July 2011 – COLD FUSION NOW!

July 30, 2011

Krivit’s third report: E-Cat not demonstrated to work as claimed

Steven Krivit, editor of New Energy Times, has released his third report on Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat, and the report is every bit as long as he had claimed. The report is largely critical of the claims made for the energy catalyzer, and of the way Andrea Rossi, Sergio Focardi, and Giuseppe Levi have attempted to establish those claims. Although most of the criticisms have been made elsewhere, Krivit has helpfully (for those critical of Rossi’s claims, at least) provided a clearinghouse for them.

Krivit’s report includes 37 appendices, but the essence of his criticism is contained in his main report:

The first concern is a question of the quantity of the steam. That is, how much steam has been visually observed coming out of the experiments? How does this amount and rate compare with the predicted amount and rate of steam from a 5 kilowatt power source?

The second concern is the method the Rossi group used to measure (or fail to measure) the output of the experiment. How did the group perform the measurement of the heat outflow, or steam, in the experiments?

The third concern is the quality of the steam. A higher-quality (or drier) steam output contains far more heat than a lower-quality (or wetter) steam. How did the Rossi group measure (or fail to measure) the quality of the steam coming out of the experiments?

None of these concerns is likely to be resolved before the demonstration in the last week of October (according to Rossi’s current timeline), and it is questionable if Rossi’s demonstration will directly answer those concerns, or if it will leave them for buyers of E-Cat technology to answer to their satisfaction. In an answer to a question by Prof. Brian Josephson concerning that matter on his website, Rossi emphasized that many important scientists and journalists would attend the test, and insisted that the E-Cat is producing perfectly dry steam in recent tests, but did not answer Prof. Josephson’s point about measuring the water and/or steam output of the reactor.

There seems to be a general agreement among both optimists and skeptics of a technical bent that this is an important weakness of Rossi’s demonstrations so far. One section of Krivit’s report concerns a presentation Francesco Celani delivered at the 16th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science (ICCF-16) in Chennai, India, in February of this year. A diagram in this presentation pointed out the importance, when testing a black box (i.e. a device the internals of which are unknown), of measuring all inputs and outputs. In Rossi’s demonstrations, on the other hand, he measured the inputs (water and electrical power) and presumed to measure the temperature inside the black box itself (unnecessary when one is attempting to demonstrate simply that the black box functions), but failed to measure the output (steam and/or water).

The arguments supporting Krivit’s claim that the E-Cat achieves an energy gain of only one or two times input power are contained in the appendices to the main report. Krivit does not deny the possibility of achieving excess heat from nickel-hydrogen reactions and emphasizes that he has covered the field on various occasions before. His criticism here is of Andrea Rossi and his collaborators. He does not directly accuse Rossi of devising a hoax or a scam, but he mentions several ways (private investment, purchase of franchises from Defkalion) in which money has presumably already changed hands, and therefore a scam is possible, whether or not it is probable. Regarding the charge, made more or less openly by both Andrea Rossi and Daniele Passerini (link is in Italian), that Krivit is in cahoots with Francesco Piantelli, Krivit does not address it directly, but says in his report: “I have not seen Piantelli for a few years, but I have been in touch with him recently to confirm the history of his research.”

Perhaps most interesting, because it’s news, is the last section of Krivit’s report, which confirms Rossi’s meeting with members of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and identifies Michael A. Nelson as the man who arranged the meeting. According to Nelson, as reported by Krivit, Rossi made no demonstration and no agreement had yet been made between Rossi and NASA, but NASA is interested in testing Rossi’s device as long as the government doesn’t have to foot the bill. Nelson is eager to find out the truth about Rossi’s device, whatever it may be. These words from him are worth quoting here:

Rossi has brought a lot of attention to the field. Any researchers who have a legitimate claim are going to benefit from this.

Whatever else he may be, it appears Andrea Rossi is a catalyst of sorts.

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Related posts:

Mr. Rossi talks E-Cat. — Ruby Carat June 21, 2011

Mr. Rossi calculates the E-Cat’s energy — Ivy Matt June 24, 2011

Krivit’s second report: Rossi evades scientific debate — Ivy Matt June 28, 2011

Coming soon: Krivit’s third report — Ivy Matt July 29, 2011

July 30, 2011April 24, 2012

Cold fusion, confusion and the mad left.

Ian McGilchrist explains in his book The Master and his Emissary that brain studies have shown that the Left brain is responsible for creating models of reality. This is a vital task that the Emissary has to undertake for the Master, the Right Hemisphere.

It seems odd to talk of my Left Hemisphere as “it” when it is more accurate to say “my other half.”

It is a feature of the Left hemisphere that it cannot differentiate between it’s re-presentation and reality. If cornered it will confabulate rather than say “I don’t know.”
Three other things need to be considered when discussing the Left’s function.

It is malfunctioning. Tony Wright argues the case cogently in his book Left in the Dark
It thinks that it is charge, and
It is typing this message that you are reading with your Left now.

Wow.

So when people are confronted with cold fusion their Left takes over and it prefers its model to reality. If the facts are laid out before them the Left will begin to confabulate wildly.

I hope that this has given you some insight into what is going on.
Insight is a Right brain attribute.

It is for this reason that religious teachers advocate a stilling of the constant chatter of the Left to allow space for voiceless insight. Einstein said that an Idea had to be “beautiful” and then he left the maths to his undergraduates. That is the nature of the workings of Right.

These days one can take a short cut and shut the Left up with powerful directed magnetic fields. The result of this measure is to unleash your suppressed genius.

New Scientist article:

“Some participants received a stimulating current over the right hemisphere of the brain and inhibitory current over the left, while others experienced the opposite pattern or a sham treatment.”

Please consider counterbalancing the Left with a bit of here-and-now Gestalt.

I am afraid that we are all in this together, so I urge you to have compassion with those who do not have this insight, and are tyrannized by their Left.

July 29, 2011

Coming soon: Krivit’s third report

After a month of reticence, New Energy Times editor Steven Krivit has broken his silence to announce that his long-awaited third report on Rossi’s E-Cat is coming soon—”within the next few days”. This report is supposed to cover the technical details supporting his reasoning that the E-Cat—the one Rossi demonstrated for him, at any rate—does not produce as much energy as Rossi claims it does. Rossi calculated an energy gain factor of 6 for that particular demonstration. In a recent post on New Energy Times, Krivit estimated that the energy gain was at most one or two times, and that possibly there was no excess energy at all.

The primary reason Krivit gives for the delay is that he received numerous comments—more than 50—on his videos and reports, some from people of apparently great technical knowledge. Consequently, he decided to incorporate some of these comments in his report. After releasing his third report, Krivit will release the videos of his interviews with Andrea Rossi, Sergio Focardi, Giuseppe Levi, University of Bologna physicist David Bianchini (who has performed various measurements on the E-Cat), and blogger Daniele Passerini (who has covered the E-Cat story since the beginning). Lastly, Krivit will write a final report giving some of his reflections and observations on the story, and then he will move on to other things—”until and unless [Rossi] and/or his associates make an appropriate scientific communication or deliver a publicly available energy device for sale.”

So far Rossi and his E-Cat have been the big news in cold fusion this year; otherwise cold fusion enthusiasts would probably be spending their time discussing Brian Ahern’s replication of Arata (not so much of Rossi, as some have reported—Rossi’s device is not really replicable by independent researchers until more is revealed about the details of its functioning). It looks like Krivit’s third report will add new detail, but not much new information to the E-Cat debate, so whether Andrea Rossi ends up being seen as the savior of cold fusion or a pariah even among the small community of cold fusion researchers probably depends mostly on the outcome of his megawatt thermal reactor demonstration three (not four) months away, and the subsequent sales of the devices by Defkalion GT and AmpEnergo.

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Related posts:

Mr. Rossi talks E-Cat. — Ruby Carat June 21, 2011

Mr. Rossi calculates the E-Cat’s energy — Ivy Matt June 24, 2011

Krivit’s second report: Rossi evades scientific debate — Ivy Matt June 28, 2011

July 29, 2011April 24, 2012

A few Comments on Language and Early Inquiries into Matter

Cold fusion deals with elements, isotopes and energy. In other words, it deals with matter and energy, which after all is also a form of matter by E=MC^2. Before thinking of the matter of things, we humans thought just about things. Looking at things, particularly how they are used differently or have different cultural meanings, it is not clear that there is a commonality between, say a rock, a knife, a banner, a pen and a table.

Ancient Greek philosophy allowed that to change and started us talking abstractly about the commonality of all things, which is what we would call matter. That has gone so far that what was once considered certain in antiquity (the human realm) and what was once uncertain (nature), has switched places. People find solace from the certainty of modern science, whereas particularly the spiritual realm (but also ethics and politics), is increasingly thought by many today as being without firm foundations. The demise of the spirit has been much exaggerated, but that is a different story.

One thing that philosophy and the Greeks had going for them is that Ancient Greek is an Indo-European language. Indo-European languages can treat existence as a thing (being), and therefore metaphysics comes naturally to them. Metaphysics, far from being a new age phenomenon, is what allows one to make generalized claims about existence.

Another thing about the ancient Greek language and how it shaped thinking, Greek has a definite article but no indefinite article. In English, the definite article is “the,” while the indefinite article is “a” or “an.” Therefore, in ancient Greek one does not talk about “a rock,” but merely about “rock.” This means that linguistically it was a natural transition for Greeks to talk about [a particular] rock, to talking about [the general nature of] rock. It is not just the brilliance of early philosophers that lead them to start the investigation of what eventually became labeled as matter; the actual structure of the Greek language shaped their discourse.

The examples above sound progressive because they seem to lead to modern science and to us. We like to think that we are the logical conclusion of what has happened in the past. This last example (below) seems backward to us, but I include it because it relates to philosophy and by its strangeness, it shows us how little we understand. Yes, when explained we can see the rationale behind it, but we probably never would have guessed it without being told. It is foreign to how we think of mathematics.

Here is one more example concerning the Greek language and how the Greeks thought. The Pythagoreans considered three to be the first number. One is for the unity of the universe; two is for duality of a pair. For a pair of things, one really does not need to count to acknowledge units in the pair. Three, however, is where we begin to count and therefore, for the Pythagoreans, is the first number.

No, to be honest, it does not quite make sense to me either. But such thinking has its roots in Greek language. In English we have singular and plural, duck and ducks, goose and geese. In Greek, however, there is singular, there is dual for pairs of things, and there is plural. A person does not get to counting until they get into the plural. Perhaps, for ancient Greeks, counting was what made a number a number. We should remember that they did not have negative numbers nor zero. For the Pythagoreans, one and two are not properly numbers, but are the “things” from which numbers are made.

It may have been necessary for the development of theories of matter that the ancient Greek language have certain characteristics, but the presence of such characteristics is not sufficient to explain the origin and direction of Greek philosophy. Language shapes our thinking, but our thinking also shapes our language. There is nothing inevitable about how things turn out. However, understanding a little about how languages work (or don’t work), helps us in imagining a different world than how things seem superficially. Imagining a different world helps us to change what needs to be changed, and to preserve what is already good.

July 25, 2011

Roy Virgilio releases more details on Piantelli’s research

In the wake of Saturday’s cold fusion conference in Viareggio, Italy, Roy Virgilio has released more details on the Piantelli group’s research on the Italian renewable energy forum EnergeticAmbiente. Virgilio is an administrator on the forum with the username eroyka. Akira Shirakawa has provided an English translation on the Vortex mailing list here and here. To summarize:

Experiments are being performed in a lab near Siena, Italy.
Older units worked continuously for months and produced 2× to 4× energy gain, but the actual energy balance was higher, as the cells reached self-sustaining mode.
Several unnamed third parties have confirmed that the older units worked in self-sustaining mode for long periods of time.
Several of these older units were recently reactivated. After some maintenance they turned on easily and produced 2× to 3× energy gain, but they haven’t yet been pushed to high excess energy levels.
New units with new fuel should be completed in about two months, and are expected to produce 200× energy gain.
The new units will be tested gradually in several steps of increasing power, beginning from a few hundred watts up to high levels of power on the order of kilowatts.
The scale-up will take as long as is necessary. Smaller devices will be ready for sale first.
No catalyst is necessary. The trick is in the preparation of the nickel.
Piantelli has a theory that doesn’t require exotic reactions, but can be explained using known physics and mathematics. A semi-complete theory has been provided to the University of Siena and will be published shortly. The complete theory will probably be disclosed after the first commercial units have been sold.
No Italian public institutions are involved in the current research, but a US government agency that has had the opportunity to review the research will probably validate and certify the reactor, as well as contribute to its development.
Piantelli’s group is also in talks with several large industrial corporations to develop generators operating at certain power levels.
The research is protected by three pending patents, the latest of which was filed last week.
Piantelli’s group will create a supporters’ trust. In two to four months the public will be able to buy shares in the trust to support the research, to prevent the technology from suddenly disappearing, and to share in any future revenues. Piantelli’s group doesn’t need money: the aim is protect the technology by putting it under the control of a multitude of stakeholders and enthusiasts, but there is no guarantee the shares will make a profit. [Emphasis added. —Ivy Matt]

Thanks, Akira!

The three patents mentioned above probably do not include Piantelli’s 1995 patent application. The Piantelli group filed an Italian patent application, “Method for Producing Energy and Apparatus Therefor”, on November 24, 2008, which was published on May 25, 2010. More recently, on April 26, 2011 they filed an Italian patent application, “Method and Apparatus for Generating Energy through Nuclear Reactions of Hydrogen Adsorbed by Orbital Capture to a Metal Crystalline Nanostructure”, which is due to be published on October 27, 2012. And then last week they filed a third patent application, the title of which is not yet known, and which should be published in January of 2013.

It looks like 2011 will be the year cold fusion attempts to make it on the commercial stage, and with at least two competitors. Piantelli’s group appears to be starting off at a disadvantage to Rossi and Defkalion, as Defkalion claims to have already achieved a 6× to 30× energy gain. (See Section 3: “Product Status” in the white paper.) However, Piantelli professes to have a comprehensive theory of the hydrogen-nickel reaction, which may speed up his group’s research. Cold fusion is not exactly suffering from a lack of explanatory hypotheses, but if Piantelli’s hypothesis fits well with the available evidence and, more importantly, if it makes predictions that can be tested experimentally, it will be worthy of the notice even of detractors of cold fusion research.

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Related posts:

Viareggio Cold Fusion conference: science, politics, and an Italian competitor — Ivy Matt July 23, 2011

Month: July 2011

Krivit’s third report: E-Cat not demonstrated to work as claimed

Cold fusion, confusion and the mad left.

Coming soon: Krivit’s third report

More Messages through Postcards

A few Comments on Language and Early Inquiries into Matter

Roy Virgilio releases more details on Piantelli’s research