerve? We're animals in preserve!

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If you'll forgive my quick off topic post...

Not long after this single was released, which I rather liked, I agreed to go to a Loverboy concert in Hollywood, Florida with some friends of mine solely to hear Zebra perform, for they were supposed to be the opening act. When we got there, though, the first thing we heard was that Zebra wasn't going to be performing after all because the lead singer had lost his voice after singing at the mall that day. Needless to say, I was quite bummed.

I must say, though, that Loverboy did seem to put on a good concert - well, if you can stand listening to more than couple of their songs in a row, I guess. I learned that I can only really take them in small doses.
 
Shepherd said:
If you'll forgive my quick off topic post...

Not long after this single was released, which I rather liked, I agreed to go to a Loverboy concert in Hollywood, Florida with some friends of mine solely to hear Zebra perform, for they were supposed to be the opening act. When we got there, though, the first thing we heard was that Zebra wasn't going to be performing after all because the lead singer had lost his voice after singing at the mall that day. Needless to say, I was quite bummed.

I must say, though, that Loverboy did seem to put on a good concert - well, if you can stand listening to more than couple of their songs in a row, I guess. I learned that I can only really take them in small doses.
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Welcome to the forum Shepherd. Heck, I'd be hard pressed to sit through Loverboy even if Zebra actually did play. What was it "Working for the weekend" that was their big hit?
 
Thank you.

Yeah, it was probably the only concert I've ever been to that I remember wanting to leave before it was over. I toughed it out, though, since I was with people who actually wanted to be there. Again, don't get me wrong, the band was tight and gave a very good performance. Their music just wasn't my cup of tea, as I see you probably understand.

I remember that even back then I could think of about five radio hits they had already had at the time, though. "Working for the Weekend" was certainly one of them. The concert was in 1983 and so I believe they had just released "Hot Girls in Love," which according to wikipedia ultimately turned out to be their biggest hit of all. Others (with the help of wikipedia and youtube to jog my memory) would have been "Turn Me Loose," "The Kid is Hot Tonite," and "When It's Over." I probably would have heard "The Queen of Broken Hearts," too, I guess.

Anyway, I didn't mind hearing their songs on the radio on occasion. I think they were probably pretty standard radio fare at the time.

I did make up for that concert the next year, however, when I got to see Yes at the same venue. Now, that was one of the best concerts I've ever been to. I guess it helps if you like the music.
 
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Reality Check said:
Not quite right, Craig B: What has been "falsely proclaimed as imminent" is better than breakeven hot fusion. Fusion itself has happened many times over the last 23 years. The Joint European Torus was the first device to have controlled nuclear fusion in 1991. From then it has been mainly an engineering issue to get beyond the breakeven point.
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Well, that and there's the fundamental problem of how you get energy out of the big magnetic doughnut in some kind of useful form. It's all well and good to have a self-sustaining, superheated doughnut of radioactive gas but you need some way to make it spin a turbine or it's not much good for anything.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
Well, that and there's the fundamental problem of how you get energy out of the big magnetic doughnut in some kind of useful form. It's all well and good to have a self-sustaining, superheated doughnut of radioactive gas but you need some way to make it spin a turbine or it's not much good for anything.
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We don't even have that self-sustaining, superheated doughnut of radioactive gas yet, but if or when it is ever produced, I bet extracting useful energy from it won't be as big a problem as making it self sustaining in the first place.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
It's all well and good to have a self-sustaining, superheated doughnut of radioactive gas but you need some way to make it spin a turbine or it's not much good for anything.
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The technology for converting the heat from self-sustaining, superheated structures of radioactive stuff into electricity is well established. - that is how nuclear reactors work. The application to a "self-sustaining, superheated doughnut of radioactive gas" is relatively trivial engineering.
 
Reality Check said:
The technology for converting the heat from self-sustaining, superheated structures of radioactive stuff into electricity is well established. - that is how nuclear reactors work. The application to a "self-sustaining, superheated doughnut of radioactive gas" is relatively trivial engineering.
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This also applies to "cold fusion". If you've got something that makes a lot of heat, using it to boil water and run a steam turbine is pretty damn easy. If cold fusion actually worked in any meaningful way, somebody would have done this already, unless they really, really hate money.
 
Reality Check said:
The technology for converting the heat from self-sustaining, superheated structures of radioactive stuff into electricity is well established. - that is how nuclear reactors work. The application to a "self-sustaining, superheated doughnut of radioactive gas" is relatively trivial engineering.
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:rolleyes:

I guess it might seem trivial if you have only the very vaguest idea about how it all works. No offence, but I'll trust the nuclear physicist I talked to about the topic over the random internet "expert" with the ironic name.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
:rolleyes:

I guess it might seem trivial if you have only the very vaguest idea about how it all works. No offence, but I'll trust the nuclear physicist I talked to about the topic over the random internet "expert" with the ironic name.
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We know how to extract energy from hot radioactive material. If we can do it with fission reactors, why not with fusion reactors? But even before we reach that stage there is the so far unresolved problem of establishing a self sustaining fusion reaction.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
I guess it might seem trivial if you have only the very vaguest idea about how it all works. No offence, but I'll trust the nuclear physicist I talked to about the topic over the random internet "expert" with the ironic name.
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It looks like you are the one who has the very vaguest idea about how it all works, Kevin_Lowe (or this so far mythical nuclear physicist) :rolleyes:.
No offence, but I will trust the existing engineering that actually turns turbines from self-sustaining, superheated structures of radioactive stuff. There are issues with the radioactivity produced by the fuel in fusion but facilities such as JET have been handling this since 1991.
ITER will hopefully be the first fusion reactor to make the leap from research to actual electricity production.
Beyond the inner wall of the containment vessel one of several test blanket modules will be placed. These are designed to slow and absorb neutrons in a reliable and efficient manner, limiting damage to the rest of the structure, and breeding tritium for fuel from lithium and the incoming neutrons. Energy absorbed from the fast neutrons is extracted and passed into the primary coolant. This heat energy would then be used to power an electricity-generating turbine in a real power plant; in ITER this generating system is not of scientific interest, so instead the heat will be extracted and disposed of.
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The proposed Lockheed Martin Compact Fusion Reactor will have heat exchangers in the reactor walls.

ETA: Experimental fusion reactor produce heat. They have cooling systems. The coolant is heated up. That heated coolant might be able to produce steam and turn turbines - with the cravat that I do not know how hot the coolants get.
 
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acementhead said:
The link below has a list, with commentary, of Rossi's various frauds. Rossi is of course best known for his e-cat frauds but the "thermo-electric generator" fraud that he perpetrated on the DOD is also interesting.

http://freeenergyscams.com/andrea-r...s-impossible-inventions-all-frauds-and-scams/
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I presented this evidence on a Rossi fan blog, and I was told off very severely.
... you have declared him to be a liar and a fraudster (past behavior notwithstanding, past behavior that is better interpreted as something other than fraud in any case.) In a complete system of justice, you should well be held liable when Rossi does provide the absolute proof.
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So if and when Rossi delivers the magic free energy machine it's off to the calaboose for me! But I think I'm pretty safe from incarceration for the foreseeable future.
 
In a complete system of justice, you should well be held liable when Rossi does provide the absolute proof.
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I wonder if he'll apply that rule to Rossi when Rossi never actually provides the "absolute proof"?
 
Horatius said:
I wonder if he'll apply that rule to Rossi when Rossi never actually provides the "absolute proof"?
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That will never happen with some "fan" of rossi. They are always hopeful that "next year it'll happen".

There are STILL to this day people hoping for Steorn to come up with their gizmo out. And tehre are still people believing in various hoax and scam from 50 years ago and longer.

Even worst, the substandard articles from Levi & co are taken as evidence that cold fusion works and rossi got stuff. So trying to convince those guys will have to take far more than missed dates.... In fact even if rossi went tomorrow before a camera and told everybody it was a fraud and how he did it, there would still be some claiming the MIB forced him or suchlike.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
:rolleyes:

I guess it might seem trivial if you have only the very vaguest idea about how it all works. No offence, but I'll trust the nuclear physicist I talked to about the topic over the random internet "expert" with the ironic name.
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Kevin Lowe, maybe your statement was unclear but I partially agree and partially disagree.

We do know how to extract energy from fusion reactors. The fusing plasma emits neutrons and x-rays, this heats up a thick barrier material in the fusion chamber (a "blanket"), and steam/coolant pipes run through the blanket and carry hot gas to a turbine. Nothing surprising or unknown about that in principle---it doesn't require any fundamental breakthroughs, just known and/or knowable engineering design. In that sense, when RC or Craig B says "we know how to do it" they're right and you're wrong.

On the other hand, the "blanket" can't be built with the same materials and methods with which you make the heat exchangers in coal, biomass, or nuclear power plants. Neutron irradiation is highly damaging to materials, including metals, so everything you put in the blanket is going to embrittle or anneal (alloys) or disintegrate (polymers) at speeds we've never had to deal with in the past. The blanket therefore has to be made of carefully-chosen materials to maximize longevity, and also made cheap to replace. That's an engineering challenge that requires money and materials research. If an alien spaceship landed in Cadarache with a free gift of 100%-tested, fully-operational, better-than-breakeven tokamaks---blanket not included---it might still remain true that they're never usable for power because the blanket materials are too expensive. If RC and Craig B meant to ignore or minimize that challenge, they were wrong and you were right.

Just my $0.02.
 
ben m said:
Kevin Lowe, maybe your statement was unclear but I partially agree and partially disagree.

We do know how to extract energy from fusion reactors. The fusing plasma emits neutrons and x-rays, this heats up a thick barrier material in the fusion chamber (a "blanket"), and steam/coolant pipes run through the blanket and carry hot gas to a turbine. Nothing surprising or unknown about that in principle---it doesn't require any fundamental breakthroughs, just known and/or knowable engineering design. In that sense, when RC or Craig B says "we know how to do it" they're right and you're wrong.

On the other hand, the "blanket" can't be built with the same materials and methods with which you make the heat exchangers in coal, biomass, or nuclear power plants. Neutron irradiation is highly damaging to materials, including metals, so everything you put in the blanket is going to embrittle or anneal (alloys) or disintegrate (polymers) at speeds we've never had to deal with in the past. The blanket therefore has to be made of carefully-chosen materials to maximize longevity, and also made cheap to replace. That's an engineering challenge that requires money and materials research. If an alien spaceship landed in Cadarache with a free gift of 100%-tested, fully-operational, better-than-breakeven tokamaks---blanket not included---it might still remain true that they're never usable for power because the blanket materials are too expensive. If RC and Craig B meant to ignore or minimize that challenge, they were wrong and you were right.

Just my $0.02.
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That's why I said we don't know how to get energy out of it in a useful form - a source of high-energy particles that will trash the machinery isn't hugely useful, and while the superheated plasma has plenty of heat energy it's very much non-trivial to get it out in useful form cost-efficiently. Plus the stuff around the reactor will get very radioactive and while it's half-life is manageable it's pretty nasty stuff while it lasts and the cost of storing all this irradiated heat-capturing material has to be factored in to the total cost of ownership.

Don't get me wrong, if we could make it work it would be awesome, but a lot of people get way, way too exited by sales pamphlets from the nuclear industry promising nuclear pie in the sky in one form or another (thorium, fusion, next-gen fission, whatever) because they're relatively ignorant of the downsides and potentially expensive unknowns.
 
Kevin_Lowe said:
Don't get me wrong, if we could make it work it would be awesome, but a lot of people get way, way too exited by sales pamphlets from the nuclear industry promising nuclear pie in the sky in one form or another (thorium, fusion, next-gen fission, whatever) because they're relatively ignorant of the downsides and potentially expensive unknowns.
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That may be, but I still believe that the main obstacle is getting a self sustaining reaction. Once that has been done - if it ever is done - I think that extracting heat from the device will be a much less formidable undertaking.
 
Caveat: I haven't read most of the thread.

One of the things that interested me was the references to nickel. Nickel seems to be part of a lot of these kind of devices. Blacklight power uses nickel in their reactors that they claim a net energy gain over what is predicted by the chemical reactions.

Why nickel? Is it possible that some of these folks are true believers that are tricked by some properties of nickel, or the reactions it catalyses that they don't understand? I think Blacklight Power uses something called Raney nickel.

I found this article when I was looking for an answer to my question:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/06/cold-fusion-and-blacklight-power.html
 
davefoc said:
Caveat: I haven't read most of the thread.

One of the things that interested me was the references to nickel. Nickel seems to be part of a lot of these kind of devices. Blacklight power uses nickel in their reactors that they claim a net energy gain over what is predicted by the chemical reactions.

Why nickel? Is it possible that some of these folks are true believers that are tricked by some properties of nickel, or the reactions it catalyses that they don't understand? I think Blacklight Power uses something called Raney nickel.

I found this article when I was looking for an answer to my question:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/06/cold-fusion-and-blacklight-power.html
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It's all the more strange in that transmutation of nickel to copper, which Rossi has claimed powers his machines, occurs naturally in supergiant stars and supernovas, not main sequence stars.
Most of the copper in pennies and pipes arose in supergiant stars like Rigel and Betelgeuse, say astronomers in Italy. The stars then exploded, casting the copper into space. The new finding means that gold, silver, and copper all owe their existence to massive stars.

Scientists know the origins of most of the chemical elements from hydrogen to uranium. However, copper (atomic number 29) is an exception. Some theories say the element originated in big stars, while other theories point to stars smaller than the Earth: exploding white dwarfs, which astronomers call type Ia supernovae.
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http://kencroswell.com/Copper.html
Yet Rossi can supposedly induce this transmutation without any detectable gamma rays or radioactivity. Most remarkable.
 
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