e-cat

[ceti331]

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/201 ... si-success

I have my own response, starting with "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is", mostly associated with thinking through various scenarios.

would be curious to hear what this forum thinks, or how anyone else would react.

[adam2]

A variety of cold fusion inventions have been anounced in recent years.
NONE have produced net energy in independant tests carried out by major independant labs.

I very much doubt that this one will be any different.

Hang onto your wallets is my advice.

[ceti331]

A variety of cold fusion inventions have been anounced in recent years.
NONE have produced net energy in independant tests carried out by major independant labs.

I very much doubt that this one will be any different.

Hang onto your wallets is my advice.

I put it in the same bracket as claims of free energy devices.

If it works, all they have to do is get on with selling the energy, not the device, then they'd just build more using their profits (the energy they made)

Believers usually say that TPTB suppress such devices. "the economy would collapse without scarce energy!" etc.

I don't just get that on insane internet forums, i've met people who believe that in real life.

It's a cruel false hope thing.. there are enough people that want to believe it can be fixed.

[kenneal - lagger]

You can't allow free energy devices when they've invested so many billions in the ultimate free energy device - nuclear fusion. It'll be so cheap it won't be worth metering but they'll have to get their investment back somehow!!

[UndercoverElephant]

Probability of it being a scam/failure > 99%.

I'd not heard of it before, probably because I tend to ignore stories about cold fusion devices.

[kenneal - lagger]

If you're willing to spend billions on the hope of hot fusion working sometime in the next forty years, why not risk a few millions on cold fusion? The odds of a payout in the next ten years must be about equal!

[ceti331]

If you're willing to spend billions on the hope of hot fusion working sometime in the next forty years, why not risk a few millions on cold fusion? The odds of a payout in the next ten years must be about equal!

agree.
it's worth spending some small % of resources on almost random seeming ideas. thats where some discoveries came from.
i saw that program explaining how alchemists evolved into chemists. the real chemical discoveries that were made by just boiling urine in the pursuit of some myth.

I know there's the phenomenon of sonoluminescance which we really don't understand..

but I wouldn't expect these things to produce breakthroughs that could be rapidly rolled out to save us.

[Ludwig]

I think you are right. if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Fossil fuels must have seemed too good to be true at first... as indeed they were. They did, nevertheless, give us what they promised: massive amounts of cheap energy.

If "free energy" were discovered, it would bring huge problems with it - most notably, how to stop overpopulation getting even further out of control. It might also be dangerous in the wrong hands.

I believe this might explain why, if cold fusion does work, a lid might have been kept on it.

If the military have been working on alternative energy, we can be sure that at some point we will see the fruits, for better or worse.

[Ludwig]

Believers usually say that TPTB suppress such devices. "the economy would collapse without scarce energy!" etc.

I don't just get that on insane internet forums, i've met people who believe that in real life.

It's a cruel false hope thing.. there are enough people that want to believe it can be fixed.

I never used to believe it, but I'm no longer so sure since I've been reading about the work of Tesla and others. Tesla claimed to have invented the anti-gravity flying saucer in the early 20th Century. Tesla rejected relativity, and insisted that there was such a thing as the ether. There may, some claim, have been a cover-up to stop the existence of zero-point energy becoming public.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hopeful for the future of civilisation... but perhaps the idea that everything leads to decay and collapse is only half the story after all.

In response to one of your posts ceti331, I did a search on sonoluminescence and came upon this page:

http://www.physics.ucla.edu/Sonoluminescence/page2.html

This seems an interesting area because AIUI no one has yet explained why the Second Law of Thermodynamics exists: or more precisely, why negative entropy exists. Could it be that an entropy-reducing principle is at work in the universe, running parallel to the Second Law? If so, might it be something to do with consciousness? E.g. might the so-called collapse of the quantum wave function when a particle is observed, actually be a manifestation of this spontaneous energy focussing?

[SleeperService]

I never used to believe it, but I'm no longer so sure since I've been reading about the work of Tesla and others. Tesla claimed to have invented the anti-gravity flying saucer in the early 20th Century. Tesla rejected relativity, and insisted that there was such a thing as the ether. There may, some claim, have been a cover-up to stop the existence of zero-point energy becoming public.

This seems an interesting area because AIUI no one has yet explained why the Second Law of Thermodynamics exists: or more precisely, why negative entropy exists. Could it be that an entropy-reducing principle is at work in the universe, running parallel to the Second Law? If so, might it be something to do with consciousness? E.g. might the so-called collapse of the quantum wave function when a particle is observed, actually be a manifestation of this spontaneous energy focussing?

The concept that 'explains' this is 'The Arrow of Time' basically entropy can either increase or decrease over time. We experience time passing in the direction that entropy increases so, to us entropy was less in the past. The opposite view is equally valid and likely exists somewhere in another universe. AFAIK there is no scientific formula that doesn't work both ways round.

How much of this is due to the observor, who is a product of that universe, I don't know. In the mainstream there is a school of thought that suggests we are alone in the universe because in THIS universe that's the way it is. The same applies to The Second Law of Thermodynamics.

That's the best I can do, hopefully others can correct me or add more.

[Cycloloco]

This method of energy generation seems to be getting some heavyweight support.
http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/media ... /lenr.html

[Ludwig]

This seems an interesting area because AIUI no one has yet explained why the Second Law of Thermodynamics exists: or more precisely, why negative entropy exists. Could it be that an entropy-reducing principle is at work in the universe, running parallel to the Second Law? If so, might it be something to do with consciousness? E.g. might the so-called collapse of the quantum wave function when a particle is observed, actually be a manifestation of this spontaneous energy focussing?

The concept that 'explains' this is 'The Arrow of Time' basically entropy can either increase or decrease over time. We experience time passing in the direction that entropy increases so, to us entropy was less in the past. The opposite view is equally valid and likely exists somewhere in another universe. AFAIK there is no scientific formula that doesn't work both ways round.

[Just revisited this thread following recent posts about LENR]

Hmm... I think you do right SS to place "explain" in inverted commas. It seems to me we can't really understand the arrow of time without understanding what time is. Einstein would have it as just another dimension, but something has always bothered me about this. As far as equations are concerned, it may be the case, but equations model reality, they don't explain our perceptions of it. And, lest we forget, the whole of reality as we know it is perception.

TBH I don't buy the invocation of multiple universes either, when there is no evidence for their existence - like the extra dimensions of string theory, they seem just a way of balancing the books.

[raspberry-blower]

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/201 ... si-success

I have my own response, starting with "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is", mostly associated with thinking through various scenarios.

would be curious to hear what this forum thinks, or how anyone else would react.

It is too good to be true.
Rossi is losing his supporters:

The story of the E-Cat, the "cold fusion" device proposed by Mr. Andrea Rossi seems to be losing interest everywhere. Yesterday, Jan 14, another of Rossi's supporters, Mr. Daniele Passerini, announced that he is abandoning the fray and closing down his blog, at least for the time being.

Mr Passerini's blog, titled "22 steps of love" has been the main focus of support for the E-Cat in Italy up to now. He says in his last post, titled "ad maiora" that "Some time ago, I wrote that, after that two years would have passed from the date of January 14 2011, I would quit in any case in the absence of official and certain announcements on the reality of the E-Cat." Passerini states that he will be waiting patiently and "will return when the news that we have been waiting for during the past two years will arrive"

The closing of Mr. Passerini's blog comes after that, in November of last year, another of Mr. Rossi's supporters, Mr. Paul Story of "eCatNews" declared that he would close his blog because, "with scant hope of Rossi delivering on his promises, I find myself wondering why I would waste any more time on him. If he is committing fraud, he should be pursued by the police. Interest in the man or the subject is now relegated to the level of curiosity, not dedication."

Earlier on, in April 2012, Mr. Sterling Allen of the blog PESN (Pure Energy Systems) had been appalled at Rossi's behavior and had stated, "I apologize to anyone that I've encouraged to try and do business with Andrea Rossi, and I retract my endorsement" even though he later continued to cover announcements about the E-Cat. (*)
Article in full

Cold fusion is, at best, not easily replicable, and is more probably nothing more than illusory. If cold fusion cannot be replicated in laboratory conditions easily, then there is not a fart's chance in a thunderstorm of it being scaled up to decarbonise electricity generation within the lifespan of anyone posting on Powerswitch, let alone within the timeframe laid down by the Committee on Climate Change have envisaged.