This is a post dated 4 April 2011.
As a professor in physics I have been asked to comment on what “Ny Teknik” (a weekly newspaper on technology in Sweden) called “Rossi’s energy catalyst” and it will be a pleasure to do so because I will have to revisit my skills from the time when I was doing research on various nuclear reactions. It will be a fairly detailed review.
Read the rest at Alecklett's Energy Mix: Global Energy Systems, Peak Oil, Etc.
by Alecklett
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)
Summary: He's open to the possibility, but doesn't see how it is possible under current knowledge of nuclear physics.
11 comments:
Take a look at the NASA video. That is a much more recent event (Jan 12th 2012) than this article. Basically, they are talking new physics. Some thing similar is what I alluded to in my reply at PeterC's
See also this interview with Brian Josephson
Quote:
Abstract: In January 2011 Andrea Rossi demonstrated a device that purported to develop 10 kW of power from a nuclear reaction. This video discusses its credibility, the investigations that have been done on the device, and its future prospects. The nuclear power claim can be tested by measuring total energy over a period of time and comparing it with what would be possible from conventional energy sources[1]. Previous claims of this kind, beginning with that of Fleischmann and Pons in 1989 [2], have been generally doubted, but it is argued that this general doubt owes more to the persuasive power of rhetoric than to the actual facts.
In contrast to the ITER thermonuclear project, where practical application is decades away, reactors of the Rossi type are already in production and, according to NASA Chief Scientist Dennis M. Bushnell, may be capable of "completely changing geo-economics, geo-politics, and solving climate and energy"[3].
[1] http://bit.ly/CFnyteknik
[2] http://lenr.org
[3] http://www.evworld.com/evworld_audio/dennis_bushnell_part1.mp3.
English and French transcripts, and also code for embedding the video in a web page, are available here via the 'transcript' tab. French and Italian subtitles are available with the YouTube version of this video, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8eIhth8Iw8.
If it is releasing extra energy, that is what will be of interest to engineers, and for civilization. The physicists can come up with an explanation later.
Not a hoax he believes what he is doing is right, he just has the math wrong :)
Otherwise why would he allow someone to tape him doing the math?
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/RossiECat/Failure-of-Rossis-Energy-Catalyzer-Caught-on-Video.shtml
To bring water from 24.5 C to 100.1 C takes 615.6 watts/gram.
He uses 615.6 watt hours/kg.
He fails to include 1kg/1000 gram conversion for weight as well as 3600 secs/1 hr for time.
So he is off by a factor of 3.6.
Another error he adds the energy required to bring the water up to 100.1 twice. Also it appears a lot of the water is not vaporized by instead drips nto the tube.
Too,bad. :(
Wow, so much for me critiquing a nuclear physicist.
I should have written 615.6 cal/ gram and included a conversion from cal to joules of 4.18. Also 1 watt = 1j/sec
My error near totally negates his 'error'.
Hmmm maybe he is on to something.....
WinslowR
Your mathematics is way off!
The specific heat of water is 1 calorie/gm/degC or 4.186 joules/gm/degC or 4186joules/kg/deg C.
So a rise of (100.1-24.5)=76.6 deg C would use 4186 x 76.6 = 320,647.6 joules of energy. 1joule per second is a watt. A watt hour, commonly known as a watt equals 3600 joules of energy.
So to heat 1Kg of water by 76.6 deg C takes 320,647.6/3600 watt hours or 89.07 watt hours of energy!
However converting it to steam at 100 deg C would require 2,270,000 joules
So total heat required to convert 1Kg of water to steam at 100.1 deg C is 2,270,000 + 320,648 = 2,590,648 joules = 719.6 Watt hours
He is more or less in the ball park (if he used 615.6) If you just take water at 100 deg C to stem at 100 deg C, it takes 630.6 watt hours.
However, these calculations are at sea level and normal atmospheric pressure. Things change as you climb. Both the boiling point of water changes, and so does the latent heat of evaporation.
So one has to calibrate the caloriemetry to the place and time - one cannot just use the standard values. Standard values will get you a ball park figure, That is all.
Right just more proof I shouldn't rely on my memory :(
unfortunately the Rossi device is looking very flakey. It seemed promising a year or so ago. A few physics professors (NOT including Josephson!) claimed to have verified that the device was generating several times more energy than it was taking in. It appears that they (and perhaps Rossi) did not realize that only some - and not all - of the input water was being turned into steam! What looks like pure gaseous steam can have a load of water droplets in it.
The guy in Clonal's video has poured a lot of cold water on the impresssion he gave in in the NASA video.
http://joe.zawodny.com/index.php/2012/01/14/technology-gateway-video/
However, Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (which is similar to cold fusion) seems to be a "respectable" area of research, pursued by NASA amongst others. It seems there are many reports of excess energy but at the moment it is hard to produce reliably and repeatedly.
Paul,
For steam calorimetry, you are much better off by measuring the heat not at 100.1 deg C but rather around 110 - 120 deg C. One requires the heating of the water to be done in a pressure vessel. This way, all water is converted to steam, and measurement can be standardized, because the pressure before and after is known. Steam is allowed to escape, and the mass of water, before and after is measured.
Clonal, I am sure you're right. The problem is Rossi did not do this. Alternatively, they could have just dumped the steam/hot-water mix into a big insulated bath and measured the heat rise that way. But they did not do that either.
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