Dr. Michael McKubre, long-time researcher in cold fusion from the SRI lab in Menlo Park, California speaks to the public on the subject at Cafe Scientifique.
This is the first of eight separate Youtubes, all entitled “What happened to cold fusion?”
Dr. McKubre describes two main branches of the science, electro-chemical palladium-dueterium PD-D and nickel-hydrogen gas-loading Ni-H systems in plain easy language that any interested person can understand.
“I’m going to teach you enough electro-chemistry to go home and do these experiments yourselves.”
He says “Most of the work in the field has been in PD-D systems.” Francesco Piantelli began exploring Ni-H cells in the early nineties. It is this type of reaction on which inventor Andrea A Rossi based his Energy Catalyzer steam generator. Dr. McKubre will discuss that development at the end of the talk because as a news topic, its “hot and interesting.” He also says “Some recent results at SRI seem to support the idea that nickel and light hydrogen also can support nuclear level excess heat.”
In video 2 following, he says of the excess heat generated by a cold fusion energy cell, “This amount of heat is 100 or 1000 times the sum of all possible chemical energies combined.”
PD-D systems are sensitive to impurities. The cell itself is not glass.Fusilica, Teflon, platinum, palladium, quartz and alumina are the only materials that can be used in the cell.
To measure the heat generated accurately, Dr. McKubre says “we need a very well-defined temperature environment.”
The temperature difference between the water coming in and the water going out is measured by two sensors at the inlet of water moving past the heating unit and two-to-four sensors on the outlet water.
The three things we need to know is “what is the temperature difference, what is the mass, the flow rate, how many grams-per-second of water is going through that calorimeter, and what is the heat capacity of that water which is 4.186 Joules per gram of air-saturated water.”
A new short course on cold fusion science and technology sponsored by the Engineering and Computer Science departments at Massachusetts Institute of Technology will be held in January 2012 during institute’s Independent Activities Period.
Designed for MIT students, Cold Fusion 101: Introduction to Excess Power in Fleischmann-Pons Experiments addresses the early history of cold fusion science beginning with the analysis of the original palladium-deuterium type systems that Drs. Fleischmann and Pons used in their research during the late 1980s.
Peter Hagelstein of MIT Electrical Engineering is leading the class with Mitchell Swartz of Jet Energy in a technical overview of theory and experimental electro-chemistry over seven days January 23-27, 30, 31 from 11AM-12:30PM.
Peter Hagelstein will co-teach Cold Fusion 101 at MIT
Nickel-hydrogen systems will also be addressed with a look at Francesco Piantelli‘s experiments. Professor Piantelli collaborated with Sergio Focardi generating energy by combining hydrogen and the metal nickel in the mid-nineties, research which inspired Andrea A. Rossi‘s E-Cattechnology.
Dr. Hagelstein has been exploring the theoretical aspects of cold fusion looking to find a model of the reaction. He is also involved experimentally through the design of thermal diodes, a technology which promises a more efficient thermoelectric conversion, the process whereby heat energy is converted into usable electricity. He was quoted in this article of 2009 “Turning Heat into Electricity” about this research.
Most recently, Dr. Hagelstein spoke as part of Cold Fusion Energy Inc at the World Green Energy Symposium held in Philadelphia, PA this past October.
JET Energy, Inc's Mitchell Swartz with students at MIT Dr. Swartz will discuss experimental results from the Jet Energy lab where he developed the Phusor generator. Preferring the terminology Lattice Assisted Nuclear Reactions LANR to describe his research, he hosts Colloquium on LANR/CFat MIT annually.
Reviews of the Colloquium can be downloaded from Infinite Energy here for Part 1 and Part 2.
You can read the scientific papers of both Dr. Hagelstein and Dr. Swartz on the International Society of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science‘s Library page, and it’s pretty heady stuff.
While the course is designed for the students at MIT, special candidates may be able to attend with prior instructor approval.
1 gram of nickel can generate E-Cat energy equivalent to the energy generated by 517 kilograms of oil. [Here]
If the world consumes 89 million barrels of oil per day, how many ounces of nickel does that correspond to in E-Cat energy?
First, a barrel is a unit of volume and a gram is a unit of weight (technically mass).
A barrel of oil will weigh differently than a barrel of cotton because of the density of the material in it. (Density is mass per unit volume.)
So we need to know how many kilograms a barrel of oil weighs.
To find how much a barrel of oil weighs, we must know the density of the oil.
The density of oil varies.
We will take an average crude oil density value as $\rho = \frac{850 \text{\hspace{0.7 mm} kilograms}}{1 \text{\hspace{0.7 mm} cubic meters}}$.
Since $1 \text{\hspace{0.7 mm} cubic meter} = 264.17 \text{\hspace{0.7 mm} gallons}$ and there are $42 \text{\hspace{0.7 mm} gallons} = 1 \text{\hspace{0.7 mm} barrel}$, we can find the number of kilograms of oil in one barrel by converting
So the daily energy from 12 trillion grams of oil corresponds to the daily E-Cat energy from 23 million grams of nickel.
If the world uses 23 million grams of nickel every day, that is
$(23 \text{\hspace{1 mm} x \hspace{1 mm}} 10^{6}) (365) \approx 8.4 \text{\hspace{1 mm} x \hspace{1 mm}} 10^{9} \text{\hspace{0.7 mm}grams nickel annually}$.
Therefore, replacing our current consumption of oil with E-Cat energy would consume an estimated 8.4 billion grams of nickel annually.
Now annual nickel production is roughly on the order of 1,300,000 tonnes.
Since one tonne = 1000 kilograms = 1,000,000 grams, we have that annual nickel production is about 1.3 trillion grams. This means that
$\frac{1.3 \text{\hspace{1 mm} x \hspace{1 mm}} 10^{12}}{8.4 \text{\hspace{1 mm} x \hspace{1 mm}} 10^{9}} \approx 155$.
In other words, the current annual production of nickel is 155 times the amount of nickel we would use annually to replace oil at our current level of use.
Not only that, estimated reserves of nickel worldwide are on the order of 140 trillion grams, enough nickel for
$\frac{140 \text{\hspace{0.5 mm} x \hspace{0.5 mm}} 10^{12}}{8.4 \text{\hspace{0.5 mm} x \hspace{0.5 mm}} 10^9} \approx 16,667 \text{\hspace{0.5 mm}years}$
using the current energy-equivalent consumption of nickel.
Of course this is static reserve, and not exponential reserve, but as a rough estimate, 16,667 years of nickel fuel for E-Cat energy sounds pretty good. Remembering that nickel is a very common element in our solar system means that we would be able to mine all the nickel we need or want for this ultra-clean power.
These are huge numbers.
How about something more tangible – like pocket change?
The US has a unit of money called a nickel which is a 5 cent piece, or 1/20 of a dollar (since 1913 called a Federal Reserve Note). First introduced in 1866, the Shield nickel was a 5 gram coin of 75% copper and 25% nickel. Later, other designs for the nickel were introduced, including my favorite, the Buffalo nickel, minted from 1913 to 1938.
1.25 grams of nickel = 5 barrels of oilNow 25% of 5 grams is 1.25 grams. Thus, using the E-Cat energy nickel equivalence, a Buffalo nickel containing 1.25 grams of nickel could generate the same amount of energy as 646,250 grams of oil.
In other words, this small piece of change has the energy density of close to 650 kilograms of oil!
Since there are about 135 kilograms of oil in one barrel, we have discovered that, E-Cat energy-wise, one little
5-cent coin $\approx$ 5 barrels of oil.
Holy cow.
Start saving!
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Cold Fusion Now represented at the Humboldt Math Festival in beautiful Humboldt County on the north coast of California this past Saturday April 9 at the area’s Bayshore Mall.
The Humboldt Math Festival is a gathering for the local county’s math instructors from the earliest grades through Humboldt State University. Teachers set up tables and activities for the kids in the community and expose them to different kinds of math and science fun.
I have been teaching part-time as a math instructor at a local community college for the past couple of years, and I have presented exhibits regularly for community events, mostly on the topic money – favorites such as Paper Money and Inflation and Ancient Coinage and Pythagoras, with the occasional space-science topic such as Sounds of Space.
Now, there is little more important than finding another arrangement for living on this planet. And cold fusion is the clean energy that will provide this. This year’s topic had to be nuclear. I decided to try an activity posted on the Lawrence Berkeley Lab site called activity on Marshmallow Nuclei.
We had the kids make nuclei out of marshmallows. The protons were pink and the neutrons were white.
Kids making nuclei out of colored marshmallows.
We had emission spectra tubes and diffraction gratings to view the different elements. A Van der Graff generator demonstrated charge perfectly.
Student get charged over science.
The kids could then shoot the nuclei with a Marshmallow Accelerator operated by math teacher Michael Butler. (That’s two fellows perusing the cold fusion materials in the background!)
Professor operates homemade accelerator.
I had algebra students helping out – for extra credit! – and they did a great job.
Algebra students help out for extra credit.
Of course we had a table of cold fusion info for the parents and older kids. This was our assortment of books to peruse.
Books on display at our table.
We gave out Scott Chubb‘s article reviewing Rossi’s demonstration which many people where happy to hear about. Copies of Robert E. Godes‘ Quantum Fusion Hypothesis went fast.
Free info on science and news were available.
And thanks to Infinite-Energy, we were able to giveaway a some Fire from Water videos, which are posted on their New Energy Foundation Youtube channel and you can watch for free, and a packet of info on energy and other fun stuff with a complimentary magazine.
Magazines were compliments of Infinite Energy.
We thank Infinite-Energy magazine for all your support, and best wishes in this time of transition. Your continued generosity has helped to educate alot of people today, as you have for years, with your rare publication.
I had a number of conversations about LENR technologies with passersby, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. One person said “Boy, I’d like to invest in this!” Many young people had never hear of cold fusion or LENR, and they were excited about the possibilities. I gave away all the info I had, and lots of stickers with the website on it.
All in all, the day was full of communication on an issue that has no parallel in importance. As our world unravels, and adults flounder, kids wake up every morning with an innocent hope, and today, though they don’t require it, we gave them a good reason for it.
Cold Fusion Now!
Related articles:
New Energy Outreach Success on 10/10/10 by Ruby Carat October 10, 2010
Letter to the Secretary of Energy by Ruby Carat October 14, 2010
Keep talking, keep typing by Ruby Carat July 22, 2010
Next time you call the Whitehouse Comment Line 1-202-456-1111, mention the students of Beaverton School of Science and Technology.
They know – there is no time to waste!
President Gives Speech at Intel
by By Ryan Widdekind
BEAVERTON, Ore. — President Obama will be in Oregon Friday. He’s meeting with some lucky seniors at the Beaverton School of Science and Technology.
The students plan on giving the President a kind of crash course in clean energy. They’ve been working on a cold fusion project for two years and think their experiments could one day create clean energy for all of us.
He then gave a speech on education at Intel’s Hillsboro campus.
