A brief description of our dialogue titled Nano-Cracks, Metallic Hydrogen, & Explaining LENR:
Dr. Storms is a nuclear chemist who spent thirty-four years working at Los Alamos National Labs. There he conducted research into materials for use in nuclear power and propulsion reactors, including studies of cold fusion. Ed is also the author of The Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction, published in 2007, and has recently published a follow-up book – The Explanation of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction – exploring the theoretical side of LENR. His book can be found at Infinite-Energy.com
Hope you enjoy. Check out my blog Q-Niverse and Blue-Science.org for more of my content. Thanks again.
I think the legacy of Storms’ book will be that it opened up a more serious and expansive dialogue about the importance of NAE. The community, similar to how it followed the lead of Arata in working with nano-particles, should do what it can to embark on a focused exploration of this topic experimentally. Let them test nano-cracks, nano-whiskers, morphing magnetic topological defects, sub-nano-domains, whatever. I think there is enough evidence to suggest a surface reaction, so lets use that as the guide in future experiments. If experiments disprove it, so be it, but atleast there was a plan at play. David French mentioned at the last ICCF that the most important thing now is engineering. How do we produce enough power and control it. If NAE is the answer, then this should be the new direction the community embarks on for the next decade.
Perhaps in this NAE, holes (+) in the valence band of nickel could pair with hydride H(-) to form an atomic (or would it be a molecular?) exciton, H(-)(+). If this is a boson, perhaps it could form a Bose gas were fusion could take place.
H(-) hydride + (+) electron-hole > H(-)(+) an exciton
2 H(-)(+) > 2[H(-)(+)] (Bose gas) > H(2) (deuterium) + e-(from a beta decay)
4 H(-)(+) > 4[H(-)(+)] (Bose gas) > He(4) (helium) + 2 e-(from beta decays)
Alan — various flavors of BEC theories have been proposed over the years. The best developed are those of Takahashi (TSC-Fusion) and Kim (BEC-Fusion). However both have certain problems. First off, BEC forming in these extremely chaotic environments is not terribly likely. BEC are usually at very low temperatures, and their “room temperature” variations are either (A) extremely short-lived in very tightly controlled environments, or (B) formed of polaritons, which is a “quasi-particle” BEC, so it has no deuterons in there to fuse. Takahashi’s BEC combines 4-D into Be8 where it proceeds to give off bursts of photons known as BOLEPS until it can fission at a mass where no excess radiation is given off. But I still have no idea how Be8 can form without producing extremely high neutron flux or radiation before it fissions after BOLEP. Kim doesn’t really specify the # of protons-deuterons necessary to initiate the reaction. I tend to believe there are limits on cluster size for a # of reasons, and Kim’s is very vague on this point.
Frankly, I needed some nonsense for April 1st, 2013. So, I came up with the rossion, an exciton that would be formed from a hydride and a hole.
http://www.e-catworld.com/2013/03/31/senate-directs-e-cat-work/
H(-) + (+) > H(-)(+) a rossion
I know it’s far fetched but it bugged when I recently learned that they found some lithium in the ash of the E-Cat powder that wasn’t there initially (I wonder if it is natural lithium, (Li(6) 7.5 %, Li(7) 92.5 %)
http://www.cobraf.com/forum/immagini/R_123558443_1.pdf and it reminded me of my April 1st joke.
3 H(-)(+) > 3[H(-)(+)] (Bose gas) > Li(6) (lithium) + 3 e-(from beta decays)?
I was wondering what might happen to a migrating “hole” from the valance band when it encountered the nickel hydride in what I think of as a nickel-hydrogen alloy. I was thinking that this exciton would be a somewhat more stable boson than the others that have been proposed.
I was thinking that helium wouldn’t be formed via deuterium but from an aggregate of four protons in this BEC soup where two of the four protons would beta decay to give a nucleus of two protons and two neutrons (helium).
Well, I just liked the idea of having a particle named after Rossi. We’ll find a better one than this.
Pardon me, it should read.
…it bugged me…
And
6 H(-)(+) > 6[H(-)(+)] (Bose gas) > Li(6) (lithium) + 3 e-(from beta decays)?
Yeah, I now it’s still crazy.
PPS
Yes, I KNOW I’m going senile.
And
6p > Li(6) + 3e- 28.1 MeV
I found the company that should build the first Hot-Cat powered car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4oO9OeVp9E
A summary of my “brain droppings” (George Carlin) :
Heating the core of the E-Cat creates infrared photons that in turn will create electron “holes” (+).
The “holes” react with hydride, H(-) to form an exciton, H(-)(+), a rossion.
The rossions form a Bose-Einstein condensation of excitons (rossions) in the NAE where they can fuse and then beta decay.
For example:
2 H(-)(+) > 2[H(-)(+)] > H(2) deuteron + e- (beta decay)
Overall
2 H(1) > H(2) + e- 0.42 MeV
And
4 H(-)(+) > 4[H(-)(+)] > He(4) alpha + 4 e- (beta decay)
Overall
4 H(1) > He(4) + 2 e- 24.7 MeV
pardon me,
4 H(-)(+) > 4[H(-)(+)] > He(4) alpha + 2 e- (beta decay)
I got this so wrong. Positrons would be given off to form neutrons.
4 H(-)(+) > 4[H(-)(+)] > He(4) alpha + 2 e+ (beta plus decay)
But if the mass of a positron is the same as an electron’s it would still be 24.7 MeV
I have finished reading the book, and it is very good.
I see 3 parts.
the big first part is an experiment summary, a good review, that is more condensed tha “The Science of LENR”
A second part (few chapters) is describing all the challenges, the reason why LENR is impossible, and the reason why all theories are broken.
the last part is describing Ed Storm theory of hydroton.
the description is much richer than in his ICCF17 paper.
what is simple for me to accept is that hydroton can be a 1D chain of hydrogen locked inside a “nano-tubular cavity” (my interpretation), covered by negative charges because electrons prefer the surface…
I also accept well that this object , if long enough, can be considered as a quantum object with many energy level…
this quantu object could emit x-rays in a LASER way if pumped by fusion energy… why not…
what i don’t understand is how the hundreds of keV to merge p-e-p are concentrated… maibe one eV concentrated from a million of atoms ? I need more explanation.
maybe also is ther some “schrodinger cat” happening between the fused and not fused state of twohydrogen nucleus.
One new explanation around hydroton is exmplanation of the Iwamura transmutation results, when it seems some target atoms absorbs an even number of deuterium… one, two or trhree pair of deuteron…
he propose the target atom is placed in the hydroton chain, and swallow the pair of deuteron when they fuse…interesting.
beside the basic facts that rule out most theory (no neutron,few transmutations, few tritium, surface effect, non palladium effects) few observation support hydroton theory as the tritium finding, the helium4, the Iwamura 2n-deuteron absorption, and many things that are missing.
I feel good about that theory.
if wrong, at least many concept of Ed Storms true are not simply true, but unavoidable…
Of course i share with Ed a great conservatism about science… I challenge the way scientists apply physics laws, but not the basic conservation laws.
Alain — I just happened across this quote from Ludwig von Bertalanffy that I believe represents Ed’s approach quite well: “it may be preferable first to have some non-mathematical model with its shortcomings but expressing some previously unnoticed aspect, hoping for future development of a suitable algorithm, than to start with premature mathematical models following known algorithms and, therefore, possibly restricting the field of vision.”
yes. It remind me discussion on LENr with skeptics…
those guys started to compute Hamiltonian on two body free space model, claiming it was impossible…
not understanding that the problem was the model, not the Hamiltonian.
we are educated so in school.
the problem woth QM is that some phenomenon emerge only from computations, until you can build an unnatural intuition that helps extend it much farther than the computation.
anyway about Storms theory, the emergency is to make more experiments to detect evidence of many factors…
the fact that some Iwamura experiments merge 3 alpha because (why because?) it is the only way to have a stable isotope, is really amazing… Ed talk of chemical valence and that is very interesting way of mind.
The notion of X-ray laser emission is interesting to check.
maybe some experimenst could be done with nanotubes, or nanostructured material, nano-carving…
Ed is bridging nuclear science and chemistry, with more rigor/conservatism than I’ve ever seen.
And maybe experiments could be done with isolated microtubules (I think they are commercially available.) which might help us understand biological transmutations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtubule
Alain — As usual we agree on much. Yes I think the Iwamura work (as well as Arata’s work & speculations) is highly suggestive of some sort of cluster effect taking place that cannot be either two-bodied (typical d+d) or immensely multi-bodied (say something like Miley’s giant cluster-fission model). The structure size has to be “just right”. I think the detection of x-rays, as Ed makes note of, suggest A) a quantum coherent structure capable of emitting coherent photons, and B) a “common orientation” of the NAE, which Ed seems to think only a linear nano-crack dimension can fulfill. Time will tell I suppose. Similarly I like Ed’s gradual-dissipation-through-photon-emission model. Only he and Takahashi (called BOLEP in his TSC-model) propose such a model. Almost all others suggest a form of “energy sharing” or “shielding”, like Hagelstein’s phonon-step-down model, or Widom-Larsen’s “magic gamma shield”.
Have a look at US 20080112528 A1 United States published patent application regarding “Chemonuclear Fusion Reaction operating with liquid lithium”.Cockcroft and Walton fusion of protons with 7Li being prior art.