UPDATE 12/4: Since this was posted much has happened. Eli has added a whole bunch of stuff to the bottom of this post in roughly chronological order, including a response from Black Light Power, and some discussion of it. A fair amount of it has been taken from the hydrino forum discussion entitled five years, but since clicking through is not a habit many have, it will be reproduced here. 12/7: This also includes a comment by Scarmani speculating that monovalent aluminum plays a role who points out that there is enough Al in Raney Ni to account for the energy generated. Some additional comments about papers that show Raney-Ni is very active and explodes when heated under various conditions can be found at the bottom, with references for the interested
*******************************
Black Light Power is an interesting construct. Operating at the fringe of quantum mechanics, Black Light's entrepreneurial leader, Randell Mills has successfully raised a ton of money (~$60 million, not in the class of your average hedge fund, but better than a typical NIH grant). BLP is one of the few things that Eli and Lumo agree about and comments about its business model have appeared before in this humble blog. It starts but does not end with a refusal to believe in quantum mechanics, followed by a blizzard of hand waving and algebra from which, as Venus from the quantum foam, arises the hydrino, a hydrogen orbit with fractional quantum numbers, very strongly bound, much more so than the ground state of hydrogen (E ~ -R/n2). One of the occupants of the Lumidek, Nigel, summed it up succinctly
This is sustained by the facts, which contradict Mills, who is basically doing for QED what Ptolemy did for ancient cosmology, against Aristarchus’ solar system.So what now young hares? After claiming that hydrinos are the answer to the energy problem, discovering antigravity, and a few other things, BLP has brought forth a new "energy source"
Our experiments on the BlackLight technology have demonstrated that within the range of measurement errors the significant energy generated, which is 100 times the energy that could be attributed to measurement error, cannot be explained by other known sources like combustion or nuclear energy,” says Dr. Jansson, professor of engineering at Rowan University. “The ability to generate such tremendous power in this controlled process demonstrates that the claim by BlackLight Power that it is able to demonstrate repeatable heat experiments based on their technology can be replicated by independent scientists.”which has been "validated" by Rowan University.
“Our experiments on the BlackLight technology have demonstrated that within the range of measurement errors the significant energy generated, which is 100 times the energy that could be attributed to measurement error, cannot be explained by other known sources like combustion or nuclear energy,” says Dr. Jansson, professor of engineering at Rowan University. “The ability to generate such tremendous power in this controlled process demonstrates that the claim by BlackLight Power that it is able to demonstrate repeatable heat experiments based on their technology can be replicated by independent scientists.”This flight of fancy has made its way into the mainstream, the New York Times, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, NPR and a ton of blogs and other media. A lot of these sources play some variation of "no one else has been able to explain this". Recently a small electrical coop in NM contracted for one of the magic reactors
Cranbury, NJ (December 11, 2008)—BlackLight Power (BLP) Inc. today announced its first commercial license agreement with Estacado Energy Services, Inc. in New Mexico, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Roosevelt County Electric Cooperative, (Estacado). In a non-exclusive agreement, BLP has licensed Estacado to use the BlackLight Process and certain BLP energy technology for the production of thermal or electric power. Estacado may produce gross thermal power up to a maximum continuous capacity of 250 MW or convert this thermal power to corresponding electricity.That's why you hired Eli and his merry band. Eli didn't put the last brick onto this sarcophagus but he did start the thing rolling down hill and since Rabett Run is read by many (maybe two or three) involved in energy issues, it is a decent place to put the answer and let's face it the 116,985th most popular blog could use some links.
How to describe the "Black Light Process" You can find some details on the Black Light Power site and on a couple of discussion groups, and yes, there is a video and a bunch of animations. The reactor is a tube that can be heated. The cell contains a mixture of Raney nickel and sodium hydride and sodium hydroxide processed who knows how and certainly containing some majic ingridients. As we shall see you don't need anything but the Raney nickel. Raney nickel is an old, well know catalyst for hydrogenation. It is produced
. . . .when a block of nickel-aluminium alloy is treated with concentrated NaOH. This treatment, called "activation", dissolves most of the aluminium out of the alloy. The porous structure left behind has a large surface area, which gives high catalytic activity. A typical catalyst is around 85-percent nickel by mass, corresponding to about two atoms of nickel for every atom of aluminium. The aluminium which remains helps to preserve the pore structure of the overall catalyst.This is usually done in the presence of hydrogen gas.
BLP claims that in their reactor shown above, an initial heating decomposes sodium hydride yielding hydrogen and sodium atoms. The sodium atoms are said to (look, it's BLP, not Eli) catalyze a transition in the hydrogen atoms from the ground state to one of the lower lying "hydrinos" states. The claimed yield from 1.5 kg of Raney nickel is about a megajoule. The Rowan experiments may or may not have recycled the evolved hydrogen. BLP and their friends at Rowan University say there is no possible chemical explanation for this.Well, there are some problems of course, if there is a net gain of energy, the hydrinos can't transition back to the hydrogen ground state cause if they did you would have to put in energy to bring them from the deep hydrino basement back up to the hydrogen ground state, so they are said to whisk off as dihydrinos, but, as Fermi said about space aliens, where are they cause they would have been seen everywhere? But the real question is what is happening.
We don't know how BLP is preparing their majic mix except that it has a lot of Raney nickel and sodium hydride, NaH. There is also some aluminum hanging about. Fortunately we do have the chemical literature. Raney nickel is used for hydrogination (adding hydrogen to molecules). Hydrogen atoms chemisorbed (that means they actually form a bond rather than just sitting there) on the Ni surface are easily attached to other molecules. Raney nickel used for such experiments is known to explode or catch on fire later and must be disposed of with care. An old paper, "The Role of Hydrogen in Raney Nickel Catalysts by Hilton Smith, Andrew Chadwell and S.S. Kirslis J. Phys. Chem. 1955 59 820-22 tells the observant pretty much everything
The hydrogen content of Raney nickel has been found by direct analysis to vary between one-half and one atom of hydrogen per atom of nickel. The activity of a sample of this catalyst has been shown to be proportional to its hydrogen content. The surface area decreases linearly with loss of hydrogen until about 70% is removed; then it decreases more rapidly. If the hydrogen is released rapidly, heat is evolved which results in an explosion of the catalyst. The best explanation for these phenomena appears to be based on the assumption that the hydrogen is in the form of atoms attached to the nickel in a metastable state. If desorption of the hydrogen is rapid, the highly exothermic recombination of the hydrogen atoms becomes explosive.The reaction of the NaOH with the metals to form the catalyst produces a lot of hydrogen which can be absorbed on the surface. The JPC paper found that the maximum amount of H2 that could be desorbed was between ~100 and ~150 ml STP per gram. The aluminum oxide content was ~20%. A lot of surface science experiments tell us that the hydrogen chemisorbed on the surface is in the form of H atoms and can be driven off by heating. The mechanism involves recombination of two H atoms on the surface of the Raney nickel to form H2. The H2 is not bound strongly to the surface and desorbs.
At this point, we KNOW that the sodium hydride has nothing to do with the case, that the Raney nickel alone can evolve a large amount of heat when the H atoms are driven off and that the hydrogen atoms are loosely bound to the nickel (metastable enough that we can drive them of by mild heating)
Grabbing one of the discarded Christmas card envelops that the gentle readers were so kind as to send and turning it to the back, the chemical reaction would be
2 Ni-H(s) --> Ni-Ni(s) + H2(g)
Scaling the 100 to 150 ml/g H2 for Raney nickel up to the 1500 g Rowan/BLP reactor we get (100-150 ml/g)*(1500g) = 150 - 225 liters of H2 or .
(150-225 liter)/(22.4 l/mole) = 6.7 - 10 moles (a serious amount of Hydrogen)
To do this right we would have to know the heat of formation of a mole of H atoms on the Raney nickel and a whole lot of details, Raney nickel is a very nano material, where structure is everything. However, for the back of our envelope we can use bond strengths from the table in the Chem Rubber Bible (aka Chemical Rubber Company Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 9-64 (2008)).
Ni-Ni: 204 kJ/mol
Ni-H: 240 kJ/mol
H-H: 436 kJ/mol
So we break two Ni-H bonds, that costs us 480 kJ/mol and we make one Ni-Ni bond getting back 204 kJ/mol and one H-H bond, getting back 436 kJ/mol
Net heat of reaction is estimated by adding the energies for the bonds broken and subtracting the energies for the bonds formed. (A negative number means the reaction will be exothermic or give off energy in the form of heat)
Net heat of reaction per mole of H2 generated= 2*240 kJ/mol - 436 kJ/mol - 204 kJ/mol = -160 kJ/mol (an exothermic reaction)
Net heat evolved from 1.5 kg of Raney nickel = (6.7-10.0 mol) x -160 kJ/mol = - 1072 kJ to -1600 kJ = -1.1 to -1.6 MJ!!
If the lab bunnies follow the bouncing ball they will see that the BLP and Rowan folk say that reaction with 1.5 kg of their mix, which is mostly Raney nickel releases 1 MJ of energy. This is in the Table on the bottom of page 7 of the Rowan report. They report heats of 1.015 MJ (average of two runs) for the runs with 1.5 kg. Page 4 gives the results with 30 g of Raney-Ni. In these runs, they got 20 kJ. Lets check the reproducibility: (1500 g/ 30 g) * 20 kJ = 1000 kJ = 1 MJ. Pretty good linearity. For standard chemistry with a reaction going to completion, this makes sense.
UPDATES: From Randell Mills via a yahoo discussion group,
------------Eli's response here (see the comments for complete details):
The heat of formation of nickel hydride is negative and small (-2.1 kcal mole/H2). It is referenced in my paper R. L. Mills, G. Zhao, K. Akhar, R. Chang, J. He, Y. Lu, W. Good, G. Chu, "Commercializable Power Source from Forming New States of Hydrogen", in press (Reference 78 at Eq. (45)).
[78. B. Baranowski, S. M. Filipek, "45 years of nickel hydride‹history and perspectives", Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 404-406, (2005), pp. 2-6.]
http://www.blacklightpower.com/papers/WFC112108WebS.pdf
Thus, nickel hydride decomposition is endothermic, not exothermic. Furthermore, his main mistake is that he has incorrectly calculated the heat of formation of nickel hydride using bond energies. Specifically, the bond energies regard gaseous atoms,and the energy to vaporize Ni metal to atomic nickel is +429.7 kJ/mole Ni (CRC) or +4.45 eV/Ni atom.
D. R. Lide, CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 86th Edition, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, (2005-6), p. 5-16.
Also, nickel hydride is H dissolved in a Ni metal lattice. It does not comprise covalent Ni-H bonds.
Folks, BoE means you grab stuff. Using the chemical reaction
2Ni-H --> Ni-Ni + H2
is a cartoon of what is happening, and using the diatomic bond strengths is a really rough estimate, but it is rough on both sides of the arrow, AND is very much in keeping with how bond strengths are used to estimate heats of reaction. (see your tattered GChem book) . . . . . .
Part II: As Eli understands it, BLP assumes the Raney nickel is a passive support. Raney-Ni is known to be a very active catalyst for hydrogenation and a pyrophoric material, indeed a dangerous one to be handled with care that has on occasion exploded. Scarmani and Oakthicket on the hydrino forum and Eli have pointed out that the metals themselves in Raney-Ni, principally Al and Ni, can participate in energetic chemistry, as could H atom recombination. And, let us be frank about it, and Na metal or NaH could also take part. We also know from the development of hydrogen storage devices that the addition of small amounts of other metals can significantly change the storage capacity of Ni for atomized hydrogen. It is very easy to see that there are enough possible chemical reactions around in 1.5 kg of doped Raney-Ni to provide 1 MJ of exothermicity. . . .Scarmani at the hydrino forum;
[[ edit: in a response to Rabett's blog entry posted to SocietyforClassicalPhysics mailing list, Mills has provided a reference for this: doi:10.1016/0021-9517(81)90102-0
The paper states "A commercial Raney nickel evacuated at 25 °C evolved about 23 cm3 (STP)/g H2, as measured by volumetric and temperature-programmed-desorption (TPD) methods... Without H2O addition hydrogen desorption was only slightly exothermic, but when H2O was added, it was highly exothermic. The latter process appears to be the reaction of H2O plus zero-valent aluminum; this reaction did not proceed to a large extent in the usual desorption tests. Thus, most of the hydrogen was present as chemisorbed and interstitial hydrogen."/edit ]]
This seemingly contradicts the description in the old 1955 paper "The Role of Hydrogen in Raney Nickel Catalyst" (J. Phys. Chem., 1955, 59 (9), doi: 10.1021/j150531a005) which states "The hydrogen atoms are slowly desorbed on standing... The process may be greatly accelerated by increasing the temperature. In fact, the desorption may be so rapid that the highly exothermic recombination of the hydrogen atoms becomes explosive."Oakthicket makes two points:
The difference may be that with sufficiently high concentrations of atomic H, recombination of atomic H can proceed rapidly; under high vacuum or low surface loading of hydrogen, recombination of atomic H does not occur at a significant rate because the concentrations of atomic H do not reach sufficient levels. http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00 ... 41C707.pdf . . . .
Recombination of atomic H to molecular H on the surface of solids can occur more quickly, due to other mechanisms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_on_surfaces).
A friend I'd been trying to persuade to look closely into Blacklight mentioned in passing that rapid recombination of built-up atomic hydrogen to molecular hydrogen might be behind the observation of excess heat generally in systems containing hydrogen where energy was input (e.g. cold fusion, Mills electrolysis and Blacklight gas plasma cells). He pointed out the atomic hydrogen torch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_hydrogen_welding). At the time I dismissed this as a possible explanation, but it is starting to seem more plausible.
If you want to show that 'hydrinos' result in large amounts of excess heat, why would you not run a control sample of undoctored Raney-nickel catalyst under identical conditions and measure excess energy? You then compare the two sets of results. Using control samples is a standard scientific approach. That wasn't done by Rowan University. They simply took doctored Raney-nickel, heated this highly-exothermic substance, measured the energy output and declared that most of the energy generated cannot be explained by normal chemistry.Scarmani continues
I completely agree. In Mills' main paper (http://www.blacklightpower.com/papers/WFC112108WebS.pdf, pp 21-24) there is a control - but the control is "3 wt% Al(OH)3 doped R-Ni/Al alloy"and brings another idea about a conventional chemical reaction
In other words, the control Mills selects is not actual Raney Nickel - it is the non-porous, non-hydrogen containing starting alloy powder of 50/50 Ni/Al, laced with a small amount of Bayerite. Why did Mills chose a solid metal alloy powder as the control, rather than use the obvious, meaningful, directly comparable control (identical, porous, hydrogen-containing R-Ni, sans vital catalyst)?
In the R-Ni experiments, if you take the conventional view, the original driving source for the energy is not to do with NaH, but rather the oxidation of Aluminum metal. To illustrate how much energy is stored in the Aluminum, the amount of energy released in preparing R-Ni from the starting alloy is 300x the amount of energy released from the same weight of R-Ni in the Mills / Rowan experiments. (Another illustration is http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/media/pdf/ ... 0Cells.pdf)12/7 The paper by Nicolau and Anderson, J. Catal. 68 (1981) 339 cited in the comments by one of BLPs supporters reports that a small amount of water vapor causes Raney-Ni to release more than double the amount of hydrogen and significant energy on heating (they had a small sample, about a half a gram, which could not heat the mount it was on much, not 1.5 kg). They ascribe this to the reaction of water with zero-valent aluminum.
The 15 wt% or so residual Aluminum metal present in the R-Ni is used to drive the formation of hydrogen from NaOH (or if hydride formed, will likely give up hydrogen very easily with heat in the presence of R-Ni due to lower activation energy, doi: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2007.06.030). Because of the surface doping, most of the resulting hydrogen is directly absorbed in atomic form on the R-Ni surface. At a threshold temperature, activation energy is reached and there is a runaway recombination / desorption of the hydrogen from the R-Ni. The recombination to molecular hydrogen is highly exothermic; this very exothermic runaway recombination does not occur in earlier thermal desorption studies of R-Ni because there is not a great enough concentration of H atoms in those studies (under full vacuum rather than in a sealed pressurized container, surface loading of H lower than critical threshold since the R-Ni is not doped in a way that can directly generate hydrogen on the surface of the Nickel).
An interesting paper from Hotta, et al, in Kagaku to Kogyo (Osaka) 41 (1967) 269 reports that Raney-Ni heated with small amounts of organics, such as alcohols exploded on heating to about 200 oC. Another paper by Mikhailenko, et al, J. Catal 141 (1993) 688 notes that
However, usage of Raney catalysts is often limited by their propensity for self-heating and self ignition in air. The nature of these phenomina is influenced by the presence of a large amount of hydrogen in active form (5, 8-10)We do not know exactly what was in the 1.5 kg furnished by BLP to Rowan, but we do know that Raney nickel is a very energetic material and not a passive support. Eli, Scarmani and others have pointed to several possibilities for reactions that would furnish enough energy to produce 1 MJ from a 1.5 kg sample of Raney - Ni, and we have pointed to several reports of occasions on which Raney-nickel was reported to explode. It is not a passive support. There are several chemical possibilities to explain the observed heating.
Comments?
Bob Park on What's New has been after these con artists for a while. Look here for a run down.
ReplyDeleteFascinating how much wisdom can be contained on the back of an envelope... :)
ReplyDeleteThis brings back sweet (sour?) memories of that wonderful "cold fusion" story of about two decades ago - strange that people never seem to learn that there is no such thing as a free lunch, especially not when it comes to "creating" energy out of nothing!
This is cold fusion without the fusion.
ReplyDeleteJust cold and dumb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLP ?
ReplyDeletePerspective:
ReplyDelete1 kt TNT_equiv -> ~4 TJ
So, 1 kg TNT_equiv -> ~4 MJ
[1 kg TNT_thermo (i.e. heat) -> ~2.7 MJ]
Yep. 1.5 kg Raney Ni could be a pretty big bang.
Cymraeg llygoden
Hmmm, since recent headlines report that the FBI is taking agents off anti-terror and reassigning them to financial fraud investigations perhaps Mills might want to lower BLP's public profile rather than raise it.
ReplyDelete- Exusian
One of the clues was on Wikipedia under Raney nickel which really is amazing stuff. As someone put it, chemists were doing nanotechnology before nanotechnology
ReplyDeleteI'd wait for confirmation from others before jumping the gun and looking for an "explanation".
ReplyDeleteLots of theorists (even some at MIT) made that mistake with cold fusion.
The "explanation" Eli gave is 1950s chemistry and yes, excess heat has been observed when you heat a mass of Raney nickel in vacuum (or air). See the quoted paper.
ReplyDeleteI've got this great design, it involves a perpetual-motion machine driving a generator. Very simple really, no carbon footprint, except I need a plentiful supply of Impossibilium. Mysteriously, Impossibilium doesn't appear in the periodic table. There must be some mistake, it's probably a printing error, or an international conspiracy. On second thoughts, it must be a conspiracy, since all records of Impossibilium ore deposits have been removed from google's memory.
ReplyDeletePlaying angel's advocate here, the claim is that during the 50 kW reaction < 1g of hydrogen is consumed. That's about 1/2 mole H2, right? By your equations that would be < -80 kJ. [There's nothing specificially said in the Rowan report about weighing stuff, though, was there? - Devil]
ReplyDeleteTGA is thermogravinometric analysis. You weigh a small sample while you heat it looking at what is desorbed as a function of temperature. From that the Rowan folk inferred that what was released was H2. Not all of it may have been H2
ReplyDelete$60 million, wow.
ReplyDeletePark is right, this stuff has gone way beyond self-deception into outright fraud. Shouldn't investors be able to sue?
Just after I read this post I came across the post “The coming greentech bust: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/12/22/8147/6390”.
ReplyDeleteThus it was hardly surprising to me that Venture Capitalists have put money into this project.
As someone who has had the misfortune to deal with VC’s over the past 20 years I have found them to suffer two major faults.
Firstly, they are completely taken in by huge numbers. If you say that your project will give a cash flow of 30 million dollars in five years they are not interested, but the person who brings along his fancy business plan promising 30 billion dollars cash flow in two years immediately gets their attention. There is an old saying; a salesman’s best customer is another salesman. This applies to Venture Capitalists!
Secondly, they usually know nothing about the science behind the projects they fund but can easily find someone from an “established institution” who will praise the projects “excellent scientific know-how” (just check out cold fusion). The more extravagant the scientific claims the more interested they become.
1) Do we *know* VC's have put $50-60M into this?
ReplyDelete2) Do we *know* that the same way many people *knew* Bernie Madoff was a great investor?
3) I haven't been able to find much in the way of specifics about investors, other than:
"The business, Mills says, has attracted $60 million in funding from wealthy individuals, investment firms, and utilities such as Delaware's Conectiv, and it is no longer seeking money."
I see: http://www.blacklightpower.com/management.shtml
I don't see *anyone* I'd call a real VC there or a real VC firm. Angel investors are *not* VCs - some angels are very, very good [Andy Bechtholsheim's early $100K check to Google :-) was no bad], but some are simply dumb money or *really dumb money*.
Ian: I think it's possible you may be over-generalizing about VCs, or at least, you've worked with a different set than I have. {I've often done due diligence for VCs or helped get companies funded, so I've been in a lot of VC meetings, and I'm a Limited Partner in one VC fund, so I hear how lots of companies are doing.]
a) They all like big business plans, of course, but anyone who brought in a $30B cash flow in 2 years plan would get laughed out of the offices. Any given VC has some groundrules about how big a company has to get to be interesting, given the number of partners and the capital under management. However, good VCs may fund risky plans, but rarely insane ones, or they'd be gone. The ones I've worked with tend to have been around decades, and it's hard to do that if they were idiots.
Most of the ones I know are pretty good B.S. detectors...
b) "they usually know nothing": again, I don't know who you've worked with.
The ones I know:
a) Invest in segments where they have some internal expertise, because a real VC business operates at least in part on assymetric information and expertise.
b) When encountering something outside their expertise, or if they want an extra opinion, they hire experts for "due diligence" [what I do sometimes], and serious VCs usually have a list of such people they've worked with for years.
c) If they want to move into a new segment, they do b), and also hire new people with the specific expertise.
d) Finally, VCs often invest in syndicate deals, where the lead VC does a lot of due diligence, and others do less, but trust the lead enough to go along.
So, here's an example:
New Enterprise Associates, http://www.nea.com/Home/
here's *their* energy area, a relatively recent one for them:
http://www.nea.com/InvestmentStrategy/EnergyTechnology/
Go down the list: the most typical background is undergraduate science or engineering degree from a top school followed by MBA, and substantial high-tech business experience, but of 9 people, 3 have PhDs.
The first one on the list, Forest Baskett (an longtime boss of mine) was a Stanford professor, CTO at Silicon Graphics, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Arno Penzias is a Nobel physicist, used to run Bell labs' research division, and is also a member of National Academy of Science. Arno has followed a classic Bell Labs tradition of "retiring" from NJ to CA.
These folks are not dumb...
OK, that's slightly extreme, but not much. If you want to see the sorts of cleantech things real VCs are backing, look at Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Mohr Davidow, Foundation Capital...
Of course, most VC-backed firms still fail to make it big, and even the best VCs sometimes invest in dumb things, but that's life... Failures often have more to do with market mis-estimation than whether technology works or not, i.e., Segway.
But I sure don't see the sort of VCs I know backing Black Light...
John, the history of the thing is interesting. Mill's original backer was one of the large donors to his undergraduate college, Franklin and Marshall. Indeed the first "theory" book Mills published was dedicated to that guy. Since then he has raised a boatload of money, see for example this article in the Village Voice from 1999 and the source is often described as venture capital (although I agree that throw away money is more like it)
ReplyDelete"Despite howls from the scientific establishment that Mills is a relic of the "cold fusion" trend quashed a decade ago, BlackLight Power Inc. has raised more than $25 million from about 150 investors. While that's hardly a huge sum in this Internet-crazed era, it's coming from serious money and energy people. Prominent among them are multibillion-dollar electric utilities PacifiCorp, based in Oregon, and Conectiv, which serves Mid-Atlantic states. RS Funds, Eastbourne Capital Management, and executives retired from the top echelon of Morgan Stanley have also put in millions. With Mills holding on to controlling shares, BlackLight Power now is turning away private investors."
At that point they were pushing another "technology" than today. Mills has held his investors off for a long time, moving from one thing to another.
"Conectiv has the right to license the BlackLight power process to make electricity, David Blake says. Another board member is Shelby Brewer, former chairman and CEO of ABB Combustion Engineering, a leading maker of power plants and nuclear fuel. Brewer has a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from MIT, and was a top nuclear official in the Department of Energy during the Reagan administration.
"I think he has something here worth taking forward commercially," says Brewer, who now has his own energy company. But even those who say they've gotten positive results from testing Mills's energy cells stop short of endorsing his theory. "
John, one place to start is the BLP Board
ReplyDeleteBTW did you notice who was doing the press for BLP
Media Contacts:
Ramya Kumaraswamy
Hill & Knowlton for BlackLight Power Inc.
Mobile: 646-552-8639
Office: 212-885-0552
ramya.kumaraswamy@hillandknowlton.com
I cited the board page, but I admit I didn't rummage further to find Hill and Knowlton.
ReplyDeleteRun away! Run away!
[In the old boom days BLP would already have IPOed and be shortable. Too bad. :-)]
You almost got your wish
ReplyDelete"http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-12-21/news/qua...
"Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. is considering a public offering of BlackLight Power stock in 2000. The investment bank says that the two chief needs that will trigger an IPO are a licensing agreement with a "household name company" and more substantial academic validation of its technologies. BlackLight Power is in discussions with DaimlerChrysler, and three major corporations are already examining materials it has produced, say Mills and company executives."
The bursting of the tech bubble killed that one for sure, or maybe Morgan Stanley did due diligence
Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In
ReplyDeleteJul 14, 2008 ... WASHINGTON—Every American family deserves a false sense of security, said one analyst, hoping to persuade Congress to back an unviable ...
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/recession_plagued_nation_demands
Almost IPO: eek.
ReplyDeleteHank: do you recognize Hill & Knowlton?
Oh, so Hill and Knowlton have an unsavoury past working for the CIA, tobacco companies, SCientology, and lying to congress. (According to Wikipedia anyway)
ReplyDeleteThat explains John Masheys reaction.
Eli, I believe you are suggesting that the energy given off by the Rowan experiment is really just desorption of H bound to the Ni surface into H2. However, it seems like you need an awful lot of H2 to make the numbers line up - about 150 liters, right? However, I watched the video of Dr. Jannsen as he was waving around the sealed container with the "BLP material" and I have trouble seeing how it could have contained 150 liters of H2 gas as you are suggesting. Or are you suggesting that the container was unsealed and the H2 gas simply escaped into the atmosphere?
ReplyDeleteAnymouse
1. From the description it is difficult to tell whether the cell was pumped on during the heating however, all illustrations from BLP imply that it is. See the figure above.
ReplyDelete2. From the TCD measurements done at Rowan we have an estimate of how much hydrogen is desorbed per gram of Raney metal and Rabett Lab's estimate of 150 liters or so is actually LESS than you would get extrapolating that.
3. Assuming the empty volume of the large cell was something like 2 liters and the cell was sealed you get a pressure of 1-2 hundred atm or so towards the end. Since pressure scales with temperature, and the temperature changed rapidly during the experiment, it is a bit hard to estimate, but when the maximum amount of hydrogen is present the cell is the coolest. Basically you are asking how fast the hydrogen is released, and the majority could come out very fast.
4. Not measuring the pressure in the cell as well as the mass flow shows that this experiment was not ready for prime time.
OK, I'm glad to see I interpreted you correctly. Given the highly volatile nature of H-doped Raney Nickel, I think we can almost guaranty that the experimental protocol required the vessel to be sealed for the duration of the experiment. The issue is whether high pressure H2 was present in the vessel after the reaction. (BTW, my observation of the Jannsen video suggests to me that the free volume in the vessel was probably somewhat less than 1 liter, indicating an even higher pressure than 100-200 atmospheres.) I think it is a fair question to pose to Dr. Jannsen - did the team consider the desorption of H into H2 as a possible chemical reaction, and if so, how did he rule it out.
ReplyDeleteAnymouse
Just a quibble first. The Raney nickel is not volatile, but desorbs volatiles.
ReplyDeleteSecond, the cylinder (see the video) appears to be about 10 cm in diameter by about 50 cm long, that is about 4 liters. The density of Raney nickel is 6-7 g/cm3 so 1.5 kg occupies about 230 cc or 0.023 l. Have to grab another envelope soon, this one is getting crowded
Third, even in the "Mills scenerio" gas is evolved.
Oh yeah, what they first show in the video is a small cylinder, not the one they did the calorimetry with
ReplyDeleteGee - the presence of Shelby Brewer on the board was kind of turning off my BS detector.
ReplyDeleteI guess we really are in the golden age of scams.
Any idea how much H will desorb in the presence of high pressure H2?
Panon
So we break two Ni-H bonds, that costs us 480 kJ/mol and we make one Ni-Ni bond getting back 204 kJ/mol and one H-H bond, getting back 436 kJ/mol"
ReplyDeleteIs that actually the way it works?
is hydrogen bound to the nickel as individual atoms with a single H attached to a single nickel?
And for each hydrogen desorbed, an Ni-Ni bond forms?
I understand the above is an effort to get a ball park estimate, but surface chemistry is very involved and what appears to be ballpark in this case might actually be completely out of the park.
Do you have a a reference specifically for the hydrogen nickel surface bond strength?
I think capitalism itself is an anti-scientific and entirely self-validating cult and ideology.
ReplyDeleteAnd even *I* don't think the description of VCs as idiots above is particularly accurate.
I realize that it's not the same thing, but reading their material makes me wonder how a would-be buzztrepreneur would describe, say, a nickel-metal-hydride battery, if they were attempting to sell it as miracle technology.
We may be into a new genre. Certainly mystification played a modest part in the cold fusion fizzle. A lot of modern technology is both intricate and interesting, and was darned hard to develop, theoretically, technically, and commercially. People take it for granted, partly because it's not puffed up by hand-waving.
This is my long-winded way of saying a "new technology" has to obey the same standards of modesty, parsimony and transparency the existing technology submits to, or it's probably hype.
In http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SocietyforClassicalPhysics/message/673 Dr. Mills has responded to the Ni-H arguments above in typical scholarly fashion. Here is an excerpt:
ReplyDeleteMy response to a personal communication regarding an erroneous analysis posted on a blog site http://rabett.blogspot.com follows:
The heat of formation of nickel hydride is negative and small (-2.1 kcal mole/H2). It is referenced in my paper R. L. Mills, G. Zhao, K. Akhar, R. Chang, J. He, Y. Lu, W. Good, G. Chu, "Commercializable Power Source from Forming New States of Hydrogen", in press (Reference 78 at Eq. (45)).
[78. B. Baranowski, S. M. Filipek, "45 years of nickel hydride‹history and perspectives", Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 404-406, (2005), pp. 2-6.]
http://www.blacklightpower.com/papers/WFC112108WebS.pdf
Thus, nickel hydride decomposition is endothermic, not exothermic. Furthermore, Rabett's main mistake is that he has incorrectly calculated the heat of formation of nickel hydride using gaseous diatomic bond energies. Specifically, the cited Ni-H and Ni-Ni bond energies regard formation of gaseous covalent diatomic molecules from the corresponding gaseous atoms. These energies do not include the energy to vaporize Ni metal to atomic nickel which is +429.7 kJ/mole Ni (CRC) or +4.45 eV/Ni atom.
D. R. Lide, CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 86th Edition, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, (2005-6), p. 5-16.
(The preamble of the Bond Dissociation Energies section of the CRC that Rabett cites for the gaseous diatomic bond energies used gives the pages for the enthalpy of formation of atoms in the gas phase.)
Also, nickel hydride is H dissolved in a Ni metal lattice. It does not comprise covalent Ni-H bonds. Nor, does nickel metal comprise gaseous Ni-Ni covalent bonds.
Experimentally, the heat released from commercial R-Ni (Davison) was only detectable by TPD in larger samples as shown by I. Nicolau, R. B. Andersen, "Hydrogen in a commercial Raney nickel," J. Catalysis, Vol. 68, (1981), 339-348. The small heat observed by Nicolau with larger samples was attributable to the oxidation reaction of Al by Bayerite that was present at 1.3 wt% corresponding to 2.5 X10^-4 moles H2O/g R-Ni. In the Rowan studies, this reaction accounted for 1% of the 1 MJ of heat observed based on redundant Bayerite measurements. Similar results were obtained by BLP:
http://www.blacklightpower.com/papers/WFC112108WebS.pdf
In my mind's eye, I see Eli channeling the late, great Gilda Radner . . . "Never Mind!"
ReplyDeleteWily E Coyote
SUPER-Genius
Brilliant analysis Wiley, what a contribution.
ReplyDeleteOh, so your still saying that weird shit involving hydrinos is going on, even although that goes against all known laws of the universe?
ReplyDeleteHad the situation been reversed, I hardly think Eli would have hesitated to mock such a glaring error as to confuse the heat of formation of gaseous vs. metallic Ni. Maybe he should be more concerned with getting his basic chemistry right than trying to boost his blog ranking.
ReplyDeleteWily E. Coyote
SUPER-Genius
Guthrie,
ReplyDeleteWhy do you have to buy into Randy Mill's theories (re Hydrinos etc.) in order to recognize that Eli got his physics wrong and was called on it by Mills. One does not imply the other.
BOE means back of the envelope, and the approach of grabbing bond energies from diatomics is not as bad as you or RM thinks. Or perhaps you have a table of more accurate ones? If anything the N-H bond was too strong as the reactivity of Raney-nickel shows. That hydrogen is mighty available.
ReplyDeleteIf you think any significant hydrogen on R-nickel is molecular, how do you explain its activity for hydrogenation reactions?
Personally, I would suspect the experimental results.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see some University like MIT or Caltech re-run the experiment.
These are precisely the type of claims (100fold increase in energy output/input) that people were making with cold fusion (curiously, using similar materials "H and palladium" rather than "H and Nickel").
There were even some claims of reproduction of results.
...Only to discover later that it was all a big mistake (oops). The Utah Legislature even granted $5 million in funding before they even had confirmation.
I was living in Ithaca NY when the cold fusion debacle went down and suffice it to say that there were a lot of physicists at Cornell who were skeptical of what Pons and Fleishman claimed (to say the least).
If memory serves me, one of them even said "Pons and Fleischman would have died from the neutron flux if the cells had been producing as much heat from fusion as claimed"
Hope you all remembered to to tell your broker to invest in Raney Nickel.
ReplyDeletebefore Cold Fusion, palladium was about $80 an ounce.
After the announcement of Cold Fusion, it went up to over $600 an ounce.
But it eventually dropped back down again, so just make sure if you buy Raney nickel, you sell before MIT does the experiment.
Anonymous 8:30am- and as you point out, rabbet can still be wrong and blacklight power can still be on record as believing in a new and weird kind of physics with no evidence, and yet they avoid any question of this new physics...
ReplyDeleteSo yes blacklight can still be wrong.
No wonder this sounds similar to the claims of Cold Fusion
ReplyDeleteMills first put forth his proposition of the hydrino in 1991 as a classical explanation for the stability of the hydrogen atom, and used it to explain the disputed reports of cold fusion experimentalists of excess heat in certain electrolytic cells.[2] -- wikipedia
Folks, BoE means you grab stuff. Using the chemical reaction
ReplyDelete2Ni-H --> Ni-Ni + H2
is a cartoon of what is happening, and using the diatomic bond strengths is a really rough estimate, but it is rough on both sides of the arrow, AND is very much in keeping with how bond strengths are used to estimate heats of reaction. (see your tattered GChem book)
In this case, clearly the value for the Ni-H bond is going to be too strong. We know that because we know that H atoms as H2 desorb at fairly low temperatures (200-300 C or so, which is much less than an eV). So here, at worst, the BoE UNDERESTIMATES the enthalpy of the reaction.
OTOH we also know that the energy we get from forming an Ni-Ni diatomic is also an overestimate of what will happen in the Raney-Ni, but we DO know that any dangling bond that is formed will grab onto something, either by reorganizing the surface (stuff shifts around) or by grabbing onto something nearby. Given lousy vacuum this will happen in a few milliseconds, which is why real surface science requires vacuums better than 10^-9 Torr, probably oxidizing the Ni. This might OVERESTIMATE the enthalpy of the reaction, but some energy will be evolved. Essentially we are exchanging two Ni-H bonds for two Ni-X ones or a single Ni-Ni bond and releasing energy in the formation of H2, a very energetic process.
The net is that the cartoon reaction is a reasonable BoE estimate.
You can read more about this at the hydrino cookout
Dr. Mill's response to Eli on his Erroneous nickel hydride analysis (from http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SocietyforClassicalPhysics/message/676):
ReplyDelete"It is not a question of more accurate heats of formation. They are
accurate to at least three significant figures. It is a question of
using the correct ones. That was not done as evidenced the the
difference between Rabett's erroneous calculated nickel hydride
decomposition energy of a "Net heat of reaction per mole of H2
generated= 2*240 kJ/mol - 436 kJ/mol - 204 kJ/mol = -160 kJ/mol (an
exothermic reaction)" and the experimental result of +8.8 kJ/mole H2
[B. Baranowski, S. M. Filipek, "45 years of nickel hydride‹history
and perspectives", Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 404-406, (2005),
pp. 2-6.]. This post should be redacted at each site that it is
posted. Presuming Rabett is really a professor, I'm sure such an
obvious and fundamental mistake would not be tolerated."
I too would have preferred that the BLP validation experiments were performed at MIT or CalTech. I did however look into the guy who headed up the experiments at Rowan (Jannson) does have a BS from MIT and a PhD from Cambridge - not too bad.
ReplyDeleteEli, I would be very careful to get you facts right (Scientific and otherwise) about BLP as they have a history of suing people over these things and they have not shortage of $ to do it.
the guy who headed up the experiments at Rowan (Jannson) does have a BS from MIT and a PhD from Cambridge - not too bad."
ReplyDeleteThat's not the same. Not even close.
The difference, of course, is that MIT is a top notch institution and Rowan? I never heard of it before this.
MIT has a reputation to keep up and Rowan apparently has one to make.
See the difference?
At least U of Utah is highly regarded in Chemistry, but Rowan??
Besides, even with ordinary physics, the expectation is certainly that multiple researchers at multiple institutions should be able to reproduce.
And extraordinary (bizarre?) claims require extraordinary (bizarre?) evidence.
As far as suing people and winning, I think BPL would have to prove beyond any reasonable doubt 1) that their device actually works(!) (Ie, multiple labs would probably have to reproduce the results), 2) That it involves some totally new (indeed earthshaking) physics, and 3) that everyone who is critiquing their device understands this but somehow has some mal intent (Eli has certainly not claimed there was any fraud involved. Such a claim could, possibly open one up to legal action).
Even that's a long shot and BPL could be counter sued for a frivolous lawsuit if they did choose to sue someone.
The underlying issue is a scientific one and there is nothing the least bit illegal about debating science, at least not the last time I checked.
I agree on the validating prefereability of certain validating institutions, but think that an MIT/Cambridge PhD validator is better than a undergrad lab tech somewhere.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, evidently more validation is in the works (lets hope at some better known institutions). Here is what Dr. Mill's said yesterday:
"We are planning to have alidators replicate it first, then release the next generation of chemistry that will be easy for others to replicate without the know how of preparing the R-Ni."
From what I understand, BLP plans to make their money as a fuel supplier so I think the R-Ni composition will remain a trade secret.
I don't give Dr. Mill's theories much of a chance, but it is fun to watch them climb out on this limb. Not something you would expect a total scam artist to do as it definately would shorten the life of the scam.
Sorry the previous Dr. Mills quote should have read:
ReplyDelete"We are planning to have validators replicate it first, then release the next generation of chemistry that will be easy for others to replicate without the know how of preparing the R-Ni."
Don't want to get sued :0)
at least you didn't say "alligators". :)
ReplyDeleteReading wikipedi on the hyrdino idea is an eye-opener. That's a new one for me. (Note: I was educated as a physicist, albeit back in the days before hydrinos)
Quantum mechanics (especially QED) is the most thoroughly and accurately tested theory in science and this hyrdino thing would basically throw all that out. (from what i gather from reading wikipedia)
On that basis alone, I'd say it is nonsense.
Any theory that replaces quantum theory will have to essentially reproduce ALL of current quantum physics and then some. In other words, it will likely extend quantum theory rather than displace it entirely.
From wikipedia
Andreas Rathke of the European Space Agency has shown the existence of a hydrino is impossible even within the framework of Mills' model.[1] A 2005 evaluation by Rathke, found "severe inconsistencies" in Mills' theory, including a lack of "solutions that predict the existence of hydrinos." Rathke also shows that Mills' equations were not Lorentz invariant, a requirement of any theory that explains the behavior of particles moving close to the speed of light.[3] Mills has responded to Rathke with an article (which is listed as "in press" on the BlackLight Power website indicating it has been accepted for publication) claiming Rathke made seven major errors in his analysis [4].
In my opinion, it is just goofy.
At least Muon catalyzed (cold) fusion is actually a real process, although probably not feasible (ever?) of being a practical power source.
There may be something to the heat production claim in this case -- or it may be just be a problem with the experiment (as with Cold Fusion)
But the probability that "hyrdinos" or anything else that is not consistent with QED is the cause is exceedingly small.
I know that one can never be certain that something does not exist in science, but from what I understand in this case, I'd make an exception.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThere is a reason people spend years training to be a physicist. Lorentz invariance is not an optional property of a physical theory.
ReplyDeleteNot unless one is prepared to jettison Einstein's relativity theory and replace it with a "better" theory, that is.
Good luck with that is all I can say. Lots of people have tried and all have failed. Some of them were even physicists. But when was the last time a non-physicist shook the foundations of physics?
Will Hydrinos Save the World?
ReplyDeleteAn evaluation of Randell Mills’ Classical Quantum Mechanics
by a skeptical mathematician
Willie W. Wong
Department of Mathematics
Princeton University
September 16, 2006 meeting of the Philadelphia
Association for Critical Thinking
By "non-physicist" I assume you mean has not formal degree in physics. I personally doubt that Mills has a valid alternative to QM theory, but if he does, I doubt its validitiy will care about a piece of paper on his wall. On occasion, formal education is an impediment to paradigm changing ideas.
ReplyDeleteIf it makes any difference to you, BLP has 11 PhD Physicists on its staff.
It makes no difference how many physicists they have on staff.
ReplyDeleteIt can not make an incorrect theory correct. :)
While the klein-gordon equation yields a "hydrino" solution (ie a state with energy below the normal ground state), the state is not physical.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0608/0608095v1.pdf
While the theory does not care about the person with the degree, the person with the theory should care about the degree -- because it means that they actually learned the subject.
ReplyDeleteAn MD proposing a fundamental theory of physics?
Give a me a break. Medicine is a profession filled largely with rote learners -- those who memorize rather than understand.
As Eli understands it, BLP assumes the Raney nickel is a passive support. Raney-Ni is known to be a very active catalyst for hydrogenation and a pyrophoric material, indeed a dangerous one to be handled with care that has on occasion exploded. Scarmani and Oakthicket on the hydrino forum and Eli have pointed out that the metals themselves in Raney-Ni, principally Al and Ni, can participate in energetic chemistry, as could H atom recombination. And, let us be frank about it, and Na metal or NaH could also take part. We also know from the development of hydrogen storage devices that the addition of small amounts of other metals can significantly change the storage capacity of Ni for atomized hydrogen. It is very easy to see that there are enough possible chemical reactions around in 1.5 kg of doped Raney-Ni to provide 1 MJ of exothermicity.
ReplyDeleteMoreover BLP and Randell Mills have a long history of using inappropriate controls in experiments and then announcing astounding results, for example,
*****************
"*In 1988, Mills was lead author on a paper in Nature, "A novel cancer therapy using a Mössbauer-isotope compound", which claimed he was able to incorporate an iron isotope with high gamma ray absorption into tumor cells, which would aid radiotherapy . In 1995, a review of this work, by F.M. MacDonnell of Harvard's chemistry department, concluded that the procedure did not result in any damage to cancer cells beyond that caused by the radiation directly and noted that Mills et al. had not performed the control experiments necessary to test their hypothesis."
***********************
If, and Eli doubts it, the energy generated is from "catalyzed hydrinos" why is Raney-Ni used. OTO(dead certain)H, if what is seen is ordinary chemistry, there is no energy gain, merely normal chemical energy storage and we can all say "never mind"
So the question is, why did BLP use such a reactive catalyst as Raney-Ni and imagine that it is just an innocent filler material?
-----------------
Posted originally at 6:16 1/3, minor edit to add reference.
one more note about the "hydrino" solution to the klein-gordon equation.
ReplyDeleteIt is a single solution (even though that state has been determined to be non-physical)
Mills has proposed a multiplicity of hyrdino states.
Unlike the schroedinger wave equation, klein gordon is relativistically correct (including lorentz invariance).
The equation of motion of the electron under Mills' theory is not lorentz invariant (unless one assumes that electrons move at the speed of light)
Anonymoose: If it is the R-Ni itself creating the excess energy in the cell, would the R-Ni be consumed at all?
ReplyDeleteMills has said that the fuel is not consumed.
So, this seems like an incredibly easy way to tell if the R-Ni is what is creating the excess heat.
It seems this thread has been dormant for awhile. Will a new (August 12, 2009) announcement stimulate independent interest?
ReplyDeleteBlacklight announced that Rowan University has confirmed excessive energy released from reactions using a variety of compounds. Some tests used Raney Nickel, some didn't. Rowan researchers themselves prepared catalyst and fuel in addition to using catalysts provided by Blackwater. Materials and methods are fully disclosed in research papers produced by Rowan and Blacklight. Papers describe heat, spectral and chemical analyses performed.
I am eager to hear if some highly knowledgeable scientist (hint, hint) might be interested enough in the saga to check the research for plausibility. Are the new claims gamechanging or are they still mostly smoke and shiny objects?
http://www.blacklightpower.com/Press%20Releases/BlackLightPowerPhysicsGrandSlamFINAL081209.htm
Who ordered that?
ReplyDeleteWho ordered what?
ReplyDeleteNeil
http://froarty.scienceblog.com/
ReplyDeleteI lump Mill's with other researchers like Haisch and Moddel or Arata- Zhang who are also pursuing this controversial energy source.
They share the same same nano geometry electrodes and use gas to accumulate energy with motion relative to the changing geometry. I
prefer the Haish - Moddel patent and their papers , Haish Brilliant Disguise: Light, Matter and the Zero-Point Field which explains this concept perfectly and by Moddel a short paper written by Moddel "A Demon, a Law, and the Quest for Virtually Free Energy” that explains why ZPE can be tapped using gas atoms.
Regards
Fran
Oh dear, a woomeister appears.
ReplyDeleteFran, the paper you suggest reading, by Moddel,has the classic signs of being writtenby a fraudster or deluded person, for example:
"There may be a way to take advantage of this natural step
in the lowest available energy. Gas flowing into the cavity from
outside experiences this drop in ZPE. The gas atoms may drop
into a lower-energy state inside the cavity. On the way in, they
could emit the difference in energy in the form of electromagnetic
waves, according to a patent that was issued in 2008
(U.S. # 7,379,286)."
----
Use of weasel words such as could, may etc? Oh yes. Reliance not upon a scientific paper, but on a patent? Definitely. Of course it just so happens that Moddel has a company investigating ZPE stuff, and is also investigating psi phenomena, whatever they are...
Guthrie, There has been a lot of claims across several fields of anomalous heat. Not necessarily Mills, Or Haisch-Moddel, Arata or Mosier but possibly a combination of effects - I won't rule out fusion as a secondary event after Beta decay like Widom - Larsen or chemistry aided by change in energy density or quite possibly a mixture of several of these methods which would better explain the odd assorted mixtures of artifacts and dificulty fitting any one theory to observed results. there is a paragraph below with a link to recent US Navy replication of Pons' and Fleischman's experiment. My premise is that we need to take the best from each of these methods and combine them see "Combining Mill’s chemistry with Haich-Moddel insulated layers of open catalyst cells" http://froarty.scienceblog.com/32158/combining-mills-chemistry-with-haich-moddel-insulatted-layers-of-open-catalyst-cells/
ReplyDeleteUS Navy researchers who replicated Martin Fleischmann's & Stanley Pons' infamous cold fusion experiment claim to have found evidence suggesting that they may be right after all. According to Dr. Pamela Mosier-Boss, a scientist with the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR), this is the first time the production of highly energetic neutrons from an LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactor) devices has been scientifically reported. The researchers also claim that instrumentation was the main problem with previous cold fusion experiments, as previous generations of instruments were unable to detect such small quantities of neutrons. However, even the supporters of cold fusion admit that they have no clear explanation as to why their nuclear reactions are so weak they are barely noticeable in a beaker.
The full story can be found at the following link: http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/archives/2009/04/scientists-claim-visual-evidence-of-cold-fusion-breakthrough.html
Regards
Fran
Sorry it's basically nonsense. Mills claims keep getting knocked down but he keeps going. This one was clearly an exothermic reaction in the "catalyst" and now they are on to maybe the third version, having abandoned this as many before it.
ReplyDeleteIf BLP can't explain the reaction, this isn't science. It's alchemy. This isn't the middle ages where a result is the only factor in use, this has to be properly framed and explained. .
ReplyDelete